Pastor search teams, personnel committees, and pastoral relations committees

If your church is like most, it has a lot of committees. (It might even have - GASP - more than it needs!) So why would a congregation expend valuable member energy on a pastor search team AND a personnel committee AND a pastoral relations committee?

Simply put, these three bodies fulfill different but complementary functions:

A pastor search team (or pastor nominating committee for our PCUSA friends) does what its name suggests. It designs and implements the steps required to call a clergyperson to the congregation. Search teams are ad hoc and disbanded once the incoming minister has settled in. (The exception would be when the new pastor asks the search team to morph into a pastoral relations committee. See below.)

At their best, personnel committees help staff members live fully into their roles. (Note that in some churches and denominations pastors answer to personnel committees, but in others personnel committees oversee non-pastoral staff while the clergy primarily relate to another group of leaders.) They clarify expectations of staff both for employees and for the congregation and establish constructive feedback loops. They help staff work through challenges and provide them with the resources needed to do so.

Pastoral relations committees are support teams for the minister. This body is made up of people with whom the clergyperson feels comfortable sharing more sensitive information such as personal conflicts and family or medical issues. (This is why incoming ministers sometimes ask their search teams to serve as their first PRCs. The clergyperson has grown comfortable with the search team through the search process and does not yet have relationships with other church members.) PRCs offer feedback and encouragement and occasionally advocate for the pastor to the appropriate body, but they do not review or oversee the minister.

Search teams will want high-functioning personnel and pastoral relations committees because they carry forward the work the search team begins. The most thorough, faithful search can result in a crash-and-burn if the personnel committee is stocked with people bringing an agenda or if there’s no PRC to support the pastor. With that in mind, what changes does your church need to make and what practices does it need to implement?