You’ve trained for months. Three workouts a day. Wind sprints. Long distance. Weight training. Your speed and endurance are the best they’ll ever be. You’re at your peak, about to run the race of your life. And everything you’ve worked so hard for comes down to a few seconds on a track. The gun fires, and you fly faster than ever before. Your heart pounds. You sense that you’re breaking records with each step. But at the final turn, the unthinkable happens. Right as you’re extending the baton to the next runner, it somehow falls to the ground. You watch in slow motion as it hits the track,...

Search committees in churches are notoriously bad at communicating to candidates… at least that’s what I heard time and time again when I ran a church staffing website.  Thom Rainer has put together a great list of suggestions your search committee should consider: – Understand the potential disruption caused by your contact of a pastor. Most pastors at least pause and pray when they hear from another church. They often include their spouses in the early discussion. They may wonder if the contact is indicative that God may be leading them to another place of ministry. If a search...

EverythingPastor writes, “How do you leave something that you love? That’s the question I’ve been asking myself for the past couple of weeks. On October 4th, I put in my 60 day notice at my church. I’ve been here four years and have loved every step of the way. We had always assumed that we would be at Greenwood forever, but about six months ago, God became to change our hearts and as a result we feel he’s re-ignited our passions for missions and church planting. We were always planning to church plant, we just thought that we be overseas and not in America. It’s been such a growing...

For the past seven years, about 1.5 percent of senior pastors have lost their jobs each year due to forced terminations. via Christian News. Have you ever been ‘forcibly’ terminated?  What was your response?  Anger? Relief? And how did you recover? Todd

What is the average pay for a senior pastor these days? Well, of course, it depends… on your experience, the size of your church, and what sex you are. According to the 2012-2013 Compensation Handbook for Church Staff (which surveyed about 4,600 churches and 8,000 church positions), the average senior pastor overall makes… [drum roll please]… $82,938. That’s up from last year’s average salary of $80,745. Another interesting finding is that women church employees (senior pastor or otherwise) make on average 28% LESS than men across all paid positions in the...