Pastor Support Committee

Some of the concerned comments to my last post indicate that I need to explain a bit more about the new role for the Pastor Search Committee. In the last few weeks before he came in view of a call, I mentioned to Brother Rick that the committee would be dissolving after his arrival unless he wanted to keep us around as a Pastor Support Committee. (In other churches I’ve seen this referred to as the “Barnabas Committee”). He indicated that he would like us to remain active for a period of time.

On two occasions in these least four months he has called us together for an hour or so and Brother Rick has bounced some ideas off of us. Both times we’ve met, we've gathered at his request. It’s been an opportunity for him to get some feedback on planned changes for the church. He’s listened to our feedback; has accepted it on some occasions and rejected it on others.

In return, it has allowed an open opportunity for getting our perspective on how things have been progressing. We’ve also taken the lead on such things as asking him hard questions such as how he’s balancing work and family. Another item we addressed (fearful it might get overlooked) was making sure that the appropriate ministry groups worked on plans for minister appreciation month.

What we do in the future depends on Brother Rick. I could see that over time he would call us together to meet less and less frequently. Or if we continue to meet, I could see some original committee members rotate off and other church leaders rotate on. But the focus of the committee is up to him, not initiated by the committee.

And I would have concerns about operating the committee any other way.

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A Few Loose Ends....

• Brother Rick has done well in his first few months as pastor at Lakeview. If numbers can ever be used to gage the spiritual vitality of a church, they bear out that the church has responded and the Lord has been blessing. Almost every Sunday that he has been pastor, we've had someone join the church. In addition we've had more baptisms in the last three months than in the last few years combined. One of our goals as a committee was to extend his honeymoon as long as possible. His honeymoon is ongoing.
• The Pastor Search Committee has morphed into the Pastor Support Committee (we kept the acronym the same so could keep using the same letterhead). Once a month or so we sit down with the pastor to provide an opportunity for accountability and for him to bounce ideas off of us. We've given him feedback, both positive and negative of his time with us.
• Brother James has stopped attending the church. He quit coming the week after we called Brother Rick and he hasn't been to a service since. Efforts to contact him have proven ineffective (phone calls and emails not returned). Brother Rick has contacted him to arrange a time for a visit and no time has been convenient. Through the grapevine (I'm sure you're stunned to hear that a Baptist church has a grapevine) I've heard that he disagreed with the procedure of our committee.

In another day or two I'll post some final thoughts about this process and mercifully this series will come to an end...

(Just joking about the PSC letterhead, but you knew that already).

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Installation Service

The last task for the committee was to supervise the installation service of the new pastor. Baptist churches generally undersell the ceremonial occasions. But just like families, churches need to acknowledge significant times of transitions in their lives. Brother Rick’s arrival was big and we needed a corresponding celebration. So the committee shifted our focus from calling to preparing an important service.

We wanted to involve as many in the church as possible. So one of the first things we decided is that we would engage certain committees (like the special events committee) to plan a meal for the church following the Sunday morning installation service. We also involved the men’s and women’s ministries to provide for the pastoral family a pounding. Poundings are more common in small rural churches (I’ve received a few of them in the past myself). Traditionally, poundings are when the various church members would each bring a pound of food (flour, canned goods, lard, etc) to the new pastor and his family. (It was at one pounding that I received a can of “Potted Meat Food Product”. It still sits on a shelf in my library lo, these 14 years later).

We altered the idea a bit to include more than just the provision of foodstuffs. We divided the various Sunday school classes according to areas of responsibility. Thus the children’s classes took up money for a gift card to various toy stores in the area for the Pastor’s kids. Other classes took up money for a gift certificate to a local clothiers for new pastoral duds. The senior adults gathered food supplies while another class got together a card from a local home improvement store. Some classes took up money for a gift card to a boutique store (whatever that is) for the pastor’s wife. The church took the idea and ran with it.

The committee turned its attention to the installation service itself. (And yes, we endured numerous jokes like “Doesn’t the new pastor come preinstalled?”) We divided the service into two parts, one focusing on the responsibilities of the church and another focusing on the responsibilities of the pastor. We planned to have two “servotionals,” one for each portion of the service. We wanted to get Brother Rick’s mentor to deliver a charge to the pastor and then get our Associational missionary to deliver a charge to the church. Unfortunately due to a denominational meeting that same weekend, we could get neither. We considered getting our interim to be involved in this process, but he (and I) felt that he needed to be scarce on this special day.

The committee decided that our lone staff member would deliver the charge to the congregation and that I would give the charge to the pastor. Not ideal, but it still allowed us to explicitly state the purpose of the service.

So we shared scripture and sang hymns that touched upon both pastor and church throughout the service. We also wanted to emphasize how special the occasion was and so we secured letters of greeting from many officials. We read letters of welcome from: a few previous pastors at Lakeview, our state convention president, and from Dr. Frank Page (President of the SBC). We also read letters of welcome from a city councilman, from our city’s mayor, from our Congressional Representative and from each of our state’s Senators. (I found politicians quite eager to court the electorate).

All in all an exciting day of celebration.

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The Vote

The Sunday following the business meeting was a normal Sunday. The only sign that there might be something unusual going on was that along with a ministry guide, church members received a small colored slip of paper as they entered the sanctuary. After the beginning of the service, our chairman of deacons announced that the deacons would be taking up the ballots for the vote. He also announced that 80% of the church must be in favor of the candidate for him to be voted in as our new pastor.

As I sat in the choir, I saw them making their way through the congregation and I prayed for our church and tried to swat away the flies of doubt that buzzed around my head. It was difficult to keep focus on worship as I tried not to take account of who was at church and who was absent that day. (I had two families during the week say: “We love the new candidate…but we’re going to be out of town this weekend.” I wondered if their votes would matter.) I saw the deacons walk out of the sanctuary while the music minister led in worship. Some time later I saw a few deacons return to the worship service and I knew that they had completed their tabulation.

Following the initial part of the service, the choir recessed from the choir loft and moved down the hallways to sit among the congregation. As I walked down the hall, I saw two deacons huddled together in discussion. One of them was on the Search committee and when he saw me he didn’t say anything.

But he grinned.

I knew at that moment that we had a new pastor. At the end of the worship service, the deacon chairman stood up and announced that the church had voted and voted to call Brother Rick as our pastor by a vote of 186 to 2. The church erupted in applause. And, despite being the cynic that I am, my eyes teared up at the tabulation of the vote.

