Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Alban Books
Pages: 168
Trim: 6 x 9
978-1-56699-402-6 • Paperback • March 2010 • $31.00 • (£25.00)
978-1-56699-666-2 • eBook • March 2010 • $29.50 • (£25.00)
John Vonhof has more than 25 years experience serving in church leadership roles as a deacon; elder; board secretary; as secretary of a pastoral search team; on youth, ministry, and missions boards; numerous task forces and committees; and as a Sunday school teacher and small group leader. This book is written from his experience on a pastoral search team, talking with pastors and members of search teams, and researching resources about the pastoral search process.
No pastoral search committee should leave home without this book! It’s contemporary, comprehensive, and full of practical tools. It details the process from creating a committee to welcoming a newly called pastor into the congregation, with clear diagrams illustrating every point. Eight appendices offer models of surveys, questionnaires, letters, and forms the committee will find indispensable.
— Joe H. Leonard Jr., Co-chair, Pastoral Search Committee, Central Baptist Church, Wayne, PA
This book attends to the emotional and relational needs of both congregation and pastor in a time of transition while providing a rich supply of practical resources, adaptable for almost any denominational system. Each chapter provides replicable step-by-step guidelines for any person, committee or congregation involved in the pastoral search process.
— Judith Schwanz, emeritus professor of pastoral care and counseling, Nazarene Theological Seminary
For the last ten years I have been helping churches and pastors find each other. The Pastoral Search Journey: A Guide to Finding Your Next Pastor is one of the most inclusive books on this topic. It contains a wealth of information that every search committee needs to know as they fulfill the search, it is written in a plain and precise language that any reader would be able to understand, and it is full of resources, surveys, and examples of how to discover who your next pastor should be.
— David I. Shrout, Executive Coordinator, The Association of the Churches of God in Oregon and Southwest Washington