by Sandy » Thu Oct 24, 2013 10:51 am
That's a great service. Expanding the kind of things that they do might be something to consider, such as keeping a registry of churches and their record when it comes to their pastor and staff. Having a place where you could look up a church and find out how many pastors they've had, how many have been dismissed, or even how many have had frequent resignations. For Baptists in particular, this would be valuable information, since there's no denominational organization in place which handles that sort of thing. You can call a director of missions, or other pastors in the area, but sometimes they are reluctant to do or say anything that leaves a negative impression.
When I graduated from Southwestern, I took their placement office's advisory session. They were quite helpful in providing advice like finding out about previous pastors and staff, asking them to provide a reference to you for the church. One of the things they said was to ask the search committee to provide you with the contact information of their former staff members or pastor, depending on what you were seeking. I only had one church situation in which I had to deal with the established power structure and self-appointed leadership related to keeping my position, and that was before I went through the seminary's program. I guess they still do that, and it would be a good idea for all of them to prepare their students for what they might face. I did have one DOM in Kentucky who told me that a church that was interested in me had a couple of deacons who were hard on ministerial staff, and a pastor who used staff members as scapegoats to keep his own job. That was a red flag. That should happen more often.