For most pastoral search committees, the resume is the first document to be reviewed. First impressions—good or bad—are significantly influenced by what you include in your resume and how you present yourself and your ministry experience.
Selling Yourself on your Resume
Recently, I was trading emails with a pastoral candidate regarding the contents of his resume. It was a tad skimpy on ministry details and did not provide a clear picture of his skills and ministry experience. I brought this to his attention, and he mentioned that he wasn’t very good at “selling himself”—something I heard frequently while in workforce development.
Unfortunately, the idea of “selling yourself” probably sounds a lot like “bragging about yourself” and carries a negative connotation. Besides, if God is in control, do I really need to “sell myself”?
Yes, God is in control, and yes, you need to sell yourself.
First, let’s define “sell yourself.”
“Selling yourself” is simply communicating actions you have taken that produced a desirable outcome.
A perfect example of this David’s confrontation with Goliath in 1 Samuel 17.
Israel was facing off against the Philistines. Goliath had come out time and time again to berate the armies of Israel. David approached King Saul and told him, “Let not man’s heart fail on account of him; your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”
Saul was impressed with David’s courage, but he was not very enthused about his lack of battle experience.
“You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are but a youth, while he has been a warrior from his youth.”
David’s response is a classic example of “selling yourself.”
“Your servant was tending his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and took a lamb from the flock, I went out after it, attacked it, and rescued it from its mouth; and when it rose up against me, I seized it by its beard, struck it, and killed it.”
David wasn’t bragging; he was clearly communicating the actions he took and the desirable outcomes they produced. Saul was convinced and told David, “Go, and may the Lord be with you.”
What does this look like on a resume?
Selling yourself on your resume all comes down to the wording. Say too little, and your resume will appear skimpy and tentative. Say too much, and the bragging thing comes into play. Selling yourself is the sweet spot in the middle. Here are a few guidelines and examples of what this would look like.
1. Express the actions you took as statements of fact.
Skimping
- Developed a Bible study.
Selling
- Developed a 12-week adult discipleship and ministry equipping course attended by 85% of church members.
Bragging
- I developed a well-received adult discipleship and ministry equipping course that everybody loved and appreciated, using principles I came up all by myself.
2. Begin each statement with a verb indicating the action you took. Avoid starting with “I”.
Skimping
- Visited sick people.
Selling
- Organized a ministry of regular visitation and care support for sick and shut members of the church family, averaging 10-12 connections each month.
Bragging
- I always went out of my way to visit sick people, making sure they knew how much I cared about them, and I always said the right thing which blessed everyone immensely.
3. When appropriate, add a numerical measurement to better demonstrate the scope of your actions or the impact they had.
Skimping
- Trained leaders.
Selling
- Partnered with Charis Ministries to implement a leader discipleship program that resulted in a 50% reduction in ministry leader attrition.
Bragging
- I shared my strong leadership skills with everybody in the congregation, giving them greater confidence to follow my vision for the church.
Selling yourself is a way to clearly and concisely communicate the actions you have taken and the desirable outcomes they have produced. It helps pastoral search committees better understand how God has been working in your life and ministry, and what that could look like in the future.
Differentiating One Ministry from Another
So, you have been in ministry for 20 years and have served four or five different congregations as the senior/solo pastor. My guess is that, even though each church had its own unique style and ministry patterns, you did a lot of the same things in each ministry.
Given this similarity, the easy thing to do on your resume is cut and paste the bullet points from your ministry at First Community Church and drop them into the section for Second Community Church—and why not Third Community Church while you’re at it? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.
The Problem with That Approach
- For starters, it makes you look lazy—both in your approach to resume writing and, by extension, ministry.
- Pastoral search committees are going to think that their church is next in line for your well-established but cookie-cutter approach to ministry.
- Are they duplicates because you are passionate about those elements of ministry, or because they just seemed like the thing to do and you are not very creative?
- Finally, it communicates that you have not grown or developed much over your 20 years of ministry.
