This overview for local pastors or leaders provides an overview your role and Reliant's role as we work together in the Missionary Assessment Process.  

Why Assessment?

Have Confidence In Your Team

 We want your team to be strong. So we're here to help you evaluate up to seven areas critical areas for missionary success.  We're detailed but we're also looking for the big picture so you can make Spirit-led choices about how to add members to your team.

The Reliant Assessment is more than just an interview to satisfy Reliant's hiring requirements (although we do that).  Our Assessment give our church or church or ministry a confidence that their candidate has been given a holistic screening.

We Do Things You Can't

Reliant strives to provide some things that are not as easy for a church plant or small ministry to do, such as: 

• Twenty-five years of knowledge and statistics on fundraising success and failure
• Formal background checks into criminal and civil records
• Credit checks for verification of missionary financial situation before raising funds
• Human Resources stuff done right. We know state-to-state employment law and payroll taxes, etc.
• Salary & cost of living research. Compensation decisions made clear.
• Psychological and cross-cultural testing for International missionaries
• An outside perspective to your local context, from an experienced Christian interviewer who understands support-based ministries
• And of course, all the other benefits of Reliant: top-rate fundraising training, donor websites and services, medical benefits, missionary care, retirement plans, etc. 
  
  

How does Reliant and the local ministry work together?

Reliant is a joint partner with the local church or ministry in assessing candidates.  Reliant works as a "deacon ministry"—both serving and leading.

We lead by providing:

• A standard set of comprehensive criteria to evaluate missionaries for ministry and deputized fundraising
• Our own independent evaluation from a Reliant Assessor
• Our experience and data-driven results in fundraising success 
• Current knowledge of employment law and human resources best practices 

We serve by:

• "Holding up a mirror" to the candidate; providing you with our entire results and recommendations.
• Giving you peace-of-mind that hiring missionaries meets legal standards and best practices
• Helping you meet your goal to recruit missionaries and church planters
• Establishing your local values and spiritual oversight as critical to the process

Our goal is discernment and agreement between the two parties. The church has a key perspective that Reliant does not have, and they are who we are seeking to serve.  Reliant has a key perspective that the church does not have, and you depend on us to share that. 

Reliant Assessment Standards

We conduct our independent evaluation in the following areas, and then collaborate with you (the church or ministry) to make our assessments:

• Call to Ministry. Why is this candidate confident that vocational ministry is what God is calling them to do?
• Ministry Skills. How skilled is this candidate in relation to the ministry role he or she is intending to fill?
• Walk with God and Spiritual Formation. What is this candidate's testimony of conversion and personal spiritual growth?
• Moral Conduct & Emotional Health. Does the candidate have the standards of Christian moral character and emotional stability necessary for vocational ministry?
• Fundraising Readiness. Is the candidate in an acceptable position to initiate and be successful in the support-raising (we call it "Ministry Team Development") process?

And as applicable:

• Spousal or Family Support.  Is the candidate's family support appropriate for success?
• International Readiness.  Our process adds assessment on cross-cultural flexibility and mental health through our partners at International Personnel Consultants. 

We maintain detailed standards for each of these.  See the Reliant Assessment Manual or for future missionaries see the Reliant Summary for Applicants. 

How Does It Work?

Online Assessment Hub

All phases of the process is organized on at our online Assessment Hub.  The Hub is located at go.reliant.org, and is available 24 hours a day for candidates, local leaders, and Reliant representatives to access.  Candidates can know where they are on where they are in the process. Candidates and local leaders create accounts on the site—our team is available for help on using the site.

Six Phases in the Process

Our Language

Assessment

We call our application and interview process an Assessment, because we believe it reflects the holistic process. It acknowledges that we are typically not making black and white decisions, but participating with the local ministry in the complicated work of God calling and maturing someone for ministry.

Discernment

The Reliant assessment process seeks to gain a clear and honest picture of the strengths and weaknesses of an individual candidate.  However, we also acknowledge the essential role of God's Holy Spirit in the process, and we seek to make each decision prayerfully, guided by scripture, with counsel, and conferring with our local church and ministry partners. 

Areas of Concern: Yellow Flags & Red Flags

As we evaluate, we will often note areas of strength or areas of concern along the following lines. You don't have to use this language in your local interview and assessment, but we'll use it to communicate about ours. 

