Visiting His Home Church (II)

Rick’s wife Elizabeth continued her question and said “If things go well and we are called to Lakeview…will Rick be thrown to the wolves?” I wasn’t sure what generated this question, beyond something that may have happened in a previous place of ministry. We tried to answer as best we could, essentially pledging that the leadership of the church represented on the committee would support the next pastor of Lakeview. She asked several follow up questions that focused on issues of family general quality of life. Overall she was honest with her concerns about what the new challenges of the ministry might be.

We continued our conversation for several hours. Jim, the former alternate who came with me, agreed with the rest of the committee that brother Rick might be the guy. I told the committee later that the effect was very much like those zombie movies. Every person who met him, came back to the group liking him.

We also came to a significant decision. We needed to have another meeting with Rick and the entire committee that would focus on his theological views.

But I was bothered by our answer to Elizabeth’s question. I was afraid that I made it sound like there were no wolves in Lakeview. So after a few days went by, I sent them the following email.

Dear Brother Rick and Elizabeth,

Let me again thank you for your questions. As a committee, one of our goals throughout this process has been for us to provide as much transparency as we know how to give. So I appreciate very much the fact that you both have been equally transparent and open in your dialogue with us. Please don’t hesitate to ask us anything, even the difficult questions.

Elizabeth, you asked a great question about the possibility of Rick being “thrown to the wolves” at Lakeview. After thinking about your question last night and today, I wanted to add a few things to our conversation. As your question recognizes, and as you know from experience, there are many wolves in the world of ministry. Some come from within the church, and some come from without.

Part of the role of the pastor (as I see it anyway) is to protect the congregation from wolves. But a major part of the leadership of the congregation is to protect the pastor from wolves as well. I think that there is a strong core of leadership in the church, centered in the deacons. Several of the strong leaders on this committee are each deacons, and should give you some sense of the quality of the other deacons as well. They will strongly support our new pastor.

In addition, I am excited about the role that Bob [a PSC member] will play as our Personnel Committee chairman. He is going to be in close contact with all of the staff about what the church expects of them in their roles as ministers. If there are any personnel issues that need to be resolved, they will be resolved by the pastor. If he is unable to resolve these issues, then the personnel committee will step up and assist him

Elizabeth, if God sees fit to provide you and Rick with a place of ministry at Lakeview, I am (sadly) certain that you will each encounter wolves over the years. I cannot promise you that our city is wolf free, but I can promise you that as a committee and as leaders in the church, we will support you in fighting those wolves the best of our God-given ability. You won’t be alone. Through God’s strength, you have each defeated your share of wolves at your current church, and I am certain that if God is in this move to Lakeview, you will do the same here.

Taran

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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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PSC Covenant

With the semester winding down, I hope to pick up the blogging pace a bit. We've had some various things occur with our Pastor Search Committee and I'd love to get some feedback. But tonight I'll simply post our Pastor Search Committee Covenant. The idea of a covenant is to nail down some expectations for the committee and for the church. We hammered these out over our first several meetings and then we read them to the church:

Pastor Search Committee Covenant

Lakeview Baptist Church

This covenant commits the Lakeview Baptist Church Pastor Search Committee as partners together to bring God’s man to our pulpit. We merely serve as the representatives of the Lakeview congregation in this process.

We covenant first to keep all of our thinking and reflecting bathed in prayer. Because this is God’s church, not our church, we will seek God’s man, not our man. We will be obedient to God’s direction, and sensitive to the Holy Spirit, knowing that God looks not at a man’s outward appearance, but upon his heart. The only way we can stay attuned to our Lord’s direction is through ongoing, persistent, prayer.

We will act as a unified body. We will wait as one body and we will move as one body. We trust that God will reveal His will to us in His own time. We will not tarry unnecessarily, but we also will not hurry through this process. We will make a unanimous recommendation of God’s man to the church.

We recognize that openness is the key to trust. As such, we will communicate clearly and often with the church body. Communication of course is a two-part effort that involves listening as much as it involves speaking. Our goal will be to listen to the Lord as well as to the congregation as we undertake this search process.