Following the service, the committee gathered to call brother Rick and let him know the results of the vote. Before we called, I commended them on their hard work and sacrifice of time away from their family. I also shared with them that they had no idea where God was going to take the church based on their obedience to Him throughout the process. Brother Rick was three generations younger and vastly different in his mindset regarding ministry than our previous pastor. Plus he had spikey hair. Changes would be coming to Lakeview because of the committee’s work.

We called brother Rick and shared with him the exciting news. It was the first time we got to call him pastor and everyone enjoyed it. After the phone call we prayed, thanked God for his goodness, and then prepared to leave. But before we filed out of the room, I got their attention and said “Friends, we still have one important task left…”

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The Business Meeting

As the Pastor Search Committee we prepared for the business meeting on the Wednesday before the vote, we decided to involve the entire committee in our report to the church. I asked each of the committee to share the moment that they became convinced that God was calling Brother Rick to be the next pastor at Lakeview. We also discussed a bit about Brother James. He had announced that he would not serve as moderator of the business meeting because he wanted to address the committee directly during the meeting. We tried to anticipate some of the objections that he might have and discussed how to respond.

On Wednesday evening we met beforehand, prayed, and then began the business meeting. I’m very glad that the entire committee spoke. It took a while (around 40 minutes) for each of us to share for a few minutes, but it really helped the church to see the candidate from our perspective. Plus it confirmed our decision to take a unanimous recommendation to the church. This was the only time that the entire committee had an opportunity to address the church. We made sure that none of us told the same story and several people told me during the following days that they appreciated hearing from the rest of the committee (besides just from me!)
The committee did a great job. The only statement that made me wince was when one of the committee members compared the previous pastor to the new candidate very unfavorably. No malice was intended, but our previous pastor was loved and supported by many in the church. Following our opening statement (motion) the questions began.

As committee chair, I addressed most of the questions. From time to time, my colleagues on the committee would step in and answer or clarify some issue. Some my answers were lousy, quite frankly, and many of them were only satisfactory. But the committee stepped in from time to time and handled things well. Here were the major topics that the church asked about:

The first person to ask a question, really didn’t ask one at all. Mr. Farmer, long time teacher of one of the senior adult Sunday School classes simply offered his thanks to us and said “Ya’ll have done a really good job for this church. We think that he’s gonna work just fine.” Farmer’s support right off the bat was encouraging for us all. We were still concerned about the senior adults, but for one of their primary spokesmen to share that certainly set the tone for the rest of the conversation.

Next Mr. James slowly walked up to the microphone and expressed his primary concern. He said that the candidate had shared in his testimony that he laid our fleeces to help him decide if God was calling him to be our pastor. Such an approach demonstrated (to Mr. James) a clear example of spiritual immaturity. In addition, the candidate didn’t cite any scripture that he used to make his decision. These oversights, according to Brother James’ were glaring. How could we expect that he was spiritually mature enough for this position?

My first response was that he spoke with the committee in great detail about his calling to ministry and how he felt God leading him to Lakeview. I had no response to the fleece comment, but essentially said that while we did have some questions throughout the process for him, a lack of spiritual maturity was never an area of concern. Almost all of our concerns were how the church would receive him, not about any lack of ability on his part.


Brother James then sat down and after a brief pause, the questions continued. We shared with the church many of the theological questions we asked (and provided a complete list for anyone who wanted one). I wanted to provide a list because I didn’t want to go through all of the questions and have people interrupt to ask “How did he answer that one?”

After the questions ended, we then presented the financial and benefits package to the church.
Before we presented it, I spent several minutes explaining how pastor’s salaries differed from those of normal ;) people. I then took questions before passing out the amount. Unexpectedly, several in the church felt that the package wasn’t generous enough and that we should increase it! So I was in the contorted position of saying that it was deemed enough by the three committees, even though as chair of the PSC committee I had pushed for a higher salary. And certainly to Brother James' credit he did add "This is only a motion. We can certainly amend it." We did make a point to say that it was a joint recommendation from three committees and that we could revisit it in next year’s budgeting process. Others wanted to know what the candidate’s current salary was (at his home church) to try to decide if we were offering a competitive amount. Although we had that information, we didn’t feel it was relevant to the discussion. But no one, not a single person, thought the package amount was too high. (Clearly a sign that it was too low!)

The meeting took a draining two and a half hours and was pretty stressful. But overall, the committee felt very encouraged by the church’s response. Now everything was done except for the voting on the following Sunday.

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Setting a Pastor's Salary

The salary for the position was negotiated among the Pastoral Search, Stewardship, and Personnel Committees and reflected all of the strengths and weaknesses of a multi-committee approach. Practically, the PSC advocated for a highest salary while the Stewardship committee advocated for a more affordable (from the church's perspective) amount. We knew that the amount of the salary would be quite a bit less than our previous pastor's package. This reduction was necessary for a couple of reasons. First, as I've noted, the experience level of the candidate was substantially less than our previous pastor. Our candidate had two years of experience verses the four decades of pastoral experience that his predecessor had. Second, the size of our church had contracted substantially. We averaged around 450 in attendance when our previous pastor was called compared to around 200 today.

So I sat down with the chairs of the two other committees. The Personal Committee chair was on the Pastor Search Committee, and the Stewardship Chair was Brother James. After an extended conversation, we settled on a salary that we felt we could take before the church. We based a good deal of our decision based on the salary range that the Kentucky Baptist Convention had developed. It’s gone now, but a similar comparison is located at the Lifeway website. There’s still an outstanding site on all these issues located at the Kentucky Baptist Convention.

(I’m intentionally leaving out the candidate from this discussion. When we raised a general salary figure for him he said “I trust that the church will be fair and compensate me at a level where I can support my family in your community.” Words that every PSC chairman hates to hear!)

So as a PSC, we then recognized that the challenge would be in educating the congregation about the strange beast that is the pastor's salary.

Most workers pay only ½ of their social security taxes with their employers paying the other half. But because pastors are self employed, they have to pay both sides of their Social Security taxes. In addition, when employees of a company pay for their own health insurance they are subsidized in part by their employer. That's why when you leave your job but must maintain your insurance, your COBRA payments are so substantial. For the first time you are paying for this insurance unsubsidized by your employer.

