How
Do We Convince a Church to Call Us -- Together?
Steve
and Catherine Price, a UMC couple serving in Florida, requested a dual
appointment from their District Superintendent, and were charged with starting
a new church, together. Baptists, and clergy from other denominations that
follow a purely congregational form of government, have to “go it alone.”
Having recently had that experience, the Deans share a cover letter
introducing their vision of Shared Pastoral Ministry to several Search Committees.
You will also find a reflection from the Chair of the Search Committee of Park
Road Baptist entitled, “Oh dear!! There are two of them…” For those in
our tradition, we offer this with encouragement: Keep the faith -- there is a church out there for you!
A) Dear Search Committee,
Our lives in ministry have
been filled with rich experiences which have afforded us many unique
opportunities to minister together. Through these thirteen years of shared
ministry we have felt God's calling to further service in a unique form of
ministry. We feel certain that you have not considered calling a couple for
your position, but we would like to ask you to spend the next few moments
imagining and dreaming with us.
Imagine that you had a pastor
whose strengths and studies had been devoted to pastoral care, and whose
interests and concentration were in organization and administration. Imagine
that you had a pastor whose preaching style was pastoral and
relationally-oriented and whose method was more given to an intellectual
approach of ideas and concepts. Imagine that your pastor had the ability to
counsel with women when the empathetic ear of another woman was needed, and
to hear men's concerns as only another man could (or, on the other hand, to
hear concerns as someone of the opposite sex). Imagine that your pastor could
participate in marital counseling, perform marriages, and lead family seminars
and workshops with a more holistic understanding of people's lives... Imagine
that you had a pastor who, literally, could attend two committee meetings
simultaneously!
Both of us have a love for
the Church and for God's people. We sense God's call in our lives to work in
and through the life of the Church. We define Church as a "community of
faith," sisters and brothers living and working, sharing and loving,
giving of self to and through the body of Christ. In ministering together, we
feel that we could blend two sets of complementary gifts into a distinctive
vision, enthusiasm, and ministry.
We have dreamed of the possibilities,
and have discussed many of the specifics. We would covet the opportunity to
further describe for you our vision for Shared Pastoral Ministry. Perhaps at a
time such as this in the life of your church, you would be willing to consider
this unique concept of ministry.
Thank you for your
consideration. May God's wisdom and direction be with you in your search.
Grace and Peace,
Russ and Amy Jacks Dean
(russdean@parkroadbaptist.org, ajdean@parkroadbaptist.org)
B) Oh Dear!!
There are Two of Them…
It
is certainly true that most search committees would describe their perfect
candidate as a 30-50 year old white male with a nice family. What do you do when you find him and his
wife is also part of the team?
As
the chair of the Park Road Baptist Search Team, I remember the thoughts of our
committee when the possibility of co-pastors was introduced. Although we had liked the Deans over the
phone, we had questions. Our big
questions included:
1)
How
would the responsibilities be divided?
2)
How
would we pay two people (we only had salary for one position)?
Therefore,
we decided to ask these questions upfront.
Russ and Amy responded beautifully.
Not only did they provide us with their individual personal credentials,
but they also sent an outline of responsibilities mirroring the life of a
church. Additionally, we discussed our
total salary package and their prospective needs. We knew that no matter how much we “liked” one another, the money
had to make sense.
We
then discussed how to change our interview process to accommodate two
ministers. There are two important
points to determine: 1) Both team members have to be of equal strength. If one member is much weaker, the team would
break apart; and, 2) They must share
the same vision when separate. To
discover whether these points were true of the Dean team, we decided we needed
to know them individually before understanding them as a team. Therefore, the same Search Committee Member
interviewed them each personally over the phone. He was able to help us rate their strengths and the continuity of
their vision when separate from one another.
Yeah… they passed the test!!
Next,
the entire Search Committee would conduct a face-to-face interview. Because the group had so many questions
about the way a team would function, we spent the first 30 minutes allowing the
Deans to describe their vision of shared pastoral ministry. Then, we separated them and interviewed each
separately. After a long individual
interview, we brought them back together for our last series of questions. During this interview, we were able to make
conclusions about their individual strengths and weaknesses, the completeness
of their vision, their theological stances and how well they initially
functioned as a team.
After
the first visit, the committee then treated the Deans more like one candidate
in the process and compared them to other candidates. The only other time in the search process that we had to change
our normal course of action was in educating the church. Since this idea was new, we knew it would be
necessary to do extra communication with the members. We sent letters, wrote newsletter articles, talked to the Diaconate
and the Sunday School classes, and even set-up small group meetings with the
Deans to make the congregation understand the vision of co-pastors. The church unanimously embraced our team.
Important
Points to Ponder for the Couple Searching:
·
Always
keep separate resumes so the committee can understand the contributions of both
of you. Then, provide a combined vision
of your ministry with specifics of who would do what.
·
Be
upfront about your salary expectations and how you would break apart the salary. The salary can be the biggest “deal
breaker.”
·
Be
ready to communicate openly with the committee about your personal strengths
and weaknesses but also the strengths and weaknesses of this plan and the
effect of this plan on your marriage.
They may be afraid to ask but these thoughts are going through their
minds. They will not hire you with
these lingering doubts. If you
introduce the pros/cons, you have the chance to be positive and open. This will be to your advantage.
·
Be
prepared to answer the question “What if the congregation likes one of you
better than the other?” What would be
your plan? This is a large risk of
shared ministry.
Important
Points to Ponder for the Search Committee:
·
What
is their plan? Have they broken out the
responsibilities appropriately for your church? Can the plan be tweaked?
·
How
strong are they as individual ministers?
If one minister becomes the “go-to”, how will this effect their
ministry?
·
How
strong is their marriage/family? What
plans do they have in place if this wears on their marriage?
·
Can
you afford two ministers? Do you have
enough work for two ministers? A strong
ministry should pay for itself but you can’t overburden your church for its
size.
·
How
will a co-pastorate effect the rest of your staff? Does the plan provide a way to keep the staff from triangulating
the two against each other?
At
Park Road Baptist, shared pastoral ministry has been a blessing and worked
amazingly well. I believe that to be a
credit to the strength of our team, Russ and Amy Jacks Dean. If you have questions that I can answer
concerning your team and the concept or if I can help a committee that you are
in discussions with, feel free to contact me. Best wishes in your continuing
ministry!!
Ms.
Marinn Bengel, Search Committee Chair
Park
Road Baptist Church, Charlotte, NC