There are some things in life that we are grateful to have available to us when they are needed while at the same time, we hope we don’t have to use them. A booklet to guide churches in their search for a new pastor may fall into that category. The Arkansas Baptist State Convention (ABSC) has recently revised the booklet, The Search Is On: Finding & Calling a Pastor, to assist churches as they are faced with the need to search for a pastor.
The revised booklet features a six-step process for a team, commonly called a Pastor Search Committee, that is tasked with finding a new pastor. In each step, there are “feature boxes” that call attention to important details to be considered. The appendix section provides examples of forms that might be used for surveys, contacting references, and planning salary and benefits.
This is the second revision of the booklet that has provided help to churches for almost 20 years. The newly revised content has the benefit of these years of experience guiding a number of churches through the search process. Several members of the ABSC staff have worked together to provide this resource to help search committees have a great experience in finding a pastor.
The ABSC staff and your associational missionary are available to pray for and assist as a church begins the process when a pastoral vacancy occurs. As soon as your church learns that your pastor is leaving, contact the ABSC or your associational missionary to obtain a copy of the revised booklet for each member of the team. A trained ABSC staff member will be happy to visit your church to train the pastor search committee and to share different interim options as listed in the appendices of The Search Is On: Finding & Calling a Pastor.