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Ministry Division About the Ministry Division - Leadership - Why Churches Need Better Searches - A Better Way To Find Church Leadership - Myths About Executive Search - Other Factors
Our Ministries Division is uniquely geared to help churches and large parachurch ministries find the right senior leaders. No other search firm in the country has a refined focus on ministry like FaithSearch Partners. And no firm has a consultant who has served as a senior pastor of a megachurch. Our combination of search and ministry experience positions us to lead the way in executive searches for ministries. With the experience and mentoring of our founder, Ed Fry, FaithSearch Partners is able to bring churches the best practices of the executive search world. William Vanderbloemen is a longtime senior leader in the ministry world and understands the unique challenges facing churches, ministries, and Christian higher education. William
Vanderbloemen, Senior Vice President and Ministry Practice Leader William Vanderbloemen serves as Senior Vice President based in Houston. He has successfully launched the firm’s “Ministry Practice,” providing executive search management to large churches, parachurch organizations, not-for-profit ministries, and higher education. Within the first two months of his time in the firm, FaithSearch secured two major searches for megachurches. Vanderbloemen came to FaithSearch after six years serving as Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Houston, one of the largest Presbyterian churches in the U.S, and four years as Senior Pastor of the Memorial Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. “William has worked in and led significant faith-based organizations for the last 15 years,” says Ed Fry, President, FaithSearch Partners. “William was the youngest Senior Pastor in the history of First Presbyterian in Houston, the oldest church in the city. Its membership grew to nearly 5,000 under his leadership. He is ideally suited for our Ministry Practice with his incredible knowledge of both the Houston and national faith-based arenas.” In addition to his ministry background, Vanderbloemen brings experience leading and serving on boards in a myriad of educational environments, ranging from elementary to post-graduate education. He also brings formal training and experience in human resources, having worked at a management level of a Fortune 200 company. Tony Morgan, Ministry
Partner Why Churches Need Better Searches (a parable based on a true story) All was well at the First Congregational Church of Metropolis. The already large church was getting even bigger. The congregation felt loved and cared for. The Pastor had given tremendous leadership, inspiring the people to follow a vision, give their time away, and contribute financially at record levels. A new nationally renowned facility had just been built and paid for. Bright days were ahead. Then out of the blue one Sunday, a funny thing happened. The pastor announced that he was leaving for another church. After the shock wore off, the congregation was faced with the task of replacing their beloved minister. People were heard saying, “This won’t take long. Everyone knows us.” “Our reputation is outstanding.” “We have a big church with a brand new facility.” “We have talented people on our search committee who will be able to find a minister quickly.” “We pay well.” “Folks will line up out the door to apply.” Twenty-two months later, the church had a new pastor. During that 22-month lapse, the search committee met more than 100 times. They spent nearly $100,000 in costs for their search. The eleven members of the committee took considerable time away from family, flying all over the country, with an aggregate of almost 100,000 miles, 100 hotel nights, and way too many sermon CDs of candidates. Committee members dropped all other volunteer projects for this all-important task. Nearly every one of them took a break from serving the church after they found a pastor, citing fatigue from working on the search process. During that 22-month lapse, the church lost momentum. Donations fell markedly. Worship attendance leaked downward. Young families that were newer to the church drifted off and to other congregations. Ministry initiatives were put on hold until the new pastor was found. Vacant staff positions remained unfilled, as candidates wanted to wait for the senior post to be filled before signing on. The same year that the pastor of FCC resigned, a major university’s football coach stepped down for another coaching spot at a rival. His post was filled 30 days later. Also during that year, Coca-Cola’s CEO retired. He was replaced in two months. Once the new Pastor of FCC arrived, things went well for a while. Folks were enthusiastic, excited about the church again, and a lot of lost ground was regained. The church started growing again. But a portion of the congregation never quite fit with the new pastor. Conflict grew alongside the growth of the church. Only five years after his arrival, the pastor left under duress. FCC Metropolis is now nearly two years into another search, with no end in sight. Four of the last nine years of the church’s history have been