Lastly we understand well the importance of confidentiality. We are dealing with the very heart of this church as we search for our next pastor. But we are also dealing with men of God in other places of ministry. We want to honor and respect even those whom we do not call. In order to maintain confidentiality and sober judgment, we will not individually speak about where we are in the search process or about any specific candidates outside of our pastoral search committee meetings except during public discussions with the church.

These things we covenant with God, with the congregation, and with one another.

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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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Update on Pastor Search Committee

We've had a few weeks without any entries regarding the search committee, so I'll pass some notes along here. I’ve been thinking about this “live blogging” of a pastoral search and balancing the fact that some might find this helpful verses the confidentiality which we keep as a committee. My intention is to be somewhat circumspect and emphasize that this is how we are approaching this task and other strategies would work equally well. I hope some might find it helpful.

The PSC (Pastor Search Committee) put together a Search Committee covenant. I think we’re going to put it up on our church’s website, but I would prefer not to link to our church through Coffeespoons. We signed the covenant and shared it with Lakeview. They appreciated (or feigned appreciation for) the fact that we communicated our expectations for ourselves and for the church in the document.

We then decided that to give the church an opportunity to identify our own strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. We conducted break-out sessions after a Sunday evening service and divided the congregation into smaller groups to get their perspective on these issues. I should mention that there were a few in the church (though not on the committee) who found it to be a waste of time, apparently thinking that we should simply go into seclusion for eighteen months and then signal our choice for the new pastor with white smoke. We then went through their responses so that we now have a good idea of the church's self perception. (It was almost identical to our own evaluation of these areas of our church).

The committee has also spent several meetings identifying the particular procedures we will use for interacting with candidates. We have received several resumes over the last few months. As the chairman, I will call each name we receive and will have an initial conversation with them to see if they are still interested in being a candidate for the position. Following this conversation we will begin the process of prayerfully considering the various candidates. When we have a few that we want to hear we will go and attend a worship service at the church where they are currently pastoring.

Looking ahead, I have been somewhat concerned about the level of theological understanding of Lakeview Baptist. Oddly, I think our church has a strong understanding of tier one and tier three level doctrines, but not as much of tier two doctrines. Essentially, whatever the pastor has believed, the church has followed. For example, I don't know that our church has a position on the issue of open or closed communion, accepting those baptized by immersion in another tradition, or divorced deacons. My concern is that when we begin the process of talking with candidates we will get some questions that we have not previously addressed as a church.

So in an effort to begin a conversation on these questions, each PSC meeting will include a discussion about a sections of the BF&M. My hope is that it will help us have a clearer understanding of our theological foundation. Then when we begin to speak with a pastor we will have a better understanding of our own beliefs and a framework for discussing his.

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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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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 Check in His Spirit

Our church is still attempting to determine the best course of action in response to our pastor’s recent resignation at our home church. On Sunday evening I met with the Chairmen of deacons, finance committee and personal committee. For a couple of hours I shared the Intentional Interim Ministry (IIM) process with them and explained how it would be a beneficial process for Lakeview Baptist.

Following the presentation I took questions. My biggest concern going into the discussion was with our stewardship chairman. He’s a godly man and one who has earned the respect of the congregation and of myself. He has been very close to our pastor and served as chairman of the search committee that brought him here thirteen years ago. He is, in short, someone whose buy-in is integral to the IIM process being accepted at Lakeview.

But he is old school. And the IIM process is new in these parts. So when I finished he sat quietly for a minute and then said "Taran, I have a check in my spirit." By which he meant (I determined from context clues) that he had a bad feeling about the IIM and that this bad feeling was of divine origin.

As our discussion continued, the gist of his concern was that he feels the process to be too mechanical, and not spiritual enough. He felt that I did not emphasize the signifiance of the Holy Spirit in the prcess. It is true that I didn’t spend a great deal of time in the presentation talking about how prayer/fasting/discernment, etc. accompanies the process…I simply assumed that part.

The other two leaders were more open to the process and all three agreed that I should share it with the deacons and then, if they agree, with the church. I should meet with the deacons next week.

But for someone as passionate about the IIM as I am, it was a bit disheartening.

