Pastoral Search Committees / PNC’s / Pulpit nominating committees usually say their first goal is a pastor who preaches well. Yet, few evaluate sermons against any objective criteria.
Below is an excerpt of material I wrote that gives suggestions for how search committees should evaluate sermons.
If you would like more information, you can e-mail me at chris at theredbrickchurch.org.
Arguably, the most strategic decision that a local church makes is calling a preaching pastor. When a local church calls a lead or senior pastor, they almost always want a pastor who will preach with excellence. Yet, often pastoral search committees do not know how to go about achieving that goal.
Unfortunately, there are essentially no resources available designed to help pastoral search committees / pulpit nominating committees succeed in calling an excellent preaching pastor.
Books and resources designed for pastoral search committees / pulpit nominating committees focus on areas other than preaching, and these areas are important. Yet preaching is the center of what their next pastor will do, and there is nothing available to help churches call a pastor who will preach with excellence.
You can read the below excerpt from my doctoral thesis which focused on developing a resource that will help local churches call a pastor who will preach with excellence. . . This is the introduction to my entire thesis – – it introduces the problem. So, it is written in a technical way – – It is not a portion of the manual I developed.
I am praying that the manual/resource I developed might serve a local church looking for their next preaching pastor.