spent searching for a senior leader. There has to be a better way. A better way to spend God’s money. A better way to steward volunteer hours. A better way to find a match for a church. There has to be a way to trim the sails and make pastoral transitions easier and less frequent. A Better Way to Find Church Leadership The parable above is based on a true story -- a story that’s all too common among large churches. In fact, it is a rather peaceful story compared to many transitions that happen in American megachurches. Replacing key staff has become more and more difficult, expensive and time consuming. At the same time, many would say that internal church searches have been less and less effective. Large churches were once viewed as lifetime positions. Nowadays, turnover is common, and tenures are shorter. “Mismatches” happen far too often. And churches are left inert during the process. What has worked for corporations for nearly 40 years is now being adopted by many church and parachurch organizations. Similar to the growth of professional church consultants, fundraising consultants, and other outsourced services, what was once an innovation and solution for businesses, is now becoming the same for churches. Search firms are able to utilize all their efforts, databases, resources, and expertise to get to know an organization, its needs, and the candidates who may be available or persuadable. They are focused on one task only and can hone all of their expertise, network, and resources toward finding the best match of an inspired leader to a ministry. They are then able to help the organization interview a short list of candidates, run professional reference and background checks, and help negotiate compensation. Top quality retained search firms even guarantee their process for up to a year. Why wouldn’t churches hire firms to do searches? It seems to make sense and is a growing trend. But change comes slowly, and not without a lot of thoughtful questions. We have researched with church members, deacons, elders, pastors and leaders and created a list of the most common myths surrounding the search process. Answers to Common Myths about Executive Search in Churches and Ministries Myth #1: “We can’t afford to hire a search firm.” Actually, churches can’t afford not to hire a search firm. Simply put, churches cannot afford a bad hire. Terminating key staff in churches is not easy, and is usually more challenging that terminations in a corporation. Employing FaithSearch Partners greatly increases a church’s chance of making the right hire. We believe in our process and results so much that we guarantee it. If FaithSearch is retained by your church or ministry, we will guarantee our placement for the first twelve months. If employment is terminated during that period, FaithSearch will perform another search for free (except for out of pocket expenses). A lengthy and poorly done search can produce very unhappy results for a congregation. When the process is left exclusively to volunteers, raw costs of flying around the country and searching still happen. Additionally, there are hidden costs to a volunteer driven search. The longer process (and interim leadership) often leads to lower contributions/income, lower enthusiasm among members, lost momentum during the interim, leaky worship attendance, and even lost members. Money for hiring a firm is usually already in the budget. When a staff position is vacant, that position is normally budgeted for. Money that is set aside for the open position’s salary should more than cover the cost of hiring a search firm. Additionally, the church cannot afford to devote precious staff and volunteer hours to the work of a search. When it does, ministry initiatives slow or stop, and focus can be lost. Myth #2: Our church is big enough to survive a long transition. The bigger the church, the more urgent the need for a timely, well executed search. One might assume that large churches would have an easy time without a leader. Just the opposite is true. Small churches have proven to be quite resilient between leaders. Pastors come and go, and folks are able to chip in and help the church get by. By contrast, when a large church or ministry is without top level leadership, they lack direction, vision, and leadership for the myriad of tasks and initiatives that result from the size of the church. Additionally, large churches tend to draw and keep visitors through the preaching and personality of its leaders. If there is no preacher and no personality, the organization can quickly lose direction, momentum, and vision. Myth #3: “We certainly have the talent and resources within our church to do this ourselves (and avoid paying a fee).” “We have members of our church who are professional search people. I’m sure they could help us.” Volunteers are the lifeblood of a church’s ministry. But they are not search professionals, nor are they church professionals. A search firm like FaithSearch has a time-proven process for searching. Its Ministry Practice is headed up by Rev. William Vanderbloemen, a former pastor of a megachurch in a mainline denomination. From the search process to the ability to understand and speak the language of pastors, FaithSearch is able to