Unlock the secrets to fostering long-lasting pastor-church relationships as we sit down with Tim Nations of Chemistry Staffing. This episode is an invaluable resource for church leaders seeking to navigate the nuanced world of ministry team dynamics. We delve into why aligning theological beliefs is just the starting point for successful partnerships and how the search for the right fit can avoid the costly trend of short pastoral tenures.
Churches today face the daunting task of not only finding youth pastors but also offering them a package that competes with secular opportunities. With Tim's expert guidance, we confront the hard truths about youth pastor compensation and the sobering effect underinvestment has on the future of church leadership. Listen in to grasp the importance of building a culture that values and rewards the dedication of these pivotal roles.
We wrap up our conversation by challenging the status quo of church leadership. From the interplay of trust and healthy staff relationships to the broader implications of collaborative decision-making, we dissect the elements that make or break church initiatives. With a special focus on the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, we discuss how they're balancing tradition with innovation, ensuring their mission thrives without compromising their foundational theology. Join us as we explore these critical topics, all aimed at empowering church leaders to propel their congregations toward a flourishing future.
Visit uniteleadership.org
Unlock the secrets to fostering long-lasting pastor-church relationships as we sit down with Tim Nations of Chemistry Staffing. This episode is an invaluable resource for church leaders seeking to navigate the nuanced world of ministry team dynamics. We delve into why aligning theological beliefs is just the starting point for successful partnerships and how the search for the right fit can avoid the costly trend of short pastoral tenures.
Churches today face the daunting task of not only finding youth pastors but also offering them a package that competes with secular opportunities. With Tim's expert guidance, we confront the hard truths about youth pastor compensation and the sobering effect underinvestment has on the future of church leadership. Listen in to grasp the importance of building a culture that values and rewards the dedication of these pivotal roles.
We wrap up our conversation by challenging the status quo of church leadership. From the interplay of trust and healthy staff relationships to the broader implications of collaborative decision-making, we dissect the elements that make or break church initiatives. With a special focus on the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, we discuss how they're balancing tradition with innovation, ensuring their mission thrives without compromising their foundational theology. Join us as we explore these critical topics, all aimed at empowering church leaders to propel their congregations toward a flourishing future.
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman here with Jack Calberg. Jack, it's been a bit since you were on with us. I pray you're doing well. How are you feeling, man?
Speaker 3:I'm doing fantastic. It's a beautiful day here in Arizona Overcast day with a chance of rain. What do you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3:We keep getting surprised with little snippets of beautiful weather before the real pain comes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's going to get hot here very, very soon. We pray the fire of the Holy Spirit is rest upon you. This day, though, as we lean into a conversation with Tim Nations from Chemistry Staffing Now, before I read his bio, if we talk staffing and you're a smaller church and you're like I don't have staff, we're going to be speaking to the need for lay leadership development. Every pastor, every leader, needs a team. If we go solo, we're not going to go far. We need the body of Christ, all of the gifts, regardless of whether you're in a larger, medium or small church. Let me tell you about Tim.
Speaker 2:Tim Nations serves as the lead church coach at Chemistry Staffing. He most recently served as the director of communication design at Leadership Network. We've been connected to Leadership Network over the years, where he was a part of the Leadership Network team for 13 years, praise God. Before that, tim served in full-time ministry in churches across North Texas area for 15 years. He's been married to his college sweetheart, jenny, for 28 years, and they have two young adult children and I love this last comment on your bio and a useless dog named Jack. I have a useless dog named Roxy. Don't let her know she's a sweetheart, but, man, she is absolutely useless for sure. So, tim, how are you doing, man? Thanks for chilling with us.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm doing well.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me on, we're going to have a good time. So tell us the origin story of chemistry staffing for churches.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we're a little over seven years old and I think you know, like a lot of great companies out there, we were started partly out of frustration. Right, you see something that's not right and you want to figure out how to make it better. And so all of us are full time pastors or have been full time pastors, and so we've been on both sides of the search experience and we recognize that. You know, it's not always a great experience for pastors and their families, it's not always a great experience for churches, and so how could we create something that would make that better?
Speaker 4:The other thing that we were frustrated with that I think probably everyone in the church world is frustrated with is what we refer to as the gap, and that's the difference in the average tenure of pastors. So before COVID, when we were doing our research, you know it was, you know, two and a half to three years on average across the board. And for the folks that really study church effectiveness, you know you need to be somewhere five to seven years to really plant roots, begin to see fruit for your ministry. So if pastors are jumping around every two or three years, that's bad for their families, it's bad for churches. It's bad for the kingdom and the work that we're called to do in this world, so that's really why we got started to try and figure out a process that would be better for everyone.
Speaker 2:Let's go deeper there just a bit. What are some of the main reasons? Because we've heard that stat many listeners in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, especially coming out of seminary. It's your three years and then you're kind of taking your next step and maybe you get a smaller church and we have a lot of entitlement in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. And here's why. Because out of seminary you go residential route. We got a lot of vacancies, it's job security man, we're going to find you a church, but a lot of pastors may head into that first call. It's a little bit smaller, maybe don't want to put in the hard works, and so it gets thrown around the seminary three years and then we're probably making that move. Where does that come from, tim? How did that kind of take root systemically, culturally? And it sounds like it's not just obviously a Lutheran thing, it's a wider church thing. Anything to say there, tim? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So for us, what we determined was the reason that most pastors don't stay longer in churches is because it wasn't a good fit in the first place.
