“Surveys show that surveys never lie.” ~ Natalie Angier

“Latest survey shows that 3 out of 4 people make up 75% of the world’s population.” ~ Stephen Hawking

“Surveys show that the #1 fear of Americans is public speaking. #2 is death. That means that at a funeral, the average American would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” ~ Jerry Seinfeld

 

In April, the Pastor Nominating Committee (PNC) got to take a survey of our own. We discovered some interesting things but also realized there were still questions we needed help answering. Here is that process documented:

Among the resources that ECO offers as our new denomination is their Flourish Ministry, which has a component focused on churches in transition, like we are (https://flourishmovement.org/churches-in-transition/). We agreed as a team it would be wise to invest part of our team’s budget in leveraging this help and got connected with a member of the Flourish team. We had the pleasure of meeting Kaitlyn Wood, who is the Director of Church Health, and is a former pastor herself.

Kaitlyn will be able to assist the PNC with a number of things throughout our process of finding a candidate to nominate, and we’ll likely refer back to Flourish and Kaitlyn again down the road. Our journey began with her administering a survey that each PNC member took individually and then we had a follow-up meeting with Kaitlyn to talk through what it revealed about our hopes for a new pastor.

The survey, called JobScan, was made up of 30 questions that each made a statement about what our new pastor position will require, and we had to select one answer among {almost never, seldom, sometimes, often, almost always}. Example not included in JobScan: Requires enthusiasm about Boston sports teams (my answer here might be “sometimes”).

The analysis results of our answers provided a few categories of styles we might be wanting from our new pastor:

  • A personality style (think Myers-Briggs personality or DiSC leadership, if you’ve ever experienced these)
  • A specific decision-making style
  • An energy style

Taken together, these helped us to get a read on what we felt would be important traits and inclusions in the job listing we needed to write. But there was a small catch. Our combined results range was very wide. That is, if we looked at all the things we were open to having our new pastor act like, lead like, and put energy into, we appeared to be open to quite a lot. It’s nice to think we’re an inclusive and open bunch, but it also means that we may struggle to narrow down potential candidates as truly being a good fit for River’s Edge.

However, as we talked through the results with Kaitlyn, we realized two main reasons this might actually be just fine:

1) We recognize that we’ll be losing both Jo and Dane, and value skills currently filled by each of them. And, together, they cover quite a range!

2) We recognize that our church is in transition in many ways, and we don’t have a clear picture of what the next few years will require. If we can find an excellent leader and great partner with our existing staff and volunteers, we may actually be open as a congregation to how the Holy Spirit will guide us all together.

This was the natural point then to bring in the rest of River’s Edge, and gather your input on aspects of our new pastor that you feel will be important. We want to check our own thoughts and results, and also ensure that we’re taking into account a greater set of opinions as much as is reasonable. As of this writing, we are in the middle of this congregational survey, with a requested deadline of this coming Sunday (June 15) for all returned surveys. The PNC created our own set of questions, often borrowing from some good questions written by others in our situation, but also creating our own; our survey covers nine ideas about the pastor’s training, style and experience, and four questions about the future of River’s Edge. If you have not had a chance to take this survey yet and don’t have a copy, please email us at pnc@recconline.org.

We look forward to reviewing the results over the next couple of weeks, and interpreting what it tells us we should emphasize in the job description we have been working on. We also intend to summarize results for the church so that you also can get a sense of where we as a congregation may be hoping for certain leadership, care, and discipleship from the next pastor.

In a very real way, this pastor search is going to be an important part of figuring out how God is directing our church to serve our community and His world in our coming years. All of us can be praying for this aspect of the search and decisions ahead. And we invite all River’s Edgers to be thinking about this, and welcome any discussions and prayer together!

Blessings and Peace