Have you ever wondered why it is so hard to find a pastor that fits your congregation? In Baptist life we once had a system. Pastors who were looking for a new congregation to serve would send a resume to the Director of Missions (For those of you outside of Baptist circles or for those who are from Independent or Free Will Baptist traditions, the Director of Missions (DOM) is the one who helps coordinate group missional efforts of Baptist congregations. Each DOM is partners with a group of churches over a geographic area, usually a county. The role is similar to a District Superintendent in the United Methodist Tradition). After receiving the resume, a DOM would hold it until an opening occurred in his association. Then, he would forward the resume to the church, usually along with a handful of others. Churches would then sort from the resumes the DOM sent, possibly get a few more, then choose who to interview from that short stack of resumes. All in all, the church would probably get about 30 resumes from which to select a pastor.
That whole process is now a relic of a bygone era. Now, congregations will often advertise in Baptist papers, use online searches, contact several seminaries, and network with pastors they know well in order to find a pastor. A congregation might receive 100 resumes or more when looking for a pastor. Collecting these resumes, sorting them, and deciding who to interview might take months.
Having more options in choosing a pastor should be a good thing, at least one would think. With the high number of pastor terminations and forced resignations though, it seems like having more options has not helped in outcome. If outcome of a pastoral tenure is a test of how well the process of finding a pastor has worked, then the process is not working as well as it should.
Part of the problem is that there are many variables in the relationship between clergy and congregation and a mismatch in any of them could blow the relationship up. Here are a few important variables that search committees and clergy should be in consensus on before a pastor is called:
Variable 1: Expectations of the role of pastor.
What is the role of pastor, exactly? I was trained to believe the role of the pastor is to preach, teach, care, and lead. Finding someone who is excellent in each of those areas is difficult. Finding someone competent in all of these areas with one or two clear strengths is doable. If the church expects the pastor to excel at preaching and leadership and the pastor excels at pastoral care and teaching, the mismatch will cause difficulties. What the pastor excels at doing and what the congregation needs must match up, or there will be difficulty from the beginning.
Variable 2: Expectations of community engagement.
Some pastors believe getting involved in their community is part of their role as pastor. So, you will see them on the school board, the home owner’s association leadership team, volunteering with the fire department, among other activities. Other pastors do not see it that way. They believe all of their first energies should be devoted to the church with minimal distractions. What is important is that the pastor and congregation have a shared vision for community involvement. If the pastor is highly involved in boards in the community, but the congregation wants the pastor not to be preoccupied with such things, conflict will ensue. The reverse is also true. These expectations need to be known and shared up front.
Variable 3: Visions of leadership.
Expectations of how a pastor is to lead the congregation varies significantly from congregation to congregation. Some want a pastor who is a facilitator. This kind of pastor simply assembles the core leaders of the church, distills a vision with them, and then begins to implement it. Other congregations want an authoritarian. The authoritarian pastor comes in and begins turning over structures and the staff of the church in order to implement his vision. In my experience, anxious people and churches tend to find comfort in leaders who are authoritarian in nature. In almost a reflexive response, they find a leader on a mission who will take charge and put their anxieties to rest. In my estimation neither of these two styles is good, but what is important is that the style of the leader match the needs of the church in the long run.
In leadership, consensus between the pastor and congregation needs to be achieved on many issues. Who manages the staff? Does the pastor have final authority over the staff including hiring and firing decisions or does staff supervision happen by a committee? If it is done by committee how much input does the pastor have?
Who supervises the pastor? Is it the deacons? Is it the personnel committee? How are these people selected?
What role does the pastor have in resource management? Is the pastor part of the finance committee? What voice does the pastor have in insurance, building and properties, or major purchases?
To put it bluntly, leadership variables, often more than theological differences, cause major divisions in congregations.
Variable 4: Expectations of pastoral care.
Years ago, I was mentoring a young minister who was studying at a prominent divinity school. The minister and I were discussing his progress toward earning his Master of Divinity. I looked over the degree requirements and noticed that he could have graduated without taking one single course on pastoral care, not one. I was shocked. The divinity school’s view was the pastor was to focus on preaching and let the laity take care of pastoral care. In some congregations, that might work well. In others, however, it would be a disaster.
Variable 5: Theology.
With the theological bent of Baptist seminaries and divinity schools changing, finding a good theological fit has become much more difficult. I am aware of many congregations who are traditional in outlook who have hired a Calvinist pastor. Their theological differences eventually become intolerable, and conflict emerged. While Calvinism is an important variable, there are many other theological issues with the potential to cause conflict: the role of women, eschatology, soteriology, spiritual gifts, the nature of the Trinity, and ordinances, to name a few.
Variable 6: Politics.
While political ideology and theological approaches often match up, sometimes they do not. In other words, pastors who are theologically progressive can be politically conservative, and vice versa. It is rare, but possible. If a congregation who is politically conservative hires a politically progressive pastor the differences between them can cause difficulties. I believe this should not be a big issue. We gather on Sunday because of a confession that Jesus is Lord. We do not gather because we have a common view of the common good or how to achieve it. Even though political differences should not cause disruption, they frequently do.
Ideological mismatches are not just a Baptist problem. Methodists I know frequently bemoan the fact that most of their ministers are far more progressive than their congregations. While moderate Baptists will often experience the same problem, conservative Baptists often find pastors much more conservative than their congregations.
These ideological differences often become problematic if the subject of politics comes up in the pulpit. As for me, I may engage a social issue, but I believe the pulpit should remain politics free, as much as possible. Karl Barth once told his students to aim their guns over the hills of current events, meaning we are to use our sermons to create a people who shape events and not be reactive to events. There are pastors on the left and right who disagree with this approach to preaching. On the left there are pastors like Amy Butler who preach about political and social issues regularly—and her congregation expects it. One the right there are those like the late D. James Kennedy who also spoke about politics frequently, especially as he confronted Marxism. His congregation both wanted and expected him to do so.
What is important is that the congregation and the pastor have a shared vision of what kind of preaching that will occur in the church and how the pastor is to lead in the public sphere.
Variable 7: Growth.
If your congregation values church growth, and every congregation I know says it does, it is important to have the conversation about what church growth looks like and how it is to be achieved with a pastoral candidate. Is the pastor to be the primary evangelist for the church? Is the pastor to do evangelism by personal outreach or by engaging a team of people to lead evangelism? Is it acceptable for congregational growth do be driven by transfer of letter or will only new converts count? What will have to be different for growth to happen? If the congregation wants growth, is it happening already? If it is not, why? What responsibility will the pastor have for growth?
Variable 8: Worship.
One of the most significant issues congregations face is the nature and structure of their worship services. The worship wars of the last generation seem to have largely settled. Traditional congregations value traditional worship and are unlikely to change. Contemporary congregations value their worship experience and are not likely to change either. What needs to happen in the interview process is that the congregation and pastor need to make sure they see eye to eye on worship. Hiring a pastor who believes it is necessary to change the nature of worship in a congregation who is settled in their worship practice will cause deep conflict.
While this is not every issue that could become divisive between pastor and congregation, every issue on this list could—and has—caused difficulty in congregational relationships with clergy. Finding a pastor who fits all of these variables can be extremely difficult and time consuming. It is little wonder then, why finding a pastor is much, much harder than it has ever been.
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