The Contract

This is week three of the Long March in our household; similar in many ways, to its historical antecedent (except, you know, without all the communism). A couple of times a year, Kadie takes out a contract at her hospital and commits to work more often than normal.* Normally she works for two shifts a week which allows us to meet most of our financial goals at this point. But there’s little $$ extra for things like major household and vacations. One of the frustrating elements of my own job is that I cannot really pick up any extra work. (Unless I moonlight at Chili's).

So during such times, Kadie bites the bullet and signs a contract in which she guarantees that she’ll work 40 hour weeks for the specified duration. Most of the time, these contracts are 6 weeks in length, but these are great days to be a Registered Nurse. Hospitals are desperate for their services and are grateful for any hourly scraps that nurses can provide. So Kadie has signed up for a four week stint.

So that explains the “Why?” but not the “How?” Whenever she signs one of these contracts, our household goes into lock down mode for the duration. Adding to the difficulty of these days is that fact that with this particular contract, she’s working the 11 pm to 7 am shift. So on a good day, she arrives just after the morning rush to get the kids off and goes straight to bed. She then sleeps until the kids start to get home at three, giving her a nice 7 hours of sleep.


Only it never works that way. First, in most instances, a busy night has pushed her morning arrival as late as 10:30 am. Then there are those mornings when there is street construction going on outside the house. We’ve also experienced multiple visits from assorted judges and representatives in the days leading up to the recent election who were out “courtin the electorit”. Lack of maternal sleep leads to increased tension for all.


But enough about her. These contracts are tough on the rest of the family. The kids (and the husband) have to be a little more self motivated than normal. Mornings are particularly eventful. Scooter wakes up Squealer at 6:00 and prepares him breakfast while I hit the shower. Then I fix his lunch while she fixes her own. At 6:40 we wake up Skeeter. Then we get dressed and three of us hit the door to get to Squealer and Scooter’s bus stops. I then return to make sure Skeeter is progressing well. At 7:30 she hops on her bike and I leave for work. I drive by her crosswalk to make sure the guard is there and then head for my own school.


The evenings are filled with homework and house cleaning. I try to pick up the slack because Kadie only has a limited amount of time with the kids. We’ll all be glad when the end of the week hits and her contract ends.

*I’m well aware that the phrase “taking out a contract” has a Mafioso connotation. I’m sure that this is intentional. In my experience, with both a hospital contract and a mobster contract there is a high probability that someone will die during its duration.

Cross Posting

No time for a full blown post at the moment. I do note two cross posts.

First, David Rogers continues to take a ball-ping hammer to my fragile views on ecclesiology in an excellent SBC Impact post.

In addition, a good friend of mine from seminary stole referenced the blog post “Deep Waters Ahead” in a sermon this last Sunday. He tells the story here.

True feelings

This morning, Squealer wandered through the house shouting my name. When he finally found me he said “Daddy, Scooter called me weird!” Now weird is one of those nebulous words that is highly discouraged, but not actually forbidden in our house. Still, it’s unusual for Scooter to use that term with her brother. But clearly it was a situation that I had to address.

When I went into the living room I found Scooter sitting on the couch reading a book. I said “Scooter, did you really call Squealer weird?”

Without raising an eye she shrugged and said “Somebody had to finally let him know.”

Guest Post

In the range of mountains that form the tectonic presence of the Southern Baptist Convention on the internet, the Mount Everest of publications is a site known as SBC Impact!. Judging from today’s lead article, their editorial screening process needs some serious revision.

Deep Waters Ahead

Over the last few weeks, I’ve shared some special moments with my kids. With the small perspective that being a parent for 13 years provides, I know that these moments are fleeting. The brevity of childhood hit me years ago, the first afternoon I arrived home from work and Scooter didn’t meet me at the door with a shrieking “Daddy’s Home!!!!”

What I’ve long known in the abstract I’ve now witnessed in the concrete: kids grow up. Even worse, my kids grow up. So over the course of the last month, I’ve had three experiences that I know won’t last much longer. I feel like I’m walking from the shallow end of my kid’s childhood to the deep end of the pool where teen years and adulthood lie in wait. My toes can still touch the bottom, but not for much longer.

We’ve recently wrapped up soccer for the second season and the kids all loved it. But unlike last year, Squealer seemed to finally get the point of the game this year. He scored his first goal in his first game. A writhing, amazing shot as he fell down under a heap of defenders. As he scored the goal, simultaneously falling face first to the ground, he laid on his stomach with one fist raised victoriously in the air. His eyes met mine and he scrambled up and sprinted toward me on the sideline and gave me an enormous hug. Thus it started a trend. Whenever he scored a goal this season (a not uncommon occurrence, given his mother’s athletic abilities) he sprinted toward the sidelines and hugged me. It made me hope for high scoring games.

