Help! Our search committee is taking too long to find a pastor!

Recently when we said on these pages that the church’s pastor search committee should not settle for second best, but hold out for the one person the Heavenly Father has in mind for the church, a friend wrote, “What do we do when the committee is taking so long that people are leaving? Some of our leaders are panicking.”

This is not a rare phenomenon.  It happens.

The typical Southern Baptist church can expect the search process to take anywhere from 6 months to a year. If the church has unusual circumstances–a terrible reputation to overcome, poor finances, a history of infighting, or several candidates in a row have turned the committee down–the process could take longer than expected.

When people start leaving the church because no pastor has been found, seizing the first preacher available and recommending him is the worst of all possible options.

The church leadership should consider the following….

1) If people are flying the coop, it may be those charged with leading the church during the interim period are not doing their job. If the church has a staff of associate ministers, they should be carrying on a full-scale ministry.  No church requires a pastor in order to have a complete slate of children’s activities or youth projects or senior events.  If the ministerial staff is sitting on their hands marking time until a new pastor arrives to give them direction, the lay leadership should build a  fire under them.

A church must not put off making key decisions “until a new pastor is here.”  If something has to be done, get on with it.  If the next pastor is mature, experienced,  and secure within himself, he will appreciate coming to a church where the people are doing their work instead of waiting on him to tell them how to tie their shoes (that is, treating them like kindergartners).

2) If the church has a full-slate of programs going and people are still leaving the church during the interim period, usually this means the person filling the pulpit is less than satisfactory.  The lay leadership–or the team charged with this responsibility–should consider making changes. Read on.

3) If the pulpit is being filled by a succession of guest preachers, the church should consider bringing in an interim pastor.  One reason people abandon ship is they feel no connection with the person occupying the pulpit. With the right interim pastor, especially a seasoned man of God with many years of service behind him, this can be corrected.

Question: Where to find such a minister? This is an easy question to answer.  Call the churches in your area that have just come through pastorless periods and find out whom they used.  By making a few phone calls, you’ll soon know whether this person would be a good match for your church.

The leadership will need to decide whether they want an “interim preacher” or “interim pastor.”  The first shows up on Sundays and preaches. The latter gives hands-on leadership to the church and direction to the staff; he attends staff meetings and conducts prayer meeting and funerals.

The interim preacher gets paid perhaps one-half what the interim pastor will receive. If the interim pastor is on the job every day, his pay should be close to what the previous pastor was receiving. (Note: I am amazed at how cheap some churches can be in paying their interim ministers. But, that’s another article!)

4) You may need to assemble the church members for a wakeup session.  If matters are getting serious in the church–“the natives are becoming restless,” rumors are flying, or people are staying home from church–the worst thing the search committee can do is to abort their search, select a minister “against their better judgement,” and recommend him to the church.

The second worst thing the committee can do is to ignore the murmuring.  It must be dealt with.

The best thing they can do is call the congregation into an emergency session to deal with the matter.

Several things need to be covered in this session.

–a) The committee chairman and one or two others will need to speak to the membership, giving a report on what they have done, the challenges they have faced, the lessons they have learned, the way they have seen God at work, and also the obstacles they have encountered. The congregation needs to know these things, and particularly wishes to know why the process is taking so long. So, tell them.

–b) You will want to take questions from the membership. In this case, the chair will respond, although he/she will sometimes direct a question to a member of the committee and let him/her answer.  Once again, this settles the congregation and assures them that all is well.

–c) Finally, and most importantly, the committee needs to call the membership to a renewed commitment to prayer.  In the early days of the search, people prayed for the committee’s labors with freshness and intensity.  But unless they are continually reminded of the need for prayer–and even given evidence that their prayers are being heard and answered–their enthusiasm wanes after some weeks and months.

–d) I know one church which would feature a different member of the search committee each week during the morning worship service. The interim pastor would introduce him or her, the individual would share something about their work and their prayer needs, then the minister would lead the congregation in prayer. This kept the matter before the people.

5. Let’s state the obvious here: in some cases, the process is taking longer than necessary because of inter-committee bickering and disharmony.

Is one person trying to run the committee? Is someone determined to bring in his cousin as the new pastor? Are there personality conflicts? Or, is it simply that the members disagree on the kind of person they should be seeking?

If these matters cannot be worked out so the committee will become of one mind and work in harmony, they should do one of two things:

–a) Bring in an outside consultant (denominational leader? a wise veteran pastor whose judgement they respect?) as a mediator and help them get their act together. He would listen to each member of the committee, ask questions, and give counsel. Then, he should disappear and let the committee talk and pray this out.

–b)  If they are unable to achieve unity, they should return to the church with a recommendation: “Get another committee.”  Even though that will feel like failure and may be interpreted as such by some in the church, it may be the most mature thing they can do in that situation.

A few final thoughts…

In some cases, when the search takes longer than it should and the committee keeps getting rejected by ministers in whom they were interested, the problem may be something systemic in the operation of their church. Outside pastors found that a little power group in the church calls the shots and they want none of that. Or, the deacons are the authority in the church and pastors are required to work under their oversight.

These are unbiblical set-ups which are ready made to dispense grief to new pastors.  The kind of pastor you want–a real leader (see previous article)–will want nothing to do with this kind of unholy arrangement.

God bless you in your search.  May He use you to do a good and lasting thing for the Kingdom.

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Help! Our search committee is taking too long to find a pastor!

  1. Having just gone through this during the summer months, I can honestly say that I would never want to go through that process again. I was vetted all the way back to 1989 and filled out two questionnaires, three interviews, and was introduced as the final candidate during my preaching “tryout”. The entire congregation was happy and the day was joyous. I was actually going to be bringing my fledgling congregation along with me (about 30 folks) and all of a sudden, a couple of elders rose up and changed the whole course of the game. A year’s work by the search committee went down the drain with no other explanation other than they had withdrawn their call. The problem was they wanted to control me and even though I had went through everything they had asked, I was up front that I would NOT punch a time clock. I would keep office hours for those who needed to meet me but I would NOT sit there in the office just for the sake of one man to keep an eye on me to make sure I was doing what I was supposed to do. In the end, I told them not to bother, I was withdrawing, and their polity was flawed. They are starting over again now nearly two years after the previous pastor resigned. A great shame really.

  2. Our pastor of over 20 yrs resigned to interim ministry, one of our deacons and long time church member felt called to take the position. Soon after he was diagnosed cancer and after a strong fight went home to be with the Lord. We then had an interim pastor who later voiced a feeling of being called to be our pastor, the church voted a unanimous yes. Less than a year he came in one Sunday morning and said it would be his last, he felt he wasn’t able to devote the time to the ministry and wanted us to have a pastor whom was totally devoted. After a few interim pastors we voted on a local candidate, the church and youth loved him, with in a year he had a sudden massive heartattack and passed. So here we are again, we have had the same interim now for several months but are no close to a candidate. I feel our church is suffering, I myself have found myself not as motivated to attend. Why does one church go through so much turmoil… what are we doing wrong? Small town Southern Baptist

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