Do you need resources for your ministerial search?
Welcome to Searching for the Called, a comprehensive pastor search process that can be customized to your church. This course will equip your pastor search team to identify and engage effectively with pastoral candidates. It will also help your search team to avoid a clergy-congregation mismatch that could lead to conflict, heartache, inward focus, and the expense associated with your minister's quick departure.
Enroll to find the guidance - rooted in the biblical mandate of hospitality - that will enable your pastor search team to manage the anxiety that comes from a pastoral transition and find a great-fit minister.
Can our church search for a pastor during a pandemic, and if so, how?
You might have questions about conducting your pastor search that are specific to this unprecedented time. Pastoral candidates and churches with open positions are searching for one another, even during Covid-19. This course provides key factors to consider when searching for a pastor during a pandemic.
Why should our pastor search team purchase this course?
This course adds to the Searching for the Called material first made available in 2017. It breaks down the stages of the search into more easily digestible chunks, adds video components, and addresses additional topics such as:
- Paying attention to what your church is asking of its remaining staff
- Considering a part-time/multi-vocational pastor
- Navigating your associate pastor's desire to apply for the open senior pastor position
- Gauging your congregation's readiness for a woman in the pulpit
- Assessing whether your new pastor really needs a doctoral degree
- Reading the resumes of candidates who have never been senior pastors or have work history gaps
- Calculating the math of a great-fit call from the candidate's perspective
- Setting a realistic start date for your new pastor
- Budgeting up front for your new pastor's installation service
- Helping your new pastor avoid burnout
- Transitioning your pastor search team to a pastoral relations team
Framework
Course videos and text provide information about what needs to happen at each stage of the pastor search. Coaching questions assist you in customizing your search to your church.
Tools
Each stage of the course offers multiple tools to help you carry out key tasks of the search and stay rooted in best practices.
Assessments
Not sure if you've checked all the boxes for a particular search stage? Assessments throughout the course will increase your confidence in your search's progress.
Example Curriculum
- Welcome (2:15)
- Your congregation's readiness for Searching for the Called
- Essentials in Searching for the Called (2:46)
- The language of hospitality
- Glossary of terms
- Elements of each stage
- Timeline ranges for your pastor search
- Questions worth reflecting on throughout the process
- A word about searching for a pastor during a pandemic (4:32)
- Scriptural grounding (2:27)
- Overview (0:47)
- Waiting on readiness: identifying the right time to start a pastor search (stage 1) (2:24)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:11)
- Interim ministry information
- Exercising intentionality in what your church asks of its remaining staff
- Deep dive resources
- Assessment: is your church ready for stage 2?
- Befriending the past and anticipating the future: answering key questions about identity and direction (stage 2) (2:56)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (0:56)
- Tips for creating an effective congregational survey
- Ways of examining and celebrating your congregation's past
- Congregational self-study guide
- Why consider a part-time or multi-vocational pastor?
- Pandemic-related questions your church needs to answer before the pastor search
- Deep dive resources
- Assessment: is your church ready for stage 3?
- Does your church need more help with the pre-search stages?
- Scriptural grounding (2:08)
- Overview (0:37)
- Gelling as a pastor search team during a pandemic
- Gathering the open-hearted: selecting pastor search team members (stage 3) (1:33)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (0:40)
- Pastor search team composition checklist
- Pastor search team leader tasks and desired qualities
- Deep dive resource
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 4?
- Growing in trust: becoming a pastor search team (stage 4) (2:23)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (0:51)
- Building a high-functioning pastor search team
- Exercises for building trust within a pastor search team
- Assessments for helping pastor search team members get to know each other
- Pastor search team covenant checklist
- Deep dive resources
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 5?
- Creating space for the Spirit to move: grounding the search process in God (stage 5) (1:32)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:05)
- Definition of discernment
- Discernment outline
- Tools for discernment
- Criteria for discerning, "Is this God speaking?"
- Worshipful work meeting outline
- Deep dive resources
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 6?
- Does your church need more help with the pastor search team development stages?
- Scriptural grounding (2:11)
- Overview (1:09)
- Preparing for blessing: discovering and setting the process for calling a pastor (stage 6) (2:35)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:27)
- Involvement of other staff in a senior pastor search
- Things to consider when the associate pastor is interested in the open senior pastor position
- Pastoral candidate communications content
- Sample candidate communications tracking spreadsheet
- Ways to bring the congregation along during the pastor search
- Information to report to the congregation throughout the pastor search
- Deep dive resource
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 7?
