Tag Archive - recruit

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Why the Grass isn’t Greener at that other Church

Sunday, September 22, 2019

If you haven’t noticed, church staffing has become a competitive market in recent years. So much so that a quick Google search of “Church Staff Search Firms” will provide you with a list of companies whose entire purpose is to help staff local churches, and whom didn’t exist 20 years ago. By the way, some of these search firms are very good at their jobs.

It’s easier than ever for church staff members to change churches…and they are. Unfortunately, staff longevity is becoming a rare thing in churches. I frequently have conversations with churches that are looking to hire a new team member or a team member who is looking to make a move to a new church.

And while moving to a new church may be what God wants you to do, it’s important to remember that the grass isn’t always greener at that new church.

Your Expectations may not be Reasonable

Often times I hear sad stories from church staff members about how the church or their Pastor hasn’t met their expectations. Expectations that go unmet can create all kinds of hurt and disillusionment. However, your expectations may not be reasonable. It’s not your pastor’s job to disciple you, working at a church isn’t always rainbows and unicorns, and I know you got into ministry to be a part of life-change and people meeting Jesus but this is your job, you don’t get to get paid to do a hobby (and you shouldn’t get paid to have coffee with people all day long). So, temper your expectations (by the way, the secret to happiness in life is low expectations).

The Problem isn’t “out there”

Typically, when I hear church staff members talk about leaving their church the conversation focuses on a problem or series of problems at the church they’re currently serving in. The first bit of input I consistently find myself providing is this: “If God has given you the insight through His Spirt to see something in the church you serve at that needs to change, instead of criticizing it why don’t you try and help it be what you see God wants it to be?” Maybe the problem isn’t with the church, maybe the problem is you’re not being solution oriented and you’re focusing on what’s wrong instead of trying to help it get better.

Planting a New Church may not Fix it

When things get tough, many young leaders are opting to leave and plant a new church. And while I’m all for planting new churches to reach new people, too often these new churches are planted for all the wrong reasons by all the wrong people.

Sometimes you have to Create the kind of place you want to be

I firmly believe, that if at all possible (it isn’t always), the best option for you and the best option for your church is for you to stay and figure it out. You will grow through the process and the church will experience the benefit and fruit of you staying and figuring it out. Sometimes it’s worth staying and creating the kind of place you want to be.

Work at a church? Trying to figure out if it’s time for you to leave your church? Check out this post about “Why Church Staff Change Churches.”

Posted in Leadership, Staffing

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Top Posts of 2018 #9 “Are You the Type of Person that can Work at a Fast Growing Church”

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

So when I wrote this post I knew it wouldn’t make everyone happy, and I was right, it didn’t…but that’s not the point…I’m not trying to make everyone happy, I’m trying to shift people’s thinking about church leadership.

Not everyone gets to work at a fast-growing church. Yes, I know a list comes out every year that identifies America’s top 100 fastest growing churches and there’s a lot of staff members represented in those top 100 churches. But in context to the more than 400,000 churches in America that’s a pretty small percentage of church staff members.

In fact, most people in ministry will go their entire ministry career and not get the opportunity to be a part of a fast-growing church. That’s one reason, by the way, if you’re serving at a fast-growing church you should thank Jesus, soak it in, and enjoy it while you can. You’re sitting in a seat that few will ever get to.

There are all kinds of contributing factors to a church going through a period of fast growth, and at the top of the list is the Holy Spirit. In today’s booming market of church leadership and church growth strategy we would be making a mistake not to give credit where it is due. Jesus said He would be the one to build His Church.

That being said, I’ve had the unique blessing of serving at 3 very fast-growing churches. One went from 1,000 to more than 3,000, another went from 2,500 to 6,000 and the church I currently serve at I’ve had a front row seat to see it grow from 3,000 to 8,000.

While there are a lot of factors that contributed to those seasons of incredible growth one of the things I’ve observed in all of them is that the staff that work at fast-growing churches are different. Here’s what I mean…

1. Agile

They’re able to adapt to changing circumstances quickly and they don’t mind changing directions on projects. They become, “masters of midcourse corrections.” They love being on the team and they’re willing play different roles at different times based on what’s needed for the team to win. Ambiguity doesn’t bother them all that much because they trust and believe in the team and they know that together they’ll, “figure it out.”

2. Sober minded

They are self-aware enough to know what they’re good at and they play to their strengths and they play their part on the team. They’re also humble enough to do what’s best for the church and not for themselves or their career. They’re willing to change roles or have someone hired in over top of them so they don’t become the lid to growth.

3. Low Control

In a fast-growing church, you can’t have a staff member that is high control. There’s not time or bandwidth for micromanagement or perfectionism. In a fast-growing church, high control prevents you from generating new ideas and getting those ideas implemented and keeping up with the pace of growth because by the time the idea or new “product” is good enough to release you’ve missed the opportunity. Remember, the Gospel wasn’t meant to be controlled but unleashed.

4. Solution Oriented

Instead of focusing on problems and the past they’re focused on solutions and the future. Instead of talking to their supervisors about all of the reasons they can’t do something they’re bringing ideas of all the things they could do. They’re not as concerned about constraints as they are about what must be figured out. While there may be a lack of resources these team members are resourceful and they find a way.

5. Resilient

These church staff members have an unusually high pain tolerance. They’re typically leading through change and with change comes criticism. They know how to listen to the right people and ignore the rest. They’re laser focused on the vision of where they’re going and they’re willing to endure pain to get there, because it’s worth it to them.

6. Approach to Credit

These church staff members would rather the team win than worry about if they get any of the credit for it. They’re quick to accept responsibility and take credit when things go poorly and they’re equally quick to give away credit to others when they go well.