Speaker 4:And a lot of times what happens is you know you call a pastor somewhere or you know you choose to go to a church and there are a couple of things that are out of alignment, but there are a few things that look really good, and so we overlook the misalignment and then you know, a few years down the road, that gap becomes, overlook the misalignment and then you know, a few years down the road, that gap becomes, you know, such so wide that either the church or the candidate says you know, you know we can't do that, and so you know, for us, we and I'm happy to go into this, but as we did research, there's five areas of alignment that have to be in alignment for it to be a good fit between a pastor and a church.
Speaker 4:And you know they're not rocket science, you know there's not a single one of these that you would say, oh, never thought of that. But the key is making sure all five of these are in alignment Because, again, if you choose to overlook one, because you fall in love with a pastor or a church and think it'll be okay. Most of the time it's not okay. So you know, just real quickly.
Speaker 2:I'll let's go through them. I love it. I love it so number one theological alignment.
Speaker 4:Right, you've got to have perfect alignment on the essential issues and on the you know, secondary, tertiary issues, whatever you want to call them at least enough alignment that you're not going to drive each other crazy with debates a few years down the road. Right. Number two is skills and ability. So, depending on what you're hiring someone for, they need to have a track record. They need to have experience of doing what it is that you need them to do. One of the challenges you know you mentioned seminary students coming out. You know one of the challenges is a lot of them aren't getting residency and internship experience. Some of them are going right into an MDiv or some other you know degree and they have no experience and it makes it very difficult for them to get a position in a church because they don't have that track record. Because skills and ability they matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I can see that.
Speaker 3:Well, let me pause right there. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Jack, you respond to that. I have something to say, but go ahead, jack.
Speaker 3:No, I can see that being a really big issue, depending on the governance of the church, where somebody says, well, I've been equipped to preach really well and do spiritual care, but there's kind of a corporate job that somebody is also being asked to do. And they're maybe not equipped to do. That Is that kind of some of the examples there, Tim, that you're thinking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you go ahead. Tim, go ahead. Yeah, no, I was going to say too many Tim's. There's too many Tim's, by the way, Jack. So if you just say Tim, I have no idea who you're talking about. Jack, that's right, all right.
Speaker 1:Whoever jumped in first will go Go ahead.
Speaker 3:Tim, I think that's accurate.
Speaker 4:You know. I think you're right. You know there are, and part of the issue is on the church as well, because not every church is ready to invest in someone who doesn't have the skills or experience, they don't have the bandwidth or they just don't have the culture for developing staff. And so when you're in an environment where you're expected to come in knowing how to do everything and you don't, then it makes it a challenge for those young candidates to find positions in churches.
Speaker 2:So let me say something from the seminary perspective in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, because we have an internship, which is an awesome thing, and if you're going residential it's a third of the four years there getting your Master of Divinity. But oftentimes you're going to get placed in a medium to maybe larger church that has a staff, but then many of the calls coming out of the seminary are for a church in need of revitalization, which is a very, very different skill set from coming in and kind of learning the ropes of kind of word and sacrament ministry, from the entrepreneurial, the deep culture, kind of the changes of the old guard who's held things a certain way and do not want to change for the sake of reaching the loss. Like that leadership set, that skill and ability set is very, very different. So those are some of the challenges. We got theological skills abilities list three, four and five there, tim.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Third is personality, and, to your point, the smaller a church, the more personality matters, and so you want to make sure that it's compatible with if there are other staff, compatible with the staff members, compatible with the leadership in the church itself. Culture is number four, and when we talk about culture there's really two aspects of it. Number one is geographic culture. So I'm in Texas, culture in Texas is different than it is in Arizona, and you go to either coast very different cultures, right, and so it's not that someone has to have been from there, but they at least need to have an experience that's compatible.
Speaker 4:And and one of the things I'll add to that is you know where we see that having probably the greater impact than on the candidate themselves is on their family. You know, because a pastor goes to church, he gets busy, he's got a team, he's got purpose and focus, but a lot of times if they have a family and they're going to a place that's foreign to them, it just never feels like home. And the gravity of if you're a pastor and you're in-laws, there's a lot of gravity there If you move their daughter far away from home, and so that culture becomes a huge, huge thing. And then number five is the chemistry piece, and that's all the stuff you can't put down on paper. That's, you know, as you spend time with candidates and you realize, hey, this is the person that God has called to serve with us and we want to do that for a long time.
Speaker 2:Well, you make a good case there for raising leaders up locally.
Speaker 4:Yeah, certainly.
Speaker 2:Because of the family, because of the geographic culture piece. So that's fantastic. Let's get into church trends in staffing. I was really, really interested to know how things have shifted. I know they have and I know you've got a little bit of research, especially gosh. I've been a pastor now 16 years and then I think the changes in the church have accelerated. There are some transitions that have taken place over the last three, four years, obviously with COVID and whatnot, so give us the most up-to-date, as far as you can, trends in church staffing today, tim.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't know that these are necessarily the biggest per se, but they're the things that we tend to bump into the most and I'll apologize in advance. None of these are positive. But you know one searches are taking longer than anybody wants them to. If you're engaged in a search plan on it taking much longer than you're comfortable with Because, you know, coming out of COVID, the candidate pool was really depleted and, to the point that you made earlier, our traditional systems of developing pastors have been in decline for a long time.
