Over the last several months, I have been interviewing with churches as we sought our next step. I learned a lot about interviewing and the questions to ask in the process. It can be hard to ask questions. First of all, by the time you ask questions in the interview you are tired. You have answered theological and leadership questions, shared your story and what God is doing in your life and that can be emotionally draining.

So, you need to make sure you plan your questions. Don’t show up and throw out a random question or two. And don’t ask 0 questions, that is a sign you aren’t interested in the job. If you feel like you didn’t get to ask all your questions, set up a separate time for you to interview them. I spent hours asking questions of the team at Community Covenant Church in the process before making a decision.

Remember, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you.

Below are my favorite questions that I asked each church. This was separate from my theological and philosophical questions and separate from finding the heart of a church.

1. If money wasn’t an issue and the Holy Spirit answered every prayer you have for your church, what does this church look like in 5 years? I love this question because it causes the team to sit back and dream. I heard so many great answers to this question over my months of interviewing. But what you are listening for, especially if you are interviewing for a lead pastor role, is where this group of people would like their church to go. Because as the leader, they are hoping you will take them there.

Each time I listened to this answer I asked myself, do I want to go there? Do I want to be a part of that church in the future? I didn’t hear anything heretical from any church I talked to, but I did hear answers that made me think, “that sounds nice, but I don’t want to go there.” This is an incredibly clarifying question.

2. What is one thing you hope I do or change? What is one thing you hope I don’t do or change? These two go together. As a leader you will bring about change. You are supposed to. But you need to be careful about what changes you bring. As a new leader, you have a great opportunity to bring fresh eyes to a ministry, to see things in a different way. You also have a period of time (a honeymoon it’s often called) to bring about new ideas.

But you need to do them carefully.

Hearing what people hoped I would change or do was really helpful. The second question helped me to see what is off-limits, what matters to a church.

3. What makes an employee successful at this church? I think you need to ask this question of a lot of different people during the interview process. Here’s why: I took a job once and in the interview process I got one answer from the leadership team of the church and I got a different answer from the admins in the church. Here’s why that matters: You need to know how people will evaluate you, but you also need to know how things actually get done. Sometimes they line up and sometimes they don’t.

4. Describe someone that would not fit the culture of your church. Again, you are trying to ask open-ended questions that paint a picture. If you ask, “Tell me about your culture” you will often hear what you want to hear or what they think they should say as a church. This question will cause the team to think back to employees who didn’t make it, people who upset the DNA and “the way things are done here.”

5. Describe how a difficult leadership situation was handled. You want to find out how conflict is handled in the church. Every church has conflicts. You will have conflicts at some point with a coworker, another elder, or a family in the church. How is that handled? How is sin handled? The way past situations were handled will give you a clue as to how future situations will be handled until you are able to influence the culture. It will also tell you how they handle sin and extend grace, and what compassion in a church looks like.

6. What is your ideal pastoral family? The reason I like to phrase it this way is it causes them to tell a story. If you ask, “What are your expectations for my wife and kids?” they might try to answer it in the way you want. Yes, they still might do that. But this way, you allow them to think about what is their ideal pastoral family?

7. Why do new people come back to your church? This question helps you to see a few things: do they have new people that come to their church? Do they get information from those guests? Do they track it and utilize it? This question also helps you to see what the community around the church might think of the church.

Three final tips:

• Define the words they use. Churches are very good at throwing out buzzwords like relevant, collaborative, humble, generous, etc. So when they do, ask them to define those words. For example, when a church says it is generous, ask who experiences that generosity. Is it the staff? The community around them? The church itself?
• Find the influencer. This is not really a question you can ask but something you must discover at any church you are interviewing: Who is the biggest influencer in the church? I made the mistake once in an interview process of assuming I knew the answer to this and it bit me once I took the job. The biggest influencer is not always the person who sits at the top, has been there the longest, or has the most visible power. But every organization, church, and team resembles someone. Figuring out who that person is will be crucial to your success in a new role.
• Get financial and attendance data. I realize that coming out of covid this can be hard and not 100% accurate, but it is important. It tells a story, that’s what data does. I interviewed with one church that described themselves as growing and healthy but then they hit covid. However, as I dug into their data it showed they grew a lot in 2016 – 2018, plateaued and started to decline in 2019 and then hit covid. When I asked what happened in 2019, they pushed back and said that was an aberration. Maybe. But it is important to hear what the church thinks its data says, what story they think it tells.

Final thought: Know what answers you are looking for when you interview a church. They know what answers they want to hear from you. What will be a deal-breaker for you? What will cause a red flag to wave? My favorite answer, and one thing that stood out when I interviewed the team at Community Covenant, came when I asked them what would make me successful in 3 years. One of their elders said, “That your family would be glad you moved here.” When I asked that question of every other church, no one mentioned my family. That isn’t a deal breaker, but it was a big thing for me in this move. You need to know what those things are for you.