I’m sure there’s some characteristics that I’ve missed. If you’ve served in a fast-growing church what are some characteristics of the team members that made them different than other teams you’ve served on? Leave a comment!

Posted in Leadership

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How Your Church’s Growth Can Out Pace Your Team

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Most church leaders I talk with want their church to grow. But few of those same leaders are willing to change and do things differently in order to grow. Unfortunately, it’s impossible for your church to grow and everything stay the same. I know, it would be nice if everything could stay the same as the church grows, but it can’t.

There are a lot of things that a church out grows as it grows. One of those things is often the church staff team.

Pace

The growth of your church has the potential to outpace the growth of your team. Beginning a new ministry, adding a new service time, building a new building, or starting a new campus all have the potential to be catalytic to growth at your church. The problem is that people don’t grow as fast as churches have the potential to. I’ve heard all kinds of stories of churches doubling over night, but when is the last time you doubled your personal leadership capacity over night?

Development Culture

Building a development culture will help you keep pace with growth for a while and will provide opportunity for your greatest capacity and highest potential leaders to rise to the surface. Development doesn’t happen in a classroom but in the “heat of battle.” Giving a young leader a big opportunity by throwing them in the deep end of the pool is a great opportunity to teach them how to swim. Preparation, opportunity and coaching are the greatest tools in the arsenal of development.

Outside Acquisitions

If you’re leading in a growing church eventually the pace of growth at your church will force you to recruit talent from the outside to add to your team. Don’t be afraid of hiring people who have more experience, more expertise, more exposure, and a greater capacity than your current team. Great hires should intimidate you a bit and push you to grow. To keep pace with growth you’ll need to bring in outside talent or you’ll allow your team to be the lid to growth.

Posted in Leadership

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Top Posts of 2017 #3 “5 Things that make Good Church Staff Member Leave your Church”

Friday, December 29, 2017

We’re now into the top 3 posts from 2017 and it’s no surprise that topic of building and keeping the right team comes in at number 3.

Good Church Staff Members leave churches for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes it’s because God has called them to something different. But more often than not it’s because of something very different.

1. You Stop Listening to Them

When you don’t listen to people they stop talking. And when you stop listening to good staff members they’ll go somewhere else where they feel heard.

2. They Don’t Feel Empowered

Nothing is worse than having responsibility for something with no authority to do anything about it. When you don’t empower staff members to make real decisions they’ll go somewhere they can.

3. An Unhealthy Staff Culture

Good team members don’t stay around on unhealthy teams very long. One of the best ways to attract and keep great team members is to build a health staff culture.

4. Lack of Vision

If you can’t provide clarity to your team about where you’re going next they’ll eventually grow frustrated, leave, and find that clarity somewhere else. And the irony is that those who have the greatest propensity to lead into the future will leave first.

5. Poor Strategy

If your team has a tendency to talk about ideas but has a difficult time executing them you probably don’t have a actionable strategy in place to move you toward a clear vision. Good Church Staff members don’t just want to talk about ideas, they want to execute them. If you can’t help them do that they’ll go somewhere else they can.

What are some other reasons you’ve see good Church Staff Members leave a church? Leave a comment.

Posted in Staffing

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Top Posts of 2017 #4 “Stop Hiring People to Work at your Church”

Thursday, December 28, 2017

I just wrote this post back in October and it jumped up the Top-10 chart quickly! It addresses one of the most significant and common lids to growth that churches experience.

Churches love to hire people. I mean they really love to hire people. Often times when churches are just starting off, staff members will raise their own salary until the church has the capacity to pay them. Then as they grow I’ve seen churches long for the day where the budget grows just a little bit more so they can make that next hire. They put so much hope into staffing. Many think that if they could just add one more special staff position to the team, the church would grow.

Now before we get too far into this conversation, let me just say that I’m not against churches hiring staff members. I’m just against churches hiring as many staff members as they do.

You see the average church in America has somewhere around a 1:75 staffing ratio. That means for every 75 people they have attending the church there is 1 full-time equivalent staff member being paid to work at the church. A full-time equivalent may be made up of 2 – 20 hour a week employees, 4 – 10 hour a week employees, or any combination you can think of. At the Unstuck Group when we help churches build a Staffing and Structure plan for the future, we encourage churches to staff at 1:100. By the way, do you know where you church measures up on that ratio?

Why Staff Lean?

One of the many reasons why we encourage churches to staff with this approach is because the churches across America that are reaching the most amount of people with the Gospel and are seeing the most amount of life change are leaner with their approach to staffing. They’re putting resources into reaching people, ministry, and developing people instead of into salaries. They pay fewer people more so they can attract and keep great people.

The More Staff the Less Life-Change

When churches staff at a lower ratio they unintentionally keep people from following Jesus. When people are hired that means what was previously being done by volunteers is now being professionalized. This takes the ministry out of the hands of volunteers and actually often times discourages volunteerism. Volunteering is discipleship. You can’t follow Jesus and not serve others.

More Staff is an indicator of Over Programming

A low attender to staff ratio is also an indicator that a church is probably over-programmed. The staff are busy running a lot of programs to minister to people who are already a part of the church and already know Jesus. 

It’s Easier to Hire than Develop

It’s faster and requires less effort to hire people to do ministry than to recruit, train, and develop volunteers to do ministry.

It’s more Convenient to be Served than to Serve

It’s easier for church members to pay to hire people to serve them than to invest the time into stepping up and serving others.

I could go on and on, but I bet you get the point. Hiring isn’t always the wrong move to make at a church. But if you do hire, hire for two big results:

  1. Hire people who can build teams and develop people
  2. Hire specialists because of a needed skill
Posted in Leadership, Staffing
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