A friend and colleague shared with me yesterday that as her daughter and son-in-law were “dating” an ocean apart from each other, they regularly shared “Ten (Honest) Things You Should Know About Me” lists. Although they’d only briefly hung out after first meeting, by the time they saw each other a second time, they felt like they knew each other pretty well.
I wonder if Pastor Nominating Commitees and Candidates might do this too. Total honesty and specificity would be required. I can imagine a PNC putting together a list that looks something like this:
- We are a great church but we are worried about a few things.
- Some people are desperately worried.
- Some of our members are cranky. Maybe more than a few.
- Miss Esther has been making homemade donuts for 19 years for our coffee hour. Nobody messes with Miss Esther.
- The truth is that we have only seven kids in Sunday School.
- We are really good at crafts. At least a couple of ladies are really good at crafts.
- We’ve hosted a fish fry every First Friday of October for 22 years.
- Most of us hate the fish fry.
- Nobody talks about it but we have a gay couple that everybody loves. Nobody messes with Dan and Steven either.
- We say we want to change, but we don’t really want to, but we have to and so we hope to call a pastor who will love us into doing what we don’t want to do.
Many pastors out there would love to serve this church. Many pastors are looking for congregations who tell the truth about themselves and allow their leaders to share their truths as well.
Would love to hear what Ten (Honest) Things your Church might share when looking for your next pastor. Or you could share your own.
A Church for Starving Artists 