Interview Tips
We’ve been searching for a minister to work with our Youth and anything else we can get them to do. Most of us in ministry have had job descriptions similar to that! We have a candidate and his family coming in today (for the weekend) and I thought it would be helpful for the collective advice of our fine blog community to rise to the surface with interview tips.
Your entries will be judged on the following scale:
- 1 point will be awarded for each serious interview tip.
- 3 points will be awarded for each humorous interview tip.
- 5 points will be awarded for the "I have to stop laughing because my side hurts" interview tip.
I’ll get the ball rolling with:
- Don’t dress like you just finished shooting a music video on VH1.
- When the pizza arrives don’t shout "awesome, where’s the beer?"
- Candles, goat-heads and pentagrams should be avoided as teaching tools in the first interview.
Blog sages, you may begin . . .
Youth minister is a tough hire. I pray God leads you to the right person.
Here’s my questions. You decide which category they fit into.
Is honesty always the best policy?
What things do you do well for the Senior Minister?
Peace.
No beer, goats, chickens??? Why would anyone bother to respond to your ad for a youth minister?
1. Don’t forget to take your iPod earplugs out… Unless you have it turned up high enough for everyone to hear and have a bootlegged recording of the congregations praise team (or minister playing on his ‘Reverend’ guitar).
2. Don’t keep staring at the coed members of the interview team.
3. Do be sure and ‘connect’ with your youth audience by saying ‘um’ alot, and using phrases such as "far-out dude" and "way cool" in every other sentence.
4. Don’t brag about how many church splits you have experienced.
5. If the minister does not own a ‘Reverend’ guitar (see item 1), be sure and coo in his ear that you will buy him one if you get the job.
Blessings!
Don’t quote excerpts from x-rated rap songs in your sermon. Don’t saddle up to the elder’s wife and say "hey baby, what’s your sign?" Don’t bring your guitar (unless that is okay at your church or it is a gift for the senior minister).
In all seriousness, I think a youth minister has to be able to work in a high level of autonomy and exercise impeccable judgement. I think you should probe deep on subjects that reveal this with questions like…. Tell me about a time in which you were involved in or encountered a compromising circumstance and what you did about it? Have you ever had to earn a parent’s trust? What happened and what did you do? What is the most uncomfortable you have ever been confronting someone about their behavior or attitude? Tell me about a time when you waited too long to take action on something. Tell me about a time when you took action on something too soon. Describe your most rewarding consulting experience. Why and what did you do? Describe your biggest failure as a minister. (Listen not only for the content of the story, but also things that might reflect good practice…ie, not counseling people individually in private). Tell me about a time when you might have overreacted to a situation or acted on incomplete information. These kinds of questions get past the theoretical and into how they actually will act. If they respond with Biblically-sound practice and examples that demonstrate maturity and prayerfulness, then you are onto something great.
You also want to know if they have good time management processes and ways to ensure they are prioritizing their days for the most impact (and to get a feel for the things they think are easy/fun, versus the things they think are hard/boring and are more likely to procrastinate to the detriment of the teens and church). Asking them how they organize their day is a good start. Do they use a calendar and how do they keep it updated? Do they structure their day into blocks for study/preparation, consultation, or community events? How much time do they spend by themselves versus with others? Have them estimate the time they spend for different activities in a week or month. Listen for their schedule and if they spend any time in reflection about how they spend their days. Past behavior is the best indicator of their habits and practices, so be sure they can back their "philosophies" up with examples of how they have applied these things.
May God send you the right candidate and give you peace about the decision!
We’re starting the search process also. I think the choice we make for Youth Minister is more important than the one we’ll make later on Senior Minister.
Questions I would have:
1. How would you work with the other ministers/parents/church?
2. What would you do for/with the youth to show the love of Christ?
3. What do you want the youth to learn?
4. Who would win in a fight between Superman and Spider-man?
Just off the top of my head.
Hands down, no question, Jennifer wins! Both for humor and for content. I’m still laughing over "Hey baby, what’s your sign?"
I think the whole hiring process should be banished all together. There should just be a rotation where yms have to change churches every 2 years. That way they can move before they get fired.But if you have to interview, find out if he’s PC or Mac, what time he normally gets up in the morning, does he feel like he needs to be the youth’s friend, how’s your Spanish, and what is the airspeed of an unladen swallow?
Brady, is that African or European?
Steve: I don’t know…