by Maurice L. Painter

Next to determining the vision for a church, one of the most important decisions that a church has to make is on staffing. Unfortunately, many pastors and administrators make poor staffing decisions. One illustration of the complexity and importance of making sound staffing decisions is found in this example: I presently counsel a pastor in a dynamic church in the Southeast. The pastor came to the church a few years ago from a congregation in another state which, with God's help, had grown from 250 to 2,000 in attendance in just a few years. When he left the former church, the pastor-search committee prayerfully solicited candidates and selected a new pastor. Within approximately 18 months, the church's attendance was half the size as when my client had left. Unfortunately, both the committee and the pastor made poor staffing decisions.

Form Follows Function

The business phrase, "form follows function," expresses the fundamental issue of staffing in churches--hire the right people to produce the desired results. This simple maxim usually breaks down because most churches have not identified their desired results. This problem stems from churches not personalizing their biblical mission through a vision statement.

The vision of almost every church is the same: to proclaim that Jesus Christ is God's plan for saving and maturing mankind into an ever-greater love for Him. This is the prophecy of the Old Testament, the message of the Gospels and the standard of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament letters.

However, the vision of each church is not the same as the common mission of all Christian churches and will differ from that of every other church because of its core values and context of ministry. The core values reveal the guiding principles for all its ministries. Dr. Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church in Chicago has listed the following 10 core values for its ministries:

1. Effective Bible preaching and teaching.
2. Lost people matter to God.
3. Culturally relevant and doctrinally pure.
4. Authenticity and growth.
5. United community of servant stewarding their spiritual gifts.
6. Loving relationships permeating church life.
7. Small groups are life-giving.
8. Excellence honors God and empowers people.
9. Led by leaders.
10. Normal behavior is to follow Christ radically.

The context of these statements identifies who will benefit from the core values of the church. They may be homogeneous in life stage--such as university students, or young families--but often they also are a hetero-geneous combination of these and other life-stage groups. One of the barriers to growth in many churches is the lack of understanding of who attends each Sunday morning. The point is that the core values and their resulting statement of vision and the complexity of the attendees will determine the number and qualifications of professional minister positions a church will have to fill.

Hybels has a clear picture of the characteristics of ministers whose coordinated efforts must perform the vision because of his understanding of attendees and of Willow Creek's core values. However, in the opening illustration, the committee did not understand the church's core values as well as the new pastor's vision and leadership for a church of its size.

Additionally, my experience in consulting with corporate America has shown that few chief executives and companies have a clear purpose that identifies who they hire and what they do. Regrettably, I have found the same to be true in large churches. Hence, staffs sometimes work with conflicting purposes because they are pursuing individual and uncoordinated agendas.

Hire Staff Before You Need Them

Another serious barrier to growth is a reactive perspective instead of a proactive one. This results from focusing on last week or next week, a near-term focus which many pastors complain about. Typically, they say, no other staff members are as concerned about the future as they are. Most pastors understand but have difficulty implementing Peter Drucker's definition of long-range planning. He says that long-range planning is not concerned with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions. Proactive perspectives produce momentum for growth.

Many churches experience growing attendance in September and January, as families commit to include the church in their weekly routine. Hunter Street Baptist Church in Hoover, Ala., encourages this by mailing promotional pieces to 70,000 residents, many new to the area, in late August of each year. Thus, each year, attendance grows by approximately 700 from this promotion.

Hunter Street and other churches provide these new attendees with relevant sermons, engaging drama and motion-and-emotion participation of their various senses in the worship experience. The church has new teachers trained and ready to begin new Bible study classes, and they provide times for networking among new attendees and recruited greeters.

However, most churches have not added the professional staff required to fully assimilate these new prospects. They wait to see how many of the prospective members will form relationships and become frequent participants on Sunday mornings. In our fast-paced society, people will not wait for us to prepare to minister to them; they want it available when they visit. Church pastors and administrators also must be ready to satisfy a new member's expectations.

With the diversity of ages and attitudes in most growing churches today, there must be more ministers focused on the Christian maturation of narrower segments. History illustrates this. Before 1970, the average church needed one minister for every 300 members, because of the greater homogeneity of the congregation. Today, the ratio is 1-to-150.

