Ep. 9 — Building the Ideal Senior Pastor Profile

Join hosts Tim and Holly on the LeadingSmart podcast as they dive deep into one of the most critical aspects of pastoral succession: creating the perfect senior pastor profile. In this essential episode, discover why having a written profile is non-negotiable for successful church leadership transitions.

Key Topics Covered: 

• Why every church needs a detailed senior pastor profile before starting their search 

• The four primary leadership styles: Preacher, Leader, Shepherd, and Systems Administrator

• How to determine non-negotiables vs. nice-to-haves in your pastoral search 

• Common mistakes churches make when building profiles (including bending profiles to fit preferred candidates) 

• Navigating internal candidates and managing church relationships during succession 

• Using tools like Working Genius to understand leadership differences

Perfect for: Church boards, search committees, transition teams, denominational leaders, and anyone involved in pastoral succession planning. 

Whether you're facing an upcoming retirement, church plant, or leadership transition, this episode provides actionable insights from experienced church consultants.

Tim and Holly share real-world examples from their years at Vanderbloemen and their consulting work, including a powerful case study of a church with three internal candidates and how a clear profile helped make the difficult decision.

Don't miss our season finale next week - Episode 10 on staffing and structure after succession!

Season 2 of Leading Smart launches July 29th with fresh insights on church leadership and pastoral transitions.

#PastoralSuccession #ChurchLeadership #SeniorPastor #ChurchTransition #LeadershipSearch #PastoralSearch #ChurchConsulting #LeadershipDevelopment

🎧 Listen to the full Pastoral Succession series
https://www.leadingsmart.com/podcast

📘 Download our free Succession Planning Guide
https://www.leadingsmart.com/pastoral-succession-ebook

📩 Have questions or want to connect?
https://www.leadingsmart.com/lets-talk

🔔 Subscribe to stay updated on future episodes

Apple - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-leadingsmart-podcast/id1813933962

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/1IqLLXtvtZBEgRsM2gOXpO?si=8b6cc3d0a1124bdc

📱 Follow us for more insights and resources
Instagram: @timstevens
Facebook: @timstevens

Transcript

what are common mistakes that you see in the search process that relates to the, the profile? Bending your profile to fit the person that you happen to love. Yes. Um, and it could be an external person that you just fell in love with. 'cause you listen to their preaching and you think, oh my word. Our church would eat that up. And then you find out they don't have, you know, they couldn't lead themselves out of a paper bag. 

Welcome to the Leading Smart podcast where we're talking all about pastoral succession and on today's episode, episode nine, we are talk about, we are talking about building the ideal senior pastor profile.

Tim, you and I have written, I don't even know. Lots, lots, lots and lots scores, if not hundreds of these senior pastor profiles in our day. Yeah. When we were together at Vander Bloomin, and then in both of our work consulting churches, so, yep. Um, let's first talk about at a high level, why is this so important?

Why do we need to have this like written down and in a profile of. [00:01:00] What we're looking for in the senior pastor. Yeah. And we talked about this a bit last episode when we were talking about that search or transition team and that this being one of kind of the primary responsibilities of that and, and the reason this is especially helpful, obviously you need it regardless, but it's especially helpful if you have internal candidates you're thinking of.

'cause these are people that you love, that you've been in small groups with, that you go to church with, you've heard 'em preach and you're like, oh man, we'd love them to be our next senior pastor. And then I ask. Well, what do you want your next senior pastor? You're like, oh, like, we've never thought about that.

Mm-hmm. It's like, you gotta write that down. You gotta get that, because otherwise you're gonna either be incorrectly filtering someone out or incorrectly asking them to throw their name in the hat. Mm-hmm. And both of those can be, can be traumatic for an individual. So, um, making sure that, you know, and, and this isn't always a one for one, right.

