Overview: Hiring Process (Non-Pastoral)
Status
Implementation status: Approved by Servants Council
Date: 2026-05-30
What’s in this book
- Non-Pastoral Staff Hiring SOP — April 2026 — the full Standard Operating Procedure. Purpose and scope, seven guiding principles, roles and authority, the ten-stage process (Discern & Define → Recruit & Screen → Interview → Decide & Offer → Onboard & Evaluate), common pitfalls, and maintenance. Eight appendices include the Position Description template, Search Team charter template, interview question sets for all five interviews, scoring rubric, reference script, offer letter template, onboarding checklist, and 90-day review template.
- One-Page Quick Reference — April 2026 — companion card for Servants Council meetings and staff onboarding conversations. Guiding principles, the ten stages grouped by phase, decision rights, and a typical 10–14-week timeline on one screen.
- Overview (this page) — status, principle, Mayflower’s practice, references, open questions.
Principle (from Streamline)
Lukaszewski’s principle: the most important decisions a ministry makes are not what decisions but who decisions. A clear, repeatable hiring process protects the congregation from the emotion of urgency, the temptation to hire a friend without fit, and the lasting damage of a mismatched hire. Better no hire than the wrong hire.
Mayflower’s Current Practice
The SOP above is Mayflower’s practice as of April 2026. The Servants Council coordinates all non-pastoral hiring under Bylaws Article II, Section B, Item 4(c)(9), with the Board of Finance confirming funding, the Board of Elders confirming confessional alignment of the top candidate, and a Search Team of 3–5 members running the day-to-day process under a written charter. Every candidate for every paid non-pastoral role follows the same ten-stage process, with the same questions at each interview, the same reference script, and the same scoring rubric. Where this SOP conflicts with the Mayflower Constitution and Bylaws, the Bylaws govern. The Servants Council reviews the SOP annually each January.
Governance & Document References
- Mayflower Constitution and Bylaws (Article II, Section B, Item 4(c)(9))
- Position Descriptions Manual — Church Secretary (§15), Director of Biblical Counseling (§16)
- Decision-Making Framework (April 2026) — personnel tier P-3 references this SOP
- Streamline: Healthy Church Systems — Lukaszewski (hiring and “who” decisions)
- The Guide to Healthy Church Operations — Ministry Brands (staff policies, background checks, onboarding)
Open Questions
- Does a 21-day posting window work for all role types, or should bivocational / part-time roles have a longer window?
- Who is the default Search Team chair for routine openings (e.g., Church Secretary replacement) vs. new roles the church has never held before? The SOP currently leaves this to Servants Council discretion per opening.
- Should Stage 5 pre-screen outputs (Advance / Hold / Decline) be archived with the Clerk, or only the hired candidate’s file? Recommended: keep the full pool record for one hiring cycle to document equal process.
- Does the rubric weighting (Character 40% / Competence 35% / Chemistry 25%) match the congregation’s practice? Review after the first two hires under this SOP.
Page template: Principle + Mayflower Practice. Part of The Streamline Admin System, adapted from Michael Lukaszewski’s Streamline: How To Create Healthy Church Systems, with detail drawn from The Guide to Healthy Church Operations (Ministry Brands) and anchored in the Mayflower Bylaws (March 2026).