So when we presented the package it to the church, the first number we emphasized was the salary

Salary $XX,XXX

+ social security taxes *
+ a portion of insurance **
+ matching a portion of retirement benefits ***
+ car allowance (mileage)


Total Package: $XX,XXX


*We emphasized that the candidate was responsible for paying his taxes.

**We didn't feel it was wise to commit to paying for all of his health insurance, because the insurance rate continues to rise.

***We wanted to encourage him to set aside a portion for retirement, so as a church, we committed to match his funds up to a specified percentage of his salary.


So by listing salary first, instead of package, we tried to emphasize to the church that they should focus on the salary total, not the package total.

We also specified time for conducting revivals, for taking vacations, time for conference travel. We gave him flexibility in these, but require him to take 2 weeks of vacation a year. (So for example, he could take more than 2 weeks vacation, but have one less week of revival for the year.)

Some thoughts on pastoral compensation:

1. Get comparative numbers based on churches the same size. Use associational resources to help you with this. It also helps for the associational missionary to come in and discuss compensation with the appropriate committee.
2. Have a couple of committees put the package together. The more people you have invested in the process, the more voices you will have to explain the result when it comes up for a vote.
3. Commit to revisit the package every year. Some salaries are set when a pastor first arrives and then never get revisited. Then things continue until either he must bring it up, or he leaves because he could no longer afford to stay. The Personnel committee should examine the compensation of all church ministers every year.


Other thoughts??

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In View of A Call

We had a busy few days when brother Rick came in view of a call. (The phrase "In view of a call" simply means the Sunday when a pastoral candidate meets the church).

Thursday evening: Dinner Fellowship with Deacons

I was not in attendance for this meeting. But from what I later learned, the meal went well. After a meal, the deacons began asking him numerous questions, most of them surrounding his views towards the deacons. Brother James asked him a couple of questions about his philosophy of ministry. It was an auspicious beginning to the weekend.

Friday morning: Breakfast with Ministerial staff and wives
This was the only meeting scheduled where there would not be any Pastor Search Committee members present. I had great confidence that the candidate and the two other ministers who were on staff would have a productive meeting. I didn’t see any need to have the PSC represented and thought that they might talk a little more freely in our absence.

Saturday morning: Candidate and Wife at Ladies Brunch
Probably the topic that engendered the most impassioned discussion was the candidates role in the Ladies Brunch. We already had a guest speaker for the event (our interim pastor’s wife) and didn’t want to steal any of her limelight. But we did want to invite the candidate’s wife to come and eat with the ladies. As a part of this luncheon, the men of the church were going to serve the ladies and bus tables.

Much committee debate surrounded whether or not we wanted the candidate to be seen for the first time, clearing plates off tables. To his credit, Brother Rick thought that would be a perfect setting to meet the people. But the committee decided (against my preference) to have him stay in the kitchen and work there. Which he graciously did.

Saturday evening: Fellowship with the Pastoral Search Committee This was a nice event that included our spouses who got to meet the candidate for the first time. Much fellowship and we spent a lot of time recounting the search process for our spouses, unfettered by our self-imposed gag order.

Sunday morning: Senior Adult Breakfast

This was the event about which we had the most concern. Due to Rick’s age, we anticipated the most friction from the senior adults. Consequently we thought it would be a good idea for Rick to attend this meeting. And they fell in love with him immediately. I had given him a church directory during an earlier visit and he had memorized the names of almost every active adult in the church. They were stunned at his ability to remember their names. (The committee was also stunned). By eating with them, sharing coffee and just loving on them, he made a real impact. He then shared a few appropriate words to the gathered group and they enjoyed it tremendously.
Initially, a couple of committee members and myself hovered around a bit anxiously. After we observed him for a few minutes, as he laughed and chatted with the Senior Adults, one committee member tugged on my arm and said “C’mon Taran, let’s leave and let him do his thing.”

Morning worship: The morning worship service went exceptionally well. Right before the sermon, I briefly introduced the candidate and his wife. He then preached and it was the best sermon our committee had heard from him. Once again he rose to the occasion and God used his words to encourage and to convict.

Following the service we scheduled a lunch with the staff. Although I was not present, the personnel chairman (and PSC member) was. We had hoped that the staff would use it as an opportunity to talk with Brother Rick about his philosophy of ministry, his approach to working with staff, and some of their concerns from the previous week.

But no one said anything. Finally, the Personnel Chairman stood and asked: “Don’t any of you have any questions for the guy who could potentially be your supervisor?” Still no one said anything. Finally, one of the secretaries asked him “What do you expect out of the church secretaries?” He answered that question, but then added “Let’s talk about the elephant that’s in the room that no one wants to talk about. I heard that there was some question of whether or not I’m bringing in my own staff. First of all, I’m the only paid staff member at my current church. And second of all, I’ve heard about the job that you are doing and I’ve heard of no reason to come in and make changes. See? We’ve now discussed that elephant in the room and it’s no longer here!” And things relaxed from that point forward.

Sunday Evening: For the PM service he shared his testimony for a few minutes, then took questions for about 45 minutes. The questions were rarely theological (although Calvinism came up) and were focused more on pastoral issues. I’ll never forget the first question. One of the senior adults stood up and tentatively asked the question “Do you love the old people and will you bury us when we die?”

I didn’t get a sense that there were any trap questions and the only question he answered poorly was one he misunderstood. After the service his wife brought it to his attention and he found the questioner, apologized, and addressed her question directly.

Surprisingly to me, Brother James didn’t ask any questions.

Following the service, the PSC sat down with him and we were down-right giddy. Everything had gone exceptionally well and we were hearing from all reports that everyone loved him. He shared that the day had gone well and that he had experienced an encouraging day of worship.I met with he and his family on Monday morning before they headed back home. I wanted to see if he had any concerns that he wanted to address directly to me. There were none. All in all the weekend exceeded immeasurably beyond all I could ask for or even imagine. God is good.

One last major task awaited us before the vote the following Sunday. Our bylaws stipulate that the PSC must bring a candidate’s name in a formal nomination to the church a motion at a business meeting the Wednesday before the vote. It gives an opportunity for the church to directly ask us questions about the candidate in a public setting.

So we began to gear up for Wednesday, the evening that for me was the most stressful of the entire process.

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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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Phone Calls and Firefighting

Before the phone calls, some background.

