Navigating Church Staffing: From Vision to Hiring | Part 2

In this episode of Live Leadership, Jon and Pastor Ryan, the Executive Pastor and Lead Pastor of Peace Church, dive into the nitty-gritty of church staffing. As they discuss real leadership challenges faced daily, they provide valuable insights for pastors and church leaders embarking on the hiring journey.

Episode Highlights:

• Setting the Stage: The hosts emphasize the importance of only hiring staff for roles that are already organically growing within the church's existing activities and ministries. They share how the decision to hire staff for a new role should be a culmination of careful planning and development.
• Budget and Elder Approval: They stress the significance of synchronizing budget planning and elder approval, explaining how these two aspects work hand in hand when it comes to introducing a new staff position.
• Crafting the Job Description: The hosts explore the process of creating a detailed job description, highlighting its importance in effectively communicating the role and expectations to potential candidates.
• Timing and Outreach: The hosts discuss the timing of posting a staff position, suggesting spring as an ideal period for hiring in most church contexts. They also delve into the different platforms and methods used to reach potential candidates, including both traditional Christian websites and general job search engines.
• Resume Review and Social Media Check: Jon and Pastor Ryan offer candid perspectives on evaluating resumes, discussing red flags, and the value of checking candidates' social media profiles to understand their online presence and cultural fit.
• The Phone Screen: A practical breakdown of the phone screen process is provided, highlighting key questions to gauge a candidate's enthusiasm, communication skills, and alignment with the church's values.

Join Jon and Pastor Ryan on this insightful journey through the practical aspects of church staffing. Whether you're a seasoned church leader or embarking on your first hiring experience, this episode offers wisdom and strategies to navigate the complex terrain of building a dynamic and cohesive church staff team. Tune in to Live Leadership for actionable insights that can transform your staffing process.

To find more gospel-centered resources head to https://www.resoundmedia.cc

Transcript

Mitchell
Live Leadership was a podcast made for you, made for pastors, church leaders, and elders like yourself. We're creating conversations specifically for you. There's no agenda behind this. The person who sent this to you loves you and wants you to grow in your leadership. So open your mind and heart to new ideas and get ready to grow in your leadership. Now let's jump into this week's episode of Live Leadership.

Jon
Hi, everyone.

Jon
Welcome to Live Leadership. I'm Jon. I get to serve as the Executive Pastor at Peace Church. I'm here with Pastor Ryan.

Ryan
I'm the Lead Pastor at Peace Church.

Jon
Hello. And this is Live Leadership where we get to talk about and process actual leadership issues that we're facing on a day-to-day basis. And so we call it Live Leadership because it is live happening right now. We don't claim to be the experts or have it all figured out, but we want to talk about issues that we're facing and hopefully it's helpful to you who are listening. Hopefully it can be a blessing to other church leaders as they face some of the same issues. So today we are continuing a conversation on church staffing, talking more about it. Church staffing, we're going to talk specifically about some of the practical aspects of how you get from the beginning to the end of a church staffing process, of a hiring process. So if you're a pastor or church leader who's looking to hire somebody, I think this will be great practical advice and input and ideas and thoughts for you. So Pastor Ryan, when we start to talk about a staff position here at Peace Church, how do we get this process started? When do we go about getting a staff position on the table to actually consider the hiring?

Ryan
So there's a number of different ways I think that actually plays out and begins to happen. But I'd say the first thing is don't think about something you want to see happen that's not happening, and your first step is to hire a staff for that. I think about just, because this is live leadership, this is playing out in real life for us. We're not coming, claiming to be experts, we're claiming to be people who are actually in the mix having these conversations right now. I'm thinking about one of the positions that we just created and filled for our special needs coordinator. Now we've had a special needs ministry that's happened like under the canopy of our children's ministry and student ministry for a time that's been volunteer led, but it's been a ministry we want to continue to see developed over time. And it's taken root and it's grown and volunteers have done a great job. It's been part of a larger ministry, but over the number of years we've had this ministry, both on Sunday mornings and our Tuesday nights, we finally came to the point where we're like, okay, this is going so well, it's time to invest with a staff position. And so, we knew we wanted to see this happen, we developed a job description, and we posted it, and now it's filled. But going all the way back, I would say the first thing is, you don't want to hire a position for something you're not already doing. You gotta already be doing it, and then the hiring of a staff position is just the next step of investing in that.