- Crafting the welcome: collating information and crafting key pastor search documents (stage 7) (2:54)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:04)
- Ways to broaden your pastor search team's imagination about a good fit minister
- Gauging your church's readiness for a woman in the pulpit
- Does your pastor need a Doctor of Ministry degree?
- Considering co-pastors
- Information to include in a congregational profile/community snapshot
- Pastoral compensation considerations
- Other resources for pastor job description and compensation information
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 8?
- Extending the welcome: inviting potential pastoral candidates to explore your open position (stage 8) (2:15)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:06)
- Possible ponds for finding pastoral candidates
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 9?
- Does your pastor search team need more help with the designing the search process and core documents stages?
- Scriptural grounding (1:58)
- Overview (0:52)
- Engaging with pastoral candidates in the midst of pandemic (4:21)
- Imagining new possibilities: discerning whom to interview (stage 9) (2:06)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:44)
- Reading the resume of someone who has never served as a solo or senior pastor
- Digging deeper on resume gaps
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 10?
- Opening to one another: conducting initial interviews with pastoral candidates (stage 10) (2:08)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (2:30)
- Technology options in interviews with pastoral candidates
- Interview planning worksheet
- Crafting a good interview question
- Sample interview questions
- The math of a great-fit call from a pastoral candidate's perspective
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 11?
- Deepening the dialogue: interacting in person with pastoral candidates (stage 11) (2:45)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:57)
- Site visit considerations: going to the pastoral candidate
- Site visit considerations: pastoral candidate comes to a neutral location
- Site visit considerations: pastoral candidate comes to search team
- Doing due diligence with pastoral candidates
- Assessment: is your pastor search team ready for stage 12?
- Sharing the excitement: presenting the pastoral candidate of choice (stage 12) (3:11)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:56)
- Considerations regarding the presentation of multiple pastoral candidates to your congregation/leaders
- Assessment: is our pastor search team ready for stage 13?
- Does your pastor search team need more help with the candidate engagement stages?
- Scriptural grounding (0:52)
- Overview (0:45)
- Co-creating the partnership: extending a call to the pastoral candidate of choice (stage 13) (3:02)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (4:03)
- Minister-ministry setting covenant checklist
- Assessment: are your pastor search team and church ready for stage 14?
- Embracing the new: resourcing the new pastor for a fast start (stage 14) (2:39)
- Key reflection questions
- Best practices
- Candidate perspective (1:54)
- Setting a realistic start date for your new pastor
- Ideas for welcoming the new pastor
- Information to give the new pastor
- Budgeting for an installation service for the new pastor
- Helping your new pastor avoid burnout
- Consider transitioning your pastor search team to a pastoral relations team
- Deep dive resources
- Assessment: are your pastor search team and church ready to celebrate the end of the process?
- Does your church need more help with the covenanting stages?
- Don't forget to celebrate! (1:02)
To members of churches in pastoral transition
This is a unique season in the life of your church. The departure of a minister affects each person differently, but for everyone there is uncertainty around what to do now and what the future holds. In this ambiguity, though, there is immeasurable opportunity – for celebrating and reconnecting with the congregation’s roots, for listening deeply to and growing closer with God, and for stoking the church’s imagination about who it can be and what it can do. This season, while it might be uncomfortable at times, is not one to rush through.
The search for a great-fit, long-tenured minister is a primary task of the transition time, and it is worthy of all the focus and resources the church can allot. But the potential positives of a pastor search team’s work extend beyond the calling of one clergyperson. A ministerial search can deepen both the bonds between and the spiritual maturity of the search team members, with spillover into the congregation as a whole. It can help the church strengthen relationships with its denominational partners and geographical context. It can set the minister up for a fast start, allowing the minister to develop bonds quickly and introduce focus and energy into the system. It can bless the many candidates who come into contact with the search team, prompting them to develop a deeper understanding of their gifts and growing edges and preparing them to infuse health into the churches they will eventually serve.
A search process rooted in hospitality enables a search team to hit all of these marks. The search approach detailed in this course is designed to help a search team welcome the voices of the Holy Spirit, one another, the congregation, the larger community, and candidates for the ministry position. It provides search stage explanations, questions, best practices, and tools so that you might be blessed and, through your faithfulness, be a blessing to others.