Our committee, at my suggestion, made a decision early on in the process not to give the staff any more information that we gave to the church. The primary reason for this is that the church staff (primarily the secretarial staff) had taken on responsibilities beyond their job descriptions. (I touched on some of this here). For reasons that it would take too long to describe, it became in the interest of the pastor to delegate a lot of decisions to the secretarial staff. I was concerned that there would be a clash between the new pastor and the secretarial staff if this issue was not addressed.

As a result, from time to time throughout the process I heard some carping (through intermediaries) from the staff about being left out of the loop of the search process. Because we were fulfilling the requirements of the by-laws (to report to the church periodically), I saw no need to inform the staff at additional times. So I had no communication with the staff about the search process.

Which turned out to be a poor decision on my part.

Nature, and Southern Baptist congregations during a search for a new pastor, each abhor vacuums. As a result, the staff was primed to feel threatened and to latch on to any wild rumor that might be circulating through the church at any given moment. Because of these rumors, the secretarial staff was as combustible as dry kindling.

Two situations served as the sparks which ignited that Monday morning. The first spark began to catch fire on Sunday evening. In the video of our candidate that we showed to the congregation, he made mention that his wife ran the church’s pre-kindergarten program. Sitting in the congregation were two individuals, the lady who runs Lakeview’s Pre-K program and her mom who attend our church as well. So the initial thought that ran through their respective minds was “The new pastor’s wife is going to come in here to do my job and I (or my daughter) is going to be fired.” Because of the video, the children’s Pre-K program director was highly worried about her job. And no, it never crossed my mind that she would react this way, again a case of extreme short sightedness on my part.

(Note: Brother Rick’s wife is exceptionally gifted in the area of children’s ministry, and we discussed with him in detail the fact that the pastor search committee is only charged with calling a pastor, not with calling a children’s minister as well. Had he insisted on a package deal, we would’ve had to go back to the church and discuss it with the congregation or moved onto another candidate.)

Phone call number two was from one of our Pastor Search committee members who brought this issue to my attention.

The other spark that flashed on Monday morning was struck by one of our senior adults. As I’ve mentioned previously, we gave the senior adults some special updates every other Sunday in their Sunday school classes because they had little representation on the search committee. We wanted the senior adults to feel included in the process, but essentially just restated what we had already shared with the rest of the congregation.

One of the members of the class often came into the church offices on Monday mornings to count the offering from the previous day. Apparently, while they were counting, some of the staff would ask her about their most recent report to the Senior Adult class. For whatever reason, the information she shared with the staff was almost always wrong.

For example, one Sunday morning we shared with the group that we would be conducting credit checks on the candidates. Somehow that was misunderstood and explained to the staff as “the search committee has decided that they won’t call anyone who is in debt to be our pastor.” It was a bit humorous.

But the day after we presented the video of the candidate, this same lady came in to help count the offering. And for whatever reason, shortly after she arrived, she announced to the staff that “The new pastor is going to come in here and bring in his own staff. All of you are going to lose your jobs.”

Now obviously this was wrong…primarily because the pastoral candidate was the entire staff at his small church. So technically I guess she was right. But there were no plans for any terminations on his arrival.

So phone call number three was to inform me that the entire staff was fearful of their jobs. So our job as committee members that week shifted to firefighters. We had to start putting out these three fires.

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Phone Call #1

When I arrived at work the next morning, I had an email from Brother James. Brother James, as you won’t recall (because I hadn’t given him a name yet) was the deacon who disagreed vocally with the idea of getting an intentional interim pastor for the church due to a check in his spirit, and then later asked me if he could nominate me for the pastor search committee. He also is chair of the Stewardship committee and had been the chair of the previous pastor search committee thirteen years ago. The previous pastor declared him to be the man who knows the pulse of the church more than anyone else.

James’ email asked me to call him and talk with him about the candidate for pastor. I called him immediately and we had a 45 minute discussion. He asked me to fill him in on how the committee came to believe that this man was the one for Lakeview Baptist. I took him through the process and explained in detail the way we reached this conclusion. As I mentioned previously, many of our procedures were ones that he had put in place for the previous committee several years beforehand. He listened carefully and asked several questions for clarification. I shared all the information I could. Several of his questions related to the fact that he was uncomfortable with the fact that the candidate had only pastored for two years. I think a part of his concern was also the fact that the process had “only” taken ten months or so. Thirteen years before, when we searched for a pastor, the process lasted closer to two years.

Then he asked me the question that I believe was really at the heart of his phone call. “Taran, why do you think the Lord would lead a man to us with so little experience?” I again repeated my thoughts on his experience and also reminded James that we were not the same church we were when we called our previous pastor. At that time we were running 450+ and now we were hovering between 150 and 200.

He thanked me for the time, but as I hung up, I had a sense of disappointment. I wondered what would happen if he began to express his reservations to others.

And then later that afternoon, I received another phone call.

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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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More on Credit Checks

Because of Bowden McElroy's generous comments over at SBCImpact.net, we have some first time visitors here. Welcome.

Ron asked some great questions that I wanted to spend a little more time addressing. First, let me say that I greatly value your thoughts on the matter. But even more I value your service as a pastor. As you are well aware, there is not more difficult job on the planet. One of my long term hopes is that other search committees may stumble across this blog and benefit from our own experiences (both positive and negative). A few pastors comment on here from time to time and I hope that syou will continue to do the same.

I’ll post his Ron's comment below and then respond.

As a pastor who has had a horrible personal financial experience in part due to a church not being able to pay me my full salary...I find it amazing that you have said in earlier post that the finances of the church were "dire" and yet you want a pastor whose is not...funny a boatload of you got your church into your mess, yet you want a pastor who has not had that experience. Is there a double standard here? I am new to this blog...and want you to know I have really enjoyed reading your entries...but this caught me as a little strange...yet i see this a lot...churches looking for and desiring the perfect pastor...would the committee been willing to also print out there credit report for all to see?? Ron

The overarching principle I tried to apply in this situation is transparency.

The Pastor/Congregation relationship best functions (maybe only truly functions) when there is an honest, transparent relationship between the two. As a representative of the church in this search process, I found it absolutely essential that we share exactly where our church stood in regard to finances.

