Ministerial searches go digital_111003

Posted: 11/07/03

Ministerial searches go digital

By Marv Knox

Editor

For more and more churches and their ministers, a match made in heaven may have been launched in cyberspace.

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Posted: 11/07/03

Ministerial searches go digital

By Marv Knox

Editor

For more and more churches and their ministers, a match made in heaven may have been launched in cyberspace.

Every day–and especially on Mondays–thousands of ministers log onto a new constellation of Internet websites, looking for a church to serve.

And with increasing frequency, church representatives also turn to the web, posting ministerial vacancies and sorting through potential candidate resumes.

Although these cybersearches may not totally replace more conventional means of finding ministers–such as tapping ministers' friendship networks and seminary placement services–they're definitely gaining ground.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas hosts two free Internet-based search programs, supported by the BGCT Cooperative Program unified budget. Church Personnel Information Services operates www.CPIS.org, a site that serves churches of all sizes and ministers of all types using a variety of variables. The bivocational/smaller church development office specializes with www.bivocational.com.

They're not alone. Non-denominational sites offer a matrix of opportunities for matching ministers and congregations.

For example, www.ChurchStaffing.com receives 2,500 to 3,000 unique visitors on weekdays and a few less on weekends, said Todd Rhoades, president of the site, in Bryan, Ohio.

“We normally carry between 400 and 500 current job openings, which we try to keep as current as possible,” Rhoades said. “And we currently have a little over 3,000 resumes on file.”

That site also has partnered with Dallas-based Leadership Network to offer www.LeadNetChurchStaffing.com, which posts job listings for churches whose attendance averages 1,000 or more.

Even restricted to such large churches, the site relates to about 2,500 to 3,000 congregations nationwide, said Dave Travis, senior vice president for Leadership Network.

The BGCT's www.CPIS.org receives at least half a million accumulated hits per month, said Ed Hale, director of the Church and Membership Resourcing Center for the state convention. A hit counts every time any page on the website is accessed.

At www.bivocational.com, the link to its church/minister search program, Ministers' Connection, is the busiest place on the website, said Bob Ray, BGCT director of bivocational/smaller church development.

The ministers who operate the websites–and almost without exception, the websites are run by people who have served in church or denominational ministry positions–cite several reasons for the popularity of Internet ministry searches.

Good matches

“We hope www.CPIS.org will help search committees find ministers who match their church preferences. And we hope they have longer tenures because of it,” Hale said. “As a director of missions, I found very little help for churches who wanted to do their own research and find the right match. The www.CPIS.org website helps get them started in like-mindedness.”

The www.CPIS.org website allows a BGCT church to complete a form that filters resumes for various preferences and priorities and provides the church confidential profiles of four or five possible matches. Then the church can request resumes on selected candidates. Next, the selected ministers receive automated e-mails that describe the church's profile, including its identity. If the ministers want to proceed, they tell the website to release their resumes to the church.

The process maintains a minister's confidentiality until he or she is ready to be identified, Hale noted. But it allows both the church and minister to gain quite a bit of information about each other so they can begin to determine if they would work well together.

That's important, added Rhoades. The www.ChurchStaffing.com site enables churches and ministers to sort though variables such as denomination, church size, type of ministry, worship style and other topics that help both parties learn if they're a good match.

“We tell churches to be specific, or they'll get inundated with resumes,” he said. The site is not exclusive to any denomination, and ministers can send their resumes to any church listed on the site.

Speed

“We've gotten to the point where church staffing takes longer and longer. This shortens the process,” Travis reported.

That factor is tied to the availability of information, both for the candidates and the churches, so they can find each other more quickly, website operators said.

For example, www.ChurchStaffing.com and its www.LeadNetChurchStaffing.com affiliate send out weekly e-mails of new church postings, Rhoades and Travis said. The paid smaller-church listings reach more than 22,000 pastors.

The quick turn-around of information makes a difference.

“In our own church family, we were looking for a bivocational assistant pastor/youth minister,” Ray said. “We put the position on the website on Thursday or Friday and got a call the next Monday. He already had read about our church and driven over to look at our facility. We hired him in two weeks.”

That pace is common for website churches, Hale added.

Internet possibilities

The web offers many options for both churches and ministers that previously weren't available, Travis noted.

“The ubiquity of the Internet broadens the search across the country” for both candidates and congregations, he explained. For example, classified ads reach only the people who read a newspaper, but the web-based search programs are available to everyone on the Internet.

“Instantaneous communications brings the whole country down to the click” of a computer mouse, Rhoades said.

Also, the Internet allows ministers to explore options anonymously, Travis added. “No one has to know” the minister is looking for another church.

Plus, the Internet is convenient for ministers who don't have the time or resources to conduct a traditional search, several operators said.

That helps explain why bivocational ministers adapted to web-based searches more quickly than others, said Jan Daehnert, director of BGCT minister/church relations, whose office works closely with www.CPIS.org and www.bivocational.com.

“Bivocationals are used to networking, and because of their jobs, they don't have much free time,” Daehnert said. “Plus, many of them, through their jobs, quickly became familiar with computers and the possibilities of the Internet. So, searching for jobs on the web was a natural.”

Change

“We've seen changes in churches and structures the past 10 years,” Rhoades said. “Both staff and churches, the way the trend is going, don't have brand loyalty. So, Nazarene churches are now open to hiring outside their denomination, and Nazarene pastors are open to pastoring outside their conference.”

“At large churches in particular, denominational identity is lost or faded,” Travis agreed. “Churches are willing to look beyond their traditions for ministers.” That's especially true for ministerial staff roles besides senior pastor, he said.

And while the BGCT may not be receiving many ministers who come from other denominations, “I can name plenty of United Methodist and Bible churches whose staff were former Baptists in Texas,” he said. “There's more of an open labor market.”

Finances

“Hard costs,” such as salary and moving expenses, and “soft costs,” such as morale, lost time and wasted productivity, are incredibly high when a church calls a minister who doesn't work out, Travis said.

“It costs at least $100,000 to make a bad hire,” he estimated. “So, churches are more willing to pay the costs” of fee-based web services, such as www.LeadNetChurchStaffing.com, www.ChurchStaffing.com, www.christianplacements.com and others.

Although the Internet-based services can make minister searches more efficient, “that does not negate the search responsibility,” Travis said, noting search committees or church staff assigned to conduct searches must work thoroughly.

The BGCT's Texas Baptist Leadership Center offers a variety of resources through its website, www.tblcinc.org, noted Bob Cavin, the center's director.

One of the most useful tools for search committees is a ministerial compensation study, which compares average Baptist church salary figures for various ministry positions, church sizes and regions of the country, Cavin said.

The www.CPIS.org website provides several pastor-search committee workbooks. One written by Hale can be downloaded in parts from the website.

It provides numerous tools, such as sample letters a search committee can use to notify ministers when they no longer are candidates for the open position. “This helps the search committee go through the entire process with integrity,” Hale said.

Search resources comprise a growing feature of www.ChurchStaffing.com, Rhoades said.

“Search committees often are confused,” he noted. “They don't know how to tackle a search process. Often they were brought together in a crisis, and they get frustrated and confused.”

The site features downloadable job descriptions for a variety of ministerial positions, he said.

The www.CPIS.org site soon will have links to websites that help churches conduct background checks on ministerial candidates, a feature also available on some other sites.

And that could help prevent a match apparently made in heaven from winding up in a different place.

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