Transition & Placement Tools

Experience and research have taught us that pastoral transition gets complicated and disorganized quickly. Over time, we have developed a few tools to aid with the organization and decision-making that is necessary during the process of candidacy, placement, and transition.

For Congregations in Transition

“When the Pastor Leaves...” this article by Ed Eubanks is a brief guide for congregations and church members whose pastor has left, and who are preparing for a new pastor. How can they prepare in heart and mind for a new pastor, and how can they may their new pastor feel welcomed? Ed Eubanks offers a few suggestions. (Click here to download PDF)

For Search Teams/Pulpit Committees

Pastor Chris Brauns, author of the book When The Word Leads Your Pastor Search, has an excellent list of recommended reading on his website. (Click here to open Pastor Brauns's recommended reading list)

For Pastors/Seminarians in Transition

Placement Worksheet: this worksheet is designed to be completed for each opportunity you are exploring, and has room for keeping track of what information you have sent, upcoming events, and contact records with notes. Instructions for using the worksheet are included. (Click here to download PDF)

Opportunity Evaluator: when decision-making time comes, it can be difficult to evaluated whether God is calling you to a particular opportunity. Yet, God gives clues and cues that help with the decision-making process. Our Opportunity Evaluator will offer a unique way of reading the clues and cues from God and seeing a “big picture” evaluation. (Click here to download PDF)

Other/Misc.

PCA Housing Allowance Form: one of the tax benefits for the ordained pastor is the “housing allowance” (see these posts for more: part one, part two, part three). This form will provide you with an IRS-compliant documentation of your housing allowance. This PDF file contains interactive forms, allowing you to fill in most of the blanks on your computer before printing it for a signature. (Click here to download PDF)

We are always at work to develop new tools, and as they become available we will offer them here. These tools are released under a Creative Commons license (see below); this means that you are free to duplicate them for personal or any non-commercial (for-sale) use, as well as modify and improve them, provided you attribute origin to us and share them under a similar license. (Note: if you are interested in making modifications to the actual files, please contact us for password permissions for file alteration.) To read more about this Creative Commons license, click the Creative Commons icon below.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.