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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Unchurched: A Review and Interview

(Note, at the end of this review is an interview with the author and a chance to win a free copy of Unchurched)

The word “churched” has at least two meanings: First it is an archaic religious term usually used in the negative which refers to someone who has either not accepted the gospel or is not going to church. “Well, this basketball league is primarily for the unchurched.” A second meaning refers to the act of church discipline, primarily the expulsion of someone form the community as in “He was churched from the congregation”. (See usage 17 here).

In his book Churched: One Man’s Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess, Matthew Paul Turner walks the edges of each of these meanings. In this memoir, he narrates what life was like for him to be raised in a fundamentalist church. Matthew Paul Turner is a blogger, speaker and author of The Coffeehouse Gospel, Provocative Faith, Beatitude: Relearning Jesus, the What You Didn’t Learn from Your Parents About… series, and several other popular books. He has written for Relevant, HomeLife, Christian Single magazines and was the former editor of CCM magazine. Matthew and his wife, Jessica, live in Nashville, Tennessee. He can be found online at http://www.matthewpaulturner.com/.

Turner's memoir contains story after story about growing up in an environment where the unusual was the norm. For example, a typical Sunday morning might contain: the pastor getting into a boxing match with Satan, the worship service being hijacked by a Christian Pirate, a Barbie doll incinerated in Sunday school (as an example of the perils of hell) and getting baptized multiple (5 maybe?) times. Turner is an entertaining writer who does an excellent job of either reminding the reader of, or introducing the reader to, life in fundamentalist churches.
And he’s funny. The book is a series of disconnected, humorous stories. His sense of humor reminds me of David Sedaris and he has Garrison Keillor’s talent for drawing portraits of people with his words. I every much enjoyed this work. In an age when most memoirists take a tire iron to the kneecaps of their childhood, Turner is always respectful of his influences. As he depicts it, his church seems more a collection of strange religious eccentrics than of judgmental and angry legalists that I tend to associate with fundamentalist upbringings.

While I liked reading a memoir that wasn’t too critical of the influences on the author’s life, I found myself wondering what stories were omitted. There are hints of some scars he’s carried from his childhood (he mentions for example, that he has trouble talking alone with a pastor). (Note: See interview below). Regardless, that is more a criticism of what the book is not rather than what it is. And what it is, is a funny, funny book that offers a non-judgmental look at fundamentalism.

Since I've had ummmm unplanned interviews with authors before, I decided to be proactive and sent an email to Turner asking if he would consent to an interview. He graciously agreed to answer a few questions about his most recent work.

Taran: I've always thought it took a healthy ego to write a memoir ;). Why did you decide to write Churched?

Turner: Well, I certainly have an ego--not sure it's a healthy one--but I certainly try to keep it in check. :) I wrote Churched because I thought it was a good story that for some, may be an introduction to fundamentalism, and for others may offer a little bit of healing from the spiritual abuse they endured. And while I hope it's an entertaining and hopeful read, I certainly wrote it for me and for anybody else who has been hurt by other Christians.

Taran: In your book, you describe your upbringing in a fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church. How would you describe fundamentalism?

Turner: I think that "Independent Baptist" is CHRISTIAN for scary beyond all reason. Whenever leadership of any church, mosque, or temple takes on the role of God and uses it to control, manipulate, indoctrinate--that is a fundamentalism. Of course, there are varying levels of Christian fundamentalism out there.

Taran: In many memoirs, the author's work out a great deal of antagonism toward their childhood. But one thing that appears different in this work is that you don't seem particularly hostile to fundamentalism. As your portray it, fundamentalism seems to be primarily an eccentricity Is that how you view your church's brand of fundamentalism?

Turner: In some ways, yes. But that doesn't make it "innocent." It was my hope to present my childhood story to reflect on the "Christian issues" of today. The 17 essays serve as a mirror to some degree, one that all of us as Christians need to look at so we can see how we are presenting Jesus to the community of people around us. In order to do that effectively, I didn't want to be guilty of what I am pointing out. Does that make sense? If you're angry and mean-spirited, I don't believe you can effectively paint a good picture of the experience. And that was my goal... to paint a picture of what I experienced and let people come to their own conclusions.

Taran: You share at one point that fundamentalism doesn't take a high view of imagination. Were there any parts of being fundamentalist that helped you to develop your skills as a writer?

