6. Don’t go too fast. People grow very attached to the pulpit minister. They see him as a pastor, counselor, spiritual leader, guru, father figure, best friend … all sorts of ways. Having him leave their lives will be traumatic for many. It takes time to mourn the loss and to be ready to give the new guy a fair shake.
Don’t go too fast. Remember, the elders have likely known about the minister’s departure longer than the congregation. They’ve had more time to get used to the idea. The church will have had less time to acclimate to the change.
Even if you have the perfect candidate ready to replace the former minister, if you bring him in too soon, the church will identify him with the departure of the old minister, perhaps even blaming him — consciously or unconsciously. Wait four to six months before bringing in the next guy.
7. Most ministerial candidates already have a job. Most ministers have families and mortgages. They may be interesting in relocating, but most will not quit and then look. Rather, they’ll look and notify their eldership when and if they decide to leave.
Therefore, if you try to have the three best candidates preach consecutive Sundays, well, it’s just not going to happen. A candidate with a job is not going to preach a try-out sermon until the eldership is ready to hire him subject only to a favorable try out. Otherwise, he risks being fired by his old church or alienating his congregation with no assurance of having a new job.
There are a few preachers who will quit and then look for a job. There will be some who were fired, placed on severance, and therefore free to try out. Of course, a preacher coming straight out of college will not have a job. But most others will have a job and will not put their families at risk until they’re confident they want to be hired by the new church and the new church is likely to want to hire them.
As a result, regardless of what the elders or deacons or congregation or search committee want, you’ll almost certainly only be able to be serious with one candidate at a time.
8. A preacher search is like dating. I prepare employment contracts for executives, and the executive employment world is very, very different from what church members experience. An executive will not move to a new town and take a new job unless he is very confident that the arrangement will work out. After all, if it doesn’t, he’ll have moved his family to a new town, sold his house, left behind friends, and be stuck in a town where there’s only one job that suits him — and it didn’t work out.
Just so, a preaching minister isn’t going to commit to your church because of the pretty brochure and attractive lobby. He won’t be sold by the deacons or the search committee. Rather, his biggest concern will be the elders. He’ll want to get along very well with them.
He can likely survive anything but a bad relationship with the elders. Therefore, he’ll want to spend hours interviewing and being interviewed by the elders. It’s like dating, because hiring a preacher is like getting married — and losing a minister is like a divorce.
A preacher hire is a long-term commitment, entered into with great expectations, even romanticized expectations. And when it doesn’t work out, it’s devastating just as a divorce is devastating.
And just as young people today are slow to marry for fear of suffering a divorce, preachers are slow to agree to be hired, for fear that it won’t work out.
They’ll want to talk to the other ministers on staff, if any, at length. They’ll ask the staff about their elders — in detail. They’ll talk to former ministers. They check out the elders’ reputation among denominational leaders (more on them later). They’ll do their homework.
If the elders approach a hire arrogantly (“Aren’t you happy to have been considered by us?”) or if they show a lack of concern for the staff, the search process will fail. If the staff speaks poorly of the elders, they’ll have a problem hiring a new minister.
9. Finding candidates. It’s fine to run ads in Church of Christ periodicals and all that, but most hires will be by word of mouth.
There are basically four places to find a candidate —
* There are websites where churches looking to hire and preachers looking to be hired can post their names. But most candidates have a job, and they won’t post their availability in a public place. Nonetheless, the church can post at these sites. Just beware that you’re likely to receive a lot of résumés.
* There are professors at the Church of Christ universities who serve as informal job brokers. Call the universities that are theologically compatible with you and talk to the head of the Bible department. Ask him who at the university keeps up with ministers looking for a position. It may be him or someone he’s assigned the task to.
Be honest about who you’re looking for and what happened to the last guy. They’ll have heard rumors (it’s a very small denomination). Be absolutely straightforward.
* There are preachers who are centers of informal preacher networks, that is, who speak at lectureships, hire many associate ministers who go on to be pulpit ministers, and are just well connected with the progressive ministers in their part of the world. Ask around.
* Word of mouth. It’s likely that every progressive minister in the Churches of Christ is only one or two relationships removed from someone in your church. Encourage your members and ministers to put forward names they recommend. (There may be seven degrees of Kevin Bacon but only about two degrees of a Church of Christ preacher.)
Many of these men won’t be looking for a job or won’t be what you’re looking for, but you just might find the perfect candidate this way. There’s nothing like having a personal relationship with a member who can recommend your church to a candidate.
I believe Churches of Christ often suffer from not using interim ministers with the result tragically being that too often the new minister becomes an unintentional interim. The toll on ministers and their families when that happens is immense and often accelerates their exodus from ministry and sometimes from Churches of Christ. The rule of thumb of one month of interim ministry for each year of the previous minister’s tenure is probably about right although it might need to be shortened a little when the previous minister had an exceptionally long ministry.