Understanding the different segments of attendees is not difficult. It requires the focused attention of a statistical record's secretary. This support person should record small group and worship attendance, member additions and deletions and the total number of contributors and their gifts. In addition, he or she should compare the current period to the same one last year and to the trend of recent months and years as well as projections for the next 12 months. This analysis should be reviewed by the full staff regularly for application to each ministry.

When planning the staffing needs for churches, I have advised ministers to use all or combinations of the following groups: preschool, children, pre-teen, middle school youth, high school students, college students, single adults with children, married adults under the age of 35, married adults between the ages of 35 and 55, married adults between the ages of 55 and 75 and married adults older than 75.

I also have recommended such non-traditional positions as minister to families with children under the age of 10 and minister to families with students age 11 to 14. Budget constraints, group size, member involvement and ministry needs all must be considered. The important issue is to anticipate the growth of each group and focus the creative leadership of a minister upon them before their size and complexity requires it.

Farm Team, Free Agent Or Lateral Move?

There is great value in growing ministers from within the congregation. They will know the historical growth of the church, understand the culture that weaves the core values throughout the ministries and generally they will desire that the group they are focused on will grow numerically and spiritually.

Pastors in these segments could be considered part of the church's farm team system. As with baseball teams, churches have developmental systems, although they are seldom organized and operated as such. The progression might be from preschool teacher to assistant preschool department director to director of the department to preschool director. Prayerfully identifying potential ministers, training them and giving them opportunities to serve can cost effectively satisfy future full- and part-time needs.

A benefit from using part-time staff members is their willingness to give more effort than they are compensated for. They enjoy the focus of their ministry and set high standards for their work. Recognition of their ministry success makes up the difference.

However, there are times when free agents must be brought in. One of these times is when a church needs to lead an existing ministry to a higher level of performance.

For example, I have suggested such a change for a church which is growing its ministries on the 40-plus acres of a property it acquired three years ago. The adult educator has reached the limits of his capabilities and is unwilling to become qualified to lead them to greater numbers. So, the only solution is the fresh ideas and dynamics of a new adult educator with a proven record--provided that no other staff member in that church has the abilities to lead this group. If someone did, I would not hesitate to recommend his or her repositioning.

One example of repositioning within a church recently occurred. The personnel committee of one church asked me to access the capabilities of their staff to lead the church to twice its size. I found that the business administrator was qualified and wanted to lead a much-needed new young adult family ministry. Placing staff members in positions that maximize their creativity produces a superior return on the investment in them.

A Better Hiring Process

I began counseling the pastor of another church with great potential last month. He surprised me by stating that each of the staff members hired during his 10-year tenure had been hired by a different search committee and that he had very little to say. Naturally, their individual root systems are deep within those who hired them. This would not happen under the system I suggest.

Gathering potential high performers on a staff begins with the senior pastor and chief of staff listing three to five key results that must be produced through the position. These results may include quantitative or qualitative growth goals, programming changes or the development of lay leaders. Next, they should identify the characteristics of people who can produce key results. These may include past experience producing these results, creativity, energy, incisive problem-solving abilities and teamwork.

Once the senior pastor and chief of staff are satisfied with the quality of their desired results and characteristics, they should discuss these with the personnel committee and make appropriate modifications to their plans. The committee should solicit and review resumes from qualified prospects and refer the five most qualified to the senior pastor and chief of staff.

Only the senior pastor and the chief of staff should make the final hiring decision. After all, they are responsible for the effectiveness of the new team member and the spiritual and numerical growth of the church. In selecting the new staff, consideration should be given to the needs for complementing the present staff's capabilities. The staff may need another visionary, problem solver, communicator or organizer. High-performance staffs include functional skills and complementing abilities.

Effectiveness is no accident. It is well orchestrated and promoted. It is hard work. Today's busy pastor must hire and lead trusted associates to perform the Scriptural mandate of equipping others to do the work of the ministry. Following these guidelines will made the task easier and more productive.

Maurice Painter is a member of Church Business Magazine's Advisory Board, he can be reached at (615) 373-1147, fax (615) 377-9959 or MLPainter37024@worldnet.att.net.