You might have had a founding pastor, they've been there for 35 years. And you know, it's Barry and you're thinking, well, we just need another Barry. Mm-hmm. [00:02:00] You know, someone who can preach. It's like, it's a lot more than that. Yeah. Um, and you, and you know, instinctively it's a lot more than that. So just having time with a, a group that's prayerful and thoughtful to think that through and get it in writing.

We were talking about this in a little bit of a different, um, scenario on our drive in to record this episode today. Which is, it's tempting whether we're talking about succession or church staffing structure in general. It's really tempting to think about the people first. It's rather than what is the most effective structure that we need in place in order to support our strategy or our mission.

Yeah. Um, because we, yeah, we love the people that are on our team or, you know, we're thinking of this certain person that we think is a great teacher, but they might not be the right. Full package leader that we're looking for. Yeah. In order to move our church's mission forward. Yeah. You often think j just 'cause we're all wired this way, we think of what's most comfortable, what's least disruptive, and you may actually need disruption.

Mm-hmm. You know, you spend some time [00:03:00] working on that together. You may actually need someone to disrupt because you haven't been grown as a church or you're, you, you're unhealthy or whatever. So taking the time to actually, um, define that, to write it down. To agree on it. And then when you're holding up a candidate next to that, someone that you love and maybe they've been in your, your church for a long time, you're like, they actually don't match up.

The profile. So we actually should not ask them to throw their name in the hat. Yeah. Or if they've already done that, then we should say, sit down with them and lovingly say, Hey, here's why we're not gonna pursue you for this. That's so good. Well, and that leads to kinda my first question about the practicality of the profile.

So how do you determine what should be non-negotiable and what is flexible when you're building that profile? Yeah, that's, that's a good question. Um, and how do you figure that out, or, or what should they be? That's kind of up to the group and up to the church. So obviously you're gonna have some theological distinctives that are gonna probably be non-negotiables for you.

You may have some theological, um, uh, tenants [00:04:00] that aren't non-negotiable, that you're like, you know what, we could go either way mm-hmm. On this specific thing that's, maybe ancillary to, your theology. So what, like what they're, how they're wired. So there's, this is probably an overgeneralization, but there's like four kind of primary, wirings or strengths of a senior pastor.

Mm-hmm. Usually all senior pastors have all four of these, but, often they have one that's pretty strong and they have one that's pretty weak. So, uh, one would be just preacher. Mm-hmm. Like, that's the, that's the one you think of first. Like they have to be a great preacher. So preacher, teacher, communicator can galvanize a large room.

Would be one leader, like someone who may not be a great preacher, but they can lead an organization. They can, , cast vision and they can help you get to where you're wanting to go. , Third would be shepherd. And a lot of times the church, especially if they've been through some trauma, they just want someone to love us,

we just need someone to come in here and love us really well. Mm-hmm. Um, fourth one less [00:05:00] common would be someone who's like a systems minded administrative person. There's a large church in, Toledo, Ohio. It's called Cedar Creek. And it was started by a systems, like he came outta the management and he was a systems guy that had an evangelist de cart and, um, systems people usually.

When they think of like leading the church, they're thinking of like, okay, how can we get people, how can we build a system for spiritual formation for people to grow? They're not necessarily thinking of like, what's the next sermon I can preach? Or what's the thing I can launch or initiate? Yeah. So most churches have a sense of like, and I, and I like force 'em to answer this.

Like, if you could only choose one gun to your head, which is most important, is it preacher? Is it leader, visionary? Is it the shepherd person that really loves well, or is it the administrative leader? And often there'll be one and two that are pretty close. But man, when you di define that in and you're like, we're actually looking for a visionary who has some pretty good strengths on teaching and we can cover everything else with staff.

Mm-hmm. That's great. It just [00:06:00] defines it well, and, and then you know who you're not looking for. Yeah, exactly. Um, what, how do you navigate those things that you're looking for in that profile with like the heart of the church and like to your point, I mean, you just kind of touched on this, right, where it's like systems person.

