Grosey's Messages

As some have asked me for some guidelines for pastoral search committee questions here is one I have adapted from Bible.org

Questionnaire for Pastoral Candidate
Personal
1. List your hobbies and any other areas of interest apart from ministry.
2. Describe how you came into a relationship with Christ.
3. Describe your call to the ministry and what motivates you to stay in ministry.
4. Describe your day-to-day spiritual life.
5. How do you get spiritually refreshed?
6. Have you or your wife ever been treated for depression?
7. What role does personal evangelism play in your life?
8. What steps do you follow to lead someone to Christ?
9. Describe the role of accountability for a pastor and how that has been a part of your life.
10. How are you strengthening and growing your relationship with the Lord?
11. What role does discipleship play in your life?
12. What do you do to maintain your health?
13. What do you do for fun?
14. Do you have close friends? Who are they?
15. How do you handle rejection?
16. What is the greatest difficulty that you have experienced in inter-personal relationships?
17. Describe your greatest hurt in conflict.
Family
1. How do you balance your life between family and ministry?
2. What is your wife’s/husband’s attitude toward your ministry?
3. How is your wife/husband involved in ministry?
4. How do the pressures of the ministry and expectations of the congregation impact your family? How have you responded in the past?
5. How do you maintain a quality relationship with your wife/husband?
6. How does your family feel about the possibility of your ministry move?
7. How do you function as the spiritual leader of your family?





Ministry
Personal ministry
1. What would you identify as your passion in ministry?
2. What is the most enjoyable part of your current ministry position?
3. Describe your spiritual gifts and how the Lord utilizes them in ministry.
4. In what areas of ministry do you feel most experienced and competent?
5. What role do you see evangelism playing in a believer’s life?
6. How do you define “Discipleship”?
7. Describe any previous experience in determining long-range goals and other types of planning activities.
Local Church
1. What do you perceive the major task of the church to be and what do you see as your role in that?
2. What role do you see the Lay leadership having in the local church?
3. What would be your desired method of church government? What are your views on the relationship between: the staff, the board of elders, and the board of deacons?
Leadership
1. How do you identify the need for and go about developing a new area of ministry?
2. How do you supervise, motivate and develop staff, interns and lay leaders?
3. How do you define a leadership team?
4. What personality type do you best work with and what type do you struggle with?
5. What type of staff environment do you function in most effectively?
6. How do you facilitate change?
7. How would you address an unexpected budget shortfall?
8. What do you feel are the strengths and weaknesses of short term missions trips? Long term vocational missions?
9. What have you observed are some of the trends in missions?
Ministry/Programs
1. What role do you see small groups fulfilling in the church?
2. What experiences do you have in small groups?
3. How important is the children’s ministry to a growing and dynamic church?
4. How important is a youth ministry to a growing and dynamic church?
5. How important is a single adult ministry to a growing and dynamic church?
6. Describe your philosophy of ministry for equipping the body.
7. What experience do you have in leading a pastoral staff team?
8. What do you see as the primary purpose for the Sunday morning services? (Evangelism, Equipping, Worship, etc.)
9. Describe your philosophy of worship.
10. What is your opinion on non-traditional forms of worship (e.g., Theatrical productions, multi-media presentations, etc.)?
11. What is your view regarding pastoral counseling? How have you handled pastoral counseling in the past? How much time (weekly) have you carved out of your schedule for counseling?
12. What is your philosophy of counseling?
13. What further training in ministry are you currently undertaking?
14. Where do you see yourself being in 10 years? 20 years?
15. What ministry programmes are you familiar with, and trained in?
Doctrine
1. Are there any points in our doctrinal statement that you would not or could not affirm?
2. What is you view of the baptism and filling of the Holy Spirit?
3. How would you advise a person who comes to you and says he or she wants a divorce?
4. What is your view of abortion?
5. What is your view of women in the church?
6. What is your position on the recent movement in churches to become “Seeker Sensitive” or “Seeker Driven”?
7. After reading our doctrinal statement, what do you see as the most crucial points of doctrine a church should embrace? List 4 or 5.
8. Do you have a full assurance of faith and upon what do you base this?
9. What beliefs do you hold so dear that you would gladly die for them?
10. What is your understanding of the modern charismatic phenomena?
11. What is your understanding of the levels of importance of our various doctrinal beliefs?
12. What is your view of the second coming?
13. What is your view of election, predestination, free will or human responsibility?
14. What is your theological perspective upon the place of children in the church?
15. What is your view of the role and practice of Baptism?
16. What is your view on the Lord’s Supper?

Miscellaneous
1. Why are you leaving your current position?
2. What attracted you to our position?
3. If you could ask us any question, what would it be?
4. What particular changes would you implement in our church in the near future?