THE ORGANIZATION
Discovery Church in Orlando, Florida lives out the maxim, “It’s a privilege to be in a church where God is moving!” Nearly 5,000 souls gather in three physical locations and an online campus to reflect the church described in the book of Acts... a vision which will only be possible when the Spirit of God and the Word of God are powerfully at work in the life of the church. They are on a mission to make disciples of Jesus and are seeing profound life change among their growing and healthy congregation as men and women submit themselves to sound Biblical instruction. They are excited about their future, debt-free, and are engaged in a $58 million faith-initiative to expand and make permanent two of their existing campuses. But they sense God calling a special person to take a new leadership assignment, a pastor-teacher who is uniquely shaped to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. Someone whose preaching forms people into biblically-grounded, Spirit-empowered disciples, by the grace of God.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Discovery Church seeks to hire a Teaching Pastor (TP) to serve as a primary Bible teacher for the church, partnering with the Senior Lead Pastor and Elders to strengthen the church’s disciple-making mission. This newly created role is responsible for shaping Discovery’s preaching culture and equipping the congregation to live as disciples empowered by the Holy Spirit.
The TP will collaborate closely with the Campus Pastors in their teaching capacity. They will join a staff of 98 individuals plus contractors operating on a budget of $14.2 m. They are known to be well-led and managed and seek to maintain beautiful unity among diversity. The church is governed by a board of elders, of whom the Sr. Lead Pastor is first among equals.
The Teaching Pastor will be an experienced and skilled expositional Bible teacher and outstanding communicator. They will be a lead voice on the platform preaching to the congregation and will equip and coach the teaching team to greater effectiveness. A key success measure of this role will be people eagerly gather hungry to hear the anointed teaching of His word. Anointed teaching defined as: teaching the Bible under the guidance, empowerment, and influence of the Holy Spirit, so that the message carries spiritual authority, clarity, conviction, and life-changing impact, not just intellectual information.
THEIR STORY
In 2013, Don Cousins began serving as the Senior Lead Pastor. Given his long-time experience pastoring at Willow Creek Community Church (17 years) and his years of consulting and coaching churches nationwide, Don has led with effectively and the church is healthy and growing. He has clarified the mission of making disciples and moved the church further into the Word and Spirit movement while maintaining a healthy and transparent leadership style.
WHAT THEY DO
The mission of Discovery Church is making disciples of Jesus.
How they live out their Core Values (Six Practices of a Disciple)
The Executive Team and elders at Discovery Church desire for the congregation to increasingly engage in these six spiritual practices as growing disciples. They seek to integrate weekend messages seamlessly with message-based small groups and other various spiritual formation pathways to encourage growth in theological depth without losing spiritual vitality.
The new Teaching Pastor will work with the Teaching Team to architect a preaching culture where Scripture is explained faithfully, experienced spiritually, and practiced concretely.
Church Locations
Nearly 5,000 individuals gather in the following locations to explore God’s Word and, experience the gift of love that binds their families as one community.
“All the believers were together and had everything in common.” — Acts 2:44
Discovery Church is a thriving, multi-campus church in Orlando, Florida with a mission to make disciples of Jesus and a distinctive identity as a Word & Spirit church—holding Scripture and the Holy Spirit in full partnership. As such it has a full complement of ministries including children’s ministry, worship and arts, small groups, men’s and women’s ministries, etc. are thriving in each of its campuses. You can find a full listing of those ministries online here.
SAND LAKE CAMPUS
ALAFAYA CAMPUS
WINTER GARDEN CAMPUS
4064 Winter Garden Vineland Road
The Church Online meets each Sunday as well.
Several dynamics at the church further define its unique identity...
Word and Spirit Church
The leaders at Discovery Church believe that God has given both His Word and His Spirit and that both are necessary in full measure to empower individuals to live fruitful lives as disciples of Jesus. That has created a movement of God’s people who live out the principles of God’s word by the power of God’s Spirit. As a leadership team, their elders reject the “silent divorce” often seen in churches between “Word and Spirit.” They embrace both sound doctrine AND spiritual power; biblical clarity AND spiritual vitality; principle AND power. They firmly believe God’s Spirit works IN God’s Word Through God’s Word, and WITH God’s Word, never AGAINST God’s Word.
At Discovery, spiritual gifts are pastored, not merely permitted. The church actively practices prayer ministry, healing prayer, and prophetic encouragement—yet all are tested by the Scriptures, shepherded by their elders, and aimed at building congregational maturity rather than fanning individual expression.
