Now hiring

I think a book could be written on hiring a preacher. If you decide to and need some help just let me know, I’ll be happy to contribute a chapter or two under a pseudonym (is that the strangest spelled word of all time or what?). Since running the scoop blog I seem to talk to at least one preacher and one eldership every day and it is amazing some of what I hear is done.
Few things are as hard to figure out as the rhyme or reason to how churches hire preachers. Few churches have to go through this task every year or two as they did in the past - that makes the process both more difficult and more important. If you were only hiring for a year and you made a mistake, well, you’d have another chance to fix it not long after the mistake. On the other hand if you were doing it every 18 months or so you’d have the experience of how to or how not to hire a preacher. I seem to get more and more calls from elderships needing help on “how to do it”.
Today I want to write about “filters” - yes, filters. Leaderships often do themselves a great disservice with filters. What are filters? Elders will often say “we don’t want a man who is _____” (under age 40, over age 55, single, has no children, hasn’t worked with an eldership before, looking for a job, not looking for a job, was ever fired, etc.). With these often “hard” filters a church will sometimes miss their best candidate. Wouldn’t it make more sense to seriously consider people based on themselves as individuals? I mean, if you wouldn’t hire anyone under age 40, you wouldn’t have hired Jesus Himself. If you wouldn’t consider anyone single, you wouldn’t hire the Apostle Paul. It is often that person just below or above the filter who ends up doing the best work for a congregation. I don’t know how often I’ve heard stories of churches who took a little risk and received the greatest of blessings and had some of their best days as a result. Yes, it will be a lot of work, but it will be work that is rewarded and if you aren’t willing to put in a lot of work what kind of leader are you anyway?
In looking for a preacher - find the person - then go after them! Don’t just settle, do the work find out how to hire that man and go get him.
Oh, and while I’m up here on this soapbox one other thing - tell the guy what your plans are! Let him know. “We think we will hire the first person we find that we like”, “We are going to try out five guys and then hire the one we like best”, “We are going to try out five guys and if we don’t like any of them we will try out five more”, “We are going to narrow it down to two and then let the church vote”, “It will probably be three months before we get back with you”, “We don’t have a clue how to do this or the process we’ll use”, REGARDLESS let the people who you talk to know what is going on. Keep him posted! You aren’t doing anybody any favors by not. He doesn’t want to go there if you don’t want him he just wants to know. And, when you decide who you are going to hire, let the other guys you’ve talked to know it. They want God’s best for the congregation and if they are not “it” then they will be fine, but don’t leave them wondering.
OK, I’ll climb down off this thing now. I could say so much more on this subject, stuff about praying with the guys you are talking to and helping them see their strengths and weaknesses, about checking references, about integrity and honesty, about dealing with each other lovingly, but for now I’ll sign off. I look forward to reading your comments - fire away.