But evangelistic, evangelistic heart, um, I'm thinking of someone else who, right now that's kinda executive pastor role who similar, like has a business background and is great, can do operations in their sleep, but is really drawn more towards that ministry side and like outreach and mission. So how do you bring that all together in a profile when you, after you've established like, all right, here's the order of which we want this person to lean.

On the spectrum of these four areas, you bring that all together and communicate it in a way that attracts the right person. Yeah. So get some help to help you do that. Um, I think getting it on paper and then, poking holes in it is great. So what, what I love to do is have a [00:07:00] church, transition committee, search committee, like put it all on paper and then tell me what's non-negotiable and what's.

Would be nice. And then I just start pouring holes in. I say, oh. Mm-hmm. Oh, so you're saying if I bring you someone who checks these six boxes but not the seventh, you'll be like, get 'em outta here. I don't, I don't wanna look at 'em. I'm like, no, no, that's not, no. Like, we could probably figure out someone to do that.

Okay. So that's not a non-negotiable. Yeah, that's, uh, would be nice. So it's just really helpful to know what those are ahead of time. Is there like a number, like of non-negotiables? Like, I mean, I know it's not a perfect form formula, but should it only be like three or can it be 10 for non-negotiables? I, I don't know about should be, but the more there are, um, the harder it will be to mm-hmm.

Find your candidate. Um, you know, I think, I think sometimes, sometimes non-negotiables, you just poke holes in 'em and you find out they're not, like, they'll say, man, they can't be less than 35, and my goodness, they can't be more than 50 because we want 'em to stay for 20 years. I'll say, so if I, if I bring you someone that has these [00:08:00] 32 things that you've said and they're 51, you're gonna be say, no way.

Oh no, we wouldn't say that. It's like, okay, great. It's not a non-negotiable. Yes. It's like, it's like a target, which is great. It's helpful to know that A lot of times churches will say, man, we need someone who like, culturally, demographically, like they just know our area, so they either grew up here or they live here kind of things.

Um, and I would say most cases, that's really smart, but I've seen, I've seen people succeed when they. Had never been to the area. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let's talk about common mistakes. So we've built our profile. Um, what are common mistakes that you see in the search process that relates to the, the profile? Um, so one would be just not defining it well, one would be bending, which we've already talked about, but the second one be bending.

Bending your profile to fit the person that you happen to love. Yes. Um, and it could be an external person that you just fell in love with. 'cause you listen to their preaching and you think, oh my word. Our church would eat that up. And then you find out they don't have, you know, they couldn't lead themselves out of a paper [00:09:00] bag.

You know, like, yeah. Like, okay, they have zero leadership. They're like, well, that's, you know, you kinda start thinking like, oh, we couldn't do without that. We got, you know, our board can lead You. Just, you tend to start compromising. And not that you may make some, you probably will make some compromises, but you just have to be attuned to that.

Mm-hmm. Um, and know, uh, know that you're doing that. Other common mistakes in searches would be, we referenced this a little bit in a previous episode. But if you're waiting for a hundred percent of the people to be a hundred percent bought in, um, and, and I'm not gonna say that's a mistake, I'm just gonna say it's gonna take you a lot longer.

Mm-hmm. Because some churches really believe \ that's, they must have that in order to select their next pastor. You know, you walk with them for months and sometimes years when they're looking for that person. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I also think that the value that having a clear profile brings, well, I just said, you know, it's clear, it is clarity.

Yeah. Like, um, making sure that we're all on the same page because it can be so subjective [00:10:00] otherwise. And so being able to have a North Star that we can point back to that both the candidate is acknowledging what they're opting in for. Yeah. And the transition team is all on the same page about what is most important so it doesn't become.

Personal, right? Where it's like, oh, Tim is always a naysayer, or Holly just thinks everybody is hung the moon. You know? Um, but it's more about no, what did we all commit to originally that were those non-negotiables that were those nice to haves and the type of leader that we're looking for? Um, yeah. And then it helps you when you do make the decision, the clear communication plan that we talked about in.

