How to Select the Leader of Your Church

The three layers of qualifications and qualities you're looking for

When a Pope dies, the Roman Catholic Church enters a stage called interregnum, which even though it sounds like it, has nothing to do with your large intestine. Instead, it means the time between two elected leaders holding a position. In the United States, we don't have a lot of interregnums because we usually elect people for a position prior to the last one leaving (thus the "lame duck" stage). So, one of our only examples of interregnum is when a Supreme Court Justice dies or resigns and we go looking to appoint and confirm a new one.

There is a season in the life of any church where they have to think about who will lead and shepherd them in the future, whether it's for a Pope leading 1.4 billion faithful from the Vatican or a multi-vocational pastor shepherding 41 people in a more typical small church in someplace like Lick Skillet, Tennessee. I want to explore with you what it is like to select the head of your church, no matter if it's a local church, a region of churches, or even the head of a denomination, such as a bishop, superintendent, or yes, even a pope.

Some might say that the most influential and powerful American up until this point has millions of devoted followers who hang on every word they say, constantly wearing their brightly colored merch, defending them online with uncommon vitriol when anyone criticizes them, willing to march on their behalf if needed at a moment's notice. But enough about Taylor Swift. You might be able to say that Swift is no longer the most influential American in the world; that is now certainly Pope Leo XIV, previously known as Bob from Chicago, a missionary to Peru.

Not long after the white smoke appeared in Rome, astute observers claimed that Chicago has produced a Pope before the Chicago Bears could produce a great NFL quarterback. Yes, for sure, the Vatican Conclave vote this time happened fairly quickly, with some noting that Pope Leo XIV got drafted faster than Shedeur Sanders. But NFL digressions aside, the shortest Conclave in history was only a few hours, in the 16th century. Of course, if you've ever served on a search committee for a position of leadership in the church, especially a lead pastor, regional leader (a Bishop or District Superintendent) or for the very few who have helped nominate leadership for a whole denomination, you know that these things take more time than that. Usually many months or up to a year, perhaps even exceeding that so an interim is required.

In fact sometimes the process to select someone like the Pope Formerly Known as Bob takes an extremely long time. If you've been a part of a search committee that seemed to go on forever, just remember that the longest such search and election lasted for nearly 3 years in the 13th century. In order to force that conclave to make up its mind, the ruling authorities cut the rations for the assembled Cardinals to only bread and water, and removed the roof of the building to expose their meetings to the elements. It still took them another year to wrap up. Remember that when your next meeting seems to go overlong.

I love thinking about these search processes and interregnums. I think they tell us a whole lot about the values and priorities of the institutions involved, and those making the decisions. We all intuitively know this, which is why there is such analysis about the implications and meaning of such choices. For a Pope it fills the news in every medium, as people comb through the past resume, friendships, and even tweets (if they have them) of the newly elected pontiff. Every little thing they've ever done gets amplified and seems to portend of things to come. People claim the new leader is on their side of things, or denounce them in advance of doing anything when it seems they are not.

It's surely not the same for other less famous positions. I don't recall a time when the Today Show would spend 45 minutes talking about the newly elected bishop of The Free Methodist Church, much less show on screen the archived tweets from Pastor Pete, who was just elected by a 72% vote at the Second Greater Baptist Church in your town. However, a similar journey is involved where we all try to apply this principle: "the best predictor of future behavior and is past performance and experience." This is why all interviews and evaluation of applicants spend such a great deal of time asking questions of candidates, their references, and analyzing their resumes or curriculum vitae.

By now you may wonder if I've watched the movie Conclave. I certainly have, but I'll save commenting on that as I have another article in process about meetings, which that whole movie centers on. But for this situation, we should talk about the meetings to select the leader of a church specifically. How should we enter these meetings well-prepared? What is the purpose and style of such meetings? What advice and warnings should we follow?