Skeeter recently, out of the blue, asked me a question I hadn’t heard in years “Daddy, can you rock me tonight?” And so, for the first time in a good two or three years, she crawled up into my lap (much smaller now than it used to be) and we rocked, although her feet were practically touching the ground. He face was in the crook of my arm as we sang and talked and pretty soon I felt moisture on my arm. Realizing she was crying, I asked her what was wrong. She said “I don’t want to go away to college. I want to stay here with you and Mom.” So of course, not only was my arm wet, but soon her hair as well. I don’t know how many more times I’ll get to rock her, but such moments too are disappearing. And of course, when the day comes for her to leave for college, I’ll be the one wishing she could stay while she’ll be the one looking forward to new adventures.

Scooter is the biggest and the oldest, neither hugging Dad in public nor rocking with him in private. But she still gets happy when I’m able to stop by her school for lunch. She likes it when I sit with her and her friends at the lunch table and they explain to me again all of the intricacies of early teen life. She rolls her eyes at my corny jokes and turns beet red in front of her friends when I display my attempts at cool lingo “Between us, let’s keep it on the ‘LD” or “That new group is really on the chain!” But her face lights up whenever I get the chance to come by and she gives me a quick peck on the cheek goodbye when her friends are safely around the corner.

But I can see changes coming. Squealer will one day celebrate goals with high fives instead of hugs and Skeeter will ask me for gas money instead of time in the rocking chair. Scooter will beg me to take her off campus to lunch instead of eating around her friends. But I’ll treasure these moments and I’ll miss them at the same time.

My feet can still touch the bottom, but not for much longer.

A Pastor Search Committee Observed

I wanted to consolidate all of the PSC posts in one spot in order to impose order on my chaotic posting schedule. Here are the posts for the Pastor Search Committee experience at Lakeview Baptist Church. Once again, I’m certainly not indicating that this is the best way to conduct a search. My desire is simply to illustrate for other committees, or for pastors going through the process, what one search looked like. We dealt with a variety of problems and didn't always make the best of decisions. But it is my hope that others will find our experience valuable and will offer observations, suggestions, or rebukes to our conclusions.

1. Joining the Committee

2. Committee Composition

3. Chairing the Committee

4. Is Unanimity Necessary?

5. Determining the PSC Process

6. PSC as Ministry

7. Initial Contact Questions

8. PSC Covenant

9. PSC Etiquette?

10. War and wiring

11. Update

12. The Macro View

13. Gathering Resumes

14. Initial Contact

15. Checking References

16. Mealtime Interview

17. Meeting the Candidate

18. A Second Meeting and Shocking News

19. David’s Resignation

20. Resignation Aftermath

21. Visiting the Candidate’s Home Church

22. Visiting the Candidate’s Home Church (II)

23. Pastor Search Committee Interview Questions

24. The Theological Interview

25. The Theological Interview (II)

26. Background Checks and Insider Candidates

27. More on Credit Checks

28. The Announcement

29. The Phone Call

30. Phone Calls and Fire Fighting

31. Preparing for the Candidate’s First Sunday

32. In View of a Call

33. Setting a Pastor’s Salary

34. The Business Meeting

35. The Vote

36. The Installation Service

37. Loose Ends

38. Pastor Support Committee

How Would Jesus Vote?: A Review

Politics and religion tend to form a witches brew of toxic commentary, often bringing out the worst from both fields. But as a devoted Christian, you may wonder “How would Jesus vote on the issues in this year’s elections? I’m glad you asked.

The 2008 election is shaping up to be one of the most important political contests in American history. In fact, Dr. D. James Kennedy believes it will be a watershed moment that could impact our very survival as a nation under God.

Values voters—people whose political views and votes are based on their faith in God—are being targeted as never before. As the campaign season moves forward, the significant players will debate terrorism, radical Islam, nuclear threats, global warming, social issues, gay marriage, immigration, education, health care, and many other essential issues that can create sharp ideological divisions.

Into this overwhelmingly complex political situation, Dr. Kennedy and Jerry Newcombe bring an application of what God’s Word has to say on these critical matters. How Would Jesus Vote? isn’t intended to tell readers which candidates to support, in fact it mentions no specific political figures. But the way it evaluates issues let’s people know precisely where the author’s stand.
And so Kennedy offers straightforward views on a variety of issues and how Jesus would vote.

Briefly, Jesus would vote as follows:
Abortion: Jesus is Prolife
Death Penalty: Jesus supports the Death Penalty
Warfare: Jesus would (on occasion) support a Just War
Education: Jesus supports prayer in schools, and would oppose taxes on parents whose kids go to private schools.
Economics: Jesus supports private property, would be opposed to governmental welfare programs
Healthcare: Jesus would favor care for the uninsured, but would not support eh government mandating a universal health care policy.
Environment: Jesus loves the environment, but would spend money on sewage plants, increased sanitation, and clean water for the poor of the world, rather than cap and trade emissions policies
Immigration: Jesus would oppose racism in all forms, vote for enforcement of immigration laws, but also respect and care for the strangers among us
Marriage: Jesus favors heterosexual marriage. He would oppose same-sex marriage, pornography, and no-fault divorce
Judges: Kennedy doesn’t promise that Jesus opposes judicial activism, but does remind judges that they too will be judged by God for their actions.

