The Theological Interview (II)

As we concluded our theological interview, we only had one reservation. A few on the committee had only seen him preach on one occasion. One of the committee members mentioned the fact that she would like to hear him preach again. He told her that he had preached three times for the committee (a neutral site, once in our home town, and once at his church) and that it was enough. If we asked him to preach for us again, he was going to withdraw from the search. Although this led to some frustration on the part of the committee (including myself) in retrospect his approach seemed to be reasonable, and geared to protecting his current congregation from another absence from the pulpit.

At the end of the meeting, I asked Rick if he had any final questions for us. He asked a few about our weaknesses and then ended the interview with the following line. “You have asked me a lot of questions and I have answered to the best of my ability. I imagine that you could find someone else who could answer these questions better than I could. I know that you could find someone with more experience than I have. But you won’t find anyone who will love this church more than I will. All I have to offer you is my heart. That’s what I have to offer this church: my heart.” When he finished these words, several of the committee members teared up.

Following the extensive theological interview, I walked Brother Rick out to his car. I slipped him a copy of our church directory with names of the regular attenders highlighted. When I returned to the rest of the committee, they were chatting excitedly. In short, the interview went well. It wasn’t that Rick had answered all the questions “correctly” (By correct I suppose a PSC means “Simply agreeing with us”). On a few occasions he mentioned the he didn't know the answer to a question. But more than his theological fidelity, the committee was impressed by his honesty and his transparency. One committee member summed up the feelings for several when he said “I feel like in the eight hours I spent today with him that I know him better than I got to know our previous pastor in the last thirteen years.”

Although several of the committee wanted to vote on the spot, I was concerned about acting due to the emotion of the moment. I suggested that we wait a week before voting. But over the next few days, as I spoke with various committee members, I began to realize that every member of the committee was in favor of voting early on Wednesday. So on Wednesday we decided to vote on calling him as pastor. The committee was unanimous, including the alternate. We immediately called Brother Rick and let him know the exciting news. He was excited as well.

After we hung up the speaker phone and were filing out of the conference room, one committee member told me in passing: I wonder if these next two weeks will be the hardest part of the process? I assured her that the most difficult part of the search was behind us.

Boy was I wrong!

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