As I’ve indicated, we haven’t handled our church indebtedness well. But once the candidate decides to join us as pastor, he comes alongside of us and shares in our burden. So it doesn’t matter that the indebtedness was entered into 10 years ago before many members of the church (including myself) had even joined the church. What matters is that Lakeview has this debt today. It is our debt. I wanted the candidate to know exactly where we stood so that he would have the opportunity to stand with us. Or not. I certainly would’ve understood if any candidate had said to us “You know, I don’t see this church prospering under that level of debt. Good luck finding your next pastor.” Your own experience of dealing with a church not paying you your full salary illustrates the importance of full disclosure.

But I think the same process of transparency works in the other direction. There some good reasons for checking out the credit history of a potential candidate.

First, I think that the Search Committee needs to do due diligence to make sure that the candidate complies with the biblical qualifications for the office of pastor. I see this as part of the command to make sure that the pastor runs his own household well. If he’s had some financial concerns in the past I would like to make sure that he’s addressed them going forward.

Second, financial stress always leads to personal stress. And personal stress affects ministry. Too much indebtedness will affect his ability to minister to the church. We need to be aware of this from the beginning.


Third, I think that there is a moral dimension to failing to repay debts. If we have a candidate who has not paid what he promised to pay, it raises some issues of character. Obviously there are circumstances beyond an individual’s control, but generally speaking one should pay their debts.

Last, on a personal note, I would expect that a church would do the same thing to me. At this moment I am discussing an intentional interim process with a church and I will request that they do a background check and a credit check on me to model for them how the process should work.

You raise a final issue about how widely this information should be disseminated. I can't imagine any circumstance in which the congregation as a whole would need to have this information. I don’t think it is necessary for even all of the search committee to be made aware of this credit history. I do think that the number of those who know should be more than one person, so that there is some corroboration when the report is made to the committee. In our case, we established a subcommittee of two PSC members to run the credit check (in the presence of the candidate). We then reported to the committee something like “His credit history and total indebtedness is fine.” We then gave all of the financial (and background check) information to the candidate. We kept no record of it and honestly, three months later, I can’t today tell you any of the numbers from his report.

Ron, one question you didn’t ask (and that I haven’t addressed) is how much bad credit and/or debt is too much. I have no idea. We didn't request a credit score, we just looked at his total indebtedness. Some questions: Will the amount of his debt require him to get a second job? Will he need extraordinary compensation to service his debt? Does he have a bankruptcy in his credit history? None of these are deal breakers in my mind, but I would like to know how he’s addressed the underlying issues behind the indebtedness. As Larry Burkett used to say, financial issues aren’t the problem, they are always the symptom of other problems.

Ron, once a gain thanks for your comment. And above all, thank you for your service to God's kingdom.

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Background Checks and an Inside Candidate

We had to take care of two other housekeeping issues regarding the search. First, we had to conduct a background check and a credit check on Brother Rick. The same weekend as the theological interview, we got two members of the committee (myself and a member who also chaired the personnel committee) to conduct both checks and to report back to the rest of the committee. We went to http://www.securesearchpro.com/ and for a very reasonable $12.00 price got a criminal background check that covered all 50 states. (He was clean). When he was in town for his theological interview, we had him go to http://www.annualcreditreport.com/ and get a free credit report. Our purpose in generating this report was to verify that his indebtedness wasn’t too substantial. Once again he was clean.

Our second task was a bit more substantial. We had an inside candidate for the position of pastor. Our youth minister had assumed a great number of responsibilities in the absence of a pastor. In fact, he was the only full-time minister remaining on staff. He assumed preaching responsibilities for several months while the church got an interim and he blossomed in that role. He also began doing hospital visits and performing funerals and weddings and did a great job in all of these areas. A few months into the process he asked me if he could submit his name as a candidate for the position. He said “How convinced do I need to be that God is calling me to be pastor before I submit my name?” I told him that I thought he only needed to be confident (and obedient) enough that God wanted him to submit his name, not necessarily convinced that he was called to become the next pastor.

After considering his candidacy, the committee was unanimous that he was not going to be the next pastor. At this time we were also reaching the end of the interview process with brother Rick. So another committee member and I took our youth pastor out to breakfast and shared with him the committee’s decision. Part of the difficulty of our task is that we wanted to be straightforward with him as to some concerns that the committee had about him in the role of pastor, while still affirming the exceptional job he was doing during the interim. He was very receptive to our concerns and took the news well. He also shared that the fact he would not be the next pastor would make his wife extremely happy! He pledged to work hard alongside the new pastor. As we shared with him about brother Rick, he grew even more excited. Although I had some initial concerns about how the meeting would go, it turned out wonderfully.

As a post-script, the church has recently changed the job title of the youth minister to that of administration/associate pastor. He now works hand in hand with the new pastor and is doing an outstanding job.

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Pastor Search Committee Questions

I will include here the pool of questions we prepared for Brother Rick. Some of these we devised, but most came from various other resources. Again, we asked about 70 of these, but in the course of the interview, Rick touched on answers to each of them. Also some of them we ended up not asking because we simply hit the high points of the Baptist Faith and Message and asked “Where do you agree and disagree?”

Our main goal was to be thorough on hitting the primary points. Certainly we may have gone overboard (as DD questions here). I think the main thing we wanted was to be able to answer anyone in the church who might ask us a question “Did you ask him about…..? or “What does Brother Rick think about …?”

Anyway, here’s the list. I would appreciate comments on other questions we might have asked, or (from our pastors out there) what are some of the stranger questions that you’ve been asked?

PASTORAL MINISTRY QUESTIONS

Ministry Experience

1. What have you learned in the congregation you now serve that will make you a better pastor?

2. Describe your weaknesses and your strengths.

3. Describe a ministry experience with the congregation you now serve that captures your greatest strengths.

4. Outside of normal vacation time, how many weeks per year do you like to be away from church doing ministry (revivals, missions, conferences, etc.) and study?

Philosophy of Ministry
5. What attracts you to Lakeview Baptist Church? How long would you like to stay at this church?

6. Describe your leadership style. To what extent are you self-directed in your ministry responsibilities?

7. Describe the mission of your present congregation. In what ways has your ministry influenced this mission?

Worship Leader
8. Describe a typical worship service for which you plan to lead. Do you use an order of service?

9. How do you balance worship so it addresses the needs of different age groups?

10. Have you felt the Holy Spirit leading you to change the service in any way once it has begun and how did you handle that?

