Every church faces times of needing to hire new staff. Sometimes you are coming off a bad experience and you are looking for a staff member who can really be an addition to your staff. Sometimes your church is growing in a new ministry area and you need a staff member who can immediately jump in and take on those responsibilities. Whatever your situation, consider the best ways to add quality staff to your team.
Whenever possible, hire from within. If your church has a well-developed leadership pipeline or a residency program, choose your new staff member from your available pool of leaders. These individuals already know the culture of your church and can quickly integrate into your existing staff. If you have individuals with high talent and high capacity, use them!
If you are a newer church plant, you need to consider hiring from outside. Even though you may have church members who know your culture, if they don’t have ministry experience, you will spend a lot of time training them when you really need more help in the early stages of your church plant. Expand your staff search outside the church and hire someone with ministry experience who can immediately jump in and release you from some of your ministry responsibilities
Mark Zuckerberg said, “I’ve adopted this hiring rule which is that you should never hire someone to work for you unless you would work for them in an alternate universe.” Grow your self-awareness and be realistic about your own giftedness so that you will be willing to hire people who are smarter than you and who you could see yourself working for. This can be a difficult challenge due to not knowing your own blind spots, but consider how you can learn more about your personality and leadership style through assessments that will allow you to hire people who will help lead your staff effectively.
Adapted from the New Churches Q&A PodcastEpisode 407:Hiring Quality Staff.Click hereto listen to more to church planting, multisite, and multiplication tips.