A Pastoral Rant about Pastoral Recommendations

Dear Requester of a Pastoral Recommendation,

There are a few things I need to be honest about concerning pastoral recommendations before I fill out yours. I just can’t keep silent any longer.

So, let me get a few things off my chest.

When I became a pastor, one responsibility I never anticipated would take so much time is writing pastoral recommendations.

I don’t mind writing recommendations for the people I’ve have the privilege to love, serve, and pray for. I get to healthily brag about women and men who want to faithfully serve God in a new position or grad school, a missions trip or community organization. But wow, I write a lot. (Certainly you know that your organization/ministry/school/missions agency/denomination/church isn’t the only one asking for a recommendation, right?) In fact, I’m thinking of adding “Pastor of Recommendations” to my official title and job description.

Here are seven types of recommendations that make me cringe.

The 17-pager recommendation

I’ve been asked to answer pages of questions—with several paragraphs for each answer—on some recommendations. I soon wondered, Am I the one applying to grad school? If you need to know that much about the candidate, please, let’s just pick up the phone and talk.

The “This will tell you nothing” recommendation

One recommendation I received consisted of five yes-or-no questions. Another asked, “Is this candidate a good person?” Could we have spent an extra three minutes thinking through a better question than this?

The complicated-logistics recommendation

One recommendation told me, “Please print out in Landscape format. Use block letters. Do not change margins. Do not use pencil, and do not use any pen color but black.” Dang.

Once I filled out a long reference. As I got ready to send it, at the bottom of the form, I read: “If using a Mac computer, these answers will not format appropriately. ONLY fill out reference on a PC.” Of course, I had just spent 15 minutes filling out my answers—on my Mac. If you can’t format your online program to accommodate a Mac, please be courteous enough to write that at the top of the reference, not on the last page just below my signature.

The emergency-turnaround recommendation

My favorite. “I know we sent this to you Tuesday morning at 10:30, but we’ll need you to submit this by tomorrow at noon.” Um, I do have a wedding to officiate, a funeral to lead, a sermon to prepare, and four other pastoral recommendations that need to be written before tomorrow at noon. And you wonder why pastors are so busy …

The “How confidential is this really?” recommendation

Who will be reading this? The candidate, or just the organization or church? I once wrote a reference thinking it was confidential. The form encouraged me to be completely candid. I was. Then I found out the reference was read by the applicant. Oops.

The “Who is this person again?” recommendation

Someone in our church asked me to complete a recommendation so they could apply for a missions agency. Too bad I had never met them before. I had to interview them to get to know them better so I could answer the questions. Awkward.

The silent-treatment recommendation

Almost every recommendation asks, “Do you believe this candidate would be a good fit in our organization/school/church/missions agency?” I sometimes think, I have no idea. I know the candidate, but I know nothing about your organization. Could you please provide some information?

Afterward, sometimes I receive the auto-generated “Thanks for your reply!” email. Mostly I wonder if the organization (a) received my recommendation, (b) read my recommendation, or (c) knows that I pored over that recommendation. One time after writing a recommendation, I received a handwritten thank-you note from the president of a missions agency. It didn’t make my day; it made my week. You don’t have to do that, but a few-sentence, personal email reply would certainly mean a lot, especially when I just wrote a few-volume recommendation for you.

Your consideration would mean a great deal to me as a pastor—and all pastors, for that matter.

Thanks,

J. R.

J. R. Briggs is the founder of Kairos Partnerships and pastor of The Renew Community, in the greater Philadelphia area. Find him on Twitter at @jr_briggs.

A checklist for when you’re asking for a recommendation.

–J. R. Briggs

Before You Press Send

Are the questions incisive and revealing? Generic questions yield generic answers. The better the questions, the better the answers.
Does the form briefly describe the organization or give a quick link where I can read about the vision, history, or mission of what you do? It’s the only way I can answer with confidence whether the candidate is a good fit.
Have we run spell-check and removed from the recommendation form typos, outdated information, or grammatical errors?
Am I giving the pastor a long enough runway to complete this? The longer the runway, the more thoughtful I can be in my responses, which helps you. Two to three weeks is appreciated.
Is the recommendation online? (If not, am I including a self-addressed, stamped envelope?)
How can I express gratitude to pastors for taking time to fill out a recommendation? A personal email reply, a handwritten note, or some other form of acknowledgement doesn’t need to be time-consuming, but a simple touch goes a long way.