The Theological Interview (I)

Following our visit to his church, we contacted Brother Rick about a theological interview. While we had of course, discussed theology throughout the search process, we had not made it the central topic of any one interview with him. Certainly we would not have reached this stage of the process if there had been any theological red flags. We also had some loose ends that we needed to cover. For instance, we needed to lay out Lakeview’s financial situation and let him know the level of our indebtedness. We also felt it necessary to give him an honest appraisal of the staff situation I mentioned a few posts ago. In addition, we had not yet conducted a criminal background check or a credit check. (Which we accomplished by appointing two members of our committee to pull these reports, with his consent.)

So we decided to bring him into our town on a Friday and conduct the extended interview on Saturday. That Friday evening quickly arrived and Jim (as a PSC member and Personnel Chairman) and I had a working dinner with Rick where we went over the finances of the church as well as our personnel concerns. Rick asked numerous questions and also shared with us how he had addressed difficult circumstances with staff and financial challenges in previous places of ministry.

Some on the committee had been greatly concerned about “scaring off” a candidate when we revealed the level of church debt. But others felt that when the right candidate came along, he would be unconcerned. Rick’s reaction was neither one of surprise or concern. He simply accepted it and discussed how it had been addressed in the past. He also shared some wise advice on the personnel matter.

The following day we began at 8:00 am and interrogated interviewed Rick until around 5 that evening, stopping briefly for lunch. We had close to a hundred questions or so (I’ll include them in a separate post). The previous week we divided them up and so we went into the interview with a particular game plan. Because Rick is pretty talkative, particularly when a bit nervous, I tried to keep the session moving along. Of the one hundred questions, we probably asked seventy. The rest of the questions he covered in other answers. It was a long day, but a good day. By the end of the day, no question of the committee remained unasked and we were all exhausted.

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