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

  Introduction
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Preparing for the pastor search
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Developing the pastor search team
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Designing the pastor search process and core documents
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Engaging with pastoral candidates
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Covenanting with your new minister
Available in days
days after you enroll
  Additional resources
Available in days
days after you enroll

Choose a Pricing Option

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.