Hey Fletch … We have a senior pastor candidate who will be visiting our church this weekend, Thursday-Monday. I am attaching a list of questions that I think the board of elders should ask. Do you have any additional questions that are important? Your help would be greatly appreciated.
DRF—Whether you do a written response or have a dialogue with the candidate, you have the right kind of questions. Your 37 questions could take a long time to work through! I’d suggest a rolling dialogue that gives you the opportunity to ask “grouped questions.” In one to two hours, you could work through most of your topics. If you can’t do that this weekend, do a Zoom call with the candidate. Zoom is better than telephone as you can see the facial expressions of the candidate.
The best addition that I could give to your questions is what I noted above—organize them by type. Don’t be seen as having a machine gun list but have a flowing discussion. Areas could include:
- Personal life—talk to us about your spouse and family. What was your family like growing up? What was your teenage life like? How did you handle the struggles of being a teenager in a crazy society?
- Preaching—do you have a fire in your belly to preach? What will you do to allow enough time for study and preparation to preach? How will you delegate things so that you can handle a two-site church? What stories can you share about balancing ministry?
- Doctrine—you have plenty of issues here.
- Church Polity—talk about your understanding and alignment with your denomination.
- Family—how can we help your family integrate into your city? What about the distance to your other family members in other states?
- Personal Struggles—From a fiduciary perspective we need to ask about anytime those struggles have manifested in inappropriate sexual activity or harassment, or issues with the police. Please comment on this. Have you ever been accused of these things by a church member or staff member?