The new Teaching Pastor can’t just believe Spirit-led ministry is potentially possible somewhere but actively participates pastorally in the congregation to shepherd its mature application in this place. This role won’t be right for either a guarded skeptical cessationist or an unbounded charismatic enthusiast.
Renewal Ministries
The church provides a complete array of ministry options that share the truth of the Bible in the power of the Spirit.
Soul Care ministry of Discovery Church is a prayer-based ministry that takes place at all three campuses and helps individuals overcome past wounds and hurts. Over 2000 people have gone through special conferences and classes held in the spring and fall.
Prayer teams (currently over 150 adults involved) minister at the conclusion of each worship service, and 80 facilitators do follow up sessions.
Divorce Care
Grief Share
Discovery Recovery
Prophetic Ministry
The Ministry School has a mission to equip and deploy leaders called to grow word and spirit, disciple-making churches. Following a 2 Timothy 2:2 mandate, it provides a 12-month Orlando-based ministry training model with a paid residency and personalized job placement following completion.
OPPORTUNITIES & CHALLENGES
Opportunities
This new leader will not be “building from scratch.” The culture is healthy, the team is unified, the congregation is growing. The real opportunity here is to scale the impact of this flourishing multi-site church to greater regional and even global levels. They can add more intentionality and focus to the existing preaching culture that scales across campuses while developing additional teachers and communicators. This group of communicators loves to preach and will work together to make a growing, dynamic community of creativity to welcome the Kingdom of God in Orlando.
The next TP will have opportunity to deepen and encourage congregational discipleship by integrating Word-centered exposition with Spirit-dependent application and formation. This congregation loves to apply the Word! Whether it is transformed marriages, healed soul wounds or deliverance from besetting addictions and demonic oppression, there is concrete fruit from the ministry of the Word and Spirit. This next leader steps into a community seeking to surrender to the work of God through His Holy Spirit, which in the end is uncontainable.
Come alongside a well-led and well managed leadership team with a senior leader of integrity and benefit from a vast repository of trust earned through sacrificial, Spirit-led leadership.
This role is IDEAL for a teacher who:
Preaches in such a way as to impact, not impress
Is equally comfortable explaining a linguistic nuance as praying for healing
Has theological convictions strong enough to guard doctrine and pastoral instincts gentle enough to shepherd spiritual experience
Loves building other communicators more than building a personal platform
Feels called to shape a church’s teaching culture, not just deliver messages
Longs to see the profound life-change that transformational messages can bring
Challenges
Maintaining message alignment and teaching excellence across campuses as attendance and ministry complexity increase. Work with not against existing teachers to improve the whole teaching ministry at Discovery Church. There is a fundamental challenge to balance centralization of purpose while encouraging localization of expression. The right communicator will be a primary pastoral presence on the platform without squelching campus distinctives that build relationships and earn trust.
Guarding unity and spiritual health in a Word & Spirit environment—ensuring spiritual gifts are pursued in a way that builds the church and remains grounded in Scripture. This role will require someone who is not just “open to” Spirit-led ministry but has deep experience and wisdom in the movement.
Come alongside the existing mission of the church, including an active $58 m capital campaign, and develop in close coordination with the Sr. Lead Pastor and Elders messages that reinforce and maximize the vision rather than distract from or harm it.
POSITION TITLE: Teaching Pastor | Discovery Church-All Campuses
MINISTRY: Executive Team
REPORTS TO: Senior Lead Pastor (Don Cousins)
STATUS: Full Time, Salaried Position
SUMMARY OF CONTRIBUTION
The Teaching Pastor (TP) provides spiritual, strategic, and doctrinal leadership for all campuses of Discovery Church. Spiritually, the TP serves as a pastoral leader in the congregation—fully living into our shared Mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ. Strategically, the TP is responsible with the SP to architect the boldest possible strategies to effectuate ministry impact through teaching and preaching as evidenced by increasingly frequent real-life stories of “profound life change.” Operationally, the TP is a steward of our church’s multisite “Spider Plant” model—encouraging all the local campuses operate with centralization where it matters most in our global Discovery Church family (protecting, aligning, and advancing our shared DNA) and decentralization where it matters most in each local context (facilitating deep, local impact).
GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES
Serve on the Executive Team to offer a global shaping influence on Discovery’s overall ministry
Shape teaching and preaching strategies to ensure maximum mission achievement and impact.
Guard doctrinal integrity and spiritual health
Model Word & Spirit theology in life and leadership
Preach and teach Scripture with clarity, depth, and spiritual power
Be a primary pastoral platform presence for weekend worship services.