So that last episode, two episodes ago, two episodes ago, making sure that when you're communicating it, this is why we chose this person. It wasn't because we just liked them. It wasn't 'cause they were good looking. It wasn't 'cause they were a great teacher. Yeah. You know, it was because we were looking for these specific things.

Yeah. Example that, so worked with a church that had three internal candidates. Wow. Were three [00:11:00] people on staff. Which is amazing, by the way. Yeah. That wanted their name in the hat. Okay. And two of the three, the board and the transition team wanted their name in the hat. Got it. So one was kind of like, they, they wouldn't have chosen, but he threw his name in the hat, so they needed to figure that out.

So they went through this process of building out the ideal senior pastor profile, and all three of those pastors that, um, whose name wears in the hat, different people on the board and the search team. They, you know, I, I like this guy and I like that guy and I hope it's this guy. So, I mean, 'cause they love these people.

They've been in the church forever. But by, by the time they did the work on the profile then, and then they kind of held, it was very clear that two of those three were not qualified. Yeah. They were not what they were looking for. And so it took all the personal relational stuff out of it. Gave them talking points for when they sit down with those, when they sat down with them to be able to say, Hey, here's why we're actually not going down the road with you for this.

Um, and, and they knew in doing that, that they might lose these folks 'cause they may wanna go be a senior pastor [00:12:00] somewhere else, but they, but they were totally comfortable with that 'cause they knew they're not supposed to be our next senior pastor. Yeah. Uh, I've heard you say this before, so I'd love to hear you unpack, but similar to that, it's your new senior pastor may lead differently and that's a good thing.

Yeah. Um, tell us more about that, because. It can be a scary thing. Your newly lead pastor probably will lead differently, and so that's okay. Like, and I mean, there's gonna be things about, um, him or her that are just completely different from the previous leader. You know, you and I both do some work with working genius.

We've both been certified, so I'm working with a senior pastor now who, who, he's the retiring senior pastor and one of his. Working geniuses is tenacity. Mm. And the next person that they've selected is not, his working genius is not tenacity. It's his working frustration. So that's gonna, that's gonna be very different in how they're gonna lead.

What, what he's gonna notice versus what the other guy noticed or didn't notice. [00:13:00] Um, the things that are important to him, it's just gonna be completely different. Mm-hmm. And it's not right or wrong. And so I think you, you, you go through the work of, um. Doing the work on who should be the next lead pastor or senior pastor, and then who do they need around them?

Mm-hmm. Because they need, they may need different people or different gift sets around them. Different type. Well, like we know with this one I just referenced, he needs a very strong executive assistant Yeah. Around him who can catch details and can make sure the details stay in front of him. 'cause he's just not gonna naturally catch 'em.

So good. I'm so glad you said the working genius. Yeah. We both, yeah. Yeah. Such a great tool when you're thinking about profiles. Um, that is something we haven't talked about today. That's a great idea of whether it's working genius or another profile, but being able to use an objective. Profile and working Genius is unique in that it's part personality, part productivity tool, but we both really love it.

Yeah. 'cause it helps you and to run this, the current or outgoing senior pastor and the incoming one [00:14:00] so that you can have an objective tool to be able to show what differences might we feel as a board, as a church staff, as an executive team with this different style of leadership. And having, having that conversation ahead of time, right, rather than that whiplash later, um, is really, really helpful.

All right, Tim, well, let's jump into our segment of the show, which is our rant and raves. All right. I have a rant today. Okay. It's actually about churches. Oh. So I'll find, especially when I was at Vander Bloomin, you know, looking at hundreds of church websites. Yeah. It felt like, you know, a week, probably not true, not hundreds, but lot, it felt like that, and.

I would, or here's an example, be like, oh, what church is it? Oh, Grace Church. I'm like, okay, what Grace Church. Oh, in Pennsylvania and then you Google Grace Church in Pennsylvania and there's like 15, so 600. Yeah. And so anyway, when you cannot [00:15:00] find the church address. Easily on the church website. Yeah. And so I would encourage all of you, if you're listening, like go to your church website and imagine that you have never.

