A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Children’s Pastor

Archive - Staffing RSS Feed

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Children’s Pastor

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search. Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the honor of serving at, is beginning a national search for a Children’s Pastor to serve on our Tempe Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large multi-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are three campuses located in Casa Grande, Gilbert, and Tempe with a total weekend attendance of nearly 6,000 people and in recent years was named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Tempe Campus was the result of a merger in October 2011 with Bethany Community Church. In the merger Sun Valley acquired a 16-acre, 8-building campus with over 100,000 sq. ft. under roof. At present, the campus attendance is 1,200 people but when fully utilized, the campus capacity will accommodate more than 6,000 people. Sun Valley was recently featured in a new book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below…

Posted in Staffing

How Many People should your Church have on Staff?

Sunday, March 8, 2015

Before you buy into the idea that you need another staff person at your church, think again. That just may be the worst decision you make at your church this year.

It’s not uncommon in churches that I work with to hear them say, “We need to add more staff.” After all if there are problems or areas where the church is stuck then throwing staff at that problem will surely fix it…right? Well, not always. In fact the opposite may be true. In fact the most effective churches that I see have a tendency to hire fewer staff not more staff. They hire more competent team members who have the ability to turn attenders into volunteers, volunteers into leaders, and build teams. Instead of paying people to do ministry they pay people to lead others to do ministry.

At the Unstuck Group we encourage churches to staff to a ratio of 100:1. As you can see in the chart above the average ratio of attendance to staff in most churches is 86:1. In other words for every 86 people in attendance at the church (including adults and kids), there’s typically one full-time staff person.

This number includes all paid staff at the church. That means administrative staff, support staff, ministry staff and pastors. This number also includes both full-time and part-time staff. We calculate the full-time equivalent (FTE) number by adding the total average number of hours part-time staff work and then dividing by 40. That number is added to the number of full-time staff to get the FTEs. For example, if there are 5 full-time employees and 10 part-time employees working a combined average of 200 hours per week, that makes for a total of 10 FTE’s.

Over staffing is a big deal in churches because it’s usually an indicator that:

1. The church has become Insider Focused

Typically an overstaffed church is paying people to do ministry and run programs to keep long-time people in the church happy.

2. The church has a Poor Culture of Volunteerism

There is a direct connection between staffing and volunteerism at churches. Generally the more a church spends on staffing the less likely attenders are to serve.

3. The church has Stopped Growing

There is also a direct connection between staffing and church growth. What we’ve discovered in our research at the Unstuck Group is that the more a church spends on staff the more the rate of attendance growth slows.

In other words the more staff your church has the more likely your church is to become insider focused, have a low level of buy-in and volunteerism by attenders, and to be plateaued or in decline.

Interested in learning more? Download the ebook “Vital Signs: Meaningful Metrics That Keep a Pulse on Your Church’s Health” or consider engaging the Unstuck Group to do a Ministry Health Assessment with your church.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing, Volunteers

How to Keep your Best Staff Members from Leaving

Monday, February 16, 2015

One in two church staff members is open to new employment. At the Unstuck Group were shocked to learn this during our latest research on church staffing and structure. At the same time, our experience confirms that many church staff members are simply unsatisfied. If it’s true that half of staff members are willing to leave, how can you possibly build and retain an effective ministry team?

We’re excited to share that our research also uncovered two characteristics of churches that lead employees to be twice as committed. While these are certainly not quick-fixes, if leaders focus on creating health in a couple of ways, they can significantly raise the level of commitment on their team. Consider these 2 areas of health that keep employees engaged:

1. Church Health and Growth

Staff members who believe their church is healthy and growing are half as likely to be open to new employment. It makes sense that players on a winning team would be more committed. Many church leaders look to leave when they see their church plateau or decline with little response from senior leaders. If you’re looking to keep great players on your team, you must be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish your vision. Stay focused on growing your church while developing health.

2. Staff Health and Effectiveness

Great staff members take notice of the people around them. Just 31% of staff members who believe the rest of their team is healthy and effective are open to new employment. That is a significant increase in commitment! Yet many church staffs include one or more individuals causing relational unrest. If you’re unwilling to deal with problem-people on your team, it shouldn’t be surprising when others start leaving it.

Other ways to develop staff health and effectiveness include developing leaders, clarifying wins, setting clear goals, and aligning the structure with the vision. Each of these and more are discussed in depth in our Next Level Teams report, which we’re offering to you at no cost. Click here to download your copy and start increasing staff commitment today.

Posted in Staffing

Top 10 Posts from 2014

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Thank you for making this past year a great year here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! I recently finished counting down my Top 10 most popular blog posts from 2014 and if you missed any of them, here they are all in one nice tidy little place for you! Happy reading! And I hope these posts help you make vision real!

#1 “6 Things I bet you don’t know about your Pastors’ Wife”

One of the least thought about people in the church today is a Pastor’s wife. While leaders get all the attention and accolades their families and private lives are thought of very little by the public. In fact in a moment in church history where we are inundated with volumes of leadership ideas and training very little is written about pastor’s wives. I recently sat down with Lisa, my wife, and asked her about her experience being married to a full-time pastor for the past 18+ years. Here is some of what she had to say…

#2 “When to Add Another Worship Service at your Church”

Many churches are stuck in attendance simply because they haven’t maximized their current facilities and campus. Thinking about adding another worship service at your church? Here are five strategic concepts to consider before you do.

