Managing the Pastoral Search Process

Could your church begin the search process if your pastor announced today that he had accepted a call and would be leaving in three weeks? Could you manage the pastoral search process with the quality effort it deserves? These are only two of the many complicated questions which face over one hundred pastoral search teams at any given time. Too further complicate the process, the pool of available pastors is generally not large enough to satisfy the demand. What are search teams to do?     

The birth of this Web site and its related pastoral search team manual occurred in pastoral search team meetings. As we struggled with the process, we learned much about what we did not want to do and much about what we needed to do to be effective. We also found ourselves in an undefined process where we were on our own to define what we did, how we did it, and in what order we did it. Looking at the process with a critical thinking perspective convinced me of the need for such a tool. While written for managing a pastoral search, it can also serve any search team looking for second staff.

Churches of most denominations, as well as non-denominational churches, can benefit from the explanations and detail to the steps of managing the pastoral search process.

As you begin your search process and consider the task of finding the next pastor that God has for your congregation, reflect on this humorous paragraph that captures the multiple perspectives of how he is viewed by individuals in your congregation, and therefore, how difficult it is to find the “perfect” pastor.

The Perfect Preacher

He condemns sin, but never hurts anyone's feelings.

His sermons are “right on” for the other person, who really needs to hear that,
and never longer than 20 minutes.

He works from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p. m. in every kind of church task,
from preaching to janitor.

He makes $250.00 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, has a nice family,
drives a good car, and gives $75.00 a week to the church.

He smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor
that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work.

He makes 15 calls a day visiting church members, spends all his time
evangelizing the unchurched, and is never out of his office.

He has a burning desire to work with teenagers,
and spends all his time with older folks.

He and his family attend all church functions and smile,
while members pick and choose what they attend.

He leads the council and congregation with vision
and always lets the members have their way.

Author Unknown