Jon
Right. Nine times out of 10 for us, we don't hire out of an aspiration to do something. We hire because it's already happening. We feed what's already growing. Right? The special needs ministry, in the example you gave, is a ministry that's been happening for years at Peace Church, and it was growing to the point where it could no longer be volunteer-led, and it needed a staff person.

Ryan
Yeah, and we knew that we wanted that to be a staff position for a long time, but we also knew we couldn't just throw a staff position at it. We wanted to see it develop and take root organically, naturally among our church. And this was, again, just the next step of investment for that.

Jon
Yeah, I think I'm glad you pointed that out because that's, I think that's probably opposite from most natural wisdom. You'd say, oh, what do we want to see our church do? We'll hire somebody and then they'll go do that. It's the opposite. We think whatever you're doing well, you want to feed that. You have a staff position. Make it go further.

Ryan
Totally. I think you look at what's already happening. And again, if it's not happening, you want to see it start happening, then you need to start somewhere, but it's not starting with a staff position. But let's say you have something already going and it is time to invest in a staff level position. I think for us in church leadership, first thing we want to do is begin thinking about budget, but also having that conversation with the elders. Which one do you think comes first?

Jon
Well, for me, for my seed, they happen at the same time.

Ryan
Yeah, well, and a little bit it does. You can't get ahead too far ahead. If you're going to go to the elders with that, we want to say we've got the budget for it. And on the flip, we also aren't going to prove anything in the budget for us in our setting without elder approval. Right. So there is a little bit of like those those things work in tandem. So for us I mean it's planning way ahead. So we're having so we start our budget process in December. Yeah. December January right at the at

Jon
the new year and then we finish it so our fiscal year actually starts in July.

Ryan
Yeah so in in you're right at the our budget process starts in December but we're really thinking about it rolling into the fall. Yeah, I mean so I mean that's I think it's safe to say that me and you Top level leadership at our church. We're having conversations like that in September And then it gets you know more and more formalized we bring it to The budget conversation start working it in then but during that entire time We're praying over it. We're thinking about it. We're making sure we're seeking God's God's will in this so God's will in this. So budget and elders, then obviously I think with that would come job description. Who writes those, John? Typically me. Me or now, by God's grace, we've got you know more staff and more managers and so somebody else another manager might write that and then it makes its way up to me before it comes to the to the elder table. But yeah, we've got somebody essentially in charge and keeps track of all that kind of stuff and make sure that we've got continuity across job descriptions and the organizational structure. But we start ahead of time, so we get job description, pay package, then it comes to the elder team. And usually it's approved right alongside of the whole rest of the budget for the year. So we don't typically create a staff position in the middle of the year. I think when we were smaller, we did do that. You know, at a smaller size, we weren't able to plan quite as far ahead and so sometimes we might do at the midpoint of the year we might bring a staff position to the elder table for approval. So we think about what areas we want to continue to invest in, is that a staff position? If it is, then we begin thinking and praying about that. See how we're gonna finance it, working into the budget, talk to the elders, develop a job description, and then what? And then we post it. Yeah. How early do you post it? So we talked about our budget starts July 1. So that's when we can like officially, if we're going strictly by the book, we can officially hire that person on July 1. How soon do you actually start looking?

Jon
Yeah. So ideally, I think for most churches, you start hiring in the spring because I think most churches like us operate, they think about a school year calendar. That's when your programs for kids and students especially run, you take the summers off or it's lighter. And so usually, yeah, like April, May is when you want to be getting that thing out there. So we do budget approval during the April, May months. It doesn't start till July, but we post in that in spring as soon as we possibly can.

Ryan
So we start posting and we're certainly looking. So clearly we're not going to put something on our website and hope that someone comes across it. What would you say, and we've gotten staff from various different ways who have all been amazing, but I'm just kind of curious, what would be your preferred or what is your favorite way to try and get a staff person?

Jon
My favorite way is...