Been to your church before? How easy is, is it to find where you're located? Um, because that should be like the number one thing people are going to your website for is probably to figure out how to visit you. So that makes me really ragey when I cannot easily find the address. Is it? Is it under About Us?

Is it under Visiting Soon? Is it Under Contact Us? Like where do you find it? Yeah, at the very bottom. Yep. Yeah, so I'm gonna continue a rave. Okay. I kind of introduced it in a recent episode. I. Yeah. But let's talk about Chicago's the best big city on the planet. Mm-hmm. All right. Do you agree with me?

Except for in the winter, let, oh, do you agree with me? That's a good question. I mean, I think New York City, I mean like, 'cause you know, I lived there. I went to school there. But I will say in our [00:16:00] marriage, it's our favorite big city. Okay. Because it's like I get my big city fix. Elliot doesn't love New York City and so he, but he loves Chicago.

Yeah. So it's like our favorite city. So a few of the reasons, um, coolest neighborhoods, um, just very unique, ethnically diverse neighborhoods, green space. Mm-hmm. Like Chicago had an opportunity, like not many cities to basically completely rebuild in like 1870s because of the Chicago fire Yeah. Fire.

Mm-hmm. So master plan this, these green space, I think there's like 19 or 25 miles of green space along Lake Michigan instead of just having. You know, buildings and commercial right up next to the lake, like Michigan. Let's talk about that. Yeah. It's like the ocean, right? Beautiful. Yes. Yeah. If you haven't been, there's literally sand, like it feels like you're at the beach, feels like, and you can't see across it.

You see the, you got skyline behind you. Big waves. Yeah. And then the, you're in sand and there's water. It's wild. Millennium Park, um, river North West Loopt probably my favorite part of Chicago. The Cubs. I mean, come on. Just [00:17:00] lots of the food. The food. That's why Elliot and I really we're foodies. Well, really Elliot and I just kind of tag along.

Yeah. But we love the food, the, uh, transit system. Mm-hmm. Which Houston, when we lived there didn't have, no, it's terrible, but amazing transit system. We're, you know, we live an hour and 15 minutes outside of the city, can hop on a train six minutes from our house, be in the city and enjoy nightlife and come home and yeah.

It's also great that it's centrally located. That's the thing about like. If you're in New York or you're in LA or San Francisco, you're so far on the co, like you are on the coast. Whereas with Chicago, you know, you're, you're central, you can drive to all over the country from there. Yeah, yeah.

Or fly on United Airlines. Oh, no. On that note, um, we are going to thank Vanderbilt and we've mentioned them a lot through this series, but they are one of our partners for leading Smart, and we're grateful for them for many reasons. That's how, that's how I met you, Tim. It is how we met. Yeah. Oh, I remember your interview at Vanderbilt and we're, we worked there together for six [00:18:00] years serving churches and.

Um, but we mentioned they do a compensation survey, and so that's a big part of building this profile when you're talking about compensation. Um, a great resource there. Um, if you don't have internal candidates and you're searching for that person, I. We highly recommend and you can't, you know, you don't, you can't find them yourself.

Reach out to Vander Bowman. They would love to partner with you and making sure that you're finding the right person who got us called to lead your church in the next season. So, yeah. They also do compensation surveys, which we talked about in a previous episode. Mm-hmm. And, uh, culture surveys to help you figure out the health of your staff.

That's right. All right. Last but not least, our season is coming to an end, Tim. Yeah. Uh, our last episode, season 10. Coming up next. We're gonna be talking about staffing and structure after succession. I'm really glad we're diving into this because it's something that a lot of people don't think about, but is critical to making sure that we close the loop and finish strong.

So, tune in for [00:19:00] episode 10. [00:20:00] [00:21:00] [00:22:00] ​