#3 “How Much Should Your Church Pay Your Pastor?”

The 2014 Large Church Salary Report conducted by Leadership Network in partnership with the Vanderbloemen Executive Search Firm has just been released to the public. The largest survey of its kind ever conducted, 727 churches of over 1,000 people in attendance from 42 states and Canada participated to provide more information and more specific information than ever before available. Follow this link to get your hands on a copy of the survey results! Here are a couple of facts that caught my eye along with the top 10 findings info-graphic below.

#4 “The 4 Stages of a Church-Staff Team”

If you’ve ever been a part of a growing church you know that growth changes everything. Especially the relational, organizational and working dynamics of the staff team. Larry Osborne, Lead Pastor at North Coast Church writes the following in his book Sticky Teams:

“Never forget growth changes everything. A storefront church, a midsized church, a large church, and a mega-church aren’t simply bigger versions of the same thing. They are completely different animals. They have little in common, especially relationally, organizationally, and structurally.”

Fortunately I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with Larry and hear him expound on this idea and talk about what he describes as, “The Four Stages of a Team.”

#5 “Ministry Trends for 2014”

Recently Carey Nieuwof, who serves as the Lead Pastor at Connexus Church north of Toronto, Canada, released this info-graphic about trends he’s seeing in ministry as we head into 2014. With his permission, I’m happy to share this here with you. Carey speaks to leaders and audiences across North American and around the world on leadership, change, parenting and personal renewal. You can follow this link to keep up with Carey at his blog!

#6 “4 Indispensable Truths about the Art of Planning”

All of us have been in planning meetings before with a team that seemed to have had a break through moment. You know, that moment when everyone says, “Yes! That’s exactly the direction we need to move, and that’s exactly how we need to get there from here!” There was energy, excitement and unity as everyone left the meeting. But the more time that passed after the meeting dismissed the more that energy that was there faded and the less movement towards actualizing the plan took place. In fact a large majority of planning meetings don’t actually provoke much real change in most churches and organizations. Here are 4 reasons why many of your plans aren’t really getting you anywhere:

#7 “4 Reasons Why Churches become Insider Focused”

It’s rare that I ever come across a church that started off as an insider focused church. Most churches start with a desire to reach new people with the Gospel. In those early stages of a church plant they have to reach new people or they die due to a lack of viability. So how does a church that’s eager to help people outside of the faith follow Jesus drift towards becoming insider focused and spending all of it’s energy taking care of people who are already convinced? Here are the four most common reasons why churches become insider focused:

#8 “How 2nd Chair Leaders Lead Up”

In working with leaders around the country one of the most frequently asked questions that I hear is, “How do I lead up?” In other words, second chair leaders are asking, “How do I support my leader while influencing them at the same time?” Below are six methods that the best second chair leaders I’ve met utilize to “lead up.”

#9 “10 Things you Lose when your Church Grows”

It’s impossible for your church to grow and everything to stay the same. I know it would be nice if everything could stay the same as the church grows, but it can’t. And the secret underlying truth is as your church grows you will lose some things along the way. But that’s kind of the point. You simply can’t move from here (current reality) to there (preferred future) and everything stay the way it is. If it did, you’d never get “there,” you’d just stay where you are. Understanding that, here are 10 things you lose when your church grows:

#10 “What if Home Depot Functioned like a Church?”

For the last month we’ve been getting ready for Christmas at my house and that means multiple trips to Home Depot. The first trip to pick up the Christmas tree and then back again to get more lights because the ones from last year don’t work this year. Then yet another trip for a new Christmas tree stand because the stand from last year doesn’t work. Oh, and I need a new pack of staples for the staple gun to put up the Christmas lights. And so on. You get the idea.

After spending half of the holiday season in the local Home Depot, I started thinking about how different Home Depot is from the majority of churches I’ve visited over the years, and what it would look like if Home Depot functioned like most churches in America.

Photo Credit: Leo Reynolds via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing, Uncategorized

Why are 50% of Church Staff Teams Unhealthy?

Tuesday, January 13, 2015

“1 in 2 church staff members do not believe that their team is healthy and effective.”

The health of a church begins with the health of its team. You simply cannot build an effective church without building a strong staff. We want to help you do just that!

That’s why we partnered with Vanderbloemen Search Group to ask church leaders how they staff and structure their teams. The responses were nothing short of surprising. In fact, we were shocked to learn that 1 in 2 church staff members do not believe the team they work with is healthy and effective. Specifically, that’s 47% of churches that are likely struggling to reach their communities because they are struggling to build a great team.

What would the staff members of your church say about the health of your own team? What steps are you taking to help them become more effective?

In our research, we found that the most effective church staffs operate very differently than most. Their leaders develop Next Level Teams by utilizing the following and more:

3 Critical Aspects of an Effective Senior Leadership Team
3 Key Components of Leadership Development
2 Things Every Staff Member Needs Clarified

What would happen if you learned and applied these insights with your own team? We’d love to equip you to strengthen your staff.

We’ll be releasing these insights in our Next Level Teams webinar on January 21 at 1:00 pm EST. Tony Morgan will be hosting a conversation with William Vanderbloemen and members of The Unstuck Group about the most crucial steps church leaders can take with their staff to increase effectiveness. In just 45 minutes, we’ll provide key insights, followed by a live Q&A.

Are you ready to start building your own Next Level Team? Click here to register and join us for this exciting conversation. Participation is limited so register soon!

Posted in Leadership, Staffing