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My 6 Go-To Interview Questions for Church Staff

Whether interviewing a candidate for a teaching pastor position or an administrative support position, these are my go-to questions that continue to give me insight into the person during my initial interviews. Maybe they can help you in your selection process…

You have several strengths (and I would name some), but tell me what the “shadow side” to these are. Tell me about how you’ve seen a strength of yours come out as a negative in certain settings.
Which of the nine “fruit of the Spirit” is most evident in your life currently, and which “fruit” is least evident in this season of your life?
When you’ve had a hard day or a hard month, how do you typically re-energize?
Thinking about supervisors you’ve had in the past, tell me a supervising-characteristic one of them had that really was good for you to work under. Next, tell me a supervising-characteristic that really bugged you at times.
What does self-development look like for you? If you have intentional practices, please describe.
What is the greatest joy and greatest challenge in your current position?

These aren’t original. They don’t always provide significant insight. But for me, more often than not, I learn something valuable from the person’s response.

In the selection process for my church, we have a robust Selection Tool Kit (this is where some of the above questions came from). And these six questions represent a small fraction of the questions we ask. These six are typically asked in the first couple of interviews (discovery phase), and as we move along, they get more in depth. But as I’ve written about before, you need to model transparency in your interviewing exchange, and when possible, ask open-ended questions that provide an opportunity for you to see them in reality and not in an aspirational version of themselves.

Happy interviewing–

Before Moving to a New Place: Understand its change readiness

“If you’re considering coming here and joining our staff and are thinking to yourself, ‘When I get there, I’m okay with some things, but I’ve got to change…’ then you probably shouldn’t come at all.”

That statement is a standard talking point I use in our minister selection process during our “cultural call.”

I received similar advice in premarital counselling. If when choosing a spouse you’re thinking to yourself, “I like Jane quite a bit, but once we’re married, I’ll change this or that about her,” you’ve got a problem.

One reason to hire staff from outside your church is to gain a fresh perspective. You want them to impact your culture in a new way. But there’s a difference between a new staff member adding perspective and influencing your culture, and one forcing their perspective in efforts to overhaul your culture.

Even if your church wants significant perspective and method changes, it’s rare they’ll accept those changes quickly.

I would assume some churches really want and need the changes brought on by new staff. If there’s something going on at a prospective church that isn’t great, and the leadership tells you in their recruitment, “It’s that way now, but we’ll change that if you come,” or worse yet, “It’s that way now, but when you come, you can change it!”… Run! Or at least deal with the reality of the present circumstances and determine if God is calling you to minister in them. If you’re only willing to go for the post-change version of them (a preferred version of them), then I would urge you to reconsider.

While I’ve seen a trend in churches of being more change-ready, they still move slowly. Churches are made up of people, and most people are change averse. Churches will talk change all day long, but know this: most churches are only aspirational-changers.

If there are clearly changes needed, and the church acknowledges them but haven’t yet changed it, then it’s probably not going to change (at least soon or easily). Churches will present you with the idea you can come in on a white horse and have free reign to modify, manipulate, and overhaul their church (and while on said horse, you can chase down a Pokémon too) – but I contend that rarely happens quickly or without trouble.

So does that mean you shouldn’t go to a church who needs change?

Nope, but do make your church-going decision based on reality, not only on your idea (or theirs) of the preferred future for their church. You need to pull back the change curtain.

Can you handle a change-free church for a while? Here’s a litmus test if you’re considering a new church opportunity:

If X doesn’t change within my first two years, is it going to cause me significant frustration?

If you can’t live with a church’s present reality and still minister well for at least 12-24 months, then I caution you about choosing that church. When you’re new to a church, before you’ve built up relational equity, it’s hard to minster well and also affect change simultaneously. If you’re changing a lot early on, you’re likely making a bad first impression, and worse, you’re spending too much of your energy on change and not on the people who need ministry from you.

Another test question: If when describing the new church opportunity to trusted friends, do you begin with, “They have a lot of things that aren’t right, but once there, I’ll change them”?

Even if you believe God and the church has called you as a change-agent for a new church, please know:

Ministry needs to happen in the meantime (before change)
Change will cause friction
Change will occur slower than you want it to

Churches that need change also need great ministry leadership. Churches that are change averse also need great ministry leadership. So don’t not go because there are changes to me made, but do go with the reality in mind that you’ll need to be comfortable in a primarily unchanged environment, and you’ll need to find ways to thrive in ministry (in the meantime).

Church members: They want just a little bit of info

How do those who come to your church feel about your church’s communication?

During a recent vacation, I saw a variety of good and poor communication from leadership. It reminded me what it might feel like to be a church member (not in a staff or leadership position) and to not be well-informed regarding church issues.

I had a airplane pilot who communicated well. Although he couldn’t control the weather, our diversion to another city, or sitting on a tarmac for almost two hours, he communicated clearly and often with us about our status and next steps.

I also had my family pulled from a theme park because of a fire alarm. No fire trucks responded, and no one communicated to patrons how long we’d be standing in the sun with our kids pleading to go back in.

When I arrived home, I saw a church communicating the removal of their founding and senior pastor for “unfortunate choices.” I won’t weigh in on whether it was good or bad communication because I don’t have enough information to earn that right, but I’ll say this: I know they were faced with communicating a really difficult message.

All these experiences reminded me of the need for church-leaders to be really great communicators.

When churches don’t communicate, or do so slowly or ambiguously, one of these usually happen:

You frustrate committed members who’ve earned the right to know information
You leave a gaping hole about what’s going on, and people begin their own narrative to fill the void
You create an atmosphere of mistrust, or at least a feeling that there’s a lack of transparency
You lose credibility when you need to communicate something important

Many times, releasing small amounts of meaningful information will satisfy church members. But communicating even small amounts of meaningful information can be difficult because it’s complicated (confidentiality concerns, trust, managing the message, timing, and the possibility of it being live tweeted or captured via video).

So, how can church leaders communicate well, considering the many factors that impact information sharing?

Anticipate FAQs. Consider your audience, determine what they want to know, and get ahead of it. Be succinct. When possible, say the last 2% first. As I wrote recently, three-fourths of an answer is better than an answer and a half.

Stick to the facts. Church leaders have a tendency to add more information than necessary, and that can lead to missteps. See previous remark.

Be prepared. You lose credibility if you’re unable to speak to key information. (Some of the content I wrote about being prepared for the media will relate here too.)

Manage, but don’t spin. In my interpretation, spinning is misleading or communicating with an ulterior motive – whereas managing speaks to providing limited amounts of information and having an intentional way of releasing it.

Be sincere. This is particularly relevant if it’s a difficult message (like the one relating to the removal of a pastor, mentioned earlier in the post). The only thing worse than a lack of communication is insincere communication.

Have a go-to forum. Whether it’s a town hall meeting, business meeting, bulletin, or remarks at the conclusion of the service, have a solid forum at a specific place and time for communicating important information.

Be considerate. Just because you don’t think changing the bulletin or replacing the pews with chairs is a big deal, it can be to the person who uses the bulletin as their only way to get their church information, or to the person who accepted Christ kneeling at one of those pews. I’ve seen a tendency in my generation (including me) and the one after me to be a little cavalier when it comes to interpreting which things should matter to others.

Not every church member wants fodder for gossip, and there are people who are invested in your church who’ll likely want to know things occurring there. So when confidentiality or governance guidelines don’t prohibit it, share meaningful information as often as needed.

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