There is a final section of a collection of thoughts on religious liberty and the dangers of political compromise.

Some thoughts:

Kennedy helpfully offers some biblical perspectives on these issues. None of his conclusions are without problems however. Which leads me to my concerns about this book.

The primary problem I have with Kennedy’s work is not only its self-confidence in declaring Jesus’ position on numerous political issues, but how unfailingly they fall along the traditional Republican perspective. Repackage this book and you could have the Republican platform in place. Putting the Divine imprimatur on our political perspectives cheapens our faith. When the kingdom of God conforms itself to the political instincts of Man, we trade silver and gold for straw and chaff.

Second, there is a tension in this work on the relationship between the church and state. Although he works hard to insist that church and state be separate, Kennedy admires such reformers as Calvin (p. 42) who as a magisterial reformer, operated in the context of a theocratic state in Geneva. But on the other hand (when arguing that the individual, not the government needs to be accommodating to immigrants) wrote “We should make sure that we distinguish between personal ethics and national policy.” (159) So which is it?

Finally, I would suspect that Jesus would have a perspective both more radical and more conservative than our own. I agree, for instance, that Jesus would be pro-life in his outlook. But I suspect he would travel with those who oppose abortion, but also those who oppose the death penalty and war. Jesus might vote for candidates who are radically egalitarian, to the point that they not only reach out to the poor, but move into low income neighborhoods and live incarnationally with the poor and downtrodden, instead of visiting them for a short term mission trip.

The church has much work to do.

The more election cycles I live through, the more I see that the government will continue to be ineffective. That is the main reason for my passion for the church. It is up to the church, not to the government, to reach the dispossessed who have fallen through the cracks of society. But the government makes for a poor tool in the hands of the church.

Kennedy offers little help in that direction.

W: A Review

W is an entertaining movie, but not a good one. It is entertaining in the same sense that a Will Ferrell DVD of SNL’s greatest Bush skits would be. Humorous, funny, and lacking any coherent plot.

The film is about the run up to the war in Iraq and the “debate” going on in the Bush White House. I put debate in quotation marks because it’s quite clear from the outset what the result will be. The president has already made up his mind. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, et al are each manipulating him toward a predetermined outcome. Only brave Powell opposes their plans, but his opposition is quickly overcome as he is portrayed as brave, if overly loyal footsoldier. Vice-President Cheney in particular is remarkable (Richard Dreyfus in an Oscar caliber performance). Cheney is the driving force behind the invasion plans and gives a powerful speech in favor of world domination to the assembled group of advisors. But his speech is so diabolical that it seemed more appropriate to a Bond (or Austin Powers) enemy. All he needed was, as one critic noted, a cat to stroke.

Throughout the film there are flashbacks (and at times flashbacks within flashbacks) about Bush’s life. The one recurring motivation for Bush in the film is that he is constantly trying to overcome his father (played by James Cromwell in an excellent performance) and to demonstrate his superiority. From his frat boy days at Yale to (literally) fighting with his father in the Oval Office, he’s constantly up against Bush 41. Poppa Bush opposes W at every turn. He dismisses Junior when he wants to run for governor of Texas, when he wants to run for president, and in one of the final scenes merely shakes his head at his son’s decisions in the Middle East.

But the central focus on the film is always Bush the Younger. Many of Bush’s infamous malapropisms (misunderestimated, “Fool me once, shame on you” etc) are here, though not in the context in which they were originally uttered. Although the common anti-Bush tropes are covered in “W” (Bush was motivated by competition with his father: check, God told Bush to run for president: check, the US invaded Iraq for oil: check), Stone eases up on the most left-leaning criticism of Bush. Some of his opponents have claimed that he deliberately used imaginary WMD weapons as the causus belli for the Iraq war (with the brief “Bush lied, people died” mantra). But Stone does not endorse this view and instead "credits" incompetence instead of malevolence. George Tenet (CIA director) summarizes the mistake by simply saying "We were wrong when we thought there were WMDs."

Ultimately, the problem with W is not that Stone aims too high, but too low. By portraying Bush as a self-confident dunce, he gives no insight into Bush the man. He provides no understanding on some basic questions that the narrative suggests: What did a demure wall flower like Laura see in him? Other than affecting his alcohol consumption, how did Bush’s religious conversion change him? And the ultimate question of course: How did someone so stupid end up as a President?

In the end, W is a failure as a narrative film. It is a disorganized mess with neither a coherent plot nor structure.

And yes, I recognize that that description is exactly what many critics apply to Bush’s eight years in office.

Pastor Support Committee

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

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

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

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

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

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

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).

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

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.

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

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…”

(Back to main Pastor Search Committee Menu)

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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