Pastor Search # 4

Failing to evaluate the church's true condition
Just what is the true condition of your church? Too often churches will tell prospective pastors that they want to grow. They will say things like; “We want to grow”, or “We want to reach new people”, or “We need to get new people into our church”. Each of these is an admirable goal for any church. The problem is that many churches really do not know what it takes to reach their community. Often churches are stuck in the past or just do not know how to reach out to new people. In his book “Comeback Churches, Ed Stetzer stated that each of the comeback churches surveyed got a new pastor. Either they had a pastor that could not move the church to comeback and that pastor left or the current pastor changed his thinking. That is great if the pastor is able to lead the church in the direction of growth. What we are talking about today is the church whose pastor has left and they are looking for the new one who will lead them to the promised land of growth. The church must look inwardly and make an honest assessment of its true condition. It just may be that unless changes are made the church cannot reach new people. James Emery White wrote a wonderful book titled “Rethinking The Church”. James White commissioned a survey of unchurched people who live the in Northeast area of Charlotte, NC. The survey sought to answer one single question; “Why don’t you attend church?”. The results were, 1) There is no value in attending 74%, 2) Churches have too many problems 61%, 3) I do not have time 48%, 4) I am simply not interested 42%. 5) Churches ask for money too frequently 40%, 6) Church services are usually boring 36%, 7) Christian churches hold no relevance for the way I live 34%, 8) I do not believe in God, or I am unsure that God exists 12%. It would be a great idea for any church to look at what they do and see if they are doing anything to help people like those surveyed find a reason to attend. When interviewing a pastor it is good to be honest and say that our church is currently maintaining. That is a healthy statement. It is not necessarily a healthy state for the church to be in but it certainly gives a prospective pastor a better understanding of what he will be up against rather than if the church states that everything is fine and going well. People who answered the question in the survey will probably not attend a church that is maintaining. They are looking for something that is relevant to them. What if you found 100 single parent mothers in your neighborhood who are trying to shuffle childcare, work and social life? Would your church do anything different than they are doing now? What if you found twenty same sex couples living in your neighborhood? Would your church do anything different than they are doing now? You see, when our church is honest with its condition, many times we will have to say, “We are doing a poor job of reaching out to the community”. Any new pastor needs to know that upfront, in order to best determine his future there. It is not a bad thing to be in a condition of not reaching new people. It is a bad thing to ignore it… At our http://www.ministrytogether.com website we use a 54 point matching system to match churches with prospective pastors. When the questions are answered correctly by the church listing a position the database will find and list every prospect by percentage of match. This makes it easy to get prospects that have the same style of ministry. When we find the right match the Kingdom grows. It is very important not to ignore issues such as the condition of the church when dealing with prospects.…….Preacherman