How to Differentiate Ministries, Even When They Are Very Similar
- Identify something unique about how a similar ministry was carried out in each location. For example, you may have led a discipleship program at First Community Church and at Second Community Church. However, at First Community Church it was focused on leaders, and at Second Community Church it was focused on new believers.
- Limit the number of bullet points for each ministry experience. You are more likely to duplicate previously named skills if you have 10–15 bullet points for each church you served. Spread your skills out across your previous ministries.
- Reserve the most relevant—but duplicate—ministry skills for the church you served most recently.
- Use your cover letter to identify those areas of passion—those ministry elements that are well aligned with your spiritual gifting and how God has wired you for ministry.
A Bunch of Random Guidelines for Resume Writing
- Insert page numbers for your resume.
- Put your name in the footer so it appears on every page.
- Keep the formatting simple and easy to follow. All text should be black.
- Avoid using multiple typefaces. Make sure your document is easy to read.
- Font size should be between 10–12 point for main body text and should be consistent throughout the document.
- Use bold, italics, and underlining sparingly.
- Have a couple of people proof your resume (and other documents) for spelling and grammatical errors.
- Email all of your documents to a friend to ensure they open and have the correct formatting.
- Document margins should be no less than 0.75 inches. Your documents will look crowded and unprofessional if you take your text all the way to the borders of the page.
- Write out abbreviations that your readers may find unfamiliar.
- You don’t need to end bullet points with a period. If you choose to, be consistent throughout the document.
- Use the 2 “Rs” RULE when deciding what to include or leave off your resume: Recent and Relevant. Feel free to leave off your City Wide Soccer Tournament Participation Award from 1989.
Resume Writing FAQ
Pastoral ministry is generally considered to be a professional role. The “shorter is better” resume writing rule that applies more informal roles does not apply here. Your resume should be long enough to communicate that you have the skills and experience needed for the position. However, if it is longer than three pages, it is going to start feeling wordy.
No. References take up valuable real estate on your resume and should be listed on a separate document. Also, don’t bother including “references sent on request” on your resume. Send them the same time as the resume.
Check the References link for tips on selecting your references.
I’m a fan of cover letters, but not everybody is. In my opinion, they provide an opportunity for you to tell more about yourself, why you are interested in the position, and why you are a good fit. A testimony document is also helpful.
For more information on both, check the Cover Letters link.
Personally, I don’t think they are necessary. In my opinion, in most cases, there is little value added by going to a professional resume writing service. There are ample resources online that provide common sense, best practices for resume writing.
If you chose to go with a service, keep in mind that there is no formula for the “perfect resume” and there is no guaranteed that you will get you the ministry placement of your dreams. Most of that is marketing hype.
If you were applying for a “secular” job, the answer would be “absolutely not!” However, ministry placement has a different set of expectations and protocols.
Including a picture on your resume or other document is considered appropriate and may even be expected. Make sure your photo is current, clear, and taken close enough so that all subjects can be easily seen.
Either is fine and each has their advantages. Word documents can be edited giving reviewers opportunity to include notes. The benefit of PDF documents is their ability to retain formatting.
I recommend bullet point lists over paragraphs. Think of it this way. Your cover letter and personal testimony tell your story and paragraphs are best suited for that type of narrative.
Resume are more about making statements. Brief bullet points are best suited for this type of communication.
While 20 years is a benchmark, it really depends on relevance. As you look at your ministry and work history, you will reach a tipping point where the further back you go, the less relevant your skills and experience will be.
Ask yourself: “Does this ministry/work experience match the skills needed in the role I am applying for?” If not, leave it off.
Also, do yourself a favor and don’t clog up your resume with short term or part time work. (You may have loved your high school part time job at Taco Bell but it probably shouldn’t go on your ministry resume.)
Only if that is your highest level of education. If you have a bachelor’s degree or higher, leave it off. It is assumed that if you have a bachelor’s degree, you graduated from high school.
Personally, I’ve always thought GPA’s on a resume looked a bit tacky. (Maybe that’s because my GPAs have not always been something to write home about.) That said, include it only if it is 3.50 or above (on a 4.0 scale).