It happens in the second or third interview. The candidate is gifted, warm, clearly called. Someone asks about the end times, or the role of women, or whether he would baptize a believer who was sprinkled as an infant, and he answers. Half the committee nods. The other half goes quiet. And in that silence the committee discovers that it never agreed about what it wanted, that it has been running a search for five months on an assumption of unity that was never tested.
This worksheet exists to have that conversation first, among yourselves, before a candidate is in the room. It takes two meetings. It is the single most useful thing a committee can do before it reads a resume, and it is the step most committees skip because “everyone already knows what we believe.” Everyone knows what the doctrinal statement says. Nobody has asked which parts of it the church would actually fight for, and which parts are inherited wording that no one has examined in twenty years.
How to use this worksheet
The three columns
For every item below, the committee decides together which of three categories it falls into:
- Non-negotiable (N). A candidate who differs here is not a candidate, however gifted. These are the things your church would divide over if the pulpit changed its mind.
- Strong preference (P). You would need a very good reason to call a man who differs here, and he would need to be able to serve without undermining the church’s practice. Most churches have more of these than they think.
- Open (O). Faithful men differ here, your church has people on both sides, and the next pastor can land on either so long as he handles it with charity.
Be honest about which is which. A committee that marks everything non-negotiable will not find anyone; the man who agrees with every detail of your statement is probably already your pastor. A committee that marks everything open will hire a man and discover in year two that it did care after all. The discipline is in the middle column: knowing what you prefer and why, and knowing what it would take to set the preference aside.
The meetings
First meeting: Parts 1 and 2. Bring your doctrinal statement, your bylaws, and your Bibles. Go article by article. For each, someone reads it aloud, the committee writes in its own words what the church actually believes and practices (not what the article says; what the church does), and then decides N, P, or O. Where the committee disagrees about the category, that disagreement is the point. Talk it through. If you cannot resolve it, bring it to the elders.
Second meeting: Part 3 and the two sentences. Then read the whole worksheet back. It should describe your church so accurately that a stranger could read it and know what kind of man to send you.
Print the finished worksheet. Keep it in front of you for every candidate, every interview, and the final vote.
Part 1: The foundation
These are the doctrines where “Open” should be rare or absent. For each, write what your church believes in a sentence, and decide whether a candidate must affirm it without qualification. Under each item is a note on what the question is really asking and what to ask a candidate.
Scripture: inspiration, inerrancy, sufficiency, authority
What is really being decided: whether the Bible is without error in everything it affirms, and whether it is enough for faith and life, or whether it needs to be supplemented by tradition, experience, or the findings of the age. “Inspired” and “trustworthy” are words a man can use while meaning less than you think. “Inerrant” and “sufficient” are harder to say without meaning them.
Ask the candidate: “Is the Bible without error in all it affirms, including history and science? What does the sufficiency of Scripture mean for how you counsel?”
The Trinity and the deity of Christ
What is really being decided: almost no evangelical candidate will deny these, but make him say them in his own words, and listen for whether he can explain them to a child.
Ask: “Explain the Trinity the way you would to a twelve-year-old.”
Sin and the need for new birth
What is really being decided: whether people are sinners in need of rescue or basically good people in need of improvement. The whole shape of a man’s preaching follows from this.
Ask: “What is wrong with people, and what does God do about it?”
The atonement: substitutionary, penal, sufficient
What is really being decided: whether Christ bore the penalty for sin in the place of sinners, satisfying God’s justice, or whether the cross is primarily an example, a demonstration of love, or a victory over evil with the penal element quietly dropped. This is the doctrine most often softened by otherwise conservative men.
Ask: “What happened on the cross? Why did Jesus have to die?”
Justification by faith alone
What is really being decided: whether a sinner is declared righteous on the basis of Christ’s work received by faith alone, or whether works contribute in any way.
Ask: “How is a person made right with God? What role, if any, do works play?”
The bodily resurrection and the visible return of Christ
Ask: “Did Jesus rise bodily from the dead? Will He return bodily and visibly?”
Heaven and hell as real, conscious, and eternal
What is really being decided: whether hell is eternal conscious punishment or whether the candidate holds to annihilationism or universalism. This has become a live question in evangelicalism, and a man can hold a soft view quietly for years.
Ask: “What happens to those who die without Christ? Is it eternal?”
Marriage, sexuality, and gender
What is really being decided: whether marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman, whether sexual activity outside it is sin, and whether God’s assignment of sex at creation is binding. Most doctrinal statements written before 2010 do not address this at all. Yours needs to, in writing, before the search, because every candidate will be asked and every congregation will eventually face it.
