Considering the Pastoral Search Process

A book I was reading this morning led to me to think some more of the process of searching for a new pastor, and the fact that it is a process.  If I get around to writing my book on the subject, I’m sure this will get in there.

Though the goal to find a pastor, churches should see the process as just as important as the outcome.  The process is about time, patience and love.

Some churches don’t give the search the proper time to work the process well.  They rush the process instead of seeing it as an important time to understand who they are, where they should probably be going, and how they should probably get there.  What often happens is they look for the guy who has the strengths the previous pastor lacked (if it didn’t end well), or a carbon copy of the previous pastor (if the pastor retired or left unexpectedly in a time of relative peace).  All this takes time, more than you can do in a 2-3 hour meeting once a week (if you’re lucky).  Committees need to invest larger chunks of time to work through these issues, and applicants.  I’d suggest Saturday afternoon or morning meetings- larger blocks of time to pray, think and plan.

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Considering Responsibility and Control

My friend, the Jollyblogger, has been commenting on his unexpected journey as a cancer patient.  He says some very good things about what he has learned and the difficulty he has experienced.

One thing he mentions is the realization that so much is out of your hands.  We like to think we are control of large parts of our destiny (I’ve taken too many tests for job openings that expect you to answer that success is the result of ONLY hard work).  I can identify with that sense of powerlessness, that lack of control, in my own set of circumstances.  Mine are different- I’m not facing the possibility of death.  But there are some incredibly unattractive alternatives encircling me.

I have little to no control over the outcomes as I search for a new position.  My fate, seemingly, is in the hands of others.  I can’t control pastoral search committees.  I can’t control human resource departments.  I appear to be at the mercy of other sinners who are just as inconsistent as myself.

I’m not called to be in control, but to be responsible.  Surely, no search committee will call me to be their pastor if I don’t apply for that position.  The same goes locally as I attempt to make ends meet while searching for a new pastorate.  I must take the time to fill out forms, send out e-mails, look on the internet.  I must then WAIT (and wait, and wait- while continuing to follow other leads).

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Considering Helping Search Committees

I’ve talked to plenty of Pastoral Search Committees and members.  They quickly weary of listening to sermons and poring over 50+ applications, resumes and data forms hoping to find the right guy.  Yes, God is in control- but that doesn’t mean He doesn’t give us over to our own foolishness at times (see Romans 1:21ff).

Short of having bishops or Presbytery moderators appointing pastors to churches, there has to be a better way.  Right?

Bing Davis founded the Auxilium Network to help out PCA and other Reformed churches search for pastors more effectively and efficiently.

How Does Auxilium Help a Church?

1.    You can substantially cut your search time, when appropriate, while at the same time accessing a wide variety of candidates.  This allows you to not lose ministry momentum, and brings the new pastor in a timely manner.

2.    Since we come to work on-site with each church and committee, you and AuxNet come to know and respect one another.  This allows for a comfortable working relationship in which you feel like you have a professional guiding you and remaining available to you during the entire process.

3.    We take on all of the technical and subjective parts of the search process on your behalf.  This allows your committee to act as representatives of your church, while AuxNet does all the day to-day work involved in completing the process.

4.    We provide you with complete reports on final candidates, so that the search committee has only to get to know each final candidate, visit them and/or invite them to the church for evaluation, and then make a recommendation and ask the congregation to vote.

What is the process?

1.    We work directly and on-site with each search committee, helping you formulate and follow a process to find the right candidate for the job. 

2.    We work directly with you in determining a candidate profile for the pastoral opening.

3.    Once the candidate profile has been completed, we will help you post your job opening in various places.  Potential candidates will then submit their profile materials directly to us.

4.    After an established posting period, we will begin to go through all submitted materials to assess which represent the right candidates for the job.  AuxNet Executive Director Bing Davis, himself a PCA Teaching Elder, will interview each candidate several times.

5.    Each potential candidate will go through a rigorous background check, including criminal history and credit check, all references will be called and standardized questions asked, others will be sought out who can attest to the candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and each candidate will be given a Myers Briggs Type Inventory. At the end of the process, we will recommend the top 2 candidates for the job; the church can then pursue its prerogative of choosing its pastor.

 It can be tough to trust others, but right now most churches ask laypeople with limited time to spend enormous amounts of time, and little to no experience, on a very important task.  A good consultant knows what questions to ask both the committee and the applicant to discover a good fit.

About the only thing I might add to their process is Dr. Douglass’ Church Personality Diagnostic.  His book is What is Your Church’s Personality?, and a few committees I’ve talked to are using it (here are some sample pages).  I was the wrong guy for a church for 9 years.  Real and meaningful ministry took place, but my gifting and emphasis was very different from theirs which increased the resistance at key points in my ministry.  There are other ways of looking at this.  But CavWife thinks the Church Personality Diagnostic results described me very well.

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Considering Expectations

I was communicating with a denominational leader recently.  Here’s what he said:

I am aware of forty Ministers who are seeking a change, and some of them are quite surprising. In contrast there are several churches in need of Ministers but they seem to be very hesitant to take the plunge, and so there is a weird sort of standoff as Search Committees look for the perfect man and Ministers look for the perfect church, and we still bring students under care and examine new men for the ministry. It is all very complicated.

I have heard that in the PCA, at any given time, 1/3 of the pastors are open to a change of pastorates.

What is going on with pastors?  What is going on with seach committees’ reluctance to choose a man?

In terms of pastors, I think our expectations are often askew.  We expect things to go well, and that their might be an occasional bump in the road.  We have an over-realized eschatology.  We forget our members, and we too, are depraved and struggle with sin.  We forget that just about every church we know about from the New Testament had problems, some of them very serious (Corinth & Galatia).  We forget we are called to be shepherds, and shepherding is HARD work.  It is not an easy vocation, but takes tough men whose hearts are both tough (in dealing with antagonists) and tender (when dealing with the lost and suffering).  We worship at the altar of success- looking for the greener pastures that promise us successful ministry and a life of ease.  And a big salary.  They are looking for the mythological “perfect church”.

Search Committees are formed because either their pastor unexpectedly resigned (unless he retired) or was asked to go.  In either case, they often feel rejected or burned in some sense.  They can be afraid to commit as a result.  They are paralyzed by analysis.  They forget that at some point they need to trust God.  They also worship at the altar of success- looking for a successful pastor, a track record of success etc.  People like me, with the “scarlet F” for failure, are often overlooked in favor of the discontent, but “successful” man.  They are looking for the mythological “perfect pastor.”

So … pastors with itchy feet help produce tentative search committees.  God is sovereign, but sometimes His sovereignty is disciplinary- humbling us for our stubbornness, pride and self-dependence.  Yeah, I’m looking in the mirror of the Law (James 1) to see where I need to change.  My long transition could be disciplinary, I don’t know.  I do know I need to be watchful against the deceitfulness of sin in my own heart, lest I grow bitter in this strange dance we do.  Still, it is with trepidation that I start this process all over again.

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