It has been my experience that at least some of the most important questions are never asked of a preacher candidate. Churches are more interested in what a guy knows, where he’s been, and how well he communicates than the far more weighty matter of his personal discipleship. I blogged about this here. (http://gracedigest.com/2010/04/27/questions-churches-should-ask-when-hiring-a-preacher-but-dont/) I’ve seen a lot of preachers come and go in my half century of being a Christian. In my view churches often do not have the right priorities. And, I have seen very good men hire someone who was a good orator, funny, and the people liked him, but he was a spiritual dwarf, and in time, his true colors started to show and there was an ugly separation.
The Bible standard for those who serve widows requires men full of the Holy Spirit. Should those who served up the Word of God be less?
Royce wrote,
Thanks for that.
We should ask ministers to tell their stories, that is, how they came to know Jesus. And we should ask about their personal walk with Jesus — to indirectly ask about their prayer lives, spiritual disciplines, etc.
Ultimately, just as is true of elders, we’re should be looking for someone who can say, along with Paul,
(Phi 3:17 ESV) 17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.
Gary wrote,
I’d not heard that one, but it’s probably not far off the mark. It’s an interesting coincidence that the rule is the same rule my employment law partners recommend for severance pay for an executive or professional — one month per year of service, capped at 6 months.
There is also the question about how well he can relate to other people, those within and outside the congregation. All the knowledge of the Bible is not going to matter if he/she does not understand human nature and human behavior.
Jay, I haven’t logged on your website for awhile so you may have already discussed this but I’d be interested in your search criteria. That is, what was important and what wasn’t. I realize that information might be classified but I just thought I’d ask.
Royce raises an important matter but I’m not sure how discipleship and spiritual maturity can be guaged by a search committee or church except perhaps through consultation with those who know the candidate well. There are few enticements today to lure the insincere into ministry. Pay may be increasing in large congregations but we really don’t have many of them. I don’t think the average attendance in Churches of Christ in America has ever risen above 100. Harold Hazelip cited an average attendance in the 80’s or 90’s many years ago and it is probably lower today. I have known many ministers and all of them seemed sincere in wanting to serve God and their brothers and sisters in Christ in a local church. Each one brought a unique set of strengths and challenges to ministry. I’m afraid an over emphasis on trying to determine how spiritually mature and commited a ministry candidate is will simply advantage those who are the most comfortable in promoting themselves. I briefly was in contact many years ago with a parachurch ministry about working with them. The President of it earnestly described the man they were looking for in a long spill that seemed to incorporate the manifestations of the fruit of the Spirit and the Boy Scout oath. He then asked me if I were that man. I replied honestly that if I said I was I would have a tremendous problem of pride. I could tell he ruled me out from that moment on but I sure didn’t want to go forward on such an unrealistic basis. Unless there are red flags that come up we have to give ministers the freedom to grow and mature at their own rate. The journey is at least as important as the end result.
Doug,
That’s a good question. There is, of course, a long list of qualifications that all congregations would want to see: strong family life, strong prayer life, a history of doing good ministry, capable preacher, etc., etc. The hard part is deciding what this church needs in particular.
We are a large congregation with a large staff. That means we needed (and found) a preacher who can capably lead the staff. And he has to be a team player.
In many smaller churches, the preacher might be the only minister. But where you have a heavily involved eldership and several other ministers, the preacher has to be able to work as a team member.
We’ve adopted what we call a cross-generational vision, meaning that we don’t want age-group ministries siloed — a business term meaning that we don’t want the youth minister to pastor a sub-congregation that works separately from the rest of the church. We think teens should often (not always) be with and see adults doing ministry for others (as opposed to seeing themselves as the central objects of ministry).
This requires breaking a lot of bad habits and a lot of coaching/mentoring — a willingness to hold the staff (and even the elders) accountable, adhering to the vision we believe God has given us.
There’s a lot more, but that should give a sense of what is unique to a church of around 500 members. And I wouldn’t begin to suggest that this should be true of all similarly sized congregations. Needs differ, and so God equips ministers differently.
Gary wrote,
As I recall, Flavil Yeakley has recently concluded that the average size of a CoC congregation is around 75. I doubt that this number is falling. Rather, I suspect that the experts are doing a better job of measuring now that communications are so much easier.
I’ve seen it both ways. I mean, I’ve been fooled. One thing I’ve learned is that there is no substitute for spending a lot of time together. We typically had 8 or more hours of interviews with ministers that we were seriously interested in — at least half in person. Sometimes it was quite a bit more.
That’s sound grueling, but it was in fact a lot of fun. We were fortunate to spend hours with some spiritual giants discussing our congregation, the Kingdom, and God’s vision for his church. (And we made a point to eat well. Good food helps.)
