Questions to Ask a Minister at Interview
Questions for a search committee interviewing a minister, covering preaching and the shape of an ordinary week, conflict and confidentiality, work with lay leadership, pay and housing, and what the first year would look like.
The questions
Open any question for the note
Tell us how you came to ministry, and what has kept you in it.
Why ask it
Call stories are rehearsed, so listen to the second half. What has held someone in the work after a disappointment is far more diagnostic than what drew them in at twenty-two.
What drew you to apply here in particular?
Why ask it
A candidate who has read your materials will name something concrete: a neighborhood, a program, a recent departure. Warm generalities about your friendliness usually mean they are applying widely.
What did you notice about us from our materials that we might not see ourselves?
Why ask it
Outsiders often spot the gap between how a congregation describes itself and how it reads on paper. A candid answer is also a small test of whether this person will tell you difficult things later.
Walk us through how you build a sermon, from first idea to Sunday morning.
Why ask it
You learn where the sermon actually comes from: the lectionary, the news, a commentary, a conversation on Tuesday. Note whether deadlines come up, since preaching failures are usually scheduling failures.
How many hours a week does preparation take, and what gives way in a busy week?
Why ask it
The number surfaces priorities. Twenty hours of preparation means something else in the week yields; three hours means something else is carrying the load, and it is worth asking what.
Which parts of the work do you find draining, and which do you genuinely enjoy?
Why ask it
Honest answers differ widely: committee work, administration, hospital visits, coffee-hour small talk. A candidate who says they love every part of it has either not done it long or is managing you.
What does an ordinary week look like for you when nothing is on fire?
Why ask it
This is the job as they actually practice it: office hours, visits, study time, meetings, whether Saturdays are working days. Position descriptions rarely match the answer.
Tell us about a time you were wrong in front of a congregation, and what you did next.
Why ask it
Willingness to name a specific error, and describe the repair, separates people who fix things from people who manage impressions. An answer with no example is itself information.
How do you handle it when a long-standing member opposes something you're doing?
Why ask it
Friction with a long-tenured member is the most common form of congregational conflict. Listen for whether the answer involves going to see the person, and how quickly.
What happened in the hardest conflict you've been part of, and what was your part in it?
Why ask it
Ask for their role rather than the narrative. People who have been through serious conflict can usually say what they would do differently; those who cannot tend to describe themselves as the only reasonable person present.
How do you decide what stays confidential, and what would make you break it?
Why ask it
Confidentiality is not absolute, and disclosures involving harm to a child or a vulnerable adult carry legal reporting duties in most places. A candidate should be able to state their line plainly rather than reach for it.
What's your practice around visiting people who are sick or dying?
Why ask it
Practice varies: some ministers visit weekly themselves, some build and train lay teams, some are rarely at a bedside. To older members this is often the most visible part of the role.
Where do you stand on the questions dividing congregations right now, and how do you pastor people who disagree with you?
Why ask it
These questions will arrive whether or not you name them in the interview. The position matters, and how they treat people on the other side of it matters more, because that is what the congregation will actually experience.
What would you want to change in your first year, and what would you leave alone?
Why ask it
Both halves count. A long change list with nothing worth preserving suggests someone arriving to renovate rather than to pastor, and congregations feel that within months.
How do you work with lay leadership, and which decisions do you expect to make alone?
Why ask it
This is where mismatched expectations do the most damage later. Push for specifics: staffing, worship changes, spending limits, and who gets consulted before what.
How do you handle money matters, including whether you want to know who gives what?
Why ask it
Practice differs on access to giving records and both positions can be defended. What you are listening for is a clear stance with a reason behind it rather than evident discomfort with the topic.
What would your household need from this call in terms of schedule, housing, and involvement?
Why ask it
Calls come apart over housing, schools, commuting, and unspoken assumptions about a spouse's role more often than over theology. Raising it in an interview is much cheaper than discovering it in year two.
Who supervises you, who supports you, and when did you last take a full day off?
Why ask it
Ministers with no oversight, no peer group, and no rest tend either to leave abruptly or to stay badly. The day-off answer is usually more revealing than the one about support networks.
How would you want us to raise a problem with you?
Why ask it
You are negotiating the terms of your own working relationship. Candidates who invite direct criticism and describe a route for it are easier to correct later than those who point you toward channels.
In three years, what would tell you this had gone well, and what would tell you it hadn't?
Why ask it
This gets their criteria rather than yours, and it doubles as the framework for a first review. A named outcome they would be embarrassed to miss is worth far more than a general hope for growth.
Running a minister interview well
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before the interview
Settle what you are looking for first
A committee that has not decided whether it most needs a preacher, a pastor, or an administrator will interview three different kinds of candidate and disagree about all of them.
Ask every candidate the same core questions
Consistency is the only way to compare answers fairly, and it protects the process if someone later argues a candidate was treated differently.
Assign the difficult questions in advance
Conflict history, money, and household needs are much easier to raise when the committee has agreed who will raise them and in what order.
Say what you cannot offer
Salary ceiling, housing arrangements, staffing, and the state of the building all surface eventually. A candidate who withdraws over them now would have withdrawn later at greater cost to everyone.
Where search committees go wrong
Interviewing only the pulpit
Preaching is the most visible part of the job and a small share of the week. Pastoral care, administration, and lay leadership take up most of it and deserve most of the questions.
Letting one enthusiast carry the room
Committees often align around the first person who impressed someone influential. Collect written impressions before discussion so the quieter members are on record.
Only calling the references you were given
Ask permission to speak with a lay leader from the candidate's last congregation as well as the listed referees. The difference between those two conversations is often the useful information.
Hiding your own conflict
If the congregation is divided or the last departure was painful, a new minister will learn it within a month. Describing it plainly gets you someone who chose to come anyway.
Settle these before making an offer
- Salary, housing, and who pays moving costs
- Study leave, vacation, and expectations about days off
- Which decisions belong to the minister and which to the board
- Review process, timing, and who conducts it
- Any ordination, denominational, or licensing steps still outstanding
- Start date, and what handover from the interim looks like