By Brent Lacy

The pastor search is one of the most important things a small church will ever do. Get it right and you set the congregation up for years of healthy ministry. Get it wrong and you are back in the same process in two or three years, with a congregation that is more skeptical and more tired than before.

Most small church search committees have never done this before. They are deacons, elders, and lay leaders who love their church and want to do right by it. They are not professional search consultants. They need practical guidance, not theory.

Here is what actually matters.

Before You Start Looking: Write an Honest Church Profile

The church profile is the document you send to candidates to describe your congregation. Most church profiles are aspirational. They describe the church the committee wishes they were, not the church they actually are.

This is a mistake. A candidate who accepts a call based on an idealized church profile will arrive to find a different reality. That gap between expectation and reality is one of the most common causes of early pastoral departure.

Write an honest profile. Include the church’s actual average attendance, not the attendance on Easter. Include the real financial picture. Include the challenges the church is facing. Include the conflicts that have happened in the last five years and how they were resolved. Include what happened with the previous pastor and why they left.

A candidate who reads an honest profile and still wants to come is a candidate who is genuinely called to your church. That is the person you want.

What to Look For

Character over charisma

The most common mistake search committees make is falling in love with a preacher. They hear a candidate preach a strong sermon and they are ready to vote. But preaching ability is not the same as pastoral character. A gifted communicator who is not trustworthy, not humble, and not able to handle conflict will damage a small church faster than a mediocre preacher who is genuinely godly.

The biblical qualifications for elders in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are almost entirely about character. That is not an accident. Character is what sustains ministry over the long term. Charisma is what makes the first year exciting.

Fit for a small church context

Not every gifted pastor is suited for small church ministry. Small church ministry requires a generalist who is comfortable doing many different things, a person who finds meaning in deep relationships rather than large crowds, someone who is patient with slow change, and someone who is genuinely interested in the community they are serving rather than treating it as a stepping stone.

Ask candidates directly: “Have you ever served in a church this size? What did you find meaningful about it? What was hard?” The answers will tell you a lot.

A track record of finishing

Look at the candidate’s history. Do they finish what they start? Have they stayed in previous positions long enough to see real fruit? Or do they have a pattern of moving on every two to three years when things get hard?

According to Lifeway Research (2025), 43% of former pastors left after serving just one congregation, and 43% served as senior pastors for 10 years or less. The churches that thrive are the ones with pastors who stay. Look for someone who has demonstrated the capacity to commit.

A healthy marriage and family

Ministry is hard on families. A pastor whose marriage is struggling, whose children are in crisis, or whose spouse is not genuinely supportive of the call will not be able to sustain effective ministry. This is not about perfection. It is about whether the family is a foundation for ministry or a liability to it.

Ask to meet the spouse. Pay attention to how the candidate talks about their family. Ask how the family feels about this potential move. The answers matter.

How to Check References

Most search committees check the references the candidate provides. That is not enough.

Call the references the candidate did not provide. Call the previous church’s board chair or deacon chair. Call someone who worked alongside the candidate but was not listed as a reference. Ask them the questions the candidate’s references will not answer: How did this person handle conflict? Were there any concerns about their character or conduct? Why did they really leave?

This is not about distrust. It is about due diligence. The candidate who has nothing to hide will not be bothered by thorough reference checks. The candidate who resists them is telling you something.

The Candidate Weekend

When you bring a candidate to preach and meet the congregation, pay attention to more than the sermon. Watch how they interact with people after the service. Watch how they treat the people who are not important. Watch how their spouse engages with the congregation. Watch how they handle questions they do not know the answer to.

The candidate weekend is a performance, and both sides know it. But character tends to show up in the margins, in the unscripted moments, in how someone treats the person who is not on the search committee.

Setting the New Pastor Up to Succeed

The search committee’s job does not end when the pastor accepts the call. The first year of a new pastorate is critical. Most pastoral departures happen within the first three years. The church that invests in the new pastor’s success during that first year dramatically improves the odds of a long and fruitful ministry.

Practical things that help:

• Give the new pastor time to listen before they are expected to lead. A pastor who spends the first six months learning the congregation before making changes will earn trust that a pastor who arrives with a plan never will.
• Protect the pastor’s day off. Do not contact them with non-urgent matters on their day off. Model the boundaries you want the congregation to respect.
• Review compensation annually. A pastor who is financially stressed cannot pastor well.
• Assign a deacon or elder to be a point of contact for the pastor, someone who will tell them the truth about what is happening in the congregation.
• Celebrate the first anniversary. It communicates that the congregation noticed the first year and is grateful for it.

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