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Your Senior Pastor search committee spends 18-24 months whittling down a list of 100 resumes to a short list of candidates you pray over, interview, and bring to your church for a weekend before finally discerning which individual is the right fit. Once you make a decision, however, they back out, already took another position, or are no longer interested. Now what?

This is a familiar story. We work with search committee members almost daily who are exhausted from a search that yielded no results. They are looking back on what looks like wasted effort and are concerned they will either have to spend another year and a half searching again, or even worse, close the doors of their church.

If your church finds itself in a similar situation, step back and work through these three steps.

Here at Vanderbloemen, we work with churches big and small, of all different denominations, theological positions, and backgrounds. However, one thing every church has in common is that the process of finding a new church staff member is not easy. Whether it is a Senior Pastor or a Children's Pastor, each role is crucial to reaching the church's mission.

When faced with the pressure of hiring the right person, we have found a few common mistakes that tend to surface throughout the search process. Here are three common missteps that we want to help you avoid the next time your church is hiring a new staff member.

One of the more common conversations we have with churches is about how they should deal with an internal candidate. Sometimes it’s a potential successor for their Senior Pastor transition, but other times it’s moving an associate into a director-level role. Whatever the transition, internal candidates can be tricky and emotional waters to navigate.

Should you find yourself in this situation, it’s important that you handle it with care. There is not only a job at stake, but a relationship to consider as well. We’ve walked alongside several churches as they navigate this situation and below is our best advice for doing this well.

When we visit with churches that are going through a senior pastor search, we often see a strong generational divide. Either the younger congregants feel as if the pastor search committee isn’t considering candidates who will bring the church “up-to-date”, or the older congregants feel that the committee is trying to force change while neglecting the church’s legacy.

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The first line of the book NEXT: Pastoral Succesion That Works is, "Every pastor is an interim pastor."

Whether a season of ministry lasts three years or three decades, every church will be faced with the inevitable challenge of replacing its pastor at some point. Some transitions will be positive, and it will be appropriate to surround them with praise and celebration. However, a transition often occurs because a pastor is involved in something that requires them to step away from ministry.

Churches often ask what is the “standard severance package” or the “standard way” they should handle their pastoral transition. Our answer is always the same: there is no standard answer. Every transition will have different aspects that will influence the what the severance package and departing situation looks like.

Here are five issues your church leadership and board should think through when faced with a pastoral transition.

One of the offerings that Vanderbloemen Search Group provides for churches is a comprehensive background, social media and credit check. By providing these services, we are behind hundreds of candidate credit checks per year, good and bad. 

While most candidates have great credit, and some don’t even have a credit card, other candidates have less than perfect credit. This isn't a dealbreaker in the hiring process necessarily, but certainly something worth noting. So what should an organization do when one of its candidates has bad credit?

Here are 5 things to consider. 

It’s inevitable. All pastors will move on at some point. Whether it’s retirement, going to another church, or an unexpected passing away, no one stays at the same place forever. Most pastors love their flock and understand that their calling to shepherd is a weighty responsibility. However, pastors often don’t think the process of pastoral succession is their job.

Having the right church leaders in place is a critical part of the success of a ministry, but it’s getting them there that is the hardest part. And who you have on your search team makes a big difference when you’re looking for that key hire. Choosing who to have on your pastor search committee is an important decision and should be approached thoughtfully and prayerfully. 

Though any Lead Pastor transition is an important one, replacing a long-tenured Senior Pastor often carries a lot more weight and is filled with nuances outside a normal pastor search. We’ve walked alongside hundreds of churches during this holy crossroads, and we can tell you that a pastor search like this is so important to get right.

Here are three things to consider when searching for a new pastor after a long-tenured one.