Tag Archive - search

0

A Large Multisite Church in Phoenix is Hiring a Small Group Pastor

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 Small Group 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 mult-site church in the Phoenix area. Currently there are four campuses located in Casa Grande, East Mesa, Gilbert, and Tempe and with a fifth campus opening in the fall of 2016 in Queen Creek. Together nearly 7,000 people attend a Sun Valley Campus each weekend. The Tempe campus was the result of a merger in the Fall of 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 averages more than 1,200 people a week, but when fully utilized, the campus capacity will accommodate more than 6,000 people. Sun Valley has been featured in a book by Leadership Network about church mergers: Better Together: Making Church Mergers Work, and has been named by Outreach Magazine as one of the 100 fastest growing churches in the nation. To learn more about that story click here Part-1 and Part-2.

Interested in learning more? Continue reading below: Continue Reading…


Posted in Leadership, Spiritual Formation, Staffing

0

10 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Better Hires

Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years. Over the years I’ve written quite a bit about hiring and building staffing strategies in a church setting. Here are some of the more popular posts.

You are Who You Hire

The reason that a new hire is so powerful and pivotal is because people lead out of who they are and the organization or church always takes on the personality of the leader. In other words, you are who you hire. No matter what their skill set, abilities, experiences or personality is; people always lead through the filter of their unique identity.

You Just made a Great Hire…Now What?

Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church basically says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done.

6 Reasons your Church should use a Search Firm to Make Your Next Hire

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. But sometimes the best move that you can make is to enlist the help of an Executive Search Firm.

5 Reasons I would Never Hire You

While at first pass this post may come off as negative, the goal I can assure you, is to be helpful. I’ve had to say no to more people than I’ve said yes to. My hope is that this post will help move you in the direction where you’d hear me, or someone else, say yes to you in the near future.

5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make

Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.

6 Principles of Building a Staffing Strategy at your Church

Great teams don’t happen on accident. Over the past 15+ years of working with churches the best hires I’ve seen have always come through a well thought out staffing strategy. Based on that experience the following are 6 principles that I help churches think through when it comes to building a staffing strategy.

4 Steps to Making the Right Hire

Success is rarely stumbled upon, and great teams don’t just happen. They’re intentionally built with a keen understanding of where you are going, and not just what, but whom it’s going to take to get you there. That’s where making the right hire comes into play. The problem is that churches are notorious for making the wrong hire, and the usual culprit is a lack of any semblance of a hiring process.

When a Volunteer should become a Staff Member at your Church

In growing churches it’s not uncommon for high capacity volunteers to serve as and function like paid ministry staff members. Instead of paid staff members I’ve seen volunteers oversee entire ministry segments in a church even attending weekly staff meetings and staff retreats. But when is the right time to hire that person and move them from a volunteer to a paid staff member?

When to Hire from the Outside

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.

Why Hires go Wrong

When a hire goes right it fosters synergy, movement, and momentum. But when a hire goes wrong there are setbacks, losses, and ultimately the mission suffers. Below are the 2 most common mistakes made by churches, which lead them to making the wrong hires.

This next post is a little extra bonus to follow up on that last one: “What a Hire Gone Wrong will Cost You”


Posted in Staffing

0

5 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Thank you for making May an incredible month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing that these articles have been helpful. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 New Staff Search: A Large Church in Phoenix is looking for a new Lead Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search! I’m helping Harvest Community Church as they begin the search for their new Lead Pastor. Harvest was planted in August of 2009 and originally met in a movie theater. They later moved to Skyline High School for a period of time before settling into a permanent facility in 2012. Today, just 5 years in existence, they average more than 650 people in weekend attendance! Located just one mile north of a new large residential community and a mile off of the 202 highway, Harvest is positioned for growth!