It wasn’t a cross-examination but a free-flowing dialogue, comparing stories and experiences. It probably wasn’t very scientific, and might horrify a professional HR person, but there’s something about talking about Jesus until 11 at night that helps you understand a minister’s heart — and helps him understand the elders’ hearts.
A question for the group:
How much weight should a search committee place on an M.Div. or other advanced degree? A lot of young ministers are borrowing a lot of money and investing a lot of time to earn M.Divs. But how much does it matter in terms of a hiring decision?
I’ve heard of churches requiring an M.Div. to even consider a candidate. Is that wise? Would be wise for a large enough church?
A lot of large churches now are wanting ministers with doctorates or encouraging them to go back and get one. What a church might do as well is take a student who just finished his or her bachelors degree and agree to pay for the M.Div. in exchange for five or 10 years work with that congregation. This would work if in 8 to 10 years time the senior minister were going to want to retire. The business world would call this succession planning. This has worked with physicians in the past.
I really feel conflicted about the M.Div. question. I value education highly and think the M.Div. is a great degree. Churches of Christ are one of the few fellowships to not require it as a basic educational standard for ministers. Our colleges and universities have often been the catalysts for progressive thought among us (but also with some notable exceptions over the years!). On the other hand, Churches of Christ seem to have been served well by a more flexible and eclectic approach to what qualifies a minister for ministry. I guess for me it comes down to what fits the situation of each local church best. I was once a member of a Church of Christ with many highly educated people in it. In my small group every man had either an academic or professional doctorate. It made good sense there to require the M.Div. but I’m not sure that the M.Div. is a one size that fits all congregations well. The first congregation that I remember among us that put in their ad that a M.Div. was required was the Connecticut church close to Yale where Abraham Malherbe was an elder and a professor at Yale Divinity School.
There is a catch-22 in getting a handle on a preacher’s spiritual walk. The people most likely to really know are probably in his church. But if he has to keep his job search hidden from his elders, an honest inquiry could blow his cover. After all, this man is supposed to be “called of God” to the congregation he has now. This reflects a very ineffective attempt to obscure the larger issue: the preacher, with few exceptions, is a hireling. He’s an employee, if one in a executive role. When he is successful in a smaller congregation, he gets a shot at a bigger one, and he generally takes it. Congregations try to outbid each other for his professional services. That bigger/more money/more impact ladder is how we measure success, and part of what we look for in a candidate. It’s time for everyone involved to ‘fess up and deal with this honestly. It is really little different than any professional firm hiring a new professional employee. And admitting it can only help.
Why should being on the lookout for a better job be a reason for a professional to be fired? In the real world, the idea that Joe is capable of getting a better job at a bigger firm generally motivates the current firm to work hard to keep him, not fire him for disloyalty. The professional might give them a ‘hometown discount’, but the smaller firm knows they are just a lower rung on the ladder and they establish their expectations accordingly.
Churches hire preachers for the same reasons everyone else does; to meet their own needs. They recruit rainmakers, or maintainers, or transitional managers, or team builders, or operations execs, or public faces– or surrogate elders. They ultimately hire people who “fit” the personal comfort level of the decision-makers, and the candidates all know this. The effective candidate gets a read on the wants of the decision-makers and tailors his presentation to fit, as much as honesty and reasonableness will allow. Just like any other middle-management candidate.
This is not to say that preachers are solely in this for the bigger gig. Some really feel called where they are. But most look for opportunities to exercise their ministry in bigger and nicer and more affluent surroundings. After all, they are professional people working in the religion industry. Why should we think them unlike accountants or anesthetists or salesmen? How many ministers of 500+ suburban churches leave voluntarily to serve a poor congregation across the tracks in that same city? And if a preacher did this, would it not create more suspicion than admiration among potential employers?
There is a pretty good gap between the public picture of the minister and the professional reality. He’s a bit more like your family doctor, who sees you and sincerely cares about you, and may develop a personal relationship with you. But he will refer you to another good doctor the day he gets a another professional opportunity which pays more or which suits him or his family better. The main difference with the preacher is that since he cannot usually grow his income in situ, he has to move from city to city to advance in his profession. He is not a shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, he’s a top-notch service provider who serves his customers well and faithfully as long as that employment works well for him. We should appreciate him for that, and be satisfied.
Charles, agreement comes to us two very seldom, but it has arrived in this situation. More preachers are called by George Washington, Abe Lincoln, and Ben Franklin than God these days. We used to call it greed, self aggrandizement, searching for that rainbow, now we call it expertize. some of these preachers have no use for “God’s Church” they have one of their own.
The cynicism about preachers in some comments is sad and unjustified. Churches of Christ tend to be hard on our ministers. No wonder so many leave ministry by middle age. Many ministers become punching bags for some members unresolved issues.