Hiatus

In agricultural contexts, you must allow the ground to lie fallow for a time to ensure an improved crop the next time. Unfortunately for the reader, there’s no guarantee that subsequent Coffeespoons will be improved, but it certainly won’t be any worse.

What’s been going on…

Home Alone Two

I was left alone again as Kadie and her sister PT Girl trekked into that state that is the center of the universe and visited their Dad and step mom up in Enid. They took the entire brood of kids. Much lest angst this time. But while she was at our home, PTGirl (who is, after all a PT) advised me to get my knee (yes, that one) looked at by an orthopedic doc. After the injury, the knee remained swollen. Although there's been no pain, it tightens up whenever I run. So I heeded her advice…

Under the Knife Needle

The ortho doc recommended draining the fluid out of the bursa sac with a large needle. Which he immediately did. (It looked EXACTLY like this). Overall it wasn’t as painful as I expected, and much less painful than my "friends" told me it would be.

Recalling Stories

The book is finally out. Now its time to start working on the next one.

Intentional Interim

As I anticipated, the deacons at Lakeview opted not to go with an intentional interim program. While disappointing, it was not surprising. I was told that we hadn’t done it in the past and there was no need to do so now. When I asked how the deacons had responded to the problems I perceived in the church, the chairman said nobody really had any responses to my concerns.

Raise

At work, we’ve had one raise in the last seven years and just received another one this summer. So the summer term has been focused on haggling over how best to apportion what would be an across the board 5% raise. While appreciated, it’s like splitting hairs.

I should get back into the blogging swing of things now. Thanks to all who've continued to read.

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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The Why Behind the Tradition

I've noticed an interesting dynamic at work at my home church, Lakeview. I suspect it plays out in most other churches as well. As I’ve outlined before, I had a mixed experience with our previous pastor. Although he was more autocratic than I am comfortable with, he was benevolent in how he exercised his authority.

Over the thirteen years he was pastor, the church took on his image. One example is how he emphasized the importance of love and reaching out to all people regardless of race or socio-economic status. The church has embraced that mind set, a mind set that it definitely didn’t have before his arriva l. But it is fascinating to see how the church has continued on in his absence.

After six months in which one staff member and two members of the congregation shared the pulpit (not at the same time), we called an interim pastor to the church. He is in his seventies, but full of energy and with decades of pastoral experience. But most of all, he meets the most important rule for the interim pastor: Primum non Nocere.

After he arrived, he noticed something unusual. Our previous pastor didn’t like to pass offering plates. We’ve had offering boxes at each exit for as long as I’ve been a member. When the topic would come up, our pastor would quickly say “We thought about it carefully and made that decision so that we don’t interrupt the flow of the service.” Although there were some who disagreed with the practice, it was never a big enough issue to become divisive. Our new interim simply asked the deacons, the staff, and some of the church leaders is they wouldn’t mind passing the plates again (leaving the boxes at the entrances for those who preferred that method). He found that no one opposed the i dea of the offering plate.

So last Sunday, with little fanfare, he preached a sermon on tithing and we passed the plates. I heard no opposition or grumbling about the plates after the service and our tithe was over twice our normal average.

No real major point to this I suppose, except that as a church member, it would probably be a good iddea to revisit the "whys" of our church traditions. If we do something merely because we've always done it that way before, it should be revisited. I’m also intrigued by how willing a church is to follow their pastor, even when, at the end of the day, they aren’t particularly in agreement with him on an issue.

Life and such...

As much as I enjoy blogging and dialoguing, it is sadly amongst the first to go when the tempo of life picks up. My intention is to deluge you with a series of book reviews and perhaps some thoughts on budget cuts which have occupied too much of my mind recently.

Some details of what’s been going on:

I’ve been in contact with a few churches recently about the Intentional Interim ministry. It is heartening to see some interest in this area. If there’s a fit, I’ll share some of the experiences.

Things at Lakeview continue to go along well. Pastor Rick has implemented several changes and they have been well received. His honeymoon has stretched to six months now.

Our girls have decided, fresh from their experience of cheering on Mom and Dad down in Houston last month, that they want to run in the same ½ marathon next January. With that goal in mind, we’ve begun to train for a 5K here in town at the end of February. We’ve all enjoyed being together and it’s easier to run with a group in the cold, so you can huddle together for warmth.