#2 The 5 Most Important Indicators of a Healthy Church

Numbers can be overwhelming. I’ve seen churches keep numbers and measure all kinds of things. First time guests, returning guests, empty parking stalls during services, kids attendance, student attendance, short-term mission trip participation, first time givers, on and on the list goes…literally. None of these (or other categories not listed) are necessarily bad things to measure. In fact in totality they can help you gain understanding as to which direction things are moving at your church. The thing is, there are a lot of things you could measure, a lot of things you could pay attention to. But what are the most important things to pay attention to? I know some people will disagree with me, but based on my experience working with churches around the country, and being a guy that’s in the trenches day to day at a local church, the 5 most important numbers to keep a pulse on are the following.

#3 Why Volunteering is the Biggest Issue Facing the Church

I’ve never coached a church leader or consulted with a church that said they had enough volunteers. In fact, most church leaders I speak with identify a shortage of volunteers and volunteer leaders as one of the top 5 issues holding their church back from reaching the vision that Jesus has given them. But contrary to the popular belief among many church staff, the issue isn’t a poor talent pool. Your church is full of talented volunteers. In fact the people who attend your church are so talented that companies actually hire them to do jobs everyday and they actually get paid for it (sarcasm indented). The real issue is that the church needs to change the scorecard. We need to shift the focus of paid-staff from ministry production and execution to volunteer and leadership development. The churches that do this understand the following 5 principles and the incredible results that accompany applying them.

#4 Building an Effective Central Services Team in a Multisite Church Model

If you’re leading in a multisite church or if you’re thinking about becoming a multisite church, at some point you’re going to have to make some big decisions about the role of your Central Service Team. Somewhere along the way you’re going to be faced with building a Central Service Team, Ministry Development Team or All Campus Staff Team…different churches attach a different label to it. But essentially it’s a centralized team of people tasked with supporting decentralized campuses that are geographically separated. Think of it as a matrix leadership model. The Central Service Team influences each campus while the Campus Pastors are responsible for the ministry on each of their respective campuses. Through learning from other great friends in the multisite world and facing this personally in the context I lead in, there are four (4) healthy perspectives of a great Central Services Team that I’ve discovered.

#5 3 Organizational Changes that Multisite Churches Experience

Multisite changes everything. If you’re leading in a multisite church you know this first hand. The way decisions are made, how the Staff are structured, how resource are utilized, how budgets are created and managed, and more all change along the way. It all changes. But knowing how things change can help you prepare for the next step. Here are three phases of change I’ve seen in multisite churches around the country.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc


Posted in Leadership

0

5 Common Hiring Mistakes that Churches Make

Recruiting and hiring a new team member can be exciting! Hire the right person and the whole team benefits. When you invite the right person to join your team not only is there an infusion of new talent, but also new ideas, fresh eyes, and a new well of experiences to go to. One new hire can literally improve the performance of the entire team. On the other hand, hire the wrong person and the ministry at your church could be set back for years.

Churches are notorious for making well-intentioned bad hires. At most churches the hiring process usually goes wrong for one of the following 5 reasons.

1. Poor Contact with Candidates

The number one mistake churches make is not staying in constant (weekly) contact with candidates. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the story that a candidate submitted a resume for a job and didn’t hear back from the church for more than a month. Not even a simple, “Thank you, we received your resume.” The candidate moves on, only to be contacted weeks later by the church asking them to move to the next step. Most candidates simply want to know where they stand in the process and what the next step is. When you don’t communicate regularly they perceive that as disinterest and they move on. The best candidates aren’t going to wait around.

2. Convenience Hires

Many times churches hire based on convenience, which leads to hiring too fast. Now they wouldn’t come out and say that, but that’s exactly what it is. Someone knows the “perfect candidate,” vouches for him or her and they’re quickly hired based on a recommendation without being properly vetted. I’ve also seen churches hire repeatedly from within, in fact some even pride themselves on this. Interestingly enough hiring repeatedly from the inside is a symptom of an organization that is stuck or in decline. They hire from the inside because, “You have to be in the organization to understand it,” they’re not open to new ideas or challenging the status quo. Now I’m not against hiring from within. But when hiring from within because we are comfortable with a known internal candidate trumps doing a search and hiring the best candidate, the mission of the church suffers.

