Preparing for the Candidate's First Sunday

One of the tremendous benefits our search committee had was the skill set provided by the individual members. For example, we had the personnel chairman as well as a former staff member who could talk with the staff about their concerns. Throughout the week in between our announcement and the candidate’s arrival, we spent a great deal of time communicating with the staff about their concerns.

The personnel chairman spoke with the secretaries and attempted to placate their worries. He assured them that the candidate had no plans to remove them from their jobs. I sat down with the director of the pre-K program and reiterated to her that there was no package deal with the pastor for his wife to come in and run the children’s programs.

In the meantime, throughout this week, Brother James began calling other people on PSC to ask more detailed questions about the search process. He was never inappropriate or combative, but it was clear that he was staking out a position in opposition to the candidate. My only aggravation in his position was that he had not actually met the candidate.

When the Pastor Search Committee met that Wednesday night, we made sure that everyone was up to speed on all these ongoing discussions. I shared with them that they should be completely transparent in talking with the church about the candidate. It was an odd experience of whiplash to go from keeping everything in confidence to sharing every element of the search process with the church.

We also put the finishing touches on the candidates visit. His busy itinerary looked like this:


Thursday afternoon: Arrival

Thursday evening: Dinner Fellowship with Deacons

Friday morning: Breakfast with Ministerial staff and wives

Friday afternoon: Look at area neighborhoods with a realtor

Friday evening: Free time

Saturday morning: Candidate and Wife at Ladies Brunch

Saturday evening: Fellowship with the Pastoral Search Committee

Sunday morning: Senior Adult Breakfast
Meet with PSC and deacons to pray for service

Sunday afternoon: Lunch with entire staff and spouses

Sunday PM: Testimony and Question and Answer time; Ice Cream Social
Last Meeting with Pastor Search Committee

Monday morning: Exit Breakfast With Pastor Search Chairman


It was a rigorous schedule, but a good one. (Another friend in the ministry said it “Looks like the Bataan Death March). But our feeling was that the church would benefit greatly from spending as much time as possible with the candidate. We worked around three events that serendipitously happened to be scheduled that weekend already (the Ladies Brunch, the PSC fellowship, and the Senior Adult Breakfast).

A lot would be riding on that visit.

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