Speaker 4:And, to the point that you made earlier, our traditional systems of developing pastors have been in decline for a long time. And so when you take a lot of people out of the candidate pool and you're not replenishing it and you haven't been for a long time then there's going to be a gap in qualified candidates. So they're just going to take longer and we just need to be ready for that, you know. And to the staff development question, the people development question that you brought up, you know, the reason that we don't have the staff that we need today is because we weren't developing them, you know, a few years ago, and so, yeah, that's a whole other discussion.
Speaker 3:How long is a typical search process lasting right now for church? What's a typical search process lasting right now for churches?
Speaker 4:It's all over the place and it depends on the role. So the ones that have been hit the hardest have been youth pastors. Youth pastor is the hardest search. That's actually my. It was my second trend. They've left the building. It's the hardest search that we do right now, and what we're telling churches is expect this to be a 12 to 18 month search and it really doesn't matter who you are, where you're located, the size of your church you know used to. We could look back and say, okay, based on the size of the church, where they're located, you know some other filters that we were going to have to go through. We could get a pretty good estimate of how long it would take. Today, it's just it's all over the place and so we're trying to set the expectation that it's going to take a while and so just be prepared to that and then we'll all celebrate when God brings someone sooner than that.
Speaker 2:Hey, tim, I saw some data recently on and we don't call them youth pastors.
Speaker 2:In our, in our denomination, it's its director of Christian education and a lot of times that role a lot of your higher, because we don't ordain women right.
Speaker 2:So a lot of your higher caliber female leaders have entered into that program and then a number of your younger kids. They maybe have to do maturation but they've got all the energy so they come out of undergrad and enter right into a director of Christian education. But then the expectation a lot of times is for those guys well, eventually you're going to become a pastor, you're going to go to the seminary, you're going to go through one of our alternate routes, you're going to become a big boy church leader and to that point the average salary for youth pastors directing Christian education is right around and I can't remember where I saw this right around a $50,000 base mark. That's not going to cut it right now and many of our and I don't think we've invested in in youth pastor DCEs to the level that would say, hey, I could actually especially if you're a man I could see myself growing in this and actually raising a family on that salary. Any thoughts there regarding kind of salary, equity et cetera.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, that's part of the issue.
Speaker 4:Right During COVID, I think a lot of people realize you know one that I can go someplace and get benefits and not have an 80-hour-a-week summer and take better care of my family. Ministry, you know, for a lot of them, became not their vocation, but it was still their calling. But they were getting their income and their benefits and able to work fewer hours, you know, doing something else, getting a job somewhere else, and so you know, we can. You know, and I have a lot of pastors that bristle at that and say, well, but this is the church, and if they're called to ministry, well, yeah, you can say that, but here's the reality that we're looking at, and so we can grouse about that or we can begin to think differently about it and try to figure some things out. So, yeah, I mean, those numbers for an average are going to be pretty low today, whereas five years ago, 10 years ago, that would have been. That would have been decent, right, that would have been okay, you could have gotten away with that. But this is a different time.
Speaker 2:And for us to see the church change today, tim, I mean, where are a lot of the complaints? The kids have left the building, we're Gen Z. We're not attracting Gen Z. Well, we've not invested in the leaders of that generation. I think we've just let them go and we've not addressed.
Speaker 2:If you don't address, hey, it's really, really hard, and I'm speaking as one who leads a church in a school where we're in, jack, leading a budget, trying to put together, make ends meet, right. I mean, this is a real, real struggle. I think, at the highest level, though, we have to have a commitment to discover, developing and deploying young women and young men who are going to pour into the next generation, and that means we need to look at financial equity, we need to look at compensation and benefits for them to cast vision, because that's what it's really about to cast vision of this being a major life calling for you, and you may not be the stage rah-rah, guy or gal forever, but you could raise up a wonderful team of folks who are caring for the next generation. We've let a lot of our high caliber, high energy leaders move into other vocations, because one of the reasons we've not made that financial investment Jack. Anything to add to that?
Speaker 3:No, I think you're dead on. I think, yeah, the local congregation, and I get that. It's a struggle because not every church has a healthy budget that they can just pay. You know people what they deserve for their work. I mean, we're going through a budget process, right? Now and we're giving people you know, cost of living adjustments but I can honestly say that nobody gets what they deserve, right?
Speaker 3:And so if you can't give people what they deserve, can you at least give something that you know honors them and gives them a living wage? And you know there is a vision for doing that, moving into healthier pay structures. So I mean, I've heard some of this in the leadership network discussion. You know is church work Like I was in the military right and in the military people are willing to suffer for something when they see that there's a purpose and a cause and some honor in that type of work.
Speaker 3:So people will go in the special forces, even though it's like horrifically horrible kind of training to do that kind of stuff. They're not getting paid more than a typical soldier to do that kind of stuff. They're not getting paid more than a typical soldier to do that right. But the calling behind that drives them to do that. And do we sell the calling right? Do we promote the calling of church work the same way that it's considered? You know, that same noble calling to get into some of these most challenging jobs where, hey, it is a challenge, I'm going to lean into it and part of part of the part of the um, part of the attractiveness of it is actually because it's so difficult and we know that we're bringing some of the most elite people into that type of role and honoring them appropriately for it.
Speaker 3:So, go ahead Tim.
Speaker 4:Here's the thing that we conversation we have with churches because you know part of like.
