Five Things We Learned in Our Pastor Search Process

As the Trinity CRC search committee wrapped up this last year’s search process, we put together a summary of our work. Following are a list of items that we believe helped our search process to be a successful and edifying experience for all of us.

1. We received clear and direct guidelines from the council. Four priorities were given to us for our search. These included: solid biblical preaching, pastoral experience of at least (5) years, strengths in the areas of pastoral care and leadership.
2. Council chose seven members for the search committee who were to be representative of the full congregation. They did a good job of making sure all members of the congregation were represented.
3. We advertised our open pastoral position in The Banner and through the Church Positions section here on The Network. 
4. Early in our search process we set up an evaluation chart for each profile we considered. Each of the priorities given to us by council was rated with a 1, 2, or 3, depending on that individual pastor’s strengths in those categories. We then added a section to the chart where we could write in other strengths or observations that were pertinent to our congregation’s needs. This method of evaluation allowed our meetings to be more productive and efficient without as much “rabbit trailing.”
5. The search committee gave several reports to the congregation about the progress of our search over the course of the year. We could have done this more often, in order to keep the congregation even better informed. We concluded that a monthly update would still have been helpful, even if we had no new news.