Ryan
Again, I'm not saying this is the most fruitful way, I'm just saying your preferred way. Oh man, my favorite way is when we don't even post the position. Yeah, totally.

Jon
That's when we've got somebody we know, we've already identified inside of our church, or somebody who's a close connection of one of our existing staff members, that's the ideal situation.

Ryan
And we're just inviting them to come on staff. Yeah, absolutely. And that has happened, and I think will continue to happen, but that's not the only way we've gotten great staff. Yeah. What are some of the other ways, do you think, that have been beneficial for us?

Jon
Yeah, yeah. We post it through our website, then we put it on popular Christian staffing websites like Gospel Coalition. That's a free one. We use other paid ones like churchstaffing.com or chemistrystaffing or other ones like that. We will put it sometimes on websites like Indeed or Monster or stuff like that.

Ryan
I know Slingshot is one.

Jon
Slingshot, sure.

Ryan
So if the personal knowledge or personal connection doesn't work, we start employing some more broader professional avenues to acquire staff, hire staff. So that all happens and then we're starting to get applications rolling in. How do you begin discerning what applications necessitate or would require or you get excited about having an interview? What are the things you look for? Now, I would just be the first to say, a nice, clearly crafted, beautiful, without error resume is always a nice thing. But those can be deceiving, too. So what about the initial contact do you look for?

Jon
Yeah, well, it's funny that you say that because actually I'm a little bit of a stickler for some of that professionalism kind of stuff. And that comes with my role as executive master. Let me just ask you that real quick. So let's say someone has an error on their resume. They put our church's address is wrong or something like that.

Ryan
How big of a turn off is that to you?

Jon
I immediately want to throw it in the trash. I've learned that I can't because, although I'm a bit of a perfectionist in that way, everybody else isn't, so I don't get that picky, but I want to.

Ryan
Would you say, here's something I'm kind of fishing for. For me, I'm also kind of thinking about the position.

Jon
Yeah, oh totally.

Ryan
Like an admin, I want to know you've got your information correct. Other positions, that level of detail, while it's always appreciated, I might be a little bit more tolerant of things like that. Now, I am in no way ever saying, especially for us as what, people should ever take their resume lightly. You always make sure the information's on there is absolutely correct. But as people, live leadership, who actually have to look at lots of resumes, you gotta start weeding out somewhere, and I think those sort of errors are a nice way to begin at some level.

Jon
Yeah, I mean, if you're somebody who's writing a resume, I mean, you gotta just understand, the person on the other side of the table is probably reading, I mean, this summer, I've probably had, I don't know, a hundred resumes go across my desk. Oh my goodness, yeah. It's just like, you know, so you gotta do something that's gonna make it easy on the guy on the other side. So for me, actually, formatting is the main thing. Just make it so I can figure out the basic stuff quickly. What's your name? You know, how much educational experience do you have? And what kind of work experience do you have? Just make it really easy. So, like, my resume, for example, if I have to send it out, it's one page, just one side, that's it, and it's super clear. This is where I've gone to school, these are the degrees I have, and this is where I've worked and for how long and what I did there.

Ryan
Really clear and simple. I'm with you. I could probably tolerate two pages if it's important stuff, but ideally it's one page. Just give us the snapshot. So before we talk about, and I know I keep leading this down different directions, but we're having a conversation, so whatever. Here's a debated thing about resumes. Do you like it or do you not like it when they include their picture?

Jon
Oh.

Ryan
Ah, see, I knew something.

Jon
That's what, well, we joke about, so I'm actually, everybody can't see me, but I'm actually a young man, but we joke that I'm a young man going on, being in my 90s, so I'm kind of a.

Ryan
You're the, you are, I don't want to say you're the oldest, but you're among the oldest souls that we have.

Jon
Yeah, right.

Jon
You sometimes say that I'm a millennial, half millennial, half boomer.

Ryan
Yeah.

Ryan
Yeah.

Jon
So there's that.

Ryan
Borderline silent generations.

Ryan
Yeah, right.

