Pastor Search Committee and resumes

[Jerome]

Do you not have a church constitution?

 

[Revmitchell]

Rev - Again, we're a small church. The Deacons do perform the duties outlined in scripture, but like I said, many of us have taken on multiple roles out of necessity. No one is complaining. We enjoy doing the work.

Men who are deacons may fill other roles but the pastor search committee should not be a function of the Deacon body. The size of the church is irrelevant.

 

[PreachTony]

Do you not have a church constitution?

I'm not sure if this is directed at me, Jerome, but I'll respond to it, if you don't mind...

We don't have a Constitution, per se, as the church was established in the 1820 and has moved a couple times since then, so any original paperwork is either lost or hidden away in someone's attic.

We do have a church decorum that outlines much of what we do concerning the order in which it is done. We also have a church covenant outlining in greater specificity our beliefs. Otherwise, we use scripture to support our views (the more appropriate way of saying that is probably "we try our best for our views to align with scripture").

 

[PreachTony]

Men who are deacons may fill other roles but the pastor search committee should not be a function of the Deacon body. The size of the church is irrelevant.

Again, when I'm saying our church is small, and our five Deacons are taken out of the equation, then we're left with myself, the previously mentioned 26 year old, and a couple of teenagers who could fill out the search committee, as you seem deadset on not allowing Deacons to aid their own church in discerning who God wants to be the pastor.

Perhaps I'm misreading you, Rev, and if so I apologize. But I'm just not willing to tell the Deacons of a church that they cannot have a say in determining the pastor, especially in such a small body.

Who, in your opinion, is the ideal pastoral search committee, given the limitations I've tried to detail to you about my own church?

 

[Jerome]

No women?:null:

 

[PreachTony]

No women?:null:

We don't have female Deacons or female preachers, although many women perform other duties within the church.

 

[Revmitchell]

Again, when I'm saying our church is small, and our five Deacons are taken out of the equation, then we're left with myself, the previously mentioned 26 year old, and a couple of teenagers who could fill out the search committee, as you seem deadset on not allowing Deacons to aid their own church in discerning who God wants to be the pastor.

Perhaps I'm misreading you, Rev, and if so I apologize. But I'm just not willing to tell the Deacons of a church that they cannot have a say in determining the pastor, especially in such a small body.

Who, in your opinion, is the ideal pastoral search committee, given the limitations I've tried to detail to you about my own church?

According to your original post the Deacons are in charge of the whole thing. I did not say deacons should not be part of the process. What I am saying is it should not be a function of the Deacon body. Deacons are welcome to serve in several capacities (more than one hat) but if they are on the search committee it should not be as a Deacon.

Ideally it is best to pull people from all of the areas of the church such as have a SS teacher, a finance committee member, a deacon, music ministry etc. This shares the load and pulls in people who are actively serving in the church. They all need to be people willing to meet regularly and pray together often. They need to be willing to seek God's face rather than rely solely on typical human resource methods of hiring. The pastor should be called by God not hired by the church and that should be protected at all costs.

 

[PreachTony]

According to your original post the Deacons are in charge of the whole thing. I did not say deacons should not be part of the process. What I am saying is it should not be a function of the Deacon body. Deacons are welcome to serve in several capacities (more than one hat) but if they are on the search committee it should not be as a Deacon.

Ideally it is best to pull people from all of the areas of the church such as have a SS teacher, a finance committee member, a deacon, music ministry etc. This shares the load and pulls in people who are actively serving in the church.

Okay, so I wasn't as clear as I intended in my original post. Apologies for any snarkiness from my side of the discussion, Rev.

While I will admit that our Deacon board does do a lot within the church, it is not the ultimate authority of the church. Whenever we are seeking a pastor, they do not do so as Deacons. I do not necessarily do so as a a home preacher, but instead I serve on the committee as a church member first, albeit one with a bit more knowledge about what it means to stand a preach, and to console people in need, and to counsel people seeking counsel.

Again, apologies for the lack of clarity on my part.

 

[Revmitchell]

Okay, so I wasn't as clear as I intended in my original post. Apologies for any snarkiness from my side of the discussion, Rev.

I didn't see any of that. No worries

 

[Tom Bryant]

We just got finished calling an Associate Pastor, so maybe one day they will use that for a model of what to do when they finally grow tired of me. :tonofbricks:

18 months ago, we gathered a group of men and women who were had spiritual maturity and common sense. We prayed for a few weeks and determined what kind of person we were looking for: Spiritually wise, a working knowledge of the Bible and able to teach it, and proficient in the areas we wanted to strengthen (student and children ministry, evangelism). I am not mentioning that they were saved and in general agreement with our stand Biblically, which ought to be a given.

As we got resumes, we would pray to begin the meetings and pray for each person. (we even had one man from here at BB). Out of the 80 resumes we received, we culled it down to about 30, then the work started.

We used facebook to check out some people. It was amazing some of the stuff so called ministers of the Gospel put no their facebook page. We went out a 12 question inquiry that was general in detail, but through it we were able to ask the person specific follow up questions. This eliminated more. Then we called references and asked for 2nd and sometimes 3rd person references, as was mentioned.

Finally we got down to 2 candidates and skyped interviewed them. We then settled on 1 man and brought him in for 4 days so we could see and get people to meet him.

He was unanimously agreed upon by all groups within the church and then voted unanimously by the church. (a real unanimous, not a motion for a unanimous vote). He starts January 2.