I was called, out of the blue, to lead a marriage seminar for a young couple’s class in another church. It was a good experience, but reminded me again how far (alas) Kadie and I are from that demographic. I had a wonderful time spending a few days in a retreat setting with this group. More thoughts later this week.

Budget reductions continue to batter our campus. We’ve made substantial cuts for this fiscal year, and are looking ahead toward next year. In a worst case situation, we will lose some faculty and staff. Part of the greatest challenge of managing in this environment is addressing the undercurrent of fear that affects the faculty and staff. Like any other worker in this economy, when it’s difficult for them to focus on their jobs when they’re worried about losing them.

I leave you with one of the more curious political spectacles of recent years, the ongoing public immolation of (former) Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. He recently appeared on David Letterman and the interview is painfully enjoyable to watch. (I haven’t felt this embarrassed for someone on TV since the Bakkers went on Nightline a few decades back). Unbelievable. (And Dave can still bring the heat when he wants to. His first question had to be the exact one on the minds of every viewer).

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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The Search Process as a Whole

I think the biggest surprise in the search process was how God used it to change me. The search process was (like any good road trip movie) far more about the journey than the destination. Our search accomplished a few things:

1. I suppose the most obvious is that we got a new pastor. Not to ruin the suspense but the search did come to completion.

2. We got to know one another as a committee very well. When we began meeting last July, our normal custom was to meet on Wednesday evenings after choir practice and Bible study starting at 7:30. We tried to be done by 10:00, but most of the time we went to 10:30 or even 11:00. Out of the nine committee members, I knew about three of them well. The others I really didn’t know at all. But we know each other very well now! During these hours together we spent a great deal of time learning about each other, sometimes intentionally (through ice breakers), but mostly unintentionally as we discussed various issues facing the church. My hope is that this close fellowship will strengthen the church in the months and years ahead.

3. As a committee we learned a lot about our church. I heard stories from older members of the committee that predated my arrival at Lakeview. Since our meetings were always in confidence, there was a freedom about sharing the frustrations and joys we had experienced individually as they related to choices and decisions that the church leadership had made on previous occasions.

4. Personally I had my faith stretched on several occasions. My faith (like the rest of me) has as tendency to get a bit flabby when underused. This year as a whole has been challenging, but particularly the last few weeks. As the search come to a conclusion, there were numerous moving parts that our committee had to deal with.

5. I feel like we were sitting on the front row watching God at work. Many things occurred that demonstrated to the committee that God was working through this challenging process.

In the next few posts, I will detail the mechanics of the search and share our experiences (and our screw-ups!) during the process.

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Holiday Update

***Sorry about the delay of this post. I have been experiencing this Christmas Season more than reflecting on it. ***

On Christmas Adam

We had an exhilarating Sunday morning worship service at Lakeview. We read Scripture from throughout the bible relating to Christ (from Genesis 3 to Revelation 1) and then told the nativity story through the use of candles, with the various characters of the story (Mary, Joe, Jesus, Shepherds, Angels, and Wise Men) being represented by candles. As the Luke 2 and Matthew 2 texts were read, the candles corresponding to those characters would be lit. Then, except for the Jesus candle, each of the others were extinguished.

We then had the Lord's Supper. Three tables stood at the head of each section of pews and we came up family by family to take the Supper. It was a special time. Following the Lord's Supper, the deacons each lit a candle from the Jesus candle and lit the candle of the church members on the first row. They then lit the other member's candles until all the candles in the church were lit. We then had a benediction and departed while singing Silent Night. On the way out, Mrs. Emogene said to me (with a twinkle in her eye) "That's the most beautiful Christmas Service I've ever been a part of, and I'm seventy-two years old!"


On Christmas Eve

Since the kids were with Mom and Dad, my brothers and sister-in-law assembled at our house to cook and to set up the trampoline. It was a beautiful day to set it up, in the 50’s but bright and sunny. Kadie picked up the kids from their grandparents and we ended the evening by watching one of our favorite Christmas movies after the kids went to bed. In this picture, Bartolo and I practice levitating on the trampoline.

