Calling a pastor

[Salty]

There is another thread about this general subject - but I did not want to hijack.

It was stated that a Senior pastor should have a Timothy ready to take over.
The example given was that the current pastor had been the assist for 15 years.
Well, Suppose that man in question - after 14 years decided to become a senior pastor
at another church - thus leaving the senior pastor with no assistant. And lets assume that
Senior pastor was planing on retiring the following year - so at this point - there is no "Timothey" being groomed to assume the senior position.

The poster also said it was a bad decision to take a year to find a replacement.
I have heard that a church should have a period of one month per year that the last pastor was was in the pulpit, prior to finding a permanent new pastor. Thus - in that case - the church should have waited about 15 months. ( intentional intern pastor)

 

[annsni]

Maybe if possible, have more than one Timothy and keep a close bond with the Timothies and know what they are thinking. In our church we have had our senior pastor for almost 40 years but he just recently stepped down to become Pastor Emeritus and our senior associate pastor stepped up. He sees himself as an "interim" and he is working with a number of men who could step up into the senior pastorate out of the rest of the pastoral staff. We also have a young man who just came on staff last year as the worship pastor and he's working towards his ordination soon and I really see him as being a potential for a senior pastor as well. He's a great young man with a heart for the Lord and for His people. I have loved the mentorship my husband has received and I think having men feeding into him has helped him to become a better pastor and child of God!

 

[TCassidy]

That is why I said, if possible, the church should have more than one Timothy waiting in the wings. And if only one, then the other churches of like faith and order in the area should be willing to contribute one of their Timothies.

In fact what you suggest happened to me. I was getting reading to retire and the young man who had been considered to be my successor left for another state. The second Timothy also left to plant a new church. The man who is now pastor was actually Timothy #3. And he is now Senior Pastor and is doing a great job.

Every church should have a motto. Our is "To know Him and make Him known." But I think the secondary motto we should steal from the Boy Scouts: "Be Prepared!"

 

[Rob_BW]

We just got a Timothy at our church. Some people were not happy with the expense, but the way I see it, our church has an obligation to be preparing the following generation, and what better way to do it than by "apprenticing" under our senior pastor. Our Timothy has impeccable academic training, so pastoring a flock alongside a more experienced pastor will seems like a natural progression.

If he stays with us or ends up elsewhere, that's of little concern to me, compared to preparing pastors in general.

 

[annsni]

My hubby and I have attended two churches in our married life. One was a Presbyterian church that we ended up leaving because of feeling that we were looking to try new things and the congregation was older and happy to go about how things had been going since 1924. So we went to our current church where my hubby eventually became a pastor. When we first started there, there was a young man who had come to know Christ in this church, went on to seminary and now was an associate pastor and then he left to start a few churches in a nearby state. Well, the Presbyterian church was recently without a pastor and they were looking for an interim pastor and we suggested the former associate pastor from our old church as he had just worked himself out of a job where he had last been and they brought him on!! It's been great to see our old friend again and if anyone can get this church going (they lost a LOT of people for being quite "stuck"), it's this guy. We are praying for him daily because this will not be an easy job but we hope that God can do the work with him and bring this church back to life again. The interesting thing? He's been there 2 months and he's searching for a Timothy - something that has never been done in that church before.

 

[Jerome]

If he stays with us or ends up elsewhere, that's of little concern to me, compared to preparing pastors in general.

Yes; such generosity is urged by Particular Baptist Charles Whitfield in The Form and Order of a Church of Christ (1775):

it is the duty of a church, who has two persons in her community qualified for this office, to part with one of them to them that have none, if the needy desire it , and ask for it.

 

[Johnf]

Having just gone through this I can tell you if a church takes a pastor search seriously, it's going to take nearly a year to get through the process. Our pastor resigned in January of last year, left in mid. February. By March 1 we had a pastor search committee in place. We advertised the position from the second week of march through May 1. We began narrowing the field in mid April, had it narrowed down to 25 men by the end of June and after background checks and references had it narrowed down to 8 by the end of July. From this point it took a lot longer because we had 8 very qualified men and we had to be very tedious, spend hours in prayer and fasting and meditation. When we got it narrowed down to 5 it took even longer and when we got it down to 2 even longer. The process from getting a search committee in place to calling a pastor took 9 months. This was a very smooth process, very spirit lead with our final candidate being a blind unanimous decision between the top two. We decided at the beginning that we would only call a man who we were all of like mind to call, so it was very nice that it worked out that way. I attribute that to the many hours we spent in prayer separate from the process side of the journey.

I could see how the process could easily take well over a year if things didn't go so smoothly.

In my "Letter to prospective pastors" thread some seemed to get hung up on the process because they weren't aware or couldn't accept the time outside the process that we spent in prayer. Without a process I could see how a serious well thought out search could go into years, and know several local churches that have been without a pastor for years and have changed the committee several times.

Without leadership there is no direction.

 

[Revmitchell]

I could see how the process could easily take well over a year if things didn't go so smoothly.

In my "Letter to prospective pastors" thread some seemed to get hung up on the process because they weren't aware or couldn't accept the time outside the process that we spent in prayer. Without a process I could see how a serious well thought out search could go into years, and know several local churches that have been without a pastor for years and have changed the committee several times.

Without leadership there is no direction.

Actually divorcing prayer from the process is the problem.

 

[Johnf]

We didn't.

 

[Revmitchell]

We didn't.

You said some people could not accept the time "outside the process" you spent in prayer. How is that not divorcing prayer from the process.

 

[Johnf]

You said some people could not accept the time "outside the process" you spent in prayer. How is that not divorcing prayer from the process.

I was talking about you. You seemed to ignore my comments about many hours of prayer and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and only focused on your disdain for havIng a process you didn't approved of.

 

[JonShaff]

I was talking about you. You seemed to ignore my comments about many hours of prayer and following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and only focused on your disdain for havIng a process you didn't approved of.

Rev Mitchell is pointing out that you are saying you, "have a process, " and then you also have, "prayer," as if they are mutually exclusive.

 

[Johnf]

Prayer is and was part of the process. Prayer guided the process.