It has been said many times that there are three main hires in a church: the senior pastor, the children’s pastor, and the worship pastor.
Making the right hire with a worship pastor will make or break the life of the church. They spend as much, if not, more time on stage than the senior pastor. They are tasked with leading talented creatives. The musical part of worship also connects with the soul of a person. It’s one of the most emotional experiences congregants may have at a church. So, hiring the right worship pastor can be a daunting but essential task.
Worship Pastor Interviews Are More Than Auditions
Luckily there are YouTube videos and Facebook live streams that an Interview Team can watch. However, this is like an iceberg. The stage is only 10% of what they do. There is the other 90%: Building and managing teams, technology (depending on how modern the church is), choosing songs, the system of introducing songs, chemistry with the current band and singers, their spiritual life, and work ethic. There have been many churches that only looked at the 10% and hired someone later to realize their 90% was killing them. Finding a good song leader is easy. Finding a worship leader/pastor is very hard. This is why the interview process must be more than a stage audition followed by a question and answer-session with the board.
The process and questions that are asked will determine how deep down the iceberg the team will go. The goal of interview questions is to ask the questions that will reveal their chemistry, character, and calling (the three C’s). Each Interview Team or Hiring Committee needs to formulate well-thought-out questions that reveal something in each one of the “Three C” attributes mentioned above. It’s hard to know exactly what a church is getting from an interview, but with the right questions, they can get a snapshot into the strengths, weaknesses, and even fatal flaws of a worship pastor.
Here are 11 sample strategic interview questions to ask when hiring a worship pastor:
1. How would you describe your calling to be a worship pastor? Why do you think God is calling you here?
This is the “calling” question. Anytime a church hires someone they need to be sure they are called. Without this piece, the person may be looking for a career instead of living out a calling.
2. How do you choose the songs for Sundays?
Asking a prospective worship candidate this question will help determine if they utilize a strategy for choosing songs or a desire to work in conjunction with a sermon series. A hiring team can also tell if the candidate is just pulling songs from the past or can stay current. This will answer the “chemistry” question. This question will help you understand if their song choices will be a good or poor fit for your congregation.
3. What does your personal, spiritual time with God look like?
A worship pastor and any staff member for that matter must be a worshipper. This question will help with determining their “spiritual character.”
4. What has been the most frustrating aspect of being a worship pastor?
Questions like this will alert a team to wounds or past failures that the leader has had in their ministry. Many questions can launch off of this one to help understand the issue. The key to this question is to have dialogue and dig deeper.
5. How do you determine skill level when adding someone to be a part of the team?
Some worship pastors have low standards that can bring down the quality of a team, while others are looking for everyone to be Chris Tomlin or they can’t join. This question will help answer the “chemistry” issue.
6. Share one of the toughest issues with conflict that you have dealt with as a worship pastor. How did you respond and why?
Conflict is inevitable within a ministry. Anyone who has ever served on staff has had to deal with conflict. This question will give a team insight into a worship pastor’s character. If the worship pastor mentions storming off or cursing someone out, then there may need to be pause for concern.
7. How do you deal with stress?
Ministry is also loaded with stressors. A worship pastor has to be “on” every Sunday in the eyes of the people. They will deal with team members leaving and scheduling conflicts. Ensuring someone deals with stress in a healthy way is crucial to the longevity of a staff member.
8. What is your theology of worship in 3 sentences or less?
This question will help in the “calling” department. This will also help the candidate as well as the team to see if they will be a good fit for this position and community.
9. Can you lead, do melody, and harmonize? Can you coach others to do the same?
Having a worship pastor who can’t harmonize or teach others is like a mechanic who can only change the oil. As worship pastor, they need to be able to not only lead and harmonize but have the ability to help coach others as well. the dialogue that needs to happen here can be furthered by asking, “What do you do with someone who was on the team before you got here but is not good at melody or harmony?”
10. Who are the main worship influences in your life right now?
This question will help the hiring team see if their current influences as a church match with the worship leader’s influences. If a worship pastor is being interviewed and they say that Ron Kenoly is their influence, but the church is influenced by Hillsong then it’ll reveal a huge break in chemistry.
11. Have you built and managed a team before? Explain
Building and managing a large team is one of the most important parts that separate a song leader from a worship pastor. This question will reveal if they are a worker or a leader. A worker can do the job but has trouble managing others. A leader is able to build and manage a robust team.
Do Your Due Diligence
A hiring team needs to be very strategic with their interview questions when hiring a worship pastor. They need to ask open-ended questions that create a dialogue that will help them dig deeper. What is worse than a vacant position? It is hiring the wrong person. There is no fail-safe to making a great hire, but there is a well-thought-out process to ensure that a team has done their due diligence. With the ever-expanding role of a worship pastor to include production, lighting, and even possibly creating stage slides for the message, it’s crucial to take it slow and go through the process no matter what they look like on stage.
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