Jon
So actually, to me, what would be best is, no, don't put your picture in a resume, but have a social media Presence out there. So if I if I look at your resume and you're interesting I'm the next thing I do is I'm gonna look at my resume it no

Ryan
Yes, I would say assume it and plan on Whoever you are applying to like plan on them like scouting you out on social media, right? Yeah, totally. Yeah okay, I think I I'm I don't know if this is like how the legality in all this, but I actually like seeing the picture.

Ryan
Because I'm visual.

Ryan
So for me there's like a connection that I can immediately have there that words just sometimes don't.

Jon
Well if you're gonna do it, at least make sure it's a good picture. There's been some that have crossed my desk and I've been like, man, I looked at your resume and I'm interested, but man, that picture, you just look ridiculous.

Ryan
It's like the 50 year old selfies where it's like low and it's like, looking up your nose, you know?

Jon
Yeah, totally.

Ryan
So you get a resume, it's got all the right information, you've got five resumes before you, how do you begin discerning who you wanna have a real conversation with? Yep, I usually keep one of those plain manila folders

Jon
on my desk and I only keep the ones in it that are interesting, the rest of them disappear quickly, I don't hold onto them.

Ryan
So aside from like grammatical errors or something to that effect, if they've got like the experience, you know, and they're projecting themselves in the right manner through a resume, I guess even before that, that's a big assumption, how do you know if they're projecting themselves the right way? Like how do you know just from what you're seeing on a resume if it's going to be someone you want to have a conversation with?

Jon
Yeah, well you can only tell so much from the resume. So for me, when I'm going through, my typical process is just if they've got the right education and the right experience, they go in the pile, they make it in the folder, and then I'll go back through later, do a social media check, and then I'm looking kind of for culture.

Ryan
Do they seem like somebody who fits the research culture? Yeah, so hold on, so let me go back a second. You're scouting out their social media before you're calling them. Yes. Whether or not they provide social media information, we're searching them out and seeing where we are. And I think it's safe to say, we can say that, you know, because we were part of one where we looked for this person, we found them, and we found some mutual friends. Yeah. We weren't connected with them, but we saw people that we knew that were connected with them and we contacted them.

Jon
That happens many times, especially in this area. In West Michigan, there's a lot of people that are connected. And so, yeah, I'll see mutual friends and I'll quick text somebody, hey, what do you think of this person?

Ryan
Yep, exactly. That's what I'm saying. So the resumes, while helpful to initiate a conversation, people need to know it's not just we're looking at a great resume and then giving you a call. There's other things happening behind the scenes that would lead up to us making a contact with you because we are looking for not just experience, but we're looking for those intangibles like culture and will it be a good chemistry fit? And that's found on, in a lot of ways, social media. So John, as we are looking at different social media posts and those sort of things, are you mainly looking for red flags? Are you mainly looking for green flags?

Jon
Good question. Always both. I would say in that first initial, I'm looking for red flags. Yeah, I was gonna say, I'm also, I'm looking for red flags, but if I find green flags when I'm not looking for them, that's when I start to get excited. So for me, the things change after the phone screen. So for me, it's resume, check the social media, then I make a phone call. And I usually don't give them a heads up. Sometimes if I can't get a hold of them, I'll shoot an email or a text and say, can we arrange a time to talk in the next couple of days? But I keep my phone screens to about 15 minutes, so it's just, hey, how you doing? You know, tell them who I am and ask them to tell me a little bit about themselves and just let them talk a little bit, see what the experience is like, ask them, you know, tell me the last place you worked, what did you like, what did you not like. You know, I just pick some very basic stuff and I say what what interested you about this position? And then I'll give them a short spiel on What's great about the position and just kind of get you a little bit Yeah, all that should take about 15 minutes and in that 15 minutes you glean a lot Is this somebody who you know doesn't share much information? Is this somebody who does share a lot of information is this person fun to talk to you not fun to talk to?

