A recent commenter asked about how churches choose a pastor. While I can not speak to how every sect chooses a pastor, I am intimately familiar with how Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), Southern Baptist (SBC) , and Evangelical churches choose a pastor. These groups will be the focus of what follows.
Many IFB, SBC, and Evangelical churches are new church plants. The person pastoring the church is the first pastor the church congregation has had. Often churches are thrown into quite a quandary when the founding pastor leaves. There is no set procedure for choosing a new pastor. What kind of pastor do they want? Do they want a pastor like the previous one?
Like fruit in the produce department, pastors have varied personalities and abilities. I have said numerous times, that I was a great church planter but not a very good church nurturer. Even when I took over old, established churches, I continued to have a church planter's mentality. It is no surprise that I had problems in these churches. They wanted a pastor that maintained the status quo. I wanted to burn the status quo down and start fresh. I saw myself as a hired gunslinger, called to kill anything and everything that got in the way of the church being a shining light in the community.
IFB,SBC, and most Evangelical churches are congregational. It is the congregation that determines who the pastor will be. They have the power to hire and fire a pastor. Contrary to how things may seem, the congregation has all the power. (even if they rarely exercise it) Unless the church's articles of incorporation or constitution limit the power of the membership, they control who their pastor is.
When a church needs a new pastor, they will often form a pulpit/search committee. This committee is given the responsibility to seek out qualified candidates to be their next pastor. Men looking for a new church to pastor and recent college/seminary graduates submit their resumes to the church for consideration. The pulpit committee goes through the resumes, separating the wheat from the chaff. They likely pray over the resumes, asking God to guide them to just the right man for the job.
Once they settle on a pool of candidates, they will contact them and have them come to the church and preach. They will likely schedule private and congregational meetings with the prospective pastor so he can be questioned about his beliefs, practices, and personal life. They may run a background check.
Some churches consider one candidate at a time. After hearing the prospective pastor preach, they hold a church business meeting to decide if this is the man for them. Other churches, have several candidates preach before they hold a business meeting. If the church votes against the candidate, they move on to a new candidate. If the church votes yes, then they contact the candidate and extend to him what is called a call. He will likely not say yes right away, wanting to pray on the matter and talk to his wife before he decides. He will then contact the church and let them know what he's decided.
Prospective candidates learn about open pulpits from their fellow clergy, clergy job boards, association missionaries, or college/denominational offices. On average, a Baptist pastor changes churches every 3-5 years. When he feels God is leading him to leave or that God is finished with him where he is, he will discreetly begin to seek out a new church to pastor. (or consider going into evangelism, becoming a missionary, or starting a new church)
Sometimes, the pastor is quite upfront with his current church. He lets them know that he thinks it is time for him to move on. Other times, he doesn't do this, out of fear of how the church might respond. More than one pastor has gone on “vacation” and spent his vacation seeking a new church to pastor. I think this is unethical. If a pastor thinks it is time for him to leave, he owes it to the church to tell them.
Now let me share a few personal stories about my own experience with the dog and pony show called candidating.
I started the Somerset Baptist Church in 1983 and I pastored the church for 11 years. I left the church in 1994 to become co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas. I had preached for the church the prior year, and one day the pastor called and asked it I would consider coming to Texas to work with the church. (you can read about this in the series, I am a Publican and a Heathen) I initially turned him down, but later changed my mind. Our family drove to Texas to spend a few days with the church and preach for them. We had two meetings with the church congregation. We were asked countless questions. Yet, for all the questions that were asked, the church didn't ask some crucial questions and neither did I. If I was asked to give churches and prospective pastors one piece of advice, it would be to ask questions. LOTS of questions. Ask every possible question. The question you don't ask will be the one thing that later bites you in the ass.
I started Grace Baptist Church, later Our Father's House, in West Unity, Ohio in 1995. I pastored the church for 7 years. After six months off, I decided I wanted to pastor again. This time, I decided I wanted to pastor with the Southern Baptists. I submitted my resume to several SBC area missionaries in Ohio and Michigan. In a matter of days, my phone began to ring off the hook. Come to find out, there are a lot of small, often dysfunctional, SBC churches that are without a pastor. (and many of them don't deserve to have a pastor, having chewed up and spit out pastor after pastor) I ended up going to Clare, Michigan to pastor Victory Baptist Church. (a huge mistake and the last church I pastored)
In 2005, two years after pastoring my last church, I decided to try to find a church to pastor. This time, I submitted my resume to several SBC area missionaries in West Virginia. Again, the phone rang off the hook. I decided to candidate at two SBC churches, New Life Baptist Church and Hedgesville Baptist Church.
New Life Baptist was very interested in me coming to be their pastor. It was a small, friendly church. Polly was not excited about New Life. I suspect she was praying God would NOT lead us there. I was a firm believer in letting God lead, never putting a price on my services. (a very stupid, harmful way to live life BTW) After I preached twice for the church, they came to me and said they were interested in me becoming their pastor. But, there was one problem. I had preached from the ESV and there was one family in the church that was King James Only. They were threatening to leave if they hired me and I didn't preach out of the KJV. While I certainly could have accommodated the church, I saw a bigger problem. The KJV family was a bully, and if I bowed to their translation demand it would only lead to more and more demands. So, I told the church I couldn't do so, and they decided not to call me.
Hedgesville Baptist Church in Hedgesville, West Virgina was a vibrant, growing church is a rapidly growing area. The church, near Hagerstown, Maryland, was a commute away from Baltimore and Washington DC. New housing and commercial buildings were sprouting up everywhere. The church had a nice parsonage, paid a great salary, and was a church any pastor would love to pastor.
Like others churches I candidated at, I preached both Sunday services and met with the church congregation and pulpit committee. At the end of the day, I let the head of the pulpit committee know that I was interested in coming to the church BUT there was a problem. The church had an interim pastor, a local police officer. Talking to him, it became clear to me that he wanted to be the permanent pastor of the church. The church had not considered him because he lacked the experience and educational background they were looking for. I suggested they ask him if he was interested. He was, and 9 years later he is still the pastor of the church. (the church lists itself as an independent Baptist church now, KJV only, so they may have left the SBC)
If you strip the religion from the process, choosing a new pastor is not much different from a company choosing a new CEO or a school choosing a new principal. Both parties in the process should thoroughly investigate one another and ask lots of questions. What is not investigated or unasked will always be a problem later. I was shocked by how few questions churches asked me. Important questions that should have been asked were left unasked. I found out that churches were way too trusting, not realizing that ministerial resumes often have lies and distortions.
And as a prospective pastor, I should have asked more questions too. The questions I didn't ask were the very questions that became a pain in the ass six months later. You see, churches lie too. They want to put their best foot forward, so they often hide the ugly side of the church. This is especially true when it comes to church fiances and who the power brokers are in the church. (and every church has a group/family that controls the church)
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