Ask: “How would you counsel a member who announced he was in a same-sex relationship? A teenager who said she was transgender? How would you preach on it?”
The sanctity of human life
Ask: “How do you address abortion and end-of-life questions from the pulpit and in counseling?”
| Part 1 item | What our church believes (write it) | N / P / O |
|---|---|---|
| Scripture | ||
| Trinity and deity of Christ | ||
| Sin and new birth | ||
| The atonement | ||
| Justification by faith alone | ||
| Resurrection and return of Christ | ||
| Heaven and hell | ||
| Marriage, sexuality, and gender | ||
| Sanctity of life |
Part 2: Where faithful churches differ
Faithful, Bible-believing churches land in different places on every item below. Your church lands somewhere. The committee’s job is to say where, to say how much it matters, and to be honest about whether the congregation is united or quietly divided. Many of the items below will be strong preferences rather than non-negotiables, and that is fine, so long as you know which.
Baptism: mode, subjects, and relationship to membership
The divide: believer’s baptism by immersion versus infant baptism; whether baptism is required for membership; whether a believer baptized as an infant must be baptized again.
Ask: “Would you baptize a believer who was sprinkled as an infant? Would you require it for membership?”
The Lord’s Supper: meaning, frequency, who may partake
The divide: memorial view versus spiritual presence; weekly versus monthly versus quarterly; open to all believers, to baptized believers, or to members only.
Ask: “How often should the church take the Supper, and who should be at the table?”
Church government
The divide: elder-led, congregational, single-pastor with deacons, pastor-led with a board. This is the item most likely to end a pastorate, because a man’s convictions about who decides what will collide with your bylaws within eighteen months if they differ. Decide whether you want a man who shares your polity or a man who can serve faithfully within it while disagreeing.
Ask: “Who should have final authority in a church, and why? Does our structure fit your convictions, and would you want to change it?”
Women in ministry
The divide: whether women may serve as elders or pastors; whether they may preach to the congregation; which roles are open. Decide what your practice is, and whether it is a conviction or a habit.
Ask: “What roles are open to women in the church, and which are not, and why?”
Spiritual gifts
The divide: cessationist (the sign gifts ended with the apostles), continuationist (they continue), or open-but-cautious. Decide what your church practices on Sunday morning and what it would tolerate.
Ask: “Are tongues and prophecy for today? What would you do if a member spoke in tongues in a service?”
Salvation: the doctrines of grace
The divide: Reformed or Calvinistic, Arminian or free-will, or somewhere between; eternal security. This is less divisive in the pew than committees fear and more divisive in the pulpit than they expect. A church that has always heard one emphasis will notice when it changes.
Ask: “Does God choose who will be saved? Can a true believer lose his salvation? How do you preach these things without dividing a church?”
End times
The divide: premillennial, amillennial, postmillennial; pre-tribulational rapture or not; the place of Israel. For many churches this is a strong preference with a long history; for others it is open. Know which you are.
Ask: “What do you believe about the return of Christ and the millennium, and how much of it would you preach?”
Creation
The divide: young earth, old earth, or agnostic on the age; the historicity of Adam and Eve. The second half of that is more important than the first.
Ask: “Were Adam and Eve real people, the first humans, created by God? How old is the earth, and how much does it matter?”
Bible translation in the pulpit
The divide: whether the church uses one translation and expects the pastor to; whether a change would be a problem. Sounds minor. It is not, in some churches.
Denominational affiliation and cooperation
The divide: whether the church is affiliated and how much it values that; whether the pastor is expected to participate in associational and convention life; what the church would do if the denomination drifted.
Church discipline
The divide: whether the church practices it at all, how, and whether membership means anything. A pastor who believes in discipline arriving at a church that has never practiced it, or the reverse, is a conflict waiting to happen.
Ask: “Have you led a church through discipline? How?”
Divorce and remarriage
The divide: for members (grounds for divorce, remarriage after divorce); for the pastor himself (whether a divorced man may serve). Decide both.
