"So, a Presbyterian walks into a bar..."

How Long, O Lord? Part 2

In the last post, we took up the idea that churches using search committees to find pastors generally greatly extend the time of the process, without greatly enhancing the effect of the time spent.  The problem seems to lie in the idea that a group of untrained members of the congregation can do a thorough and professional job at something they have never done before and will (most likely) never do again.  I wonder what I would do if someone came to me and asked me to gather with some others of similar education and background, and locate a dog with WKC Champion bloodlines all without ever getting the input of a vet or canine breeding specialist?  Or what if they came to us and asked us to find a diamond of a certain quality and size, without giving us access to a professional jeweler or even jeweler's tools?

This is the position in which many churches place their congregants as they ask them to gather and search for a new pastor, the RIGHT pastor for the congregation, all without having access to any professional help.  Yes, they can ask questions of various friends in other churches, and they can even access their denominational professionals, if they belong to a denomination.  But the committee is essentially on its own, even if it belongs to a denomination. 

The problem with going to a denominational professional is that he or she serves the entire denomination, and therefore has precious little leeway to recommend one pastoral candidate over another.  They can send a committee information on various candidates, but they cannot really favor one over the other.  Also, denominational professionals often do not have the time to get to know a local church as deeply as is needed to help in finding a pastor.  This is not meant to be detrimental to the denominational folks, it is just a fact of life that money is always short for these sorts of endeavors.

So what is a church to do if it wants to conduct a thorough, professional and objective search with the goal of finding the best pastor for the job in an appropriate length of time?  The answer can only be to seek out professional help from a group dedicated to helping churches find the best candidates available, vetting these candidates thoroughly, and then making a recommendation of the top 2-3 candidates to the search committee. 

This is different from using a traditional head-hunting firm for two reasons.  First, a head-hunting firm takes responsibility of actually filling the position with a candidate of their own choosing, leaving the church to wait on the decision of people not involved in their congregation.  Second, head-hunting firms generally charge anywhere from 35-50% of the first year's salary, or in pastor-speak, salary and housing, of the candidate they place.  This is a very high barrier for most churches to leap in terms of available funds.  Also, placing a pastor in a church pulpit or ministry is the job of the church itself, not an outside firm.  Having professional help in vetting the field of candidates and coming up with the 2-3 best ones, leaves the church in the position of still choosing its own pastor or assistant/associate pastor while at the same time receiving the best advice available.

There is a new idea out there now that can help with a lot of these issues while keeping the cost very low for churches.  More on that over the next few days.  Between now and then, please remain in prayer for any church you know that is currently looking for a pastor.  They need our prayers and any help we can give.  Consider even sending them a link to the last two posts at this site in case some of the ideas might be helpful to them.

How Long, O Lord?

There is more and more being written about the job churches face in finding pastors these days.  The problem is not a lack of candidates, it is more how to sort through and find the right candidate for your church.  Full disclosure: I am engaged in the ministry of assisting churches in finding pastors, so, yes, I do have some personal interest in this.  But I also have observations from talking to churches day in and day out, and I want to share some of those observations.

The issue boils down to this...in churches and denominations that most often use the "search committee" model of finding a pastor, the process is often longer and more painful than either candidate or committee member expects.  This is largely due to the fact that pastoral search committees are made up of good and Godly people who have never done a search before and will never do it again.  I cannot tell you how many former search committee members have told me, "I served on a search committee once, and I will NEVER do it again!"  I also cannot tell you how many pastors have told me that the worst part of a search process is the painfully long time it takes for a church to make up its mind, and the normally poor communication between church and candidate.  Many pastors just shake their heads and groan audibly when the term "search committee" is even mentioned in their presence.

Why does this happen?  It appears to me that it happens because most search committees do not really have a grasp on where to start, what to look for and how to assess their needs and the gifts and experience of the candidates who apply for their pastoral positions.  In short, teams of 5-9 lay people are charged with hiring an ordained man with years of experience, and the eyes of the whole church are upon them.  What a pressure-packed position in which to find one's self!  No wonder they take so long!  Many of them are terrified they will "get it wrong."

I talked to one church recently that began its search process in July of 2008.  In late February of 2009, they were still gathering resumes to begin the process of paring down the field to find potential candidates.  That is 8 months of "starting" the process!  In the meantime, there is a church without a Pastor, surviving on guest ministers or an assistant pastor, if they have one, to fill the pulpit.

It is true that some churches, mostly those who have had a tumultuous separation with their previous pastor, need some time between pastors to heal and gain new vision.  This is where interim pastors are worth their weight in gold.  But many churches would be served best by finding a new pastor, or assistant pastor, in a relatively short period of time.  To do this, most churches need the help of someone who knows the search process, knows how to assess a pastor and a church, and knows how to find the right match between pastoral candidate and church. 

More on this tomorrow.

In the meantime, if you know of a church searching for a pastor, please stop now and pray that they would be given wisdom in their search, and all due speed in finding the pastor God has for them.

"Single Church Seeks Pastor," Pt. 2

As I mentioned in my last post, about once in every 5 years, an evangelical church hangs out a sign that essentially says "Single church seeks pastor."  In the case of pastoral staff other than the lead or senior pastor, that period of time sinks to as low as 18 months.  Some denominations have longer spans, some, much shorter.  In any case, there seems to be a revolving door, or pulpit, in many Bible-believing churches these days.

In the last post we discussed one of the two main reasons this happens, which is the consumer mentality of Christians these days, a mentality that churches have willingly and wantonly created in their people over the last 30 years.  The second reason for churches losing pastors fairly regularly is that those pastors are being lured away by a bigger church, better location, or some other personal reason. 

