National Alliance of Covenating Congregations within the United Church of Canada

Your Next Minister

From time to time a Pastoral Charge in the United Church will contact the NACC in some distress: they have called a Minister who has turned out to be significantly different from the person they thought they'd interviewed. Not infrequently these concerns have to do with the Minister's theology.

How could this happen? How could Search Committees be misled about something as fundamental as the Minister's theology? How could the Presbytery Representatives not have made sure this factor was adequately explored? (After all, differences over theology can be very damaging for both Minister and Pastoral Charge. And the Presbytery will eventually have the formal responsibility of making sure the difficulties are satisfactorily resolved.)

One problem is that some Joint Search Committees do not ask prospective Ministers even quite basic questions about their theological positions. This may be because theology is a field about which many feel unsure. Also, on some occasions committee members have apparently felt intimidated by Presbytery Representatives who steered them away from asking such questions. If this happens, the Presbytery's Pastoral Relations Committee should be asked to intervene: Presbytery Reps. are there to serve, not to dominate. To exert too much influence suggests a Rep. feels he/she knows God's will for the Charge better than do the people.

For Search Committees not to ask a significant number of "theological" questions is a major mistake. "Faith" questions need to be asked. They should be asked in Christian love, but they also need to be pointed and specific. And unclear answers need to be pursued with the prospective Minister until they are well understood.

In preparation for an interview, Search Committees should spend time discussing what questions to ask, why each question is important, and what sort of responses are hoped for. Here are a few suggested questions. A number are intended to clarify whether a good theological "fit" would be likely. There should be no valid objection to any of them.

• What is the significance of the Bible for you personally? How do you see its status, compared with other religious writings?

• How much weight should the Bible's moral teachings carry today? Are some of these teachings no longer applicable? Can you give us some examples?

• What are the core beliefs of your own personal theology?

• How relevant are the UCC's Articles of Faith to your own personal ministry? What sort of a role should the Articles play in the life of the United Church today?

• If ministers have previously been provided with such NACC monographs as "Who Is Jesus?", "Authority and Interpretation of Scripture", and "Morality and the Family" (copies available from the NACC, c/o 489 E. Osborne Rd, North Vancouver, BC V7N 1M4): How do you react to these pamphlets? What do you see to support or criticize in them?

• If you were asked to perform a same-sex service of blessing (or equivalent), how would you respond?

• What kind of leadership can we expect of you? On what would you expect to spend most of your time?

• What sort of ministry would you expect of us?

• Do you believe that traditional marriage is what God had in mind for the enjoyment of his gift of sexuality? Are there valid alternatives?

• How important to you are the gifts of the people? How would you help us discover, develop, and use those gifts?

• What do you consider some of the best ways to lead people to Christ?

Finally, it is dangerous for a congregation to think that a Minister’s "niceness" or friendliness is enough to justify a call. For the sake of everyone involved, Ministers need to be encouraged to be open, clear, and honest with their prospective charges regarding the beliefs they hold and the sort of ministry to which they feel called. Charges have the reciprocal responsibility not to mislead prospective Ministers. (In discussing what the Charge sees as its mission, the Search Committee's first reference should be the "vision"-oriented material in the Joint Needs Assessment Report.)

N.B. This monograph was developed from an article by Rev. Dr. Rob Iles in the Travelling EMU, a publication of EMU Australia, an organization for evangelicals in the Uniting Church in Australia. It has been revised for use by Pastoral Charges in the United Church of Canada.

Publication of EMU Australia
Evangelicals within the Uniting Church of Australia

National Alliance of Covenanting Congregations, January 2002