Questions to Ask a Pastoral Candidate
Questions for a congregation vetting a pastoral candidate across a full search: service history, preaching, leadership development, safeguarding, terms of call, and references. Written for search committees, boards, and elders.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Take us through where you have served, and why you left each place.
Why ask it
Start here rather than with theology. A pattern of short tenures, or departures they cannot explain, is the single most useful thing you can learn early in a search.
What drew you to our profile?
Why ask it
Tests whether they read it. Candidates who quote a specific line back to you have done the work; general enthusiasm about a lovely community means they applied widely.
From what you have read, what do you think we are?
Why ask it
Gives you their read on your own congregation before you correct it. An accurate and slightly uncomfortable answer here is a strong signal.
How would you handle baptism and communion in this congregation?
Why ask it
Practice, not doctrine in the abstract. This is where a candidate's theology becomes something your members will actually notice on a Sunday.
If we listened to a year of your preaching, what would we hear you return to?
Why ask it
Every preacher has recurring themes and few can name them. The answer tells you what a decade under this person's teaching would emphasize.
What does your week of prayer and study actually look like?
Why ask it
Ask for hours and when they happen. Candidates who cannot describe protected study time will not find it here either, and the preaching is what suffers first.
What would you change in your first year, and what would you leave alone?
Why ask it
Both halves matter. The willingness to name something they would deliberately not touch is often the difference between a long tenure and a short one.
Who have you developed into a leader, and where are they now?
Why ask it
Concrete and checkable. A candidate who can name people they raised up, and whose names you could call, is describing a repeatable practice rather than an aspiration.
Tell us about a time you were criticized publicly. What did you do?
Why ask it
You are looking for durability without defensiveness. Watch for whether they can describe the criticism fairly, including the part that was correct.
What is the hardest pastoral situation you have handled, and what would you do differently?
Why ask it
The second half is the question. A candidate with no revisions after twenty years of ministry is either not remembering or not reflecting.
How do you work with a board that votes against you?
Why ask it
Governance conflict is the most common reason calls end badly. Listen for whether they can be overruled and stay, or whether the answer drifts toward authority.
What are your boundaries around counseling, and when do you refer someone on?
Why ask it
You need clear limits and knowledge of local services. Confidence about handling anything that comes through the door is a liability rather than a strength.
How would you handle an allegation of misconduct in this congregation?
Why ask it
Ask this of every candidate. The right answer involves reporting to the authorities and the denomination promptly, protecting the person who came forward, and not investigating it privately.
What compensation and time off do you need to do this well for years?
Why ask it
Better raised as a real question than left to negotiation at the end. Candidates who have thought about sustainability rather than sacrifice tend to last.
What does your family need from this call?
Why ask it
Ask, and let them decline to answer. Congregational expectations of a spouse and children are a frequent cause of departure, and naming them now prevents assumptions later.
When we call your last congregation, what will they say about you? Who else should we call?
Why ask it
The second half often produces a more candid list than the references on the form. A candidate who volunteers a critic is showing you something valuable.
What would make you leave a church?
Why ask it
Reveals their thresholds: a governance dispute, a moral line, exhaustion, a spouse's job. Whatever they name, check honestly whether it is a live risk here.
What do you think we are not seeing about ourselves?
Why ask it
Asked late, and it takes nerve on both sides. The best candidates will name the thing your committee has been avoiding, which is exactly the reason to ask.
What would you want to be true here in five years?
Why ask it
Look for something measurable and modest rather than a vision statement. Ambitions that require a congregation twice your size are worth discussing before a call, not after.
What have we not given you room to ask?
Why ask it
Closes by handing them the floor. Candidates who use it to ask about the deficit, the last pastor, or the family who runs the church are doing exactly what you want.
Running a pastoral search
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Structure the search
- Write the questions before you meet anyone and ask every candidate the same core set. Otherwise you compare how much you liked people rather than what they said.
- Score independently and in writing before discussing. Committees converge fast on whoever the most confident member preferred.
- Follow your denomination's process from the start. Some steps, including standing checks and approvals, cannot be added afterwards.
- Agree who speaks to candidates between stages, and keep to your timeline. Silence loses the candidates with other options.
Verify rather than assume
- Run background checks and safeguarding checks on every candidate, without exception and regardless of reputation or referral.
- Confirm ordination and current standing with the denomination or governing body directly.
- Call references beyond the list provided: a board member, a staff member, and if possible someone who left during their tenure.
- Ask the previous congregation a direct question about why the pastor left, and listen to what they decline to say as much as to what they do.
Be honest about yourselves
- Disclose the finances, including any deficit and how long reserves last. Candidates who accept without knowing tend to leave when they find out.
- Say what happened with the last pastor. If there was a conflict or a removal, a candidate needs to know before they inherit it.
- Name the hard facts: average age, declining attendance, a building that needs work, a group used to getting its way.
- Distinguish the congregation you are from the one you hope to become. Hiring for the second while presenting the first is how calls fail in year two.
Deciding and calling
- Let more than the committee meet the finalists. A candidate the committee loves and the congregation has not met is a common route to a short tenure.
- Hear them preach and lead worship in a setting where the congregation knows them, not only in a trial sermon arranged for you.
- Put the terms of call in writing before any announcement: salary, housing, benefits, vacation, study leave, moving costs, and review process.
- Agree how the first year will be reviewed and by whom. Most difficulties are recoverable if someone is scheduled to notice them.