Why does this happen?  Aren't these "men of the cloth" above such temptation?  Don't churches hire them to be "good," so that the congregants can be "good for nothing?"  Sorry, a little pastor joke there.  Very little.  News flash...pastors are people, too.  They are also sinners.  Another news flash...pastors act as shepherds and they find out one thing very quickly; sheep bite! 

When you mix sinful pastors (which they ALL are) with consumer driven sheep with sharp teeth, you get a volatile mixture.  Most pastors want to be appreciated for their ability to care for people and to preach and teach the Word, while at the same time being under tremendous pressure to serve as the CEO of the local Church, Inc., growing programs and enlarging the church every Sunday.  When the sheep don't get what is "right for them," they rebel, make the pastor's life miserable, and normally either leave the church or force the pastor out.

Pretty grim picture, right?  So what is to be done?  A few suggestions follow:

1.    Pastors need to reset their priorities to tending to the minstries of Word (preaching and teaching), Prayer (praying with and for people and doing visitation of the sick and infirm) and Sacrament (proper administration of Baptism and Communion).  These ministries are the calling of the pastor, and not tending to these ministries first, last and always will continue to result in dissatisfaction for the pastor and the church.

2.    Congregations need to reset their priorities by learning to seek after Word, Prayer and Sacrament as the means of grace given to us by our Lord in the Scriptures.  It is the responsibility of parents to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, not the church.  The church can and should provide an able assist, but too often, parents assign this duty to the church and abdicate their God-given authority over their children.  The same is true of all adults looking to church for entertainment rather than community, worship and mutual caring for one another.

3.    As churches seek new pastors, they should learn to look at candidates more deeply than "Who has the strongest resume?"  It is impossible to define "strongest" anyway, because not all churches need the same set of strengths in a pastor.  Churches and search committees need to learn to seek pastors who fit their congregation and needs after realistically assessing their strengths and shortcomings.

We as believers need to demand of our churches that they attend to the ministries of Word, Prayer and Sacrament FIRST, and seek to help us build ourselves into functioning Biblical/covenantal communities.  Then, and only then, will the church flee the program mentality infecting it now and regain their savor and influence in our culture.

"Single church seeks pastor"

In the life of most evangelical churches these days, about once in every 5 years, the church hangs out a sign that essentially says "Single church seeks pastor."  In the case of pastoral staff other than the lead or senior pastor, that period of time sinks to as low as 18 months.  Some denominations have longer spans, some, much shorter.  In any case, there seems to be a revolving door, or pulpit, in many Bible-believing churches these days.

Why is this?  What can we do to make these intervals longer, at least?  Let's take the first question first, something of a novel concept.  I attribute most of these rapid transitions to one of two main reasons; either the consumer mentality of most Christians chase good men away from a pulpit OR some of those pulpiteers allow themselves to be lured away by a bigger church, better location, or some other personal reason.  Even more alarming is the number of pastors leaving the pastorate every year, but we will talk about that at another time.

What is the consumer mentality demonstrated by many Christians?  Christians look for the "best experience" in church these days, just like they look for the best shopping experience in various stores, or the best TV show, or the best product...and this is the kicker...FOR THEM.  In other words, there is no real objective assessment of what a church is doing in comparison to what the Bible prescribes or proscribes.  Modern Christians have allowed their affinity for this church or that to become thoroughly post-modern in that they look for "what is best for them."  You have young children?  Church A must be for you because their children's ministry programs are wonderful and keep your kids occupied and happy consistently.  You have youth-group aged children?  Then Church B is best for you because they have the best youth pastor in town, hot and cold running pizza, and a gym in which to hide most of the youth mess, er, uh experience, yeah, that's it, youth experience.  Parents do NOT have to worry about talking about sticky spiritual matters with their children, the youth guy will do that.

There no longer seem to be people who are willing to assess how a church carries out the ministries of Word, Prayer and Sacrament, the ministries given it explicitly in Scripture.  The really bad news is that most churches have trained their people to do just what they are doing, which is looking at everything BUT the ministry of Word, Prayer and Sacrament.  This must change, because church is becoming merely one entry on a menu of activities a family can undertake during the week, and church is losing ground rapidly.

We will address pastors leaving churches, and how to help the churches in another post soon.  In the meantime, pray for your church and other churches.  Pray that they would take up the ministry of Word, Prayer and Sacrament with a new vigor.  Pray that consumerism would be purged from the church.  Pray that the church would again be a culture maker, rather than a culture imitator.

Pastoral Turnover and History

While doing some research on pastoral turnover rates this morning, I came across some amazing statistics concerning pastoral turnover in the early American church.  Bottom line?  There was not any, or very little at least.  I found this historical nugget in the article "Pastoral Turnover and the Call to Preach," published in 2001 by the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society and authored by Paul V. Harrison.  "Taking a broader sweep that covers 'Yale College classes from 1702 through 1794, 550 graduates entered the Congregationalist ministry. Of these men, 392, or 71 percent, ministered for their entire career to only one church.... Only 21, or 4 percent, of the 550 served more than three pastorates.'"

What an amazing statement in light of churches today and how often churches have to call a new pastor!  For you adventurous types, here is a link to the entire article.  There are some other conclusions that tend to rock our evangelical world right now, but more on those at another time.

Would the modern evangelical church be better off if we held to this mentality, i.e. that once we have called a pastor, he is our pastor forever?  Of course it would!  We would learn Biblical patterns of repentance, reconciliation and restoration, rather than the current habit of finding either another church or another pastor if "this guy" doesn't suit us.  It would force us out of the "consumer mentality" that takes such a heavy toll on the church today.  Finally, it would encourage the growth of true Biblical community, something successfully sought today by church engaging in a "parish" mentality.

71%!  A number to ponder, isn't it?