3. No Process

Many churches simply don’t have the bandwidth or experience to build an effective recruiting and hiring process. At this point I’d recommend going with a search firm to help you in the process. Unfortunately far too many churches stumble along with no idea how to identify a proper profile and job description of what’s needed in the ideal candidate, no plan to build a candidate pool, no process to vet the candidates in a timely manner, and no clear process as to how to make a decision and offer the job to the winning candidate.

4. Staffing Void of Strategy

Before you start hiring people first think about what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you have a clear strategy in place to accomplish your mission, and are you staffing to that strategy? How are you reaching people outside of the church? How do you help people who are new to your church get connected? What’s your discipleship strategy? How do you help people new to the faith grow up in their relationship with Christ? You want your staffing structure to support your strategy because as the end of the day staffing should get you to your vision. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a staff member get hired and then only stay at a church for less than 2 years because the church hadn’t staffed to their strategy and it ends up being a bad fit.

5. No On-Boarding Process

Technically this happens after the official hire is made, but I just couldn’t leave it out. Churches are notorious for racing to the finish line of a hiring process, getting the newly hired candidate in the room and breathing a collective sigh of relief. The typical church essentially says, “Congratulations, you’re hired! Here are your keys. Now go figure it out.” Once the new hire is made you’re not done. If you don’t intentionally think through the first days of their employment it can leave a sour taste for the remainder of their employment relationship with you. While they may love working at your church in 5 years, they’ll always remember their first impression as being negative.


Posted in Leadership, Staffing

0

New Staff Search: A Large Church in Phoenix is looking for a new Lead Pastor

I’m pleased to announce a new Staff Search! I’m helping Harvest Community Church as they begin the search for their new Lead Pastor. Harvest was planted in August of 2009 and originally met in a movie theater. They later moved to Skyline High School for a period of time before settling into a permanent facility in 2012. Today, just 5 years in existence, they average more than 650 people in weekend attendance! Located just one mile north of a new large residential community and a mile off of the 202 highway, Harvest is positioned for growth!

Harvest Community Church sincerely desires to be a Biblical community of people that seeks God’s leading for their lives. They believe this happens best when we connect ourselves to God, His purpose, and others. Harvest exists to connect people to God and to give them an increasingly accurate view of God while moving them to be wholehearted followers of Jesus Christ. Simply put, Harvest wants to help people connect with Jesus, grow in Jesus, and go for Jesus.

Lee Stephenson, the founding pastor, is leaving Harvest Community Church in a place of health as he has transitioned to be the next Executive Director of Church Planting for Converge Worldwide. The location, finances, growth, mission, and staff team are all great reasons that make this a very attractive opportunity for interested candidates. Harvest is affiliated with Converge Worldwide, “A movement of churches working together to start and strengthen more churches.”

Located in Southeast Mesa, a suburb of Phoenix, AZ, Harvest is set against the beautiful backdrop of the Superstition Mountains. The facility is located in a new and growing community. The area boasts beautiful outdoor living including biking, hiking, equestrian trails and other recreational activities. The community is also convenient to shopping, golfing, and resorts. With its proximity to Phoenix, this opportunity provides all the benefits of small town living with the appeal and amenities that come from being close to a major city.

The next Lead Pastor at Harvest Community Church will be a gifted and dynamic communicator of God’s Word. They will highly value both strong biblical exposition as well as practical application in their teaching. They will have a passion and ability to make the truths of the scripture relevant to those exploring the faith, as well as challenging devoted followers of Jesus, leading people to experience and follow Jesus. They will have received a formal biblical education that has prepared them for pastoral ministry (seminary is preferred), have a clear spiritual calling to the role of Lead Pastor, and meet the biblical qualification for eldership expressed in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. Multi-site and/or church-planting experience is a plus. In addition, they will have had 10+ years of church leadership experience with relevant experience in a large church (1,000+). The next Lead Pastor at Harvest will not only be an excellent communicator of God’s Word but also pastor the congregation and cast inspirational and actionable vision for the future. They will be a high capacity leader with a proven track record of developing others and have the ability to work with the high capacity lay and staff leaders on the team.

Interested parties should submit their resume here via email.


Posted in Staffing
Page 2 of 6«12345»...Last »