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
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