A lot has changed in the last ten days. If you are like most of the church leaders I have been spending time with lately, you have spent the last ten days in a whirlwind: shifting everything from in-person to virtual, calming your congregation, and trying to remember what you learned in seminary about ministering during a pandemic. The timing of our current crisis is particularly brutal for churches with Easter around the corner and because this is the traditional hiring season for churches.
While I have been advising churches to plan on having a virtual Easter service, decisions on what to do with a pastoral search can be a little more challenging. With services moving to virtual for the foreseeable future, church leaders are managing the tension of being financially responsible in an uncertain time while also needing to have your new teammate in place over the summer. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to this challenge, every church needs to approach this with wisdom and prayer. If you are wrestling through this decision right now, this video may help you in your decision-making process. If you do decide to press pause on your search, here are three things to keep in mind as you do it:
If you are wrestling with what to do about the search you are currently conducting and could use an outside set of eyes on whether to press pause or move forward, I’d love to have a conversation with you. This link will help us find time to talk about what you are experiencing.
One last thing… over the last week, some of our team have put together short videos to help address some of what our churches are experiencing in this current ministry environment. I hope that you might find some of these to be helpful:
Our team continues to pray for you daily and is here to serve. Please let me know how we can resource you in these interesting times.