Date

5-2022

Department

Rawlings School of Divinity

Degree

Doctor of Ministry (DMin)

Chair

Robert Gowins

Keywords

Pastor, Pulpit Committee, Pastoral Candidate

Disciplines

Religion

Abstract

This project sought to help the pastor shortage in the National Association of Free Will Baptists by creating and implementing a tool to assist churches in their search for a pastor and help pastors find a new church to serve. Each church in the association is autonomous and selects its own pastor. The tool is actually two surveys that mirror each other. The churches seeking a pastor completes the church survey. And the candidate seeking a church to pastor completes the pastor survey. The tool gives information and views of ministry roles, preferences, non-negotiables, and negotiables. It is designed to help with information like Bible translation preference, musical preference, the role of pastor, church polity, decision making processes, associational involvement, views on funding Free Will Baptist ministries, agreement on the interpretation of the Free Will Baptist Treatise, and more. After the churches and the pastoral candidates complete their portions of the tool, the responses are submitted to an independent committee that reviews the survey responses. After the review, three pastors are recommended to each church and three churches are recommended to each pastor candidate. After the recommendations, the churches are encouraged to continue with the process of choosing a pastor, but now the pastor candidates and the churches have much more information about the other.

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