(Article is by William VanDoodewaard who is a minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and also serves as associate professor of church history at Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary.)
Being engaged in the work of a pastoral search committee, I recently came across and had the privilege of reading through Brian Biedebach’s book What to look for in a pastor: A guide for pastoral search committees(Leominster, UK: Day One, 2011). The book is a significant contribution to a crucial part of church life: the pastoral search. Biedebach states “this book is all about helping committees and churches find the right men for their pulpits. It is also a book for pastors to help them keep the right balance between preaching and other shepherding responsibilities that are given them by God.” What brought him to write on this topic? Through personal experience and connections he came increasingly to feel that
“the typical pulpit committee is made up of six or seven church members who hardly know one another and have never before experienced the process of choosing a pastor… Pulpit committees often gamble with their selection of candidates because they usually don’t have a clear understanding of biblical guidelines for choosing a pastor. Many pastoral search committees unwittingly have incorrect expectations, erroneous criteria, and a skewed evaluation process. The result is that their churches end up with the wrong man.”
Liam Goligher, senior minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, attests similarly in his commendation of the book:
“I’ve just come out of a pulpit-selection process in which I have been quizzed and questioned by people who knew what their church believed and were anxious to know whether I measured up to their doctrinal position. They pulled no punches as they probed my answers, listened to my sermons, and read my responses to make sure there was a unity in the truth. Would that this was always the way it was, but I can assure you it is the exception rather than the rule. In other words, this church’s process was so unlike the “beauty pageant” that often passes for pulpit selection in many “evangelical” churches today…”