Speaker 4:We just completed a partnership for the annual youth youth pastor compensation survey, and so that information is out there. You can get the latest kind of averages and information about that. But the problem with looking at any of that type of data is it's inevitably going to be skewed by a number of factors that you probably aren't aware of when you're looking at it. If you're a church in one location and you're looking at data, it's going to be nationwide. It's you know, unless you pay to have a custom compensation analysis done for you, you know it's not going to be a perfect match. So here's one of the things that we talk about that might be helpful for pastors versus just looking at the numbers and maybe getting depressed about them. Number one we say hey, listen, you know your community, you know what it costs to raise a family and to do life there. And so, number one, think about are we offering our candidates a salary package that allows them to do the things that people their age in the church do, package that allows them to do the things that people their age in the church do, so that when you know if it's a, you know if it's a young family that you're bringing on your team. Are they able to go and do young family things with the other people in their church, or do they have to say I'm sorry, you know, we're not available, when they really just can't afford it? You know, are they able to put their kids in sports? Are they able to? Because part of what you want them to do is to be a part of the community and connect with people there, right?
Speaker 4:So, number one, are you, are you allowing them to have not an extravagant lifestyle, but just one that matches where they're at? Secondly, I would say you know, are you, are you putting in a position to be and to model generosity? You know, when you're on staff with a church, you have every kid that's selling Girl Scout cookies run up to you as a pastor and they want you to buy cookies. And so you know, within reason, can they buy the cookies for all the little girls that come up and are selling cookies or whatever it is they're selling? You know, are they able to give to? You know mission trips and you know special contributions and things that are coming up, and so you want them to be able to model that generosity because you want a generous church, and so much of that comes from what they see in the pastors and staff members, and so I think, as you look at a couple of those factors, you can get a better sense of where you really need to be in terms of salary and benefits than just looking at national numbers.
Speaker 2:So thanks for the encouraging comments here on church staffing Tim, Very, very encouraging. We have opportunity for growth in the American Christian church, to be sure. So searches are taking longer than anyone wants. Youth pastors, DCEs in our context, they've left the building. We see that trend in the Missouri Senate. And the third one about succession. Talk about succession.
Speaker 4:Yeah, succession's coming. I mean you talked about, you know, the aging pastor. I mean that's true across the board, right? I think the average age of pastor is getting closer to 60, you know these days, and you know, according to some recent research, 25% of pastors plan to retire within the next six years.
Speaker 4:And, going back to the youth pastor conversation, you know, as you alluded to earlier a lot of times, the senior pastors, or former student pastors, or, you know, christian education directors, whatever, who you know can't start there but have a vision and a calling for that, and so all the guys who aren't student pastors today aren't going to be your next senior pastors, you know, in five to 10 years from now. And so you know we've got an issue that's coming and you know we need to be proactive about that. We need to be getting back to I mean, we keep coming back to you know, developing from within. We need to be doing that. We need to be developing now for what's coming in the future, and succession is. There's a huge wave coming and we need to be prepared for it.
Speaker 2:Well, we've always thought well, we're going to grab someone from the field you know, someplace else the other church is doing the development work you know of that pastor and we'll reap the benefits of it. It's just, it's kingdom neutral to negative. We've said this numerous times You're just stealing from another church who has to find their next pastor. Maybe we should start to raise people up from within and see and cast vision for other churches to do the same. Praise be to God. So let's get into healthy church culture. This is a topic that I don't think we can deal with enough in the midst of the decline. Think we can deal with enough in the midst of the decline, the anxiety, the rise in mental health crisis, even among a lot of our church workers. There's a need for healthier cultures, but let's talk about the top three killers of a healthy church team and followed by, the best practices of a healthy church team. So go into that, tim.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'll dive into it. Let me say something first, and what you'll learn about me is I take short questions and make really long answers. But hopefully, you know, hopefully it'll be helpful.
Speaker 2:But thanks for a great podcast, tim. This is awesome, good.
Speaker 4:That's great to hear. So you know one of the insights from last year's assessment. So we're just. You know, we have the healthy church staff survey that we've been doing. This is the second year and we're just wrapping up the the one for this year. I don't know how long it'll be before it's out, but it's kind of in the works. But one of the insights from last year was that 66% of pastors and staff feel a positive sense of teamwork within their church, which, you know, that's a great number, sounds like a healthy number, but the flip side of that is a third of pastors and staff members don't feel that positive sense of, you know, community teamwork, camaraderie, etc. So there's still some work to be done there, right, and you know it's funny.
Speaker 4:I was at the XP Summit last week in Colorado and they had a session between. They had two of their elders up there. They had their lead pastor and their executive pastor, and so they were talking about executive pastor, lead pastor, their executive pastor, and so they were talking about executive pastor, lead pastor, elder board relationships, and one of the things that their senior pastor mentioned was that he and the executive pastor regularly did couples counseling. They went to counseling together, because the point that he was trying to make is that trust is so critical to staff relationships and especially when you have an executive pastor and a lead pastor that work so closely together on the vision and the mission of the church. Trust, in their estimation, was such a critical issue that they wanted to spend time with a third party source, a professional relationship coach, to help them navigate the issues related to their work together and their trust as co-staff members.
Speaker 4:And one of the things that I found really insightful not that I'm going to advocate that you know all staff go into, you know couples counseling, but one of the things I found really refreshing and insightful is I think we have this sense in the church that when trust is broken, that that's it. You know well, trust is broken. You know some some something's got to give, somebody's got to leave, and and the comment that the senior pastor made was that you know part of the reason they go into these sessions together is that you know trust isn't static. Trust is something that is is relatively, relatively fragile, and when trust is broken, we need to figure out how to restore and rebuild that trust. How to restore and rebuild that trust.