Pastoral Care and Counseling
11. Recently, sexual misconduct and internet pornography within the church has become a more visible issue. What safe guards have you initiated to protect yourself and the church from such misconduct?

12. How do you view your role in visiting members and church guests (visitors)?

13. Do you have any restrictions on the performance of marriages? Describe your approach to marriage counseling.

14. What is your counseling philosophy?

15. Do you consider yourself a counselor? What type of counseling do you perform?

16. How do you equip church members to provide care to other congregational members?

17. Give us an example of a typical week of pastoral care activities.

18. As pastor you must be a leader and Lakeview Baptist Church has a history of following the pastor. How will you lead by example in the ministries of Lakeview Baptist Church?

Missions and Evangelism
19. What role does evangelism plan in your current church? (Worship, activites, etc.) Do you view some activities or services being more focused on evangelism than others? Which ones?

20. Some people believe a church can become too big. Others feel that every church should become as large as possible. What’s your view?

21. Compare and contrast outreach vs. soul winning.

22. What is your heart with regards to missions?

Staff Relationships
23. What accountability would be expected among staff members?

24. How comfortable are you in providing direction to staff members?

25. Who should be included in staff meetings?

26. How would you respond to other staff members who in your opinion are doing a poor job?

27. Describe how your management or leadership style affects your relationship with other church staff members?

28. When it comes to support staff, what is your policy with regards to church membership?

29. How do you relate to committees in your church?

Community Relations
30. What responsibility do you feel the church has to respond to the social problems affecting our community?

31. How do church politics on a local, state, regional, and national level figure into your ministry and time?

Personal
32. What motivates you as a pastor?

33. How do you cope with stress?

34. What spiritual disciplines guide your life?

35. Tell us about your devotional life.

36. Have you ever had a crisis of faith? And, if so, how did you work through it? What was learned?

Education
37. What skills do you bring to this position that you believe will serve you and the church well? How did you obtain these skills? How do you apply these skills to your work?

38. What are your intentions as far as continuing your education?

Congregation Life
39. What changes may be in store for our congregation if you become our pastor?

40. Describe your operational strategy during the first 6 months of a church. (How do you set goals, prioritize plans, define and evaluate success?)

41. What church structure do you view as best in helping a congregation to achieve its mission?

42. How have you approached the issues of finance and stewardship with your present congregation?

43. As pastor of a church, you have tremendous influence with that congregation. In your own words, could you explain or describe what that influence is?

44. How would you be willing to handle accountability from the congregation and do you have accountability partners that you meet with regularly? Who are they?

45. Coming from a much smaller congregation, how will you involve the body to help you meet its needs?

Preaching
46. Describe your routine process of preparing sermons.

47. Are there any topics you feel uncomfortable preaching about, such as finances or current moral issues?

48. How much time to you devote to sermon preparation?

49. How do you select sermon topics? Would you consider yourself a topical or exegetical preacher?

Christian Education
50. What is your role in Christian education?

51. What Bible study curriculum do you currently use for the different age groups within your church? How do you determine which to use?

52. What educational programs, other than Sunday School, do you emphasize?

Administration
53. What is the primary role of the deacon body? What responsibilities, priorities or boundaries should be the deacon body have in defining our church ministry?

54. What accountability should exist between the deacon body and the pastoral staff members?

55. Do you have a job description now? What parts of it do you feel confident about performing, and with what parts of it do you feel uncomfortable?

56. In what capacity do you work with committees, deacons, or church leadership and what role will they play in overall church decisions like personnel, vision, finances, and outreach?

Family Life
57. What things would you like the church to do to provide support to your family?

58. If you were to move here, what type of housing would you be looking for?

Questions about our Church
59. What do you see that you like about Lakeview Baptist Church?

60. Are there any concerns about which we have not asked, which might be of a sensitive nature for you or Lakeview Baptist Church?

61. Do you have questions about this position that have not been answered?

THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS
1. Describe the importance of Scripture.

2. Explain the biblical term “baptism of the Spirit.” When does this baptism occur?

3. What are your views on baptism by water?

4. Views on Calvinism?
a. How does the Bible relate the sovereignty of God to salvation?
b. What does the Bible teach about the extent of man’s depravity?
c. What does Christ’s atonement accomplish?
d. What does the Bible teach about the perseverance and preservation of believers?

5. What is the proper use of the Old Testament Law?

6. What is the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament?

7. How would you explain the Trinity? Why is it important?

8. What is your view of end-time or eschatological issues?

9. Do you believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin? What is the significance of your belief?

10. What is your interpretation of the biblical teaching on Hell?

11. What does the Bible teach concerning spiritual gifts? Please delineate your views about prophecy and speaking in tongues.

12. What is your view of divorce and remarriage? How strictly will you follow this view in practice?

13. What is your view of the phrase, “The bishop [pastor] then must be…the husband of one wife” (1 Tim. 3:2)?

14. Please explain your views on church discipline.

15. Many children who appear to be converted at an early age show no evidence of knowing Christ later. How do you handle children when they come to you for counsel concerning conversion? What is your advice to parents?

16. What is a useful plan for receiving new members into the church? What are prerequisites?

17. What are your views on styles of church music?

18. Who should direct the worship of the church? Why? Which methods of leading corporate worship are appropriate? Which are inappropriate?

19. What are your views regarding raising money for various projects within the church? Should the church solicit those outside the church?

20. What are your convictions about the local church and debt?

21. What does the Bible teach about women in ministry?

22. What does the Bible teach about how churches should make decisions?

23. How should a pastor and his church relate to other churches locally and to the larger Southern Baptist body? Do you feel comfortable cooperating with other denominations? Do you draw any lines?

24. What are the biblical responsibilities of elders? Are there any distinctions between elders, pastors, and overseers? If applicable, what distinctions exist between staff and non-staff pastors?

25. What are the biblical responsibilities of deacons? How are deacons and elders to relate?

26. What emphasis do you give to the leadership of fathers with their families, especially in terms of family worship? Do you personally engage in family worship with your wife and children?

27. Are you familiar with the term “missional”? What does it mean?

28. How do you see a difference between being a church planter and a pastor?

29. What does the Bible say about homosexual behavior? Can one be a Christian and a homosexual?

30. What version of the Bible do you preach from?

31. What is your view of the use of the altar for prayer during the worship service?

32. To what degree, if any, do you differ with the historical doctrinal positions of this church?

33. Describe several ethical principles that guide your work.

34. What special services do you conduct throughout the year?

35. What is the purpose of the Lord’s supper? Do you believe it should be open or closed, and how often should it be practiced?

