The role of the campus pastor is one that may not be as familiar as other church roles. This is because campus pastor roles typically only apply to multisite churches that have more than one campus. Each location will have a different campus pastor who oversees leading that campus while the senior pastor of a multisite church oversees all the different sites and typically preaches at the original location which may then be streamed to the other site locations.
If you are looking to fill a campus pastor role but don’t know what questions you should ask, then you’ve come to the right place! We here at JustChurchJobs are here to help you find the right candidate to fill your campus pastor role and so we have created a small guide of interview question we think are the best ones to ask your candidates. Let’s get started!
What is your testimony?
We here at JustChurchJobs believe that this question should be the primary question to ask first and foremost no matter what role it is you are trying to fill within your church. A testimony is an individual’s life story of what their life was like before they came to Christ, when they came to salvation in Christ, and their life transformed after meeting Christ. Sharing a testimony requires vulnerability which is a key trait to have for any position in ministry and for sharing the gospel.
Do you have experience in a previous pastoral position?
It should go without saying that if you are hiring someone to lead a church site then they should have previous pastoral experience whether they were a senior pastor or an executive pastor of a different church. Leading an entire site is like leading an entire church and as such they need to know how to lead in that way. They are essential the “senior pastors” of an individual site, overseeing the church staff and fulfilling the same responsibilities that the senior pastor does, just on a lesser scale since they are not the ones teaching.
How would you describe your leadership style?
Along the same lines as the second question, while campus pastors are under the senior pastor of the church, they still are leading their own team of staff at whatever site they are leading. As such it would be beneficial to understand what their leadership style is and how they lead a team to see if they are going to be a good fit for your church.
Do you prioritize the individual, the team, or both, and why?
This question will show if the candidate can work well on a team or not and if they can get their own work done at the same time. If they only prioritize the individual then they won’t work well on a team and if the only prioritize the team, then they will work well on a team but won’t get any individual work done. The candidate needs to be able to find a balance between these two.
Are you ok with not being a primary speaker?
You need to be sure that the candidate does not have expectations to be speaking every Sunday. Because they are a campus pastor and lead a church site rather than a whole church, they will not be the ones normally preaching on a Sunday morning. This responsibility will fall on the senior pastor who will teach at the main campus and the message will be live streamed to the other sites. Now a campus pastor may have the opportunity to teach on some Sundays, but it will not be on a consistent basis, and you need to be sure that the candidate knows and expects this and is ok with it.
How would you handle a discrepancy between site teams?
Because the campus pastor is a role where each pastor oversees their own team, then the candidate needs to be able to handle conflict that may happen between teams. This will give insight into their conflict resolution skills and how they handle issues among teams which is important to make sure that a multisite church runs smoothly.
We hope that this guide today has been beneficial for you and at the very least we hope that this has gotten you thinking about some questions that you would like to ask during your interviews! We here a JustChurchJobs are here to help in whatever way that we can and if you are having trouble finding high-quality candidates, we can even help with that!