Speaker 4:And so I would say, you know, this isn't going to be in my list of things that I'm going to share about, you know, staff culture killers or things that really strengthen them, but I think underlying all of this is the trust factor, and we need to keep in mind the fact that trust is not static, that trust is always.
Speaker 4:There are things that build trust and there are things that can erode or destroy trust altogether. And so if we're not taking trust into account, if we're not putting in feedback mechanisms within our staff team to understand not just the performance side but the relationship side and getting feedback on where the level of trust is, you know, going back to that statistic, you know two thirds of staff members feel a positive sense of being on a team, they feel like they're trusted and they trust their staff members, but one third don't. And so you know, if you look at you know, if you've got a staff of five people and you've got a great relationship with three of them, you may say, hey, you know what Trust is. Great Trust is high here on our staff, and that's usually the time when a great staff member lets you know that they're going to be going to another church, when you assume that trust is great for everyone, so we need to work on that.
Speaker 2:So that was it. Can we pause on that? Yeah, no, no, no. I love that no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I've told our team this the rate at which we can enter into, engage in difficult conversations because we lie, we lie to ourselves and we think things are better than they actually are. And this is hard for an optimistic guy, you know, future focused guy like me, to just sit in. There's a level of grief in this, tim to say, unless I'm constantly because I'm way you know, wow, we're dreaming all this kind of stuff no, no, unless I'm constantly. And the way I kind of think about it, you go to the balcony, you get perspective and then you enter right back down onto the dance floor. You go to the balcony, you look, but you enter right down into the mess and we often.
Speaker 2:You need a balance of the two and I think a lot of times you got to know self-awareness is huge. Am I more prone to live in the balcony, aloof to the cares and concerns of those who are, because I could be there, or am I in the weeds so much that I can't get a broad view perspective of what is going on? What I've just shared is like the core for adaptive leadership. Leadership on the Line is the book that I'm reading right now. So anything, jack, to say about that and the speed of trust, yeah.
Speaker 3:No, I mean definitely, the organization will only move as fast as it trusts each other, right? I think you've nailed that topic and it's interesting, like you said, kind of the optimistic, sort of pessimistic and realistic continuum there. That it's kind of a dance.
Speaker 3:We can push too hard because of that and break a lot of things if we're not grounded by people. And so it's fascinating hearing the story about a senior pastor and XP going and getting couples counseling. That relationship is the most important relationship in the church, I mean next to our spouses. I guess Right and Tim and I have often talked about that that this is this relationship that we have here is the same. It's like the most important relationship that we have.
Speaker 3:We have to be absolutely solid. We have to be on the same page. We have to be able to make sure that there's absolute alignment in where we're going in the future and trust that we can leverage each other's skills to to parse that and to be able to leverage the best version of like in this case, tim and Jack right to manifest these big goals that we have, like our big multi-site, multi-campus goal, multi-school goal, all these big goals that we're going after. We have to really be able to trust that we can leverage each other's skills really, really well. And you know the part that I don't have Tim has and vice versa. That is just absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep, and unfortunately a lot of pastors don't have executive pastors. We wouldn't call them pastors because we have a very narrow view of pastor, but executive director, and we're actually trying to pilot in the Unite Leadership Collective executive director. Pastors need theological formation. Pastors need maybe business finance, ops systems, at least awareness. Maybe that's not like your main thing, but you need to understand how theology is complemented by scalability and systems that move in that direction. So, all that to say, we need all of the gifts of the body of Christ. Thank you, jesus and the Apostle Paul, for highlighting that. So let's get into a little bit more. We set the foundation beautifully. What are some of those killers of a healthy church team and the best practices, and you can kind of mingle them however you want, tim, as we move forward.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I've written down three of each and I've got some examples of what that might look like, right, because you can say something and it could mean something wildly different in different contexts, but one is poor leadership and lack of accountability. That's the number one killer and that can manifest itself in a lot of ways. It could just be a leadership that believes that everything is fine as long as something isn't obviously wrong and that kind of gets back to the relationship dynamic you talked about before. You know, if we don't, if there isn't something hitting me in the face, everything must be fine. And you know that probably comes out of, you know, a fear of having to deal with things that aren't fine. Right, it could be a lot of things. It could be something like, you know, new pastors who are unwilling or untrained to seek mentorship, to develop their own leadership and to be in a place where they've got some accountability, and so, you know, gets back to that bandwidth for coaching thing that I mentioned earlier. You know, do churches have that and are they helping them to find that, to do that? Gosh, just just lack of pastoral accountability and and weak leadership, gosh, you know, I don't know how many pastors candidates that I talked to that are coming out of churches where the you know and I hate to say this, but there was there, was there, wasn't strong leadership, I'll say it that way and it just produces so many issues for a team and that's why they left. Right, I mean, what is, what is the saying? You know, people don't leave a bad job, they leave a bad manager.
Speaker 4:I think there's truth for that in the church as well, when leadership isn't strong, some senior leaders that don't communicate or respect the staff, and so that's more that balcony thing that you were talking about I'm going to stay out of the weeds, I'm going to do my role and my thing from up here on high. And you know, don't bother me. You know, if I don't have to deal with it, you know I'm not going to deal with it, and that's a terrible environment for a team. You know, a lot of the just the top down decisions, no transparency, things like that, that's, that's number one. That's going to kill, kill team leadership, toxic culture and poor conflict resolution very much related to the one I just talked about. But you know, sometimes you can have a good leader, but the team culture itself is unhealthy or they just avoid conflict resolution. So you know gossip, lack of impulse, control, you know just some things that we struggle with in our flesh that we allow to be a part of the culture and you know the experience that people have as a part of the staff team and we aren't willing to deal with that. Working with a church now that had a longtime associate pastor that was allowed to just kind of do whatever he wanted to and they lost staff members because of that, you know yeah, I won't go on, but you get the idea.