36. Do you believe that there should still be revival meetings? How often?

37. Describe a personal experience that has significantly shaped your own theology.

38. What are your views on the following:
a. God
b. Baptism
c. Jesus
d. Salvation
e. The Holy Spirit
f. The Church
g. The Bible
h. Stewardship

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Visiting His Home Church

After David’s resignation, we paused to consider where we were in the process. While we very much liked the candidate (let’s call him Rick) under discussion, we had not yet visited his church. Since I had seen him only once, and the alternate committee member (now a regular member) had not seen him at all, we decided that the two of us would go to visit pastor Rick’s church.

We told brother Rick the Sunday we would be arriving and got there a few minutes before the worship service. As per our custom, my partner went in first while I remained in the car. After a few minutes I went in and sat in another part of the sanctuary. When Rick arrived at the church a few years ago, there were three people present his first Sunday. Attendance had risen to in the fifties, although the Sunday we arrived there were in the forties. We were confused at first because the state WMU president was present and gave a report, followed by a NAMB resort missionary who gave a report on their work at an area lake.

An odd moment occurred after brother Rick began preaching because the WMU president stood up and said loudly (and I might add, somewhat proudly) “Brother Rick, I forgot to mention during my report that the WMU raised $2 million for Lottie Moon this last Christmas!!!” If Rick was aggravated at being interrupted, he didn’t let it show. He simply paused a moment and then said “Well I have no idea who this Lottie Moon lady is, but she certainly is rolling in the dough.”

Following the service, my partner and I hurriedly departed and quickly went out into my car to leave. As we stated pulling out of the parking lot, I kid you not, the WMU president came streaking out of the church, racing toward us holding aloft two bags full of WMU swag that she wanted everyone in the service to receive. I briefly considered flooring it, but didn’t want to create a larger scene. So I slowed down and rolled down my window as the older (and surprisingly spry) state WMU president breathlessly gave us our bags of samples.


We then drove down to the Presbyterian church and waited for pastor Rick to call us. He did several minutes later and I asked him where we could take he and his family out to eat. After consulting with his family, he said “Y’know, we could really use some McDonald’s right about now.” (When I turned in the meal receipts later to our Finance Chairman, I made sure he understood that Mickey D’s was the candidate’s idea.)

After getting the meal, we took it back to their parsonage and had a conversation that ran another 5 hours or so. It was a good conversation and only served to reinforce the strong feelings that the committee and the candidate were developing for one another.


Late in the evening, after we had talked a great deal, Rick’s wonderful wife started off a question with the following statement. “I may get my husband in trouble, but there’s a question that I just have to ask…” She then paused for a moment as she put the right words together.

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Resignation Aftermath

When I shared the news of David’s resignation to the committee, there was some anger. Mostly the anger was directed at the individual who was involved in the conflict with David’s wife. But there was also some frustration at the Personnel Committee. As I stated in my last post, the committee system at Lakeview had lain dormant for so long, that I don’t think that they were responsible for mishandling this situation.

Most of the Pastor Search Committee had no idea that this conflict had been ongoing. They were surprised and felt that we should monitor the situation. One result of this event is that it gave us as a committee an opportunity to discuss and understand that we had some personnel issues that needed to be addressed in the church. Shortly after these events came out our Personnel Committee chairman resigned (for unrelated reasons) and a member of the Search Committee was appointed chair of the Personnel Committee and began to deal effectively with these concerns. He gave periodic updates to the PSC and helped to address the concerns of the rest of the committee.

Letting the church know was a more difficult matter. I sought advice from various people to figure out how to best communicate that David had resigned. One advisor suggested that I simply not say anything and that people would only find out later. But I wanted to try to model communication to the church and felt that simply not telling them would be disingenuous. Some on the committee felt that we should announce it to the church during the next PSC report, four weeks away. My concern with this approach was the inordinate the length of time until our next report to the church. Honestly, one of the hardest thing for me to imagine was that people were praying for the entire committee by name every week and I felt that they should know what was going on. Plus I thought that Sunday morning was a pretty big stage and I wasn’t sure that it was the best setting for this announcement.

So we decided to announce the resignation during a business meeting. Since very few people outside the PSC and the Personnel Committee knew of the staff conflict, I was general about why David resigned. I simply said that he had resigned for personal concerns and he asked that I not disclose the reason. I assured the congregation that I wished David had not resigned and that he was not resigning because of any moral issue. I then asked if there were any questions.

Fortunately, there were none.

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David's Resignation

David’s wife had served for a period of time as the children’s minister at Lakeview Baptist. During that time she suffered the bumps and bruises that often accompany any ministry endeavor. But she also had a pretty high level conflict with one of our church secretaries. Feelings were hurt, and things were said on both sides that were unfortunate. On numerous occasions they clashed.

Finally, and as a direct result of these conflicts, David’s wife quit the church staff. David, understandably, thought that his wife had been tremendously wronged in this process. Contributing to his case was the fact that this secretary had also been involved in conflicts with previous staff members as well.

After years of ineffectiveness, the Personnel Committee had begun the process of addressing this situation, but not in a way that David approved. Essentially, David demanded that the secretary be terminated from her position immediately or they would leave. The Personnel Committee was taking a careful approach to the situation and was not moving as quickly as David would’ve liked. In addition, as he told me, his wife could no longer worship with “that woman” at Lakeview. As a result of these factors, David told me that they were gone. They haven’t been back since, although our families still socialize together. David told me later that one reason he stepped down from the committee is because he would’ve voted against the new pastor simply because this issue had not yet been dealt with (to his satisfaction). Since we were committed to a unanimous recommendation to the church, David would’ve effectively sabotaged the search process. So when David shared with me that God told him to resign from the committee, I didn’t disagree.

David's resignation presented two challenges to our committee. First, we had to assess what David’s departure meant to us as a committee. He was active in our discussions and brought successful business acumen into our conversations. Second, we had to address what would be the consequences of his departure when we announced it to the church. How could they trust a committee that couldn't even keep its own membership together?