Ryan
You just you learn so much just there's that personal connection that you can't find. And I always like to find out, like, you know, what do you know about peace? Why do you think you'd be a good fit? Because that question exposes a lot. Exposes how much they know about the church, exposes what they know about themselves, and where there's gonna be a strong connection. And for me, that is like, I almost know at that point if this is gonna go the distance or not. But you have to talk to someone. Like you have to talk to someone. And I know that a culture is emerging that's like a verse to speaking on the phone. As long as we're in charge and the ones doing the hiring, you're gonna have to get over that and understand you're gonna talk to someone on the phone. You better be good at it because your ability to acquire this position is in a lot of ways contingent on your ability to have a conversation over the phone. I like to hear what they know about the position and why they think it'd be a good fit because I'm looking to know are they right about the position? Yeah, are they just taking like a general knowledge of what this position is like Broadly or and or do they know what it's exactly like at our church in our specific setting and are how interested are they? Actually, you know, do they actually go on the website or they just fire off a resume? Oh my goodness So when I was the executive pastor, after our worship guy left, we got some resumes for the worship position, and I'm thinking, this person has no idea who we are as a church. Like what they brought and what they said, I think they heard that a church is hiring, and they just sent us the resume without checking us out at all. And that's just like, it's a little frustrating too, because I'm like, stop wasting our time. I want to say to this person, I think if you looked at us, you wouldn't have sent this. And so, know who you're applying to. Know them well, and know exactly why you're the best candidate for that. Not just because of the experience, but because of the fit. Because I think a lot of people are really great at articulating their experience, and that's wonderful, I need to hear that, but I need to know that you know why you would be a specific fit for this. I wanna know that you understand this position as it is at our church, not just as it is generally, broadly, and how you and your unique wiring is gonna be the specific fit for this position at this church. That's what I wanna hear.

Jon
Right, right. So for us, thinking about the rest of the process then, once you've made it that far, for me it becomes 90% about culture.

Ryan
Yeah, exactly.

Jon
You know, if I've seen your resume and you've got the right experience, training, that kind of stuff, if you've made it through the phone interview, then you come in for that interview, and I'm that first interview, and I wanna, I just wanna see if your culture fit.

Ryan
It's helpful to hear that, yeah. It's helpful to hear that stuff, but that's not what's gonna win you the position now.

Jon
Right.

Ryan
Because everyone else we're having this conversation with has the experience we're looking for. Now we're looking for are you the right fit? Are you the right culture fit? Are you going to provide the chemistry that's going to build into the team at large? Those are the things we're looking for and so I would say you know when you interview definitely rehash your experience. It's important but you need to understand at least for us and I'd say we're not the only ones we want to know why you are going to be a good fit here. And that needs to be articulated through your knowledge of the organization, through the church, your own self-awareness, and your ability to articulate that.

Jon
There's a lot of stuff we can teach you, and there's an awful lot of stuff you can learn on YouTube. But culture, that's something that's got to kind of be in there.

Ryan
Absolutely.

Jon
So, I'll share mine first. Pastor Ryan, what are some of your favorite questions we ask for culture? I'll share mine first. My favorite question that I ask everybody in the first interview, whenever I'm in the interview is—

Ryan
It's going to be the same one I'm going to say.

Jon
Is tell me what the gospel is in two sentences. Or I'll say it, depending on who it is, I might also say, tell me what the gospel is in a couple sentences. Or I'll say, hey, if you were standing in an elevator and you were going to just tell somebody about Jesus, what would you say? How would you share the gospel in a few sentences?

Ryan
Yep, yep. I've been in a number of interviews with you and you always generally lead off that question or you get to it very quickly. For me, it's similar to that. I think we're pointed in the same direction. We're not going to get the same things from this, but I like to ask, who are some pastors you like to listen to or authors you like to read? That kind of will expose, are you in our camp or are you in proximity to our camp or not?

Jon
If they say Oprah, that's usually the end of the interview.