Speaker 4:Micromanagement, or you know, and lack of empowerment, things like that that create an unhealthy culture for team members, not understanding, not taking the time to understand your staff members and how they need to be led, because if you try and lead everyone the same way, you're not going to get everybody to the same goal right, and so we need to be led, because if you try and lead everyone the same way, you're not managed and there isn't transparency there. Or you know, something comes up, even if it's a mistake. Our tendency is to want to try and kind of cover up or brush that under the rug. But we need to be really transparent about those things. You know the best way to and this probably gets more back to the number two the toxic culture. But the best way to lose a great employee is to tolerate, you know, terrible one. In the same vein, you know, if you've got a hardworking team member who isn't getting the budget and the resource support that maybe some other areas are, that's going to kill the team. Yeah, I could say more about that.
Speaker 2:Hey Tim, this is amazing. Jack, love to get your take. But right off the front, everything you just said about three killers is a character issue. It's not a content. A lot of times in our tribe we have this tendency to believe we must get all of our theology absolutely right and that makes a right pastor. And I love good theology. We should care deeply about great theology. But if you miss on character, you miss on everything. And so can we run tests in the local church to raise people up with Moses and Jethro right To be faithful with a little and then faithful with more, and see how their integrity comes through, how they embrace inevitable team conflict situations, how they willingly put themselves under authority and are held accountable by clear metrics, under authority and are held accountable by clear metrics. And then the last one do we seek great financial management from the congregation and from other leaders who are on our team? All of those things are character issues, jack. Anything to add to that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, character and competency issues. I think there's plenty of people that want to manage finances really well. They just don't know how to do it.
Speaker 2:So to be a bit charitable on that.
Speaker 3:Sometimes there's a skill gap and not necessarily a character gap, but you may end up I mean, sometimes it absolutely is a character gap where finances don't get done as well. But yes.
Speaker 2:I would say I'm not debating that, jack, it's totally. But the character gap would be I can make all the decisions because I, I know the right, you know I don't need to build a team of financial managers who are around me and give me good guidance.
Speaker 3:Yeah, To be fair like, if you care about the finances, you're going to find a way to get the right people on the boat and the right, the right resources and in time, that's going to work itself out. So yeah, I agree with you that the persistence of it, the persistence of all those things, absolutely would be a character issue.
Speaker 4:Well, there's also there's also an element of fear at work in all of this right and, and we've got an enemy, we've got someone who wants to destroy us, and so fear is one of those ways.
Speaker 4:And so you know, if you're a young leader that doesn't know all the answers, you may be afraid to ask the questions because you'll come across, as you know, weak, inexperienced, and so it's not really a character issue, right, it's fear. And so then you settle into some habits that aren't healthy and the next thing you know. You know you're running off the rails and you don't know how you got there. So I think part of it is it gets back to the relationship issue of it, whether you're, you know, staff or elder board. I don't know the polity with you guys, but you know ensuring that we're focusing on the relationship first, and oftentimes, when somebody does develop a character issue and it really goes off the rail, it's because there wasn't that relational accountability in the first place. And that's true for some of the high profile ones and the ones you'll never hear about.
Speaker 2:Love it. So best practices are your best practices, kind of the inverse of this. So I mean there's accountability, we're engaging in conflict well and we're managing resources well, or anything more to add to that.
Speaker 4:The inverse, there's more than that, you know, I mean the three I've got down comes to having a positive environment, uh, maintaining those healthy relationships, you know, training, collaboration, camaraderie how much is that highly valued? You know, you can have a church where everybody's operating in silos and it's not a you know, it's not a character issue, it's not even a competency issue, it's just, uh, you know, it's just not a great teamwork environment. And so how can we overcome that Freedom to be creative and kind of the autonomy to make decisions without micromanagement? You know, those are just some things that you know it's a very supportive environment for staff and I think, you know, adding to that, I think I would put permission to fail. You know, and you know there's some organizations that even celebrate failure in a positive way, and so are we, you know, bold enough to allow people to step out there and take risks and not cut their head off when it doesn't work out. The other two are the third one probably relates it's healthy leadership and vision, and so you know that that trickles down into everything you do, right, when we talk about budgets, when we? And so you know that that trickles down into everything you do, right, when we talk about budgets. When we talk about, you know, staff and ministry resource allocation. If you've got a healthy vision and a leadership that drives for the vision you know it's going to, that's going to overcome a lot of things and create a collaborative environment.
Speaker 4:But the one thing I think that's a little bit different is a sense of meaningful and impactful work. You know, as we've done this survey, that's one of the things that we see. It's not any different really for volunteers. I think we're a little more tuned into it with volunteers because they're not paid to be there, and so we want to make sure that, as we're engaging volunteers, that the things that they're doing as a volunteer have a direct connection to something bigger the mission and vision of the church, the work of the gospel in our community.
Speaker 4:Staff members have that same innate desire. You know why did you become a pastor in the first place? It's because you wanted to see kingdom impact in the world around you. And so I think, as leaders, the more that we can help point the staff members on our team to meaningful work that pushes the mission forward, that's making a lasting impact, that we're sharing the stories, that's going to create a very positive and contagious team atmosphere when we're able to see some of those things and making sure that you know we've got people on the right seats for them on the bus, that the things that they're doing align with you know their skills and ability.
