This deviates from my typical topic of worship a little. However, I deal with search committee members on a near weekly basis and I thought that maybe I can share some insights with you as perhaps you form that committee that every church seems to create at some time or another – the ubiquitous search committee.
Much is constitutionally written on this subject in churches on makeup, membership, purpose, protocol and the like of these committees. However, as an ad hoc committee, the search committee typically disbands as soon as the congregation comes to a successful vote calling the pastor or ministry staff member.
This is a shame.
I would like to encourage you, if you are so inclined, to make a search committee a “keep” committee. This would not necessarily have to be spelled out in the bylaws, just a mutually understood decision by the committee to serve as a spiritual advocate for the new staff member.
First, as a search committee in the final stages of the selection, make sure that you spend a lot of time keeping in touch with the candidate. Phone calls, emails from the various candidates …not Facebook, because you don’t want to create a firestorm in the candidate’s present location.
Also be sensitive about calling the candidate’s office, as this may place the candidate in a sticky position. Home phone calls are good, and always ask if it is a good time to speak.
Once the “View of a Call” has been completed with a positive vote, the search committee should start routinely sending church newsletters, bulletins, local newspapers, realty pamphlets, and material from the Chamber of Commerce and from the local schools. There needs to be clear expectations set about moving and start time. There should be members of the committee involved in the move out and move in.
There are a couple of other things that should be addressed as well, including health insurance (especially if the staffer is not currently with GuideStone), moving companies, and alerting the local director of missions to touch base with the new staff member.
In terms of the “Keep Committee,” when the candidate is on the premises, consider the following ideas:
• Covenant to pray for the new staff member and family daily for a year;
• Covenant to serve as advocates for the new staff in the church and community life;
• Offer for six months to a year to provide childcare services, if necessary, so the staff and spouse can get out together;
• Organize a church party and “pounding” of food for the new arrival and spouse;
• Organize a new paint job for the study of the new staff member, with the staff member relaying before they arrive the color that he would prefer;
• Clean the parsonage, if there is one, with a paint job shaped by input from the new staff member’s spouse, and;
• Take out the new staff/family for a meal once a month or so.
If a search committee will spend just a little bit of time making the new staff feel welcome, it will go a long way toward keeping this person, and simply being a witness of God’s goodness and love. You will also, unwittingly, create awareness in yourself of love for God’s man in your church, which is something so desperately needed in today’s churches.
This kind of awareness has another wonderful by-product. It has a chance to eliminate the need for so many “search committees.”
John Francis
Worship specialist
Missouri Baptist Convention