Clergy Search Resource
Over 380 pages of detailed strategies to Assess clergy skills and Discern Calls.
Now available as an online library.
The Authors
Rob Voyle
The Rev. Dr. Rob Voyle is a leader in the development and use of appreciative inquiry in church and coaching settings.
Rob's Approach to Training
- Helpful: Training must provide practical, sustainable solutions for today's challenges.
- Humorous: Creativity and humor go together as people enjoy new insights.
- Healing: I create opportunities for people to experience transformational insights that lead to new ways of living, working, and being in the world.
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See more on Rob's
Helpful, Humorous, Healing
approach to training.
Kim Voyle
Dr. Kim Voyle has extensive experience in Spiritual Direction, Career Counseling, and Personnel Selection. She currently serves on the Leadership Team of Boundless Compassion.
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Email Kim for Spiritual Direction
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Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls
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Clergy Search Resources |
380 pages of:
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Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls
Save Time While You Empower Your Search Committee
Congregations can subscribe to a comprehensive set of Appreciative Inquiry based resources to accomplish the following search process steps:
- Initiate a Transitional Ministry to create a solid foundation for conducting their search.
- Establish a clear sense of vision and purpose for the congregation.
- Establish the search criteria to help the congregation achieve their vision.
- Assess candidates abilities with respect to the search criteria.
- Discern a call from a qualified list.
Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls provides detailed strategies to achieve each of these steps.
See below for more detail on each of these steps
Appreciative Inquiry Version
The philosophical foundation of and the search strategies in Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls are all based in Appreciative Inquiry.
From an Appreciative perspective the focus of the search is on discovering:
- What is the best we can do as a congregation?
- What is the best this candidate can do?
- Can the congregation and the candidate call forth and equip each other to be their best?
In addition to providing extensive resources to facilitate these steps Assessing Skills and Discerning Calls also includes a substantial introduction to the Appreciative Way of thinking. This positive, life-giving approach informs every aspect of the search process.
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The Appreciative Way and the Search Process
Episcopal and Protestant Versions
The current version was written with the language and practices of the Episcopal church in mind.
However, within many denominations where congegations are given significant responsibility to call their rectors and pastors, rather than being appointed by an adjudicatory, there is considerable overlap in practices beyond the issue of language. This resources would be of help to congregations of many denominations involved in the task of calling their leaders. t
Online Library of Resources
Over 300 pages of content are avaliable in an online library.
Individual resources and templates can be be downloaded and printed for the work of the various search and leadership committees.
The Five Important Steps
These steps are based on our theological perspective of the search process.
>> Theological Perspectives of the Search Process
Too often congregations focus all their attention on what they want in their next pastor. Following conflict the attention is often focused on what the congregation "doesn't want" in their next pastor.
The following steps are designed to place the search in the wider context of the congregations life and work and not simply on the next minister.
- Are You ready for a search? Create a solid foundation for conducting your search.
In the midst of transition anxiety may arise, or the congregation may already be embroiled in conflict, or the congregation may need to do significant development work before calling a settled pastor. In these circumstances attention and effort needs to be focused on resolving these issues by creating and achieving clear goals during the transition time before the search can be engaged.
If these issues are not resolved before the search the congregation is unlikely to wisely and lovingly discern a call. It is impossible to discern the will of the Loving God when we are in a state of anxiety or conflict.
- Establish a clear sense of vision and purpose for the congregation.
First things first: Too often congregations focus on what they want in a pastor not on what they are called to be as a congregation.
Ask not what your pastor can do for you.
Ask what you can do for your community and then ask:
What do we need in a pastor to help us do that? - Establish the search criteria to help the congregation achieve their vision.
If you don't know what you are looking for, you won't know when you find it.
Having clear agreed to search criteria will reduce the possibility of search committee conflict over candidates based solely on personal preferences that are unrelated to the congregation's overall goals and vision.
- Assess candidates abilities with respect to the search criteria.
This is the objective assessment of skills that is essential to ensure that the candidate can actually do the job to which they may be called. This must be done before you discern whether someone is called to the position.
For example, before you discern whether someone is called to be your preacher you need to know whether the person can preach.
- Discern a call from a qualified list.
This is the subjective discernment to determine whether a qualified candidate is called to your specific congregation. This requires a very different set of questions than assessing skills
For example, if you have assessed the candidate as a competent preacher then the discernment question is about whether you and the people of the congregation will hear God's Spirit in this person's preaching.
Compare the Preaching Skills Assessment and the Preaching Discernment to understand the different questions that need to be asked when assessing skills and discerning a call.
Purchase Subscription to the Online Library of Search Resources
Transition Ministry and Search Consultant Training
We also provide extensive training in: