Pastor Seach Committee

Looks like the subject matter of this blog will shift slightly and explore the other side of the coin.

I’ve posted on the intentional interim ministry for a while and have explored the life of a church during the interim time from the perspective of a pastor. Now I’ll be taking a look at interim life from the side of a church member.

This last Sunday we had our election for the Pastoral Search Committee (PSC). I was voted in as one of the nine members of the committee. Over the next few days or so I’ll be blogging about our initial discussions to give an example of what a typical search committee deals with.

I haven't spent a lot of time blogging about our home church. Mostly that's because I've been gone for ten months out of the last year. We have several challenges facing our church at Lakeview. I’ve mentioned before that the Intentional Interim process would be helpful for us, but also that it was rejected by the deacons.

As I mentioned, one thing that short circuited that attempt was an older deacon who felt a “check in his spirit” as I described the Intentional Interim process. This check led him (ultimately) to reject the process for our church. The rest of the deacons followed suit. So we have made the decision to find an interim minister who will likely just fill the pulpit on Sundays while our youth minister makes hospital visits and performs funerals.


Of course, an irony is that the guy who nominated me for membership on the PSC…was the same guy who had the check in his spirit about the Intentional Interim. I really appreciated the gesture and it helped me to overcome some of my frustration with his rejection of the process. He made his decision based on what he genuinely thought, perhaps not due to the fact that the IIM is simply new.

So I am reminded again of the problem with making hasty generalizations ("Hmmmm, he's older and I presented him with a new idea which he rejected, so he must be lacking spiritual discernment.") Fortunately, I never make hasty assumptions.


Still learning, still growing.

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