assist churches in a way that would not be possible if done alone. Furthermore, FaithSearch has a full-time focus on the task of filling open positions. Volunteers are only able to meet once a week (or less frequently). Volunteers may or may not be able to travel or host candidates. Once FaithSearch is retained, your church will have a trained professional at your disposal from the beginning to the end of your search process. Myth #4: “We have access to the same pool of candidates you do.” Perhaps the highest value of a retained search firm is our ability to reach candidates your church may not know. Because of our reputation and our confidential process, we are able to talk with pastors that might never talk to a committee, respond to an ad, or put their name forward. In short, we are able to get to candidates that you may not be able to reach. We also bring a broad knowledge of the church world, including who is available for an interview, who might be willing to listen to a new opportunity, and who might not be worth examining as a candidate. Finally, FaithSearch is able to get to candidates quickly. Our staff has ready access to pastor email addresses, private phone numbers, and generally have their calls returned in short order. Myth #5: “We don’t need to spend the money donated to the church on a job we are supposed to be doing. It’s bad stewardship.” See answer #1. No search comes for free. As stated in Myth #1, there are both explicit and implicit costs associated with a volunteer driven search. Hiring a search firm will ordinarily save the church money rather than add additional costs. Myth #6: “Hiring a search firm will just add more process, more layers, and more time to our search.” Actually, hiring a search firm will reduce the time you spend looking for a pastor or top staff member. Ordinarily, from the time FaithSearch is hired until the time your church will have someone on site working is about six months. This may seem long, but it pales in comparison to the 18 to 24 months that a senior pastor search usually takes when volunteer driven. Searches for Executive Pastors, Associate Pastors, Church Administrators, or other top-tier staff can take as little as three to four months, compared with the nine months to a year often associated with volunteer driven searches for similar positions. Myth #7: “We’re just a church. We don’t need some fancy corporate search process to find a leader.” Organizations rise and fall on leadership. Perhaps more than anywhere else, churches need high quality leadership in order to motivate and run their operations. By their very nature, churches are required to have leaders that inspire their members to give away dollars, precious time, and energy. In the corporate world, CEOs issue orders to employees. In churches and ministries, leaders must envision a path no one else can see, and communicate, motivate, and inspire others to freely follow them. No ordinary leader will do. Pastors of large churches are uniquely talented, carrying both pastoral skill and business acumen for a variety of tasks required in running a large church (which is in essence a small corporation). Churches in America have changed dramatically in the last 25 years; many of these changes reinforce the need for executive search. 1. A new age in church requires a new kind of pastor. The advent of megachurches has created a need for a new and uniquely gifted type of pastoral staff. Where a pastor was once in charge of preaching and visitation, pastors of large churches must now carry both pastoral skills and business acumen. Many megachurches carry workforces of more than 100. Pastors must know something about construction, administration, finance, human resources, mediation, and countless other areas that are not covered in seminary. 2. Churches are less connected than ever. In the growing non-denominational world, there is no central denominational office to help with search processes and connect churches and candidates. Often times, churches grow and become silos that hire intermediary staff from within, and have few needs for senior leadership. Many are led by the founding pastor, and yet, many of those founding pastors are approaching retirement with no apparent successor named. 3. Churches are outgrowing their ability to hire from within. While many newer and faster growing churches have a practice of hiring from within, most are outgrowing their ability to do so. Many churches that were once able to hire their members into leadership roles have grown to a size that requires them to seek help from outside their ranks. But there is no central nervous system, no denominational office, no place where these churches can go to find the staff they need. 4. Ministry professionals are an aging workforce. For example, in the Presbyterian Church (USA), 93% of all pastors are over the age of 40. Finding a young pastor for growing, young churches is getting more and more difficult. Denominational conflict has led many young candidates away from the mainline in favor of a more independent type of church. Many churches are looking outside their denominational channels for a candidate, but are doing so with no guide to help them. |
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