Choosing a Pastor

When a pastor leaves a church, members may be grieved, angry, or even relieved.  Churches that make a successful transition begin by saying a good "farewell."  But then they must find a replacement.

Selecting a pastor is probably the most important decision a congregation can make.  It can yield a united, flourishing congregation, a pastor who enjoys his or her work, and valuable outreach.  Or it can produce a fractured congregation, a pastor who poorly matches the needs and character of the congregation, and a church that neither grows nor conducts an effective mission.  People experienced in pastor selection typically offer this advice:

The selection process typically has five stages: preparation, appointment of a search committee, deliberations, identification of candidates, and final selection.  Let's examine each stage and see how to carry out this advice.  While prayer won't be discussed below, it's essential in every step.

Preparation

Most churches have statements of core values ("what's most important to us"), mission, and vision.  The CRC Pastor-Church Relations Office asks the church to submit these and some statistics (the "church profile") so that it can prepare a list of candidates for the position; the search committee will need these documents as well.  If the statements are not current, the council needs either to update them or appoint a planning task force.  The congregation should also affirm previous statements or approve new ones.  If the church has unresolved conflicts, this is a good time to invite a church mediator.  Members often grow impatient with preparation, but a church that can articulate its current values, beliefs, and mission and can resolve conflicts is more likely to have a successful search than a church that skips this step.

The search committee

Search committees have two main tasks: (1) developing a profile of the person being sought and (2) finding a person who fits the profile.  In appointing one, the council must balance two factors.  On one hand, large committees are cumbersome and often ineffective.  On the other, all constituencies in the church significantly affected by the selection should be represented.  A typical compromise is 5-7 people.  Since the committee is accountable to the council, council should write a mandate including a budget and any special instructions.

Who should be appointed?  A search committee must weigh the needs and concerns of all affected members.  Thus if the search is for a senior pastor, the committee should include a cross section from elderly to youth, male and female.  If it's for a youth pastor, the young people and their leaders should be included; the church may also appoint a separate youth committee to advise the search committee.  Church staff should be represented, perhaps in an ex officio position.  A church staff is most effective when it functions as a cohesive team; without their input, the church may hire a staff that's not a team.

Although it takes more time, the goal of search committee decision-making should be consensus, not majority rule.  Majority voting may be fine for politics, but it's usually inappropriate for churches – simple majority votes often leave the legitimate concerns of losers unaddressed.  The chair needs to be someone who can facilitate consensus, manage paperwork, present clear reports to the congregation, and honor deadlines while being flexible enough to adjust them.  The chair should also review fair hiring practices with the committee.[1]   Typically, search committees appoint a secretary who can keep track of documents, write bulletin announcements, manage correspondence, and work effectively with the chair.

Deliberations

In one church, the search committee members arrived for their first meeting.  The chair distributed stacks of resumes and said, "This will be a short meeting.  Read these and we'll discuss them next week."  Then they all went home.  This chair short-circuited the most important part of the committee's work - developing a profile of the pastor-to-be.

A good candidate profile emerges when the committee applies the church's profile to these questions:

If we start by writing a job description, we tend to do the same things we have done before, even if they no longer serve us well.  If we start with resumes, we only consider alternatives others have set before us.  But looking at values and needs will often create new alternatives we would have otherwise overlooked.  Some call this approach "value-focused thinking."  For instance, a large church had a vacancy for an associate pastor.  It discovered that it valued and needed a person with administrative gifts more than another pastor with preaching gifts.  A small church with a substantial elderly membership found that it needed a person gifted in visitation.

Once the committee agrees on the relevant values and needs, it can write the profile.  Assessing resumes will be easier if the profile is expressed as a list of attributes.  For instance, it might include "Thoughtful, articulate preacher," "Knowledgeable about social justice issues in our neighborhood," or "Able to connect well with our young people."  Before proceeding, though, the committee must present the profile to the council and congregation - if the congregation disagrees, it's essential to resolve this before looking at candidates.  Also, the committee needs the confidence and encouragement that comes from having the congregation's support.  Gaining agreement on the profile may take time, but rushing ahead without it may yield major problems later.

Recommending a candidate

Once the profile is agreed upon, a job description can be written and circulated.  The Pastor-Church Relations Office will suggest some candidates.  Former members who have moved away, current church members, and pastors can be invited to submit names and brief descriptions.  The position can also be advertised in denominational publications and other places.  The search committee should include a deadline for submission of resumes in its announcements.

This process can generate a lot of resumes!  If so, members may divide up the resumes and suggest leading candidates for everyone to consider; at least two people should read every resume so no leading candidates are missed. Members typically read resumes privately, rate candidates on each attribute in the profile, then meet and discuss their evaluations.  A rating scale that uses words like "excellent," "very good,"  "good," "fair," and "poor" is easy to use. [2]

Some candidates will be quickly eliminated, some will please everyone, and some will be perceived very differently!  If the committee talks through these differences, it will sharpen its focus and be less likely to miss viable candidates.  Furthermore, when looking at real people, gifts that didn't seem important may take on new value and needs may surface that were overlooked earlier.  The profile can be modified as long as the committee is confident that the congregation would accept the change.

Once the committee agrees on the viable candidates, interviews can begin.  Many churches select six or more candidates, begin with phone interviews, and proceed to in-person interviews after narrowing the field.  Candidates who are eliminated should be notified immediately.  All of the candidates' references should be thoroughly checked.  When interviewing, give a candidate a chance to speak freely about his or her vision, aspirations, experiences, and gifts.  But also have some questions to ask every candidate that cover all aspects of the profile.  One helpful approach is asking about previous ministerial experiences; for example, "Tell us about a time you felt your ministry with young people was especially effective," and "Why was it so effective that time?"  Another approach would describe situations in the congregation and ask how the candidate has dealt with similar ones.  A third approach sets up a choice between two good qualities, for example, "On the spectrum between an organized, detail person and a visionary who delegates details to others, where would you place yourself?"

After the interviews are complete, CRC churches traditionally present two or even three candidates to the congregation.  However, this is often divisive.  For example, one search committee submitted three very different candidates without clear criteria for evaluating them.  Congregational members formed factions in support of each candidate.  The election produced a badly divided church and the selected candidate resigned within a year.  It is usually better for the search committee to identify one candidate that best fits the profile and present that candidate to the congregation.  Since most calls are refused, it should pick a second and perhaps third choice.

The committee may be unable to agree on a single candidate.  Typically this happens because committee members have differing perspectives on what's important and what the church needs.  It's tempting to either decide by majority vote or leave the decision to the congregation.  However, both approaches leave all the underlying conflicts unresolved.  Rather, the committee should present the differences to the council and ask it to resolve the problem by clarifying the values, needs, and mission of the church.  This may take considerable time, but the conflict needs to be resolved before the church is in a position to call a pastor.

Final selection

If the groundwork has been laid well by the search committee, final selection should be easy.  The candidate typically preaches a sermon and meets with the congregation.  Members should have adequate time to discuss the candidacy, hear the search committee's report in detail, and ask questions.  Perfect consensus is rarely achieved, though.  One popular rule-of-thumb is that if 90% of the members are ready to vote, it's time to stop discussion.  An incoming pastor needs broad support in the congregation and the members need to feel united.  Thus the council should require a supermajority for approval - perhaps 2/3, 3/4, or more.  If the support for calling the pastor is weaker than this, the congregation should not proceed.  Rather it's time to engage in some serious conversation together.

If, however, the candidate is approved, the congregation should have a pastor that matches its values, is qualified to meet its needs, and enjoys the broad support of the congregation.