Build and strengthen a plurality of trusted teaching voices across all campuses.
Steward teaching resources, including budgets, ensuring alignment with central financial principles and local ministry goals.
SPECIFIC RESPONSIBILITIES
Sets preaching and teaching calendars to highlight Teaching Team strength and preference, to accomplish mission achievement.
Establish coaching, feedback, and development rhythms for the Teaching Team (evaluation, rehearsal, review).
Collaborate with Elders and Executive Team on doctrinal clarity, pastoral priorities, and spiritual health initiatives.
Create message application resources as needed (study guides, small-group prompts, next steps) to strengthen obedience and formation.
Participate in regular leadership meetings, prayer rhythms, and pastoral care responsibilities appropriate to a senior pastoral role.
Monitor congregational engagement and feedback loops related to teaching and adjust content or approach for clarity and impact.
QUALIFICATIONS
¨ At least ten years of experience in pastoral leadership.
¨ A Master’s degree from an accredited seminary or Bible college.
CHARACTER
Spiritual Gifts: Teaching (but other supportive gifts such as Leadership, Faith, Shepherding, Exhortation, Encouragement are also desirable).
Evidences a vibrant, growing relationship with Jesus Christ—modelling our 6 Practices of a Disciple of Jesus Christ (Abide, Belong, Gather, Serve, Invite, Give) as found in Acts 2 in the origin story of the Church.
Models humility, integrity, teachability, and a Spirit-filled life of a faith that honors God.
Reflects a strong work ethic and a passion for equipping and building people as well as programs.
Submissive to church leadership... seeks to complete not compete. Not ego-driven, seeking a platform for self-expression.
COMPETENCE
Embodies DC’s 3 Core Leadership Principles—ensuring staff lives out their desire to be a Word-and-Spirit church, foster bold unity amidst beautiful diversity, and guarantee our church is well-led and managed.
Demonstrates excellence in leadership and ministry recognizing that “excellence honors God and inspires others.”
CHEMISTRY WITH THE CULTURE
Builds collaborative, trust-filled relationships with staff, volunteers, and members.
Has a high motor... takes feedback well. (The leadership values excellence and will ‘bring the heat.’)
Models how to resolve inevitable conflict in ways that build unity and glorify God (Eph 4:1-4 and Jn 17:21).
Leads staff and congregation in ways that inspire bold unity amidst their beautiful diversity.
Cultivates a culture where people flourish in their unique gifts and callings, ensuring alignment with the church’s overall beliefs, values, mission, and vision.
Is a person of substance over style; humble, vulnerable and confident. Can communicate with people of all types and socio-economic station with ease. Does not pedantically display erudition to draw attention but uses education and training to make the meaning of the Biblical text plain and call for practical application.
THE ORLANDO AREA
Orlando, Florida is much more than theme parks — it’s a vibrant, family-oriented city with year-round sunshine, abundant green spaces, and a broad range of amenities that make it appealing to executives considering relocation. The region offers top-tier parks, recreational lakes, and well-maintained neighborhoods where families enjoy everyday life alongside iconic attractions that draw millions of visitors each year. With a growing culinary scene, cultural venues like performing arts centers and museums, and a host of local festivals and community events, Orlando blends big-city entertainment with the comforts of suburban living, all while maintaining a cost of living that’s competitive with many U.S. metropolitan areas.
For families, Orlando’s communities and schools are a standout benefit. Many neighborhoods — from Lake Nona and Winter Park to Avalon Park and Delaney Park — are known for safe streets, strong public school options, and easy access to parks, playgrounds, and community trails that support active lifestyles and family engagement. Several suburbs just outside the city also offer the quiet, close-knit feel that many executives seek when raising children while still being within a short commute to central business centers and employment hubs.
Housing remains varied and accessible across price points. In the immediate area around Sand Lake Orlando, where the main church campus is located the average home value sits around roughly $400-550,000 for a three-bedroom home, though values vary widely by neighborhood, amenities, and proximity to urban centers or lakes. This range — paired with no state income tax and comparatively favorable housing costs relative to many other metropolitan areas — makes Orlando attractive to families seeking both quality of life and financial sensibility. It’s no wonder that the area is adding 75,000+ new residents a year, eager to join the fun in the sun!
If, after prayerfully reviewing this information, you believe this role fits you well, or if you know someone you would like to recommend, please contact:
Dr. Rich Kidd
Managing Partner
mobile :: (757) 642–0622
email :: rich@missionleadership.org
Rev. Steve Harling
Search Consultant
mobile :: (719) 238-5832
email :: steve@missionleadership.org