Yellow Flag examples

• Has considered vocational ministry only 3-6 months
• Savings and alternate income total less than 6 months of living expenses (but more than 3 months)
• Occasional pornography usage that is less than a pattern of "once a week" in the last 12 months 

Red Flag examples

• Has considered vocational ministry for less than 3 months
• Savings and alternate income total less than 3 months of living expenses
• Pattern of pornography usage that is "once a week" or more in the last 12 months
  
  

Deferment

While we have relatively few Automatic Disqualifying conditions, we do sometimes suggest "Deferral" to a church and candidate who may need to improve an area.  This approach underscores our belief that God really does effect change in life, character, and circumstances as we follow Jesus.  Many Reliant missionaries who have received an initial Deferral in assessment, were able to improve the situation, and are full-time missionaries with Reliant today. 

What do I do?

As the local leader, missionary manager, and/or hiring pastor—you hold the crucial place in the Reliant process. In fact, Reliant does not accept candidates who do not have a sending church or ministry. 

Prepare your candidate

Often it takes years to solidify a call from God to vocational ministry.  We know that you are involved with people well before Reliant formally appears in the process. While discipling potential missionaries or church planters in ministry skill, Christian character, we encourage you to take advantage of Reliant recruiting events we try to schedule every year at convenient locations, such as campus networks and church planting events. 

If your candidate is less than a year from submitting their formal application with Reliant, encourage them to create an account on our Assessment Hub and enter our Connection Phase.  The information there may help mitigate any surprises later on. 

Interview your candidate

Our church and ministry partners have a variety of styles and values on recruiting, many evaluate their candidates over time.  Reliant also requests a formal interview / assessment be conducted by the local church or ministry.  Our interview framework is flexible enough to meet your local values while consistent enough that Reliant missionaries can experience similar level of wise scrutiny across all our networks. 

Simple Steps

1. Determine who will interview.  If the person who will provide day-to-day supervision is separate from the pastor with hiring authority, consider doing the interview with both parties.  Just have one person designated to submit the notes.
2. Set a specific time.  Even if you know the candidate well personally, we recommend setting a specific date and place for a formal interview. 
3. Review their online application.  With Reliant's online Assessment Hub, you have access to everything your candidate wrote.  Read through their application to prepare. 
4. Interview, ask good questions and take good notes.  Particularly cover areas of concern from their application.  We expect you'll do this "this way".  Interviews do not have to be like business meetings or very formal, but they should make sure you cover all the important topics. 
5. Moral conduct and emotional health.  Be sure to discuss their moral conduct and emotional health summary.  This key area Reliant depends on you to review. 
6. Submit your assessment summary to Reliant. Your notes are crucial for Reliant. 

Questions to Ask and Topics to Cover

Reliant standards. Reliant will ask questions in the major categories of: Walk with God and Spiritual Formation, Call to Ministry, Moral Conduct and Emotional Health, Ministry Skills, MTD Readiness, and if applicable: Spousal Support and International Readiness.  Don't be afraid to duplicate these topics: in fact, we depend on it. The 

Your local church standards. There may be other areas you want to evaluate beyond what Reliant evaluates.  For instance, you may have more specific doctrinal requirements than Reliant, or want to investigate how well this person fits with your current local team. 

Suggestions & Tips

• Use the interview as a good excuse to be more "objective" and think through the ministry suitability of your candidate (especially if you know this person very well).
• Take notes. It's better to trade a few minutes of awkward note-taking for the possibility you might forget something important later. 
• Don't be afraid to ask direct and hard questions. 
• Consider carefully. It's much more difficult to undo a poor hiring decision that it is to make a deferral decision now. 

Make a decision with Reliant about your candidate

Once the applicant has completed the Documentation Phase.  Local Interview Phase and Reliant Interview Phase, they will wait in the Decision and Discernment Phase. 

1. A Reliant assessor will send you an Assessment Summary Report to give their initial recommendation.
2. Reliant will schedule a phone call or skype appointment between you and the Reliant assessor. 
3. Together you will cover:
   1. General positive impressions
   2. Minor Areas of Concern you may be interested in ("yellow flags")
   3. Major Areas of Concern ("red flags"), and how you both will choose to address them (including action plans, conditions, or deferral)
   4. Final Decision
   5. Employment level and offered salary

Non-Discrimination

Because of our principles from Scripture we stand by a policy of non-discrimination in our mobilization and assessment process.