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A Fine Second Meeting and Shocking News

Following our initial visit with the pastoral candidate, we quickly decided that the rest of the committee needed to meet him. We scheduled a Wednesday night service at a local church and asked him and his family to come. We also planned a post-service meal/discussion time where the rest of the committee could get to know him. When that Wednesday rolled around, the half the committee was excited about seeing him again, particularly those who had not yet met him.

But I wasn't there. I got sick that morning. Very sick. The kind of sick where your prayers change from desiring God's healing to desiring God's quick and fatal intervention. I was so sick I took more leave time that week than my previous six years combined. I was so sick…..but I digress.

The rest of the committee enjoyed the service immensely. There was some concern after his initial sermon that he read his notes too closely during the sermon, but those concerns were alleviated and chalked up to nerves. Following the service, they ate dinner with him and his family for several hours. Then after the candidate and his family left, the committee continued to meet and discuss the evening. All were pleased with how the evening went. As the senior member of the committee put it "He just seems too good to be true."

As committee chairman, I Was very pleased. Things seemed to be progressing nicely. We were several months into the process and for the first time, God had our minds and hearts set on a candidate whose personality seemed like a nice fit with our congregation. It was in the midst of this time of goodwill that I received news that sent shock waves through the entire search process.

I got a call from one of our committee members. David was one of my closest friends at church and our family often vacationed with his. He and his family joined Lakeview about two years before, but he quickly took on responsibilities and handled them extremely well, including getting the entire church to change Sunday School curricula. No small task!!

When I saw his name on my cell phone at work one afternoon, I answered with a casual "Hey David, what's up?" His voice was grave and measured. "Taran, I've decided that I can no longer be a part of the search process, or a part of this church. I'm resigning from the committee immediately and my family and I are never coming back."

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Checking References

We consulted the references for all of the candidates with whom we made contact. Most candidates included three references, but some did not. From those we secured at least three references. We then divided up the references and had the committee members contact them. At times, some of the committee members knew one of the references and would speak with them. But in most cases, these reference checks formed the first impression of the candidate by the individual committee members. In our case, they were extremely important.
In almost every instance, contacting the references proved to be the most valuable part of the search process.

It provided us much needed perspective on the situation of the pastoral candidate and was illuminating on various occasions. The reference could generally speak on subjects that the candidate was less inclined to speak upon. The references could address any trouble at the church, or trouble in home life that the candidate might not have shared. Conversely, they could point to accomplishments or some other type of acclaim that the candidate might possess but not feel free to share.

We asked each reference the following four questions:

1. In what capacity have you known the candidate? This gave us a context for the information that we would be receiving. For example, in one instance all of the references were friends or other pastors. None of the references had ever heard the candidate preach before.

2. How would you evaluate his giftedness as a pastor, and in your estimation, what are his strengths and weaknesses? As might be expected, most all of the references were positive and offered numerous examples of strengths. Weaknesses were more difficult to ferret out. Some simply said “I can think of no weaknesses” which means that the reference was either disingenuous (unlikely) or didn’t know the candidate particularly well (more likely). One reference said that the candidate’s only weakness was that he cheered for the college football team of a neighboring state!

But some weaknesses were helpful. One reference said of a candidate that he struggled with feeling despondent and depressed with some regularity. Another reference shared that the pastor’s son had been involved in some illegal activities.

3. Is there any reason we should not call this person to be our pastor? We went fishing with this question, thinking that perhaps some reference might mention a deep secret that would preclude a candidate from the office of pastor. We gained no secret knowledge. The answer in every case was “Nope.”

4. Could you please give us another name that we can discuss this candidate with? We decided to ask for a “one off” reference. This allowed us to speak with people who knew the candidate, but not be limited to references that the candidate alone had chosen. The idea was that this would permit us to speak with someone else who knows the candidate well, but is not necessarily of the candidate’s choosing. I recommend using this question as it put us in contact with someone who usually felt more free to discuss the candidate.

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Initial Contact

What we did after we received the resumes:


When we looked over the resumes, there were a few instances where we clearly knew that the person wouldn’t be a good fit at Lakeview. We set those resumes aside. In one case an individual was retired and in his seventies. His cover letter gave no rationale for why he was considering leaving retirement. In another case, a candidate shared a bit too much personal history (in spectacular detail) in his cover letter that led us to question his judgment. (TMI as Scooter would say).


In another instance, one of the committee members had very close knowledge of the candidate and, after sharing this knowledge with the committee, we rejected the candidate.


And we had a few letters that were clearly sent out to each and every church this individual found out about (one applicant sent the wrong church's name in the cover letter while another applied for a position we weren't search for: Director of Missions). But about 95% of the resumes we received we contacted.


Since we desired to standardize the process as much as possible, we made the decision that as Chairman of the Committee, I would contact each of the candidates for a brief phone interview. In the initial call, I would ask each candidate the following questions:

1. "Are you interested in our committee considering you for this position?" We asked this question (obviously) in order to gauge their interest. In several cases, where one of our church members had recommended them or where we received what turned out to be an older resume, their answer was a brief "Nope." In some cases they asked several questions about Lakeview before they answered. (We took a dim view of that response). But by and large, the answer was "Yes."

2. The second question I asked was "Tell me about yourself." (OK, technically not a question;)We had a couple of motives here. The first, and most obvious, was to learn a little bit more about the candidate. But we also left the question fairly open ended so that they could answer however they pleased. Most told their testimonies. Some answers were short, and some long. One thing we began to take note of was whether or not they mentioned their families. Some would answer for several minutes and shared a great deal of pride in their current location of ministry, but would only mention their family when prompted. Overall, our committee responded more favorably toward the candidate who clearly prioritized family over ministry.

3. Our third question was "Why do you feel that God may be moving you to another place of ministry at this time in your life?" This question was a (not so?) subtle way of trying to determine if there were any negative factors going on at their current place of ministry that might have been a factor in their decision to move on. We did have some negative things come up, but most of them were explained to our satisfaction by the candidate. It was always better for negative situations to be brought up by the candidate rather than for them to come up when we discussed the candidate with their references.

4. Our final question was "What does it mean to be Baptist?" Of our initial questions, this was the only one that touched on the issue of theology. We wanted to give them an opportunity to talk about what was important to them. In retrospect, this was probably the least helpful of the initial questions as almost every candidate gave some variation on the answers of Believer's Baptist and Inerrancy of the Bible.

Next: How we dealt with references...

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