Ryan
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one of my big questions. And then that, I think, leads to a lot of different things. So going back to your question, because working in church world, if a person doesn't know the gospel, then there's other things we want to share with them, but it's not going to be a job offer. So those are a couple questions. What else? Yeah, so the other ones, one of the ones I ask is I'll say to them, hey, here at Peace Church, Pastor Ryan tends to not shy away from controversial topics like divorce or homosexuality or gender or things like that or how how do you feel about that what do you think about how do you think churches ought to address topics like that yeah and just see where it goes yeah and I think when we talked about that was interesting to hear the response but there's also a dot that I think we've often had to actually connect for people that they miss is to say okay that's who we are as a church we're going to address the hot topic, relevant things of our day. And we're always gonna preach the eternal truth of scripture. But we're also gonna address the hot topics of our day. How do you respond to that? People are usually like, yeah, churches need to talk more about that sort of stuff. But then the dot we have to connect is like, okay, well, the fact that you're gonna work at peace at our church is you're gonna be connected to the, and I'll use this term, and I know it puts off certain people, but follow me, you're connected to the brand. Like you're gonna be known as a person who works at that church. Can you joyfully bear that burden? Well, and this is another one

Jon
where their tone also tells us a lot. Yeah, exactly. They go, oh, well, yeah, I guess that'd be okay. Yeah, yeah. You know, we kinda know where they're at.

Ryan
There was this one guy, and I don't wanna share too much, he worked in the public sphere, put it that way. He worked in a public sphere. I said it to him, and you'll be known as a guy who works here. How's that gonna work in your other areas? And he said, you know, it's about time I start feeling some heat from my faith. Oh dude, you're hired. You're hired right now, I don't care what else you have to say. Like that's all I needed to hear. That got me fired up. And I think, you know, is it safe to say this, John? I think we've kind of highlighted this a couple times. While interviews can last, man, a half an hour, 45 minutes, or longer, we're really looking for one or two things. Yeah. If not one phrase can make it, can literally make it or break it, and that's, I think, can be scary, because it's like every word has to be measured, but it's also like, man, at some point, you could just be like, say the thing that we know is gonna lead to a great partnership. Just be who you are and say what you're thinking.

Jon
Well, that's what we're looking for, right? Is for them to be who they are. So actually, I mean, if anybody's listening to this and trying to take away how to do an interview, the answer is just be who you are, because that's just it. You can't fake answers to questions like, what is the gospel, or are you on board with the church preaching about hell?

Ryan
Because that goes back to the culture fit. If you are who you are and you're a fit, it's gonna happen because of who you are. And that's what we're looking for. Because even those who lack some of the experience, you're gonna get that here. And so we're willing to work with people who have less experience but who are a great fit.

Jon
So I'll talk just a little bit more about the rest of the process. So we do that first interview, and we have everybody at the end of every interview, this is a policy we've developed, is the candidate walks out and usually somebody walks them to the door and thanks them and stuff, but then everybody else sits in the room and you fill out a sheet, we call it our interview evaluation form, and it's our way to avoid groupthink, so we don't want to just go around the table and have the first person who speaks wins, they're just like, what do you think, do you think it was good? Oh yeah, it was good, and everybody says, yeah, sure. It was good. Yeah, we go around the room and you you have to fill out a form that you rate the person in 10 different areas. Before you even process. That's right. Before you speak. So then after everybody fills out the form and puts it in a pile, then, you know, you can do a little discussion at the table there. But that's the way that we avoid groupthink. And it also creates a record for us. So if I so for me as the executive pastor, if I'm not in an interview or participate very much in a specific hiring process, then when we get to the end of the process, they actually, they present that packet of forms to me and I read through those before I sign off on them getting hired. So that's the end of every interview and then we go to a second or third interview after that and we have some different guidelines that you have to involve people, not just from your own department, but other departments, involve some of the HR staff, maybe even involve key volunteers from that area of ministry, try to mix it up, men, women, you know, just try to get a blend of people to see this person.

Ryan
Yep, and then however many interviews that is, two or three typically, it concludes with one final conversation with me and you, and that is our last chance to kind of make sure that this is gonna be a great culture fit. I don't know if there's ever been a time where me and you weren't on the same page, even during the interview being like, yep, this is gonna work. And then we typically will extend the offer right then and there. But I think we're both prepared if things aren't going well to just say, well, thank you. We'll follow up and then we'll process. But we kind of give each other a glance. Yeah. And we know, yeah, let's go ahead and just extend the offer. Let's get it happen. Yeah, it's funny. We haven't had a single time yet, I don't think, where we've had to ask the person to step out and we discuss it. Yeah. The rest of our.

Jon
We're prepared for that. Yeah.