Speaker 4:You know one of the things one of the books I read recently was I just went blank on it working genius and you know it's. You know one of the things I like about it. It's not just another personality profile, it's not, but it's about maximizing you know your strengths, the things that you are your genius, and tweaking some things on the way that the team works to make sure that people are working more in their genius and not in the areas where you know they're not good. That kind of thing, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'd like to comment a little bit specifically on the collaboration issue, and this has been actually like an area of like walking through it. Personally, you could say that a lot of people get into executive roles, top senior roles because they've got a track record of making good decisions, be able to think things through, they can handle the stress, all that kind of stuff. They got a big vision. The temptation is like, hey, I've got an idea, I've got a solution for some issues and I want to implement it. And what I've learned in my role is that I have to oftentimes really slow that process down so that it's not my decision but it's actually a team decision. That they're they're actually you're giving people an opportunity to contribute to like some of the more strategic um initiatives of the church. So, um, I'll give an example like we're in the process of changing our entire stack of all the technology that we're using, all the different, you know, software, platforms and stuff.
Speaker 3:I've got in my mind what it needs to be, but I really had to like in my case I had to slow that down because this couldn't be Jack's decision. This really needed to be a decision that's owned by our entire team, because they're going to be in it every single day. So you know what does it look like for you as a leader to be able to democratize that. I don't know if democratize is the right word, but definitely distribute some of that decision-making process so that ownership is held more widely in the team and not just directive. And I just can't impress how important that is for the healthiness of a team that they get to co-own in these things. And sometimes it may lead you to the exact same place that you wanted to point. Sometimes there's some changes in that, but the fact that you've got your entire team bought into that means that ultimately it's going to be implemented way, way better. Thoughts on that.
Speaker 4:I agree 100%. I mean people want to be heard, they want to give their input. I think, as long as the boundaries are clear and people understand that, hey, during this time of collaboration we're not going to make the decision. Decision is going to be made based on some of the things that we surface, based on your input and preferences, and so I think that's super important, because I think the point you were getting at is you know, people buy into things, they help co-create, and so if, if we respect them enough, we respect them enough to put them in charge of ministry, then you know people's souls and the things that they're caring for. We probably should respect them enough to let them have some seat at the table when it comes to collaborative decision making, and I really think, from a teamwork standpoint, you're just going to get a totally different level of buy-in when people are engaged in that process.
Speaker 2:So let me summarize People want to be connected to a church where there is vision and they want to collaborate on that vision. And then you know, human beings love to be recognized and seen. And then the team leader is saying, wow, what you are doing, and they mean it. They're not being pejorative or anything like that. What you're doing is advancing our kingdom cause here. And then we'd go next level in your gifting and shout out to six types of working genius and you just are fired up. You get so fired up to come to work every day.
Speaker 2:It's not work, it's a calling and I'll do whatever it takes because I know it's achieving this kingdom eternal purpose. Like pastors should be the best at this. Like souls are at stake right now. People are moving out of hell into heaven because of the work we're doing, either behind the scenes or in front of the scenes, like being a part of a church, whether you're paid or not paid. The mission of God's call to get all of his kids back this should be the greatest, most compelling thing of all time, tim you know. So let's cast that vision, build team and put people in the right seats on the bus to accomplish said vision. This is so fun, but sometimes in the midst of that, there needs to be a restructuring, a reorganization. Every few years you kind of need to say, hey, is this still working for us right now? This model, this team, is it still functioning? So tell us about your staff restructuring playbook. Love that. Love to see you guys do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Well, you hit it on the head, right. I mean, every church should have a regular rhythm of going back, revisiting their mission and evaluating how are we allocating resources staff resources, budget resources toward the accomplishment of that mission? And what the staff restructuring playbook really helps churches do is it walks them through a process and gives us some common language to work through that together. And it may be that you evaluate that and you think, man, we're nailing it, We've got it right on point. Or it may be that you just need to make some tweaks.
Speaker 4:But there also are cases where you realize, hey, the way that we did it 5, 10, 15 years ago is not efficient for what we need to be doing today, and so this is really just a tool that leaders can use to walk through that, to be collaborative in approaching that with their leadership and staff and figure out the best way to allocate those people resources for their future. And if you're in a situation where you're growing, you need to do this more often. Right, it needs to happen more frequently. And so when you start making some of the decisions about who to hire next, it just helps you with that. It gives you some ways to do that effectively together.
Speaker 2:So I pray some of our small church leaders have hung on. I really think there's a strong need for all different types of churches, all different types of sizes, for us to not view each other as competition, but we're collaborating small, large church, all different types of churches to reach people with the gospel. So talk about most Christian churches in America being in steep decline, worshiping under 100. The median worship size in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod is 55. That's not really even enough to afford one full-time staff member, unless you've got a handful of folks that are super, super generous or an endowment that you're living and staffing the folks off of, which happens from time to time. So how does chemistry staffing serve these churches that are worshiping under 100, say?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would say that probably the biggest way is through a lot of free resources that we make available to churches. We've got that playbook for restructuring. We've got a bunch of other ones as well that are just helpful if they're you know, if they're looking for a staff member trying to replace a staff member, or whatever it might be. You know, the other thing is just often getting on the phone, making time to talk with a leader, to spend time being a sounding board or just a sympathetic ear to somebody that's struggling and needs somebody to bounce ideas off of or ask questions. Somebody to bounce ideas off of or ask questions.