Some readers may recall that I've written before on a similar subject in a piece called The Most Important Meeting of Your Year, which (spoiler alert) is about nominating committees. Of course, if I had called the article "How to Chair a Nominating Committee" nobody but my mother would have read it. Many of the points of that article are applicable in this situation, but we must admit that selecting the head of an entire church, no matter how big or small, no matter if it's a regional leader or a denominational "head of communion"—that's a more high-pressured selection. So what can we do to ensure we pick the head of a church well? I suggest that there are three layers to look at when selecting the leader of a Church:

The First Layer: Christian Qualities and Obedience to Christ

A leader of a church should evidence the qualities all Christians are commanded to have and should follow the commands of Christ earnestly, another subject I have written extensively on. Is a candidate in routine disobedience to what Christ told us to do? That is a deal breaker. Another good shorthand I have found for when I am concerned about a candidate, is to look to the Fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

When someone seems like a poor fit for a role, it is sometimes not a gap on the resume, it is a gap where they are missing either love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, or gentleness and self-control. These are the qualities all Christians should be growing in, and if a leader is willfully not improving or already displaying these characteristics, then that’s also a deal-breaker for leading a church.

The Second Layer: Christian Leadership Qualifications

There are also qualifications for different kinds of elders, deacons and shepherds in the church found in 1 Timothy 3:1–13, Titus 1:5–9, and 1 Peter 5:1–4. So much has been written on these I won't belabor the points, but the head of a church is called out to have a good reputation inside and outside of the church ("above reproach"), emotionally steady, sober-minded, and dignified and respectable. They should not be arrogant or quick-tempered, not violent or quarrelsome, not insubordinate or debaucherous, not “double-tongued” or prone to drunkenness, and not greedy or a lover of money (which is kinda important as most jobs in the kingdom of God aren't lucrative).

They should be faithful in marriage, offer hospitality to immigrants, and manage their household and children well. They should be able to teach the Bible, holding firm to its doctrine, and be proven over time, instead of a Christianity noob (recent convert). When they are selected, they should serve willingly, not under compulsion nor for shameful gain. They shouldn't domineer over those under them, and instead be examples to the flock, shepherding like Christ, the Chief Shepherd. If you don't like any of these qualifications for the head of a Church then your argument is not with me, it is with the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter. I suppose someday is coming when you can take up your argument with them.

The Third Layer: Distinguishing Skills and Abilities

But what if you have multiple candidates that generally fit the above descriptions of Christians and Christian Leaders, as many do? What if several candidates are all good people who are devoted to Christ and seem to be willing to serve where God calls? Sure, they might not be perfect and have all these qualities as strengths, but they are striving with honest accountability in all these ways to improve and obey Christ. If so, how do you decide? That's where we might add another layer, and that's the distinguishing skills and abilities. I have a list of the skills and abilities I think might distinguish someone in Christian leadership. You might not believe it, but I think many of those skills are the same for a multi-vocational pastor shepherding 41 people in a small church, or a Pope leading 1.4 billion faithful like the Roman Catholic Church, and other kinds of leaders of the church in between. There are more challenges and much more scrutiny, of course, for the leader of a whole denomination or region of churches. But these qualities are ones to look for, and conversely, to cultivate in ourselves to prepare for such roles leading the church. Here they are:

• Spiritual Discernment

• Courageous Boldness

• Timely Responsiveness

• Clear Communication

• Diverse Experiences

• Responsible Authority

• Situational Adaptability

• Relational Intelligence

• Strategic Imagination

• Resilient Competence

I don't have enough space to explore those in this one post. So another post is coming in the next DruGroup installment to explain each of these. Part of that piece, I should point out in advance, is this caveat: almost no leader will have all of this third layer of qualities at a high level. Some will rely on a greater dose in a few areas to overwhelm their weaknesses in others. And of course a good team around the leader of a church will help tremendously. But having some clarity in the leaders we choose in these kinds of areas helps us distinguish them from other leaders with similar qualifications otherwise. So we will go into those deeper next time.

For now, I'd love to know what you think of the first two layers outlined above, what you think of the new Pope, or, failing either of those, any of your opinions on the Chicago Bears or Shedeur Sanders.