Faith Rattei is the only full-time staff member at her church, New Life Church—Lutheran in Hugo, Minnesota. "I'm it," the 26 year-old Director of Christian Outreach (DCO) says. There's no secretary. The current pastor is a full-time volunteer, having recently retired from another church. The pastor's wife does the bulletin. Otherwise, Rattei is the church staff.

That's a tall order for a young woman in an aging, traditional church. But a visionary pastor—a previous fill-in—had suggested hiring Rattei when she was only 23. "They'd never heard of the position before," she says of the church's response to the DCO suggestion. "They hadn't been doing outreach over their history. But they knew something had to change or they would have to shut their doors. In the end, I formulated my job and developed what was next."

"What was next" required a great deal of work from Rattei. She got to know the church members and community. She built relationships and gained their trust, which was no small feat. "I was new and fresh out of college," she says. "Most of them had at least kids my age, if not grandkids! It was always a wonder if they would listen to me at all … about anything."

But they did listen, and Rattei began to take on more and more responsibilities from vision-casting and marketing the church to starting small groups and other ministries out of, well, thin air. "It was basically a rebirth model here at New Life. We had to start things like a youth group. The nursery didn't exist. The Sunday school was moving into non-existence, so that had to get revamped." In an ideal congregation, the DCO position in Lutheran churches is primarily involved with evangelism, missions, and outreach. In smaller churches like New Life, however, the DCO position tends to flow through every area of ministry.

Rattei is fine with that. "I see my role overall as helping [members of the congregation] in each area of ministry see that they are outreach, and make sure that's their number-one focus. Through discipleship, worship, fellowship, evangelism, and service is where the outreach happens. Without them, we're not doing it."

A faithful Summit attendee for the last several years, Rattei is fueled by a "holy discontent" she identifies with a passion for reaching the lost and for making sure her church is properly equipped to do so. It's a passion that ignited when she was a teenager. She recalls an evangelism campaign her church in high school once implemented. "I remember them saying, ‘Everyone, here's a bumper sticker that says Share the Good News About Jesus. And I asked my mom, ‘Why don't they just put the actual good news about Jesus on the bumper sticker, instead of telling people who might not know the Gospel to share the Good News?' It just didn't make any sense to me."

Back then, Rattei admits she was more concerned with "fixing the church" than reaching the lost. A better approach in her current position is a mixture of those two challenges. Her job, she says, is "a combination of making sure that, as someone who works in the church, we are being as effective as possible at reaching the lost. Sometimes that means we're fixing things we're doing inside our congregation, but we have to be focused on how we're using those things within our church and the community to reach the lost."

And, as the only staff member, Rattei quickly realized she had a great responsibility to her congregation. "For the church to work, we all had to be willing to talk, learn, and listen to each other," she says. "I had to learn to be the kind of leader that would raise up other leaders, no matter what their age."

Of course, leadership development is an ongoing process. Several years into her position, she says, "I still have so much to learn. I know how much leadership affects the church, and if I'm not the best leader I can be then…it's hard to say…but I'm failing the church."

That kind of commitment has paid off. Since Rattei came on-board, New Life has had a rebirth. Adults are being baptized. Youth are attending independently of their parents. The congregation is even in the process of calling a full-time paid pastor. "We're growing again and reaching our community," she says. "God obviously had his hand every step of the way getting to this point. It's been an uphill battle…but in a good way."