Turner: Well, it certainly gave me something to write about, I guess. But I inhereted my creativity from my mother and my grandmother.

Taran: From looking across your website, I see that you have a new son. Congratulations! Every parent wants to raise their child in a better way than they were raised. In the area of faith, how will Elias' childhood differ from yours?

Turner: It's my hope that Elias will learn about God in a hope-filled manner, that God will always be apart of his life's solutions and not apart of his problem. I'm gonna make mistakes along the way, but I hope he will experience the hope that comes from engaging the story of God and to not be overrun with fear.

Taran: You close with a story indicating that you have difficulty sitting down one on one with pastors. Do you see a bit of Pastor Nolan (the pastor of his church growing up) in a lot of ministers that you meet?

Turner: I do to some degree. They may not yell and scream and boast about the number of souls their churches are "winning," but the pastoral ego is often there. And it's the ego that made Pastor Nolan dangerous. He was just interesting and talented enough to make him dangerous. A pastor should never use scripture as way to manipulate or control--the truth should always set us free. And that's the kind of truth that pastors should be presenting. Pastors don't have to make us think they're perfect. Because we know they're not. Just tell us God's story with hope, that's something Pastor Nolan rarely did.

Taran: Reading your work I thought of people as diverse as David Sederis and Garrison Keillor. Who are some of the writers (aside from Matthew Mark, Luke and John) who have influenced you?

Turner: I love David Sederis, Elizabeth Gilbert, Chuck Klosterman, Augusten Burroughs, Brennan Manning, Phillip Yancey, GK Chesterton, Donald Miller, Anne Lamott--all of these writers have influenced to some degree or encouraged me to tell my story with passion and zeal.

Taran: Thanks for giving your time and may the sales of this book fully fund Elias' college of choice.

Turner: Thanks so much for this interview!

I have two free copies of Unchurched. My favorite Christian music artist was greatly influenced by Brennan Manning, one of the writers that Turner mentions above. In fact, the title of Manning's most popular book appears in the title of the musician's best CD.

The first two readers who can tell me which musician gets a free copy of the book!

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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Politics

Courtesy of Derek Webb, this pretty much summarizes my view of the current election cycle. It's called "Savior on Capitol Hill." My favorite line "You can always trust the Devil or a politician, to be the Devil or a politician..." Enjoy!

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 Encore Effect: A Review

I have a few criteria on a good book for self help books. I like them to be short, and they need to have a few helpful tips on productivity. So I looked forward to reading Mark Sanborn's work The Encore Effect: How to Achieve Remarkable Performance in Anything You Do .

According to Sanborn, everyone wants to make a difference in the world, but most have no idea how to maximize their impact. In The Encore Effect, best-selling author and leadership expert Sanborn purports to provide the answer. He leads readers in six practices that will move them beyond excellence to distinction and from mundane to memorable. These principles guide readers to draw on their passion and devote themselves to preparation, practice, presentation, polishing, and finally, avoiding pitfalls. When readers follow these principles they will find that people are attracted to them. More importantly, they'll find that they now have an influence over others that can impact lives for eternity.

The "Encore" in the title of the book refers to the idea that you will do such a great job in your work that you will be asked by your coworkers/bosses/friends to keep doing it. The image is one of a performance. I do like the idea that when we work on something, we are performing. I don't think it should sound artificial and fake that I describe my teaching or preaching, as a performance.

Essentially, he takes common sense for increasing performance and packages it in an attractive hardcover book. But do we really need another book the spends time repackaging the common sense items that most people already know. You could summarize much of what he says in an aphorism or two "Practice makes perfect", etc.

One other concern is that the copy I received has special additions that make it more useful to Christians. It comes with verses and thoughtful Christian questions and verse quotations that are meant to probe the material from a Christian perspective. But I usually feel a bit queasy when target marketed. If the Christian material was integral to the book, then Sanborn should've included it in the generally released copy. If not, then it should've been omitted. I'm not fond of books that are printed one way for Christians and another way for everyone else.

Not a big fan of the book. (I have no extra copies, but after that review would you want one??)

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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Velociraptor and Bunkbeds

Although I generally loathe all things viral (both physically and uhhhh internetedly), for some reason this amused me. If I were in the market for new furniture, I would definitely consider BunkbedsPedia for all things bunkbed related).

