One of my "dreams" for the church is that pastoral transitions would go more smoothly for most, if not all, churches. I am convinced that one way for this to happen more frequently is if the transition is a planned "hand-off" of the outgoing Pastor's rather than a "from-scratch" restart of pastoral ministry every time the Senior Pastor (or any other pastoral staff member) leaves. I want to focus on

Here's an interesting and helpful idea from David Gordon at Gordon-Conwell Seminary:Dr. Kenneth Swetland, from Gordon-Conwell, recommended a good practice for our students when they were candidating for church positions: that in the later stages of that process, whenever possible, the candidate meet with the appropriate committee and, with a chalkboard or whiteboard, ask the committee members what

As I highlighted in my last post on this subject, the core factor here is, are you called to serve in pastoral ministry? If the answer is "yes" then nothing-- not economic crises, not the reality of more seminarians to "compete" with for a position, not the length of time since you began earnestly seeking placement-- NOTHING should keep you from continuing to pursue the fulfillment of that call.How

A seminary graduate recently wrote to me, asking for advice. He graduated from seminary over two years ago, but has not yet found placement into a pastoral call. He has made it to the "short list" a few times, and actually beyond that once or twice. He feels the pressure of the fact that every semester more seminary-trained men enter the ministry field, and he knows that the economic pressures on churches

I've been working to update my list of links for placement and transition help. I've added a bunch of denominational and school links, as well as a good number of others. I've been prowling around for these for several years now, and I think this is the largest list I've ever seen compiled in one place.If you want to make use of this master list, you can see it on the Doulos Resources website under

As I have mentioned before, being in ordained pastoral ministry affords a number of wonderful tax benefits. It also brings a number of tax peculiarities. (This is doubly true if you have chosen to opt out of Social Security and the rest.)Having access to a good CPA or tax preparer-- and one who is familiar with clergy tax law-- is a great help. The trouble is, they can sometimes be difficult to find.I

A friend of mine recently learned-- the hard way-- that he was in a type of position I call the "unintentional interim." Here's the lay of the land: the pastor that served this congregation before my friend was their pastor for several decades. He was beloved by his people, and served them faithfully. This isn't to say that there were not surely more difficult times, but over their many years together

Here are a couple of new resources you might be interested in:Covenant Discipleship Communicant's Curriculum. My good friend and colleague, Richard Burguet, and I have been working on this together for years, and have finally seen it come to the point we've been hoping for. You can learn about about it, and order it, through Doulos Resources (which is a new ministry I'm involved with, and this blog

Stuart Briscoe captures an idea that I tried to get to a while back-- how my research and writing has focused primarily on mechanics and not essentially on dynamics (I didn't use those terms then). By and large, I have assumed the dynamics at work-- and that candidates are attending to that aspect, as well. I think now that this might be an presumption that there isn't always grounds to make, but for

One added benefit of the [Elmbrook Church] Study Center became evident over the years as more and more people who would never have gone to seminary completed the training we offered (all the time supporting themselves in their secular jobs and pursuing their ministries in the church. This meant that when we had a vacancy on the staff or an opportunity to develop a new ministry, we didn't have to look