Speaker 4:You know, for me personally, one of the things that was probably the most favorite thing I did at Leadership Network was connect with leaders and I would say, hey, listen, ask me any question that you have. I probably don't know the answer, but chances are in the last couple of weeks I've talked to someone who did, and so love just making connections, networking for people. We did build chemistry staffing with scalability in mind so that we could serve churches of 100. In fact, you know, probably 25% of the searches I've done over the last four years have been churches under 250. And you know it's it's not, it's a stretch for them, but it gives us the opportunity to bring the same level of service that we would to a much larger church, to churches that probably has have a lot less experience hiring a pastor or a staff member, and so you know time, time, resources and then being able to partner on a search.
Speaker 2:That's so good. We're coming down the homestretch here. What trends are you witnessing in terms of part-time, bivocational, co-vocational church leaders being raised?
Speaker 4:up Anything there, tim, I think we need to do a better job of exploring models that can create possibilities for churches that can't afford full time staff members. You know, I think we're in a season where we need to figure that out, and you know the the bivocational model. You know, I think, a lot of that and co-vocational vocational, I think you might also consider, you know, businesses, mission efforts, things like that, where you know people are getting the theological training to come alongside their business acumen and they can be more self-supporting man. I think we need to be figuring that out.
Speaker 4:A couple of years ago, I ran across a guy in an airport lounge who was a pastor at a large church in California and I wish I'd gotten the name. I'd love to do some follow-up with him, but this was a church of you know, two or three thousand and all of their senior leadership were co-vocational and they were very intentional about that, and so I think there's. You know, if you are familiar with the Heath Brothers bright spots idea, you know that there are people who are seeing incredible results in spite of, you know, common circumstances. I think churches like that are a bright spot and a model that we can learn from, and so not much on the trends. We're seeing a lot of pastors that we interview for jobs that are trying to get out of bivocational ministry because it's hard, but it's because they're serving in churches that really don't have a bivocational model and I think we need to re-examine that.
Speaker 2:All right, Wow, this has been great. This podcast engages many confessional and mission-oriented Lutherans. What is your perception of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod if you've even heard of us and Lutheranism in general? Tim, love to get your take on that Closing question here.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I feel like that's a little bit of a setup that I'm going to kind of dance around a little bit.
Speaker 3:I have heard of the LCMS. All right, cool.
Speaker 4:You know, through our connection with you guys and a few other churches at Leadership Network, we were connected to a few different ones, and so, you know, the cool thing about the Leadership Network space is we spent very little time talking about polity and tradition and we just dove into issues, and so I didn't you know, I didn't get a strong sense of the distinctives of the LCMS or Lutheranism in general. My guess is and correct me if I'm wrong my assumption is, like most denominations in the Western world, there's steep decline both in terms of number of churches, membership, active membership, and there's a long overdue season of figuring out how to do old things in new ways. And you know, one of the things I appreciated about you guys and what you're doing at Christ Greenfield is, you know, you're willing to be innovative and to seek out other voices and figure out, you know, how might we do things in a way that is different and relevant and impactful, without compromising our mission and what we believe that we're called to. And I think, you know, churches in the LCMS, and probably every denomination in the United States, need to have more of those entrepreneurial minded conversations where we're looking at those bright spots, we're figuring out who's doing something right, not to emulate them, not to just, you know, try and carbon copy what they're doing, but to learn the principles that you can apply in your context and figure out.
Speaker 4:You know, how might we do that? You know my 13 years at Leadership Network. We were constantly beating the drum of, you know, connect with a motley crew, people that are like you, to learn from them. No model is perfect, but some are useful. And so what can you learn from other models that can be useful to your calling for the gospel in the community that you serve?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, it was certainly helpful for us being able to interact with other congregations that were outside of our context, that were like-minded and just like their desire to be missional and to explore out-of-the-box solutions, and for us that was just an incredible blessing.
Speaker 2:For sure, Tim. This has been so much fun. If people want to connect with you and chemistry staffing, how can they do that?
Speaker 4:Easiest way chemistrystaffingcom. You can find me and all of our little Motley crew there as well. You can Google Tim Nations. I tried this before and made sure it was safe, but you get all of my social profiles and ways of connecting with that as well.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your generosity of time and blessing all of our listeners today. We promise to continue to have wonderful, hopefully inspiring, jesus-centered, innovative conversations within the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and outside that lead you, as a local church pastor, to say, hey, there are people who need the gospel here. Hopefully, that's the main thing. Good theology moves us out into mission. Why? Because we're following. We're chasing after Jesus who's ahead of us, the Father who's on the throne and he's sending out His Spirit. As we trust the Holy Spirit to make a way for us to be the hands and feet of Jesus so that hell is depopulated and heaven is populated. Do we live as leaders in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod with the ready expectation this is a shout out to a past podcast with former Synodical President Jerry Kishnick Do we live with the reality that hell is real? And if we do, this will lead us to say whatever it takes, with the Apostle Paul becoming all things, all people, so that by all possible means I might save some, that more and more would enter into the beautiful realm which is the kingdom of heaven. There is a king, his name is Jesus and he is on the throne. He's coming again to make all things new very, very quick, and may he find us faithful as his people when that day comes.
Speaker 2:This has been awesome. Thanks so much, jack. Thanks so much, tim. We'll be back Tuesdays with Lead Time, a longer form podcast, and then make sure you're hitting us up on Fridays Hot Topic Fridays Got a lot of great guests lined up there.
Speaker 1:So it's a good day Go make it a great day. Thanks, tim, thanks Jack. You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.