In my reference and referral work in dealing with pastoral candidates, I often get comments of frustration about how pastor search committees are conducting their searches. From the point of view of the pastoral candidate, some search committees make very time-consuming requests of candidates. I recently got this message from a pastoral candidate:

I have gotten an inquiry e-mail from a church, but I ended up not following up with them. I was out that week on vacation, and they wanted information immediately- and they also wanted me to fill out a four-page employment application with info like my social security number and four additional character references. They also wanted a letter of reference with the application. There are about three people that have written letters like that for me. They take time to write and I am always grateful for them. The committee has my references on the resume…what do they think a letter of reference will reveal? They know it will be glowing –, a friend writing it.”

 Note that this exchange was in the initial contact from the search committee – not after they were far along in their process where this kind of information might legitimately have been requested.  

With today’s access to the Internet and other resources, search committees should, in most cases, be able to research a candidate and get enough information to determine if he or she is really a viable prospect for the church. Many churches have extensive Web sites (often with the availability of sermon downloads), making it fairly easy for a committee to get an initial “feel” for a candidate.  If the committee determines, presumably after praying about it, that the candidate is one in whom they are strongly interested, they can then request additional information. And this request should be accompanied by a packet of information about their church and the community for the candidate. (That information door swings both ways.) 

This initial “homework” on the part of the search committee can ultimately save time for both the committee and the candidate by doing everything possible to determine the viability of a particular prospective candidate early in the search process. 

(Of course, candidates make their mistakes too. But that is a subject for a later posting.)