In an interview with a potential staff member or pastor, you have an opportunity to do two things, first to go over any questions arising from their application and secondly, to find out a bit more about their pastoral competency, what would they be like in a pastoral and counselling situation.
So how do you go about finding out those things? Well, first of all, I’d encourage them to begin by sharing their testimony and then I might pick up on some of the question marks. Get them to go into more detail about examples all ready given or to supply new examples Ask then to talk to you about areas where they have changed their mind.
I’d then work through some case studies to see how they handle examples of pastoral situations. You can find some helpful examples here but you can add to them or use your own. What I would be looking for are the following.
- Can he offer real life examples from his own experience?
- What does he tell you about his approach and methodology?
- What does his answer disclose about what he believes and what he will be teaching the church.
You will of course want to give them plenty of opportunity to ask their own questions and this will tell you a lot about them as well.
Faithroots 