The Search Committee by Tim Owens

The Search Committee

Tim Owens
TyndalePublishing
Christian Fiction
January 2012
5 Stars

When I started reading The Search Committee I found this book impossible to put down. Sometimes the best things we have in life are right under our own noses and we are too blind to recognize them. Usually when a pastor leaves a church to take a position at another church, they have an interim pastor and a search committee who starts looking for a full time pastor.  This is a novel of one such committee.

Seven members, seven different personalities, seven individuals each with their own set of problems or a past.  Four women and three men, set out in the church van each weekend to different churches around their areas to listen to the different preachers and checkout the membership in their church, how he fares with the congregation, the music, attendance etc. I guess you could compare this   with a jury, four will want to hire him, and three will be against. As they squabble and bicker along the dusty back roads, each think back to their own problems in their life and it is soon revealed. A lot of the emotions that are displayed on these journeys are just a front to keep from showing their true emotions. As they seek a shepherd for their church, some need to seek the shepherd for their self. And it takes one Sunday for them to realize that they had found the right pastor after all.

This book has a hilarious side to it along with the serious side. I could not help but tell half the people in church about this book and many related back to me days that they were on search committees and acted the same way as the characters in this novel. One thing I liked about it also was some of the sermons portrayed in the book. Just from reading the interim pastors sermon, I feel like I got a great lesson. I recommend this book for everyone to read, especially those that are on or plan to be on a search committee.

I received this complimentary copy from Tyndale publishing. A positive review was not required and the opinions expressed here are my own views of the book.