Can we start off being a little blunt here?  Most churches/search committees don’t truly know what they are doing when they are searching for a new lead/senior pastor.  Stay with us a bit...let us prove it to you. 

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The following is the extent of what most search committees do to choose their next pastor: 

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• Post a quickly (and often poorly) written job ad.

• Collect and review resumes, without clear review parameters.

• Schedule one or two rounds of (usually) virtual interviews – again with unclear parameters concerning the interview process and without truly understanding “what good looks like”.

• And then finally have one, weekend long, in-person meet up with the top candidate pick; that ends with either:

  • A “Ministry Marriage” on Sunday night of that weekend… or

  • The Search Committee calling the next best candidate on Monday morning to schedule their weekend meet-up / “Ministry Marriage” event.

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Look, there isn’t anything wrong with resumes or interviews. In fact, you need both of those as part of your search process.  But no one uses the above process (nor even suggests using the above process) to pick a spouse for their child.  So why is the process above ok for picking the person leading Jesus’ spouse (the Church)?  We submit to you that it is not.  

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So, what should be done differently?

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We are so glad that you asked!

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We have created a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) detailing the process we recommend using to search for your next pastor.  We call it the Pastoral Search Committee Operating System.  Below is a link to the basic outline of the process we recommend and coach/consult search committees to utilize.  

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“Wait! Why would you give us all this information for free?”

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We are so glad that you asked that too!  Because we want you to succeed!  We need you to succeed!

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For some churches, all they will need is the basic outline that you can access through the link below. If you truly believe that your church can accomplish what it outlines without help, we bless you in Jesus’ name!  We are still here to help if you get stuck along the way.

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Some of you will read through this (or maybe just part of it) and quickly realize that you need/want help through this process.  We are here to help you as well.

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Whichever camp you are in, here is our ask of you: be humbly honest in evaluating if you need/want help or not.  Proverbs 16:18 says that “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall”.  This Biblical proverb very much applies to you, your church, and your pastoral search.  If you know you need/want help, please get it!  We are called by the Lord to give it as best we can.

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“But we can’t afford help from a search committee coach/consultant.”

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Actually, you can afford that help.  Churches without lead/senior pastors are not paying a salary to a lead/senior pastor.  A portion of that monthly salary absolutely should be invested into getting the help that you need through this process if you truly need/want the help.  That is just a simple principle of good investment stewardship of His resources.

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Look, if you truly can’t afford a search committee coach/consultant, then you probably can’t afford a pastor either…which means that your church needs to immediately begin teaching about giving and tithing, as well as prayer (and fasting, if you can), before you do anything else.  We are here to help with all of this.

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Last thing…if you hear yourself say, “Well, we don’t know how to do what you have outlined!”, we here at Grats, do!  Click here to apply for a FREE consultation with us. 

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Not ready yet to talk to us, but still needing to see more?  No problem.  Click the banner below to see the basic outline of our Pastoral Search Committee Operating System.

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