Ryan
But we haven't had to have that happen.

Jon
Right. We usually know right in the room what each other is thinking about it.

Ryan
And that gives me a lot of confidence in our team and our process. They're not bringing us candidates that elicit any questions for us.

Jon
Right. But our staff knows that if I, I don't know if you know this, but actually our code is when we walk out of the room, if I walk them to the right towards our operations office, they know that it's a yes. And so they're going down to sign paperwork. If I walk them to the left, they're going towards the door, and that was a no.

Ryan
Is that, do the staff actually know that? Did you share that with them? Yeah, yeah, our operations staff does at least.

Jon
Okay, I mean, I've seen you do that,

Ryan
but that actually, I didn't know that was a known thing. Yeah. Cool, cool.

Jon
So you bring them down to our operations director,

Ryan
who's the head of our HR, and he starts. We do the paperwork, yeah,

Jon
and then probably conversation for another time, but we talk about onboarding, and then we got a gift bag for them, and we got some paperwork for them,

Ryan
and all that kind of good stuff. We want them to be excited walking out, not just nervous, but excited. So John, we've been doing this a long time, I think we've narrowed down, and we've got a pretty good system in place. What are some unhealthy or bad hiring practices?

Ryan
Yeah.

Jon
Oh man, my mind flashes to a few that I've participated in.

Ryan
Let me lead off with my knee-jerk reaction to that, and see if it's one that you resonate with. That every single resume should result in an interview. Sure. No way.

Jon
That's one of them, yeah, definitely.

Ryan
If you feel the need to have to interview every person that applies, that's not healthy. Yeah.

Jon
Well, and I think connected to that is the first thing I thought of was having the wrong people in charge of the hiring process or involved in the hiring process. Leads to a lot of problems. You know, if you've got, you know, at different size churches you got to do this in different ways, but if you're if you're gonna involve people and do a, you know, quote-unquote committee style hiring process, you know, we make sure and involve lots of people in our hiring processes, but we make sure that one

Ryan
person is the person who's in charge and responsible for that process.

Ryan
Yeah.

Jon
I would suggest the same thing for any other group. You got to pick, if you use a team, always use a team. Don't just have one person do a hiring process, but put somebody in charge. Make that person responsible for the hire and make sure it's the right person. I've been a part of hiring processes where it went through and actually, I'll just be honest, I was on the receiving end of a hiring process, which the people who were interviewing me were not ultimately had any power, authority, or responsibility for me as a person who was about to come on the staff. So, went through the hiring process and came to the end and realized, boy, these people will just start. They have nothing to do with this once I signed the paper. Interesting. Interesting.

Ryan
So, like, for instance, us, we are, and I think this is something maybe some pastors or churches need to hear, like we involve volunteers in the hiring process if they're involved in that area and gonna be part of the team that this person's working with. That, for me, has been a help for that. Now, again, these are volunteers who are invested, committed, we know they're gonna be here for the long haul, they're members of the church, and I think not having that would be a bad practice. I think you need to have that level. When we talk about the team, it's not just the upper level leaders, it's the people at the, and you know what I'm saying, at the ground level, being a part of this conversation as well. What are some flags that you would hear or unhealthy aspects of an interview hiring process? Oh, let me say one thing real quick. I meant to say this earlier. So everyone who applies or sends in their resume, what do we do once that actually comes in? Like what's the automatic response when a resume comes in? Oh, sure, yeah. We try to communicate well with the candidates. So as soon as one comes in,

Jon
they get an automatic reply email from my assistant that just says, hey, thanks so much for applying. We've received your resume and we'll be in touch if or when we wanna. We have a further question. So there's no promise of a response at all.

Ryan
Nothing to the effect of,

Ryan
if we believe you're a possible candidate, you'll hear within five days. It's literally just acknowledgement that we've received it. Correct. And if we wanna follow up, you will hear from us. Correct. Meaning if you don't hear from us, we're not gonna follow up. Yes, that is what it means. As I think about unhealthy processes, I think one process that might be in place in some churches is that the boss of this person or the director of port isn't involved in the hiring process. That it's maybe just the entire elder board or a separate committee who's in charge of hiring this person and now they're just handing this new hire to a person that has to oversee them and they were never involved in the process. That for me is, I would never work at a church like that. I think that's a, it feels like there's a weird power, an unhealthy power dynamic in the midst of that. You're excluding important voices from speaking into this conversation. And so I would think that, again, kind of what we talked about earlier, that's not just one sole group of people, but there's a plethora, a plurality of people who are involved in discerning this, both elder, pastor, staff, and volunteer.

