Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash
So, you’re searching for a job. You are excited, talking with churches and maybe narrowing down the list of potential places to move.
It is easy in a job search to talk yourself into a place. You might imagine that it is better than where you are, or that you can be the hero that finally does what no other pastor did before at that church. Don’t buy those mirages. Make sure you ask the right questions to find a church’s heart.
But, how do you see through your emotions and desires to see red flags that you might be missing?
Now, before listing these out, let me say these red flags aren’t necessarily a reason not to take a job, but things you need to pay attention to, even though they aren’t always obvious.
You don’t want to live there. I think this is a big deal. I remember talking to a large church in the midwest. I clicked with the elders and team there, and they were renovating their building and making it more prominent, but as I talked with Katie about it, she said, “But you don’t want to live there.” I got defensive and started to tell her all the reasons we wanted to be at that church, and then she said, “But you’d still have to live there.”
Now, we don’t always get to choose where we live, and sometimes, the doors to the place we want to live don’t open. We tried in our search to move to several areas that were closed to us. Sometimes, the family determines where you can or can’t live. But, as a pastor, you need to live in that place and love the people and the culture that makes up that place.
Make sure you want to live there, and that you like the worst season of the year there. Because it will be winter, or a blazing hot and humid summer.
The elders are mad at the previous pastor. In my first conversation, I could tell the elders were still angry at the last pastor in one church I talked to in our search. They weren’t mad at what he did or carried any bitterness from his time; they were furious that he left them.
Listen to how the people talk about the previous pastor and what stories they tell. Do they tell stories of a mythical time you won’t be able to replicate? Do they tell stories of hurt? Anger? Bitterness? This is a red flag because some churches are so hurt and don’t know it. Some churches need more time without a pastor to truly understand what they had and took for granted. Some churches must deal with their hurt and not take it out on the next pastor.
As a pastor, you need to know what you are walking into in this regard. You will be the one to pastor these people through whatever feelings they have about the previous pastor(s).
Tons of turnover. Ask about staff, elder, and volunteer turnover. One church I talked to had over 50% of its staff turnover in three years. No matter how big or small the staff, that’s a significant number. In this church, it was over 20 staff members. When I asked questions about it, there were good reasons and stories. However, it also revealed some things about the culture. It is easy to spiritualize staff transitions in a church, but you must ask questions about it and what it reveals about the culture.
Long-tenured staff. The flip side of the turnover coin is a staff with no turnover.
While this can be a healthy thing for staff, it can also be a red flag for a new staff member coming in. What has happened to previous new employees? Did they last? Why or why not? How open is this staff to new ideas and ways of doing things?
You meet someone you don’t click with. Depending on who this person is, it may not matter. But pay attention to people you don’t connect with in an interview process. Are they powerful? Influential? What rubbed you the wrong way?
This person will one day be a part of your staff, board, or church, so make sure you click with people.
They don’t want to change. Every church that hires a new pastor says, “We want to change and reach new people.” But do they? Like all things a church says, ask questions about it. Ask what change means to them, what kind of new people they want to reach, and what things they are willing to change and not change for this to happen.
Lastly, talk yourself out of it.
Here’s what I mean. A friend who does a ton of hiring for his job told me that one of the things he encourages search teams to do is to figure out why they wouldn’t hire a candidate. Just like it’s easy to talk yourself into a job, it is easy to talk yourself into a candidate. So, create a list of why you shouldn’t move or take a position. Do some opposition research on a place. If you have difficulty doing that, ask your spouse or a friend to help you with it. They might see things you don’t see.
