People hold strong ties to their traditions, and that is true with churches as much as with anyone else. Traditions are not always a bad thing. They give us structure and security. They ensure we have a system in place for doing whatever needs to be done. Maybe every once in a while, though, we should take a step back and reevaluate our traditions. Is there actually a better method we just haven’t thought of because of our ties to this certain tradition?
In this post, we want to look at one tradition that we believe churches need to reevaluate, and that is the way they hire ministers. The traditional method for hiring ministers in churches of Christ has several weaknesses, and we would like to address just a few of those here as well as offer up some solutions.
First, many congregations begin their search too quickly. As soon as the former minister leaves, there is a sense of urgency to find his replacement. Urgency isn’t always a bad thing, but there needs to be some time for the elders and search committee to decide what direction to take the search. What kind of minister does the congregation need? What responsibilities will the minister have? What will their salary be? What specific personality traits need to be present in this new minister for them to get along well with members of the congregation?
It requires time for a church to come to a consensus on the answers to these questions. When churches jump too quickly into a search, it can, first, lead to vague job descriptions that will not attract near as many candidates. Second, and even worse, it can lead to division within a congregation. How hard is it going to be for a church to search for a minister when it cannot agree on what kind of minister it wants? The more planning that a church puts into its search, the better the end result will be.
How a church advertises its position is also of great importance. The traditional method usually just involves putting up the job posting on various brotherhood university websites and hoping for applications to come in. Some calls might be made to local ministers or personal connections to people in the congregation, but there is not much active recruiting involved.
Our philosophy is this: we know who we are looking for, and we will go to every length to find that person. During our recruiting process, we make hundreds, sometimes thousands, of phone calls to ministers across the country. We may spend hours making calls without an interested candidate, but we always end up finding high-quality candidates. It takes time and effort to do this and, if the congregation chooses not to use a search firm like us, it takes quite a bit of cooperation and dedication on the part of the search committee. From our experience, though, we believe your congregation will find the results to be worth the effort.
When a congregation is passive in its approach, this can lead to many more problems in addition to the search taking much longer than it needs to. The attitude that is present in many churches is, “We will wait it out until we have what we want.” If this is your congregation’s attitude, your best candidates will probably find another position before your search committee begins to follow up with them. Not only is this way of thinking inefficient for the congregation, but it is unfair to the candidates to have to wait indefinitely. The solution is simple: hard deadlines and guaranteed follow-up with candidates at those deadlines. Again, this requires dedication.
When a congregation is passive in its approach, this can lead to many more problems in addition to the search taking much longer than it needs to. The attitude that is present in many churches is, “We will wait it out until we have what we want.” If this is your congregation’s attitude, your best candidates will probably find another position before your search committee begins to follow up with them. Not only is this way of thinking inefficient for the congregation, but it is unfair to the candidates to have to wait indefinitely. The solution is simple: hard deadlines and guaranteed follow-up with candidates at those deadlines. Again, this requires dedication.