Ryan
Yeah.

Ryan
Volunteer meaning, you know, congregation member.

Jon
Yeah, yeah, I can think of, so having served in large churches as well as smaller churches, I can think of serving in smaller churches, things that I've heard board members as well as church members say about hiring processes. I've heard them say things like, well, we don't want the lead pastor to be in charge of the hiring process because what if he leaves? Then the staff member that they hired is going to leave too. I've heard comments like that. But I mean, here's the thing. If you're hiring, you've got a great lead pastor, you want them to go build a team that is also great. I was going to say, if you let the pastor build the team, he's less likely to leave. Right. That's the whole thing. That's the upside down nature of that sort of thinking. You think you're protecting yourself from one thing, but you're actually making it more likely. Exactly. Yeah. So I think we hit some of the unhealthy things that we try to avoid or that we would tell people to avoid. process. You know, the joys of hiring are great and the stress is also great because I'm trying to think of Vanderbilt who said something to the effect of it's that churches hire too quickly and fire too slowly. Yeah. You end up hiring too quickly and now you have to enter into a process of letting the person go and that happens too slowly. So a good hiring process not only makes your church more healthy, but it saves a lot of heartache. Way more expensive to hire the wrong person than it is to take a long time to find the right person. Oh yeah, absolutely. So Pastor John, are you saying that if anyone has questions they're free to reach out to you? You are the proven expert in the midst of this. Oh, I don't know about that, but I've been down a few roads, so yeah, happy to help.

Ryan
Okay, so Pastor John, here's something that's happened. You've got someone at the church who we all, that is very much loved, faithful, committed to the church. They apply for a position and we know it's not the right fit. Yeah. Those are, I think, some of the hardest conversations, emotionally speaking.

Jon
How do you have those? Yeah, the best thing to do is to have that conversation clean and clear and direct, usually. So it depends on the situation for us. I think everyone's been unique. We've been through this. You know, sometimes we do the interview because we want to give the person a chance. You know, we might think it's the wrong fit, but we say, hey, you know what, let's do an interview and let's just see. Let's just make sure that we're our instincts are right. Sometimes they could surprise us. And so sometimes it's as simple as saying, you know what, we went through the interview process and saying, you know what, there was a better candidate and a brother or sister, we love you, we appreciate you, but there was just a better candidate for the position and we went with that person, but we're so glad you're a part of our church. We love you. So glad you serve as a volunteer. So that's one way that happens sometimes. Other times it's not quite as easy to go that route. Sometimes you have to just sit them down and just say, hey, we love you, we appreciate you. We're so glad you're a part of our church. We're so glad that you serve. We don't think serving on staff is the right fit for you.

Ryan
And so we're gonna keep looking.

Ryan
Yeah.

Ryan
Yeah, and I think it's appropriate to recognize that those can be emotional. Oh yeah. For the person hearing that. From our side, those are painful conversations. We don't like to have them. But we wanna make sure people are always in the right position, whether that's serving, just using their gifts as a volunteer, or using their gifts on staff.

Jon
Awesome. Well, hey, thanks Pastor Ryan for the conversation. Thanks Pastor John. Thanks everybody for listening. Great getting to chat with you. This has been Live Leadership, where we talk about live leadership issues that we're facing on a day-to-day basis. We're not the pros, we're not the experts, but we're facing it right here, right now, and so we'd love to talk about it and get to share it with you. Thanks so much.

Jon
Have an awesome day.

Mitchell
Can the work of Jesus, can salvation be secure? Live Leadership is a production of the Resound Podcast Network. Live Leadership is a production of the Resound Podcast Network. To find more podcasts or other gospel-centered media, head to resound.cc.




Transcribed with Cockatoo