I could survive for 1 minute, 9 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor

The Road to Lost Innocence: A Review

There is a depth of moral depravity that I have been blessed not to experience.

There are things going on in my community, my nation, and my world that would devastate me if I only knew of them. Most of the time, I live in a hermetically sealed environment that is of a completely different world from the rest of the planet. From time to time a newspaper report or a personal experience may pick up the rock of society so that I catch of the glimpse of the seething, disgusting filth that lives underneath it.

One such recent experience accompanied my reading of a recent book The Road to Lost Innocence by Somaly Mam. Mam was born in Cambodia and orphaned at an early age. She grew up never knowing her real name or birthday. As a teenager, Somaly Mam was sold into prostitution and spent years in the brothels of Cambodia where she witnessed and experienced the full-blown horrors of the human sex trade – rape, torture, and nearly unfathomable abuse. It is almost impossible to believe some of the stories she tells about the lives of the girls in these brothels. In Cambodia, it is a societal belief that having sex with virgins protects the male against the AIDS virus and can even extend the lives of men. As a result, little girls are sold into the sex trade by their families. And by little girls I mean 6, 7, and 8 year olds.

The disregard for human life is unfathomable. On one occasion Mam witnessed a police officer who was also a client in the brothel pull out a gun and shoot one of the young girls because she was fighting him. The woman running the brothel simply cleaned up the remains and threw them into the city dump. Then she used the experience to warn the other girls to be compliant with the customers.

Eventually, through her interactions with some foreign aid workers (first as a prostitute, then by marrying one) Mam managed to escape this dreadful life and move to France. But her experiences refused to let her stay away and she has moved back to try to help others escape from this awful life. The book, The Road of Lost Innocence" is Mam’s newest means of advocacy.

This is a Christian book, thought Jesus is never mentioned and Mam never makes any kind of a religious statement. She mentions on one occasion that she is still not sure that she understands the concept of love, perhaps because she has experienced so little of it in her life.

I call this a Christian book because it depicts in precise details a world in which sin reigns and people are used as objects rather than as creatures made in the image of God. The wages of sin are certainly death and this book reminds me that for many, the death Paul talks about starts in this life. The world in which Mam lives is the world that so desperately needs to be saved.

Unfortunately I have no copies of the book, but I absolutely recommend it. It is powerful.

In which I take an unprovoked shot at my brother…

who as we speak can’t defend himself because he’s sitting in the dark in Houston


Last night on the trampoline:

Scooter: "Daddy? What purpose do mosquitoes serve? Why are they here?"

Me: "Scooter, I’m sure mosquitoes serve some purpose in God’s creation, but their reason for existence completely eludes me…sort of like your Uncle Bartolo."


Scooter:"Daddy! If Uncle Bartolo heard you say that he'd cry."

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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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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To the Four Winds...

Life has (yet again) accelerated around our household. For the first time in thirteen years, each of our kids is in school. Scooter occupies the Alpha position in middle school as an eighth-grader, the queen of all she surveys. Peasant sixth graders cower in her presence. Skeeter is in the same position as a fifth grader in elementary school, at the pinnacle of the heap. At the other end of the food chain is Squealer, a small kindergartener who is still adjusting to this new (and exhilarating) world outside our household.

Having three kids at three different schools has stretched our meager planning and scheduling skills to the breaking point. Mornings begin early and race by. Scooter heads to the front yard at 6:59 am for her 7:00 bus stop. (Yes, I’m mostly over my first impression from a couple of years ago). After much prayer and anguish, we decided to let Squealer ride the bus. This concerned us, because with his diminutive size (and his giftedness in bothering people) we were concerned about him being tossed out one of the bus windows. But after an extended phone conversation with the bus driver (and the reality of his school being some distance from our home) we decided to give it a shot. He too must be at a bus stop for a 7:00 am pick up, about a mile from our house. Skeeter leaves the house at 7:30 via bike. Her school is .9 miles from our home and you must be 1 mile away to ride the bus. So despite the fact that she must cross a pretty major thoroughfare, we decided to take the plunge and let her ride. She loves the responsibility and freedom that a bike gives her.

So every morning, our three kids are scattered to the four winds. A bike, two buses and a multitude of prayers fan out across our community every morning. And we are reminded again that they are in His hands.

Exactly where they've been all along.