When to Hire from the Outside

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When to Hire from the Outside

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

In making your next hire the best place to begin is by looking for existing talent that is already inside the church or organization first. For more on that, check out part-1 of this post “When to Hire from the Inside.” But an inside hire may not always be the best hire. In fact here are three overarching principles that will help you understand when it’s time to go outside to make your next hire.

1. It’s Time to Implement Change

When you don’t like the culture and the ministry practices that are in place it’s time for a change. And that means a new hire from the outside that brings with it a new skill-set, new experiences, an infusion of new ideas, and fresh eyes that challenge the status quo. If change were going to happen with the current Staff it would have already happened.

2. The Church is Stuck

As a church grows it’s not uncommon that it will outgrow various leadership lids of some of the Staff on the team. When the Staff has hit a lid and is stuck, the ministries and the church will become stuck as well. If the Staff can’t grow past that lid they’ll need to be moved over, under, or out.

3. A Specific Skill-set is Needed

It’s not uncommon as a church grows that needs arise for very unique skillsets and greater talent levels that simply may not already exist inside the church. They may involve I.T., media, creative arts, a worship leader, or a presentation or speaking gift.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

When to Hire from the Inside

Sunday, July 28, 2013

At some point every church faces the question: “Do we hire from inside or do we go outside to make this next hire?” There’s a grocery list of items that can factor into making a good decision. But the following two principles outweigh everything else when you’re hiring from within the organization or church.

1. You Like what Already Exists

If you like the culture and the practices that are being implemented in the ministry, and you want to reproduce more of what you already have, then hire from within the church. While you can hire experienced talent from the outside, people who are already inside your church understand and fit your culture. They believe in your church enough to attend there and invest their time, talent, treasure, and touch even without being on staff yet.

2. There is Available and Developed Talent

If you’ve been doing a good job of training and developing internal talent, then chances are there are people right inside the church who already have the abilities to the do the job. In many growing churches there are already high-level volunteers who are leading ministries. A great benefit is that you’ve been able to see these people up close and over time. When you hire from inside there are less questions because you know what you’re getting. Start inside first.

Don’t forget to check back later this week for Part-2 of this post: “When to Hire from the Outside.”

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

Embracing Conflict in the Church

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

There’s an unhealthy presupposition in a large majority of churches in America that conflict is bad and should be avoided at all costs. After all if we’re all Christians shouldn’t we all just somehow magically get along? When conflict is avoided all kinds of negative things happen. But when it’s handled well, even properly encouraged it can be a team leaders greatest asset.

Healthy Conflict is a Pathway to Intimacy

When conflict is pressed into instead of shied away from, the team learns to address issues in an honest and straightforward manner. Attacking the problem, not the person. The best ideas are allowed to surface, unhealthy behavior is corrected, and the mission of the church takes ground. The best byproduct of healthy conflict is it provides the opportunity for greater depths of trust to be built on the team. By the way if you’re looking for a healthy model for Biblical conflict check out Matthew 18.

Unhealthy Conflict is a Pathway to Dysfunction

Unhealthy conflict leads to politics, posturing, and silos. Among other things a culture of enablement is built, problems get bigger, passive aggressive behavior is more common, and rumors abound. Ultimately the unity of the team is at stake and the advancement of the mission of the church slows to a crawl at best.

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Worship Pastor

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

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 Worship Pastor to serve on our Gilbert Campus. Sun Valley began as a church plant in 1990 in Chandler, Arizona. Over the years Sun Valley has grown into a large mult-site church in the Phoenix metro area. Currently there are three campuses located in Gilbert, Tempe and Casa Grande with a total weekend attendance of over 5,000 people. Sun Valley was recently named by Outreach Magazine as one of the top 10 fastest growing churches in America. The Gilbert Campus is the original and largest campus with well over 3,500 in weekly average attendance. 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.

Sun Valley is excited about working with The Vanderbloemen Search Group who is managing this search. Interested parties should follow this link for more information.

Posted in Staffing

6 Reasons Your Church Should Use a Search Firm to Make Your Next Hire

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Hiring a new team member can be exciting because it means there is going to be fresh eyes on old problems and status quo ministry, new ideas, and a new well of experiences to go to. If you’ve read much of my blog you know that I enjoy the hiring process and helping churches recruit and hire great teams. In fact you can check out this series of posts on “Recruiting and Hiring Teams that Make Vision Real” or take a look at how I help churches build a staffing and hiring strategy. But sometimes the best move that you can make is to enlist the help of an Executive Search Firm. Here are 6 reasons you should consider using an Executive Search Firm when you make your next hire.

1. Broaden the Candidate Pool

What do you do after you run through your network of relationships and post the job online? An Executive Search Firm can bring a broader, deeper, and more talented candidate pool than you can usually gain access to on your own. Simply put, they have a “greater reach.”

2. Make the Right Hire

At the end of the day you just don’t want to make any hire…or even a good hire for that matter. You want to make the right hire. A hire gone wrong can cost you and your church not only a significant amount of time and money; but a ministry can literally be set back years by making the wrong hire.

3. Save Time

Depending on the unique aspects of the role and the church it can take anywhere from 3 months to a year for many churches to fill a staffing vacancy. That’s a lot of time in which the ministry is treading water or worse moving backwards. A Search Firm can speed the process up considerably. Not to mention who on your Staff has the time to run a search right now?

4. Expertise

Most Pastors aren’t experienced professional recruiters. In fact most people in ministry have never had any professional Human Resources training at all. An Executive Search Firm brings years of experience and training to the table.

5. Process

Most Churches don’t have a proven and successful process to make a hire. The old standby “Personnel Committee” isn’t getting it done. No other industry successfully operates by letting its “customers” who have no industry or hiring expertise run a hiring process. A Search Firm will bring a tested and proven hiring process to the table.

6. New Challenges

In a growing church it’s not uncommon to go through multiple staff restructures. When those moments come it often exposes a need that can’t be filled with the talent that’s already in the room. Likewise it’s not uncommon in a growing church to have need for a more specialized and highly trained skillset for some roles. These are perfect opportunities to enlist a Search Firm to help in these unique situations.

There are a growing number of Christian Search Firms out there that you can look into, but here are a couple to help get you going in the right direction.

Minister Search is a full service search firm that helps churches and candidates find the right fit. They’ve been going at this for more than 10 years now.

Shepherd’s Staff helps churches find the right candidates and is willing to customize their level of involvement in each search.

Slingshot Group has a created special niche for itself in helping churches staff the Creative Arts.

Vanderbloemen Search Group is quickly becoming recognized as the nations foremost Christian Executive Search Firm working with many of the leading churches in America.

Posted in Staffing