INTEGRITY IN MINISTRY: NO HIDDEN SKELETONS INÂ YOUR CLOSET
Several years ago, I met with a pastor search committee at a hotel in a city halfway between the four hundred miles that separated where I was pastoring at the time and where the church of the pastor search committee was located. My wife, Wanda, and I had met previously with the committee, but, for those who know the usual process, this was the meeting that would determine whether the pastor search committee asked me to come in view of a call to their church. Wanda, our three children, and I met for several hours in a hotel suite with the pastor search committee. We talked about a variety of subjects, relevant to families, churches, and society in general, in getting to know one another better. Then there a came time when one of the men on the committee said that he would like to ask some questions which they had prepared for me. For over an hour he systematically questioned me during what was the most intense and thorough interview I had ever been through. I was even asked a question, which some pastor search committees and secular hiring committees will be careful to no longer overlook in light of some recent public embarrassments. That question was, “Are the academic degrees you list on your resume ones you actually earned and received?” Three times near the end of the interview, the interviewer asked, “Are there any hidden skeletons in your closet that you can think of that we need to know about?” I did become the pastor of that church, and later would refer jokingly on occasion to the pastor search committee member who did the questioning about the “grilling” he gave me that day. I later learned that I went through an interview and questioning time similar to that of Secret Service agents because a Secret Service agent, who was a member of that church, had provided the pastor search committee with the questions asked of potential Secret Service agents.
Why was that pastor search committee so thorough and personal in their questioning and evaluation of me? They wanted a pastor who was a man of integrity, whose life backed up who he claimed to be and what he professed to believe. They wanted no surprises or embarrassments to taint the reputation of their church and to hinder their witness for the Lord. They did their best up front to make sure the man they called to be their pastor would not be one who would disappoint them later on by his pastoral leadership, decisions, and manner in which he would conduct himself as a minister and as a man. In the twenty-five plus years I have been in the ministry, serving three churches as a senior pastor and five churches as an associate minister, the search committees that brought me to the seven other churches may not have been as in depth and as intense as the one mentioned earlier, but every church wanted a pastor or associate staff ministers with impeccable integrity as one of their major characteristics and qualifications.
The next few blogs will deal with integrity in ministry and what is necessary to be a minister with impeccable integrity.
Blessings,
Dr. Bobby Mullins