Alcohol and matters of conscience
The divide: abstinence as a conviction, abstinence as a practice, or liberty. Mostly a matter of what the church expects of its pastor in public.
| Part 2 item | Our position and practice | N / P / O |
|---|---|---|
| Baptism | ||
| The Lord’s Supper | ||
| Church government | ||
| Women in ministry | ||
| Spiritual gifts | ||
| Doctrines of grace; eternal security | ||
| End times | ||
| Creation and Adam | ||
| Bible translation | ||
| Denominational affiliation | ||
| Church discipline | ||
| Divorce and remarriage | ||
| Alcohol and conscience |
Part 3: Philosophy of ministry
Not doctrine, but the convictions about how a church should live that make a pastor fit one congregation and not another. A man can agree with every line of your statement and still be the wrong pastor for you because he believes a church should be run in a way yours never will be.
Preaching
Expository verse-by-verse through books; expository with topical series as needed; topical; or a mix. This is the most important item in Part 3. A church formed by twenty years of verse-by-verse teaching will not thrive under a topical preacher, and the reverse is also true.
Ask: “Describe your preaching over the last three years. What is your normal pattern?”
Worship and music
Traditional, contemporary, blended; the role of a choir; the place of the pastor in planning worship. Decide what you are and whether you want to stay that way.
Evangelism
How your church expects to reach the lost: personal evangelism, events, attractional services, community presence. What does the pastor model and lead?
Discipleship
Sunday school, small groups, one-on-one, classes. What is the structure, and does it work?
Missions
Percentage of budget, missionaries supported, whether the church sends its own people. What is the pastor’s role in keeping missions central?
Counseling
Biblical counseling, referral to professionals, or both. What does the church expect the pastor to handle himself?
The pastor and the staff
Does the pastor supervise staff directly? Hire and fire? Or is that an elder or personnel committee function?
The pastor’s wife
What, if anything, does the church expect of her? The honest answer should be “what we expect of any faithful member.” If the honest answer is more than that, write it down and then ask whether it should be.
Political and cultural engagement
What does the church expect from the pulpit on cultural issues and on politics? Where is the line between addressing what Scripture addresses and endorsing candidates?
| Part 3 item | Our practice and expectation | N / P / O |
|---|---|---|
| Preaching | ||
| Worship and music | ||
| Evangelism | ||
| Discipleship | ||
| Missions | ||
| Counseling | ||
| Pastor and staff | ||
| The pastor’s wife | ||
| Political and cultural engagement |
Part 4: The two sentences
When the tables are finished, write two sentences the whole committee agrees on. Not a mission statement. Two plain sentences.
What our church is:
What our church must not become:
An example from a church that did this well: “We are an expository, elder-led, missions-minded church that has been patient and faithful for sixty years. We must not become a church that trades depth for crowds or that forgets the people who built it while reaching the people who are new.”
Those two sentences are what let you say no to a gifted man who is not your man. Put them at the top of your job description, in your church profile, and in front of you at every interview and at the vote.
Using the worksheet with candidates
- Send your doctrinal statement to every serious candidate with a one-line instruction: “Please mark anything you would word differently, could not affirm, or would want to discuss.” A man who returns it unmarked has either not read it or is not being candid. A man who marks three things and explains them is telling you the truth.
- In the interview, choose two non-negotiables and two open items. Ask him to explain his view on each and then how he would shepherd a member who disagrees. You will learn more from the open items than the non-negotiables, because how he handles disagreement is how he will handle your church.
- Listen for the difference between conviction and accommodation. A man who agrees with everything you say is telling you what you want to hear. A man who says “I hold that differently, here’s why, and here’s how I’d serve a church that holds your view” is a man you can trust.
- Check the drift question. “Where have your views changed in the last ten years?” Direction matters more than position. A man moving toward Scripture is a safer call than a man standing still, and a man moving away from it, however slowly, is not a call at all.
- Bring the worksheet to the vote. Before the committee recommends a man to the church, go down every N item and confirm, in writing, that he affirms it. Then every P item, with a note on where he differs and why the committee is at peace. If you cannot do that, you are not ready to recommend him.
Common mistakes
- Marking everything non-negotiable. You will interview no one, or you will quietly ignore your own list when a gifted man shows up, which is worse.
- Letting one strong voice decide the categories. The point is the committee’s agreement, not the chair’s. Where members disagree about a category, that is the disagreement the whole church has, and it needs to be resolved before a candidate exposes it.
- Treating the doctrinal statement as the whole picture. Half the items that end pastorates are in Parts 2 and 3, and most doctrinal statements do not mention them.
- Skipping the sexuality and gender item because it is uncomfortable. It will not be more comfortable in year two when a member asks the new pastor to officiate a wedding.
- Finishing the worksheet and filing it. It is a working document. It goes to every interview and to the vote.