The Announcement

Following the committee's vote to extend a call to brother Rick as pastor, we met again to discuss how to inform the church of our decision. Throughout the process, our committee did an excellent job of keeping our deliberations a secret. This was very important to me for two reasons. First, it insulated the church from the typical ups and downs of the search process. I didn’t want the whole church to be deflated if we ever got close to a candidate we really liked and then the process broke down. Second, and even more importantly, we also wanted to protect the ministries of the candidates we considered. Few things are more demoralizing to a congregation than the knowledge that their beloved pastor is deep in conversation with another church.

There was so much excitement among the committee members, however, that a few confessed to me that they had told their spouses and so we wanted to move quickly to bring the process to a conclusion. But our church by-laws require a two week process. We were supposed to announce the candidate on one Sunday, then have him come in to preach on the following Sunday, then we would vote on him the third Sunday morning. We decided that we would start the process by announcing our decision as soon as possible: the following Sunday.

We puzzled a little bit on how to introduce his name to the church. We wanted to prepare the church for his arrival in a positive way. Fortunately, he had been the subject of a state convention DVD connected with our state offering and we had a copy of the video. In order to get the age issue out on the table, we wanted to show the video to the entire church. Again, the new pastor was 30 years old, a good three decades younger than his predecessor. Letting the church see his youthful visage on video would be a good way of preparing them for his personal arrival the following week.

We made plans for the entire committee to be there on Sunday morning. I then asked to speak to the church at the end of the service, like we had on previous occasions. Unlike previous reports to the church, with this report, the entire committee went up behind the pulpit and stood behind me as I shared with them the process by which we had reached our decision. One other individual on the committee shared about the candidate's ministry experience, and another committee member shared a bit about his family.

Then I asked the church (rather dramatically) if they would like to see the man whom we believed God was calling to pastor our church. I'm not sure what I expected their response to be, but they looked around uncomfortably. I immediately signaled the sound booth to start the DVD. Which they did…but it was cued to the incorrect track and showed the wrong guy. Then I had to announce to the church “Uhhhh. That’s not him.” to the confusion of all.

Following the correct video, the congregation stood and applauded. I had worked it out with the Chairman of the Deacons to come up and remind the church about the by-laws and the proper procedure for voting and extending a call. As he arrived at the microphone he said "I'm sure that we will have a positive vote and that 98% of the church will be on board. I would say 100%, but even Jesus had to deal with a Judas." (!)

After the service, many people came up to us and shared their excitement about the candidate. The announcement went off well.

So it came as some surprise to me then, the next morning, when all Hades broke loose…

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