New resource: online course for pastor search teams
[Note: interim pastors, settled pastors planning to transition out, and judicatory leaders, please share this post with your churches.]
You’ve been selected to serve on your church’s search team for a new pastor. This is an exciting task! You will be part of a process that will deeply impact your congregation’s ministry for years to come. Pastor searches are daunting for that very same reason, along with the time commitment required to do the search work well. If you are feeling a swirl of emotions about being named to the pastor search team, that is completely normal.
After your initial reactions, your next concerns might be about how to carry out the work of the search. Most members of pastor search teams have never served in this capacity before and have no background in hiring (or in the case of a pastor, calling). You might not even be totally sure what a clergyperson’s day-to-day schedule looks like.
That’s ok. A congregation’s laypeople are still in the best position to call a great-fit pastoral candidate, because you know your church better than anyone. You just need the search framework and tools to carry out your task faithfully.
In the new online course version of Searching for the Called, you will find what you need to set up your search process and ground it in God, tamp down your own (and the congregation’s) anxiety, engage well with pastoral candidates, discern which candidate with which you can envision fruitful ministry, and help your new minister get off to a fast start. The course breaks the pastor search into bite-sized chunks to eliminate overwhelm and utilizes videos, tools, and assessments to move you along the search timeline. There are also sections dedicated to helping your search team think through common questions that pop up during pastor searches, including anytime questions as well as pandemic-specific issues.
You can purchase two years of unlimited access for your entire search team for $250. (For reading this blog post, I’m happy to offer your team 10% off! Enter the code BLOG10OFF at checkout.) Simply have one member of your search team enroll in the course, and then I will contact the enrollee with login information for fellow search team members. You will also have the capability to contact me through the course with brief questions about your search.
The pastor search can be formational for your search team members, church, and pastoral candidates. Let Searching for the Called assist you in claiming that opportunity.
Judicatory and denominational leaders, I invite you to use my contact form to email me for a free preview version that will allow you to see all course content so that you can recommend it to your churches with confidence.