On Christmas morning

The kids got up and maintained a holding pattern until we had the video camera set up and running. Like last year, we used the Fischer-Price nativity scene to follow along with the Christmas story. Strangely (though appropriately perhaps) Joseph is now missing from the scene. The kids loved all their gifts, and demonstrated the crass commercial greed that has made kids wide-eyed for generations.

Their favorite gift was the trampoline. As they realized what it was, they shrieked with glee and Squealer stripped out of his footy-pajamas on the spot and went streaking as a naked flash through the house toward his room and his jumping clothes. Fortunately I got all this on tape and will embarrass him in front of future girlfriends in another decade or so.

They’ve loved the trampoline and the netting saved Squealer’s life about 5 times in the first 3 minutes he was on it getting double bounced by his big sisters.

On Christmas Day

My parents and in-laws, brothers and wife/girlfriend all came over for lunch. I am reminded yet again of the importance of family. The day ended with an empty house, all the kids worn out from jumping all day and Kadie and I resting on the couch with only the Christmas tree lights and the fire snapping in the fireplace. We related our bleswsings and went to bed. A perfect Christmas day if there ever was one.


Unto Us a Son is Given

The day after Christmas, the newest addition to our family was born. Kadie’s younger sister (known around here as PT Girl) gave birth to a baby boy Arthur. Although he’s three weeks early, Arthur is in excellent health. Kadie went over to spend the rest of the week with her in the hospital and only returned home today. Kadie was missed, but the kids survived.


Over the next few days I’ll post my favorite links (both mine and others) from the last year...
Happy Holidays to all!

The Mechanics of the Search: Gathering Resumes

***Please note that we developed these processes over a few months. My assumption is that we relied on God for guidance through all of this. So understand that when I say something like “We did this and this” I am assuming that the readers will understand that we actively sought out God’s direction before we engaged in any particular task.***



We contacted the two large SBC seminaries in the deep south (SWBTS and NOBTS) as well as the various state conventions surrounding our area. We received by far the most resumes from our local association and received numerous names from church members as well. In a few cases, we received resumes directly from pastors. And lastly we personally solicited some from individuals known by the committee.


Most helpful were the resumes passed on to us by our associational office. I spent a fair amount of time with our Director of Missions and found him to be very helpful throughout this process. Whenever he sent me a resume, I could contact him and request additional information (off the record) and he never failed to give me additional context for the candidate.

We didn’t receive that many names from church members, just a handful. We repeatedly encouraged the church members to submit names, another attempt to keep them involved in the process. We contacted each of the suggested names and received resumes from maybe 1/3 of them.


We also made contact with several ministers in the area that the various committee members personally knew and thought would be a good fit at Lakeview. In most cases, they believed that God was calling them to remain in their current position of ministry. A variation on this practice led us to our new pastor. I contacted a mentor who works in our state office and he knew of a strong candidate that he recommended to us.

We had a few pastors send their resumes directly to us and generally took a dim view of that practice. Pastoral resume etiquette indicates that you get a friend, or D.O.M. to submit the resume on your behalf, along with a cover letter of support.

One of the grossest violations of common resume etiquette (in my opinion) was an application we received from a pastor after we had contacted him as a reference on another candidate!! While he spoke to us about another candidate, he asked us a few questions about our church and then later decided to submit his own resume. I disagreed with this practice, though not all on the committee agreed. Some on the committee saw no problem with this behavior.

But they were wrong.

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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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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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Resignation

Tomorrow morning, the pastor of Lakeview Baptist (our home church) will resign to take a church in another part of our state. He’s had a fairly autocratic style and I am concerned about how the church will respond in his absence. My hope is that some of our really good leaders will step up to the plate and see this as an exciting opportunity for change.

I’m agitating for an intentional interim, but face an uphill battle. It is a new concept in this area (only two churches in our association have gone through it, one of them is Susan Song) and some of the congregation will want to move as rapidly as possible to find another pastor.

Complicating matters is that our by-laws state that a Pastor Search Committee must be formed within 60 days of the previous pastor’s resignation. That kind of time line is incompatible with the Intentional Interim ministry.

Please pray for us as you are able…

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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