Intentional Churches Podcast

ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:00:00] I was in Brazil this last week. There was only one church I encountered that had a staff there, a church of probably 6000 people, and they had, I think, five staff members. But I was watching and I was asking, how is this? How is this a thing? Like, what are you guys doing to create this kind of culture where it's not so dependent on the staff or even the pastor? Well. Hey everyone, welcome to the International Churches Podcast. My name is Erin Johnston and I am here with my friend Doug Parks. What's up Doug. [00:00:32][32.4]
DOUG PARKS: [00:00:33] Hey Erin, how are you doing? [00:00:34][1.3]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:00:35] I am good. [00:00:35][0.5]
DOUG PARKS: [00:00:36] You jet at all? [00:00:37][0.8]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:00:37] Yeah. I just got back from a nice trip to Brazil. I don't know if any of you have been to Brazil, but it's a beautiful place, and I pretty much eat fried bread and cheese for a week, so feeling good about what was life decisions. [00:00:50][12.9]
DOUG PARKS: [00:00:51] I'm glad you made it back. [00:00:52][0.8]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:00:53] Yes, well, we are in season three of our podcast, and in this season we are really trying to wrap our arms around questions that church leaders are asking. We honestly could go on and on and on and on for days, for weeks, for months about questions. Because, if you're a listener on this podcast, you know, there is no shortage of challenge and church leadership. And so we're just trying to tackle some of the questions, some of the, like, most pressing things that church leaders are facing. And so today, we are going to kind of continue a conversation. We have started in other ways around future church leaders, and where are we going to get future church leaders from? But today, we're going to kind of turn the corner a little bit into maybe a more a directive conversation around this. What do we do if we are short staffed? Now, I just want to pause and say, for a lot of our listeners, I just wonder, wherever you're listening to this, listening to this at just raise your hand in your car or wherever you're listening, if you're short staffed. And I imagine that 98% of the people listening to this podcast are like, yes, we are short staffed, so what are we going to do if we're short staffed and if our church is short staffed? What are the things that we must do? What are the things we can't lose sight of? What are the things we can't forget about? And so, before we really dive in, Doug, would you just speak to this idea of of being short staffed and what you're seeing in churches across the country, about this kind of epidemic of churches being really, really short staffed. What are you noticing as you visit churches? [00:02:24][91.1]
DOUG PARKS: [00:02:25] Yeah, well, you're exactly right. Every church leader I talk to talks about being short staffed, not able to find people. However, I am always, challenging to the concept that we're short staffed, and I want to start it off by just some, some principles we live by, or kind of some old school ratios. And that is, some of the old timers like, Wynn and Charles are and, Lyle Schaller, who were kind of the church growth original people did a lot of. Surveying and research around some of these things, and they came up with a ratio of, you should have one full time equivalent for every 100 average week in attendance, including babies, kids, students, everybody. And if you could get to that ratio, then you were right sized staffed. Now we've taken that a little further because inside of international churches, the our churches we call to be developmental of people like to develop developers of people. And so I usually target 1 to 115 average weekend attendance. So let's start there first and let's be objectified about what are the right ratios. And here's the unintended consequence. Let's say you do your math and you're 1 to 75. I would say that church typically is probably over programed which means it's probably catering to more of a Christian consumeristic mentality. And then you are in essence in our modeling you're in essence. Paying people to do the work of ministry instead of equipping the saints to do the work of ministry in our language, we would say it's hurting. Piston three the surrendered living the selfless side where giving of my time talent is part of the transformation of my heart. Because I have to die to self and surrender there. So I'm sorry to go down this little tangent area, but I just feel like it's let's objectify. What does it mean to be under staff first? And, yeah, I'd be interested when you hear me give it a ratio like that. How do you, respond to this? Because I know, like, you're right now looking for staff, right? [00:04:43][138.7]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:04:44] Yeah. Of course. Yeah, I actually love it. I think. Every person listening before they jump into. What should we do if we're short? Staff should be asking this question. Do you even know what your ratios are? Do you have an idea of how you're sitting? Because I think, and I am guilty of this, the first thing we run to when we feel a, like a pain point or a problem, or it feels like something is spiraling out of control. I think often in this, in the church in America today, it's like, well, we need a staff member. If we plug a staff member in, that will fix the pain point, that will fix the problem, that will fix these people over here going rogue or whatever, a staff member. And I just I just want to agree with you, Doug, and push back on that. That thinking that I personally have had staff members don't fix problems. They just in some places we do need staff. So don't hear me say we should just shouldn't have any staff members. Of course we should. [00:05:40][56.0]
DOUG PARKS: [00:05:41] I agree, and yeah. [00:05:42][1.0]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:05:42] And, I think we need to look again. I think we've made some assumptions about what what makes it so that we would know we need to hire a staff member. How are we thinking strategically about hiring staff and not just saying, well, we have the money, so let's and we have a person we like, so let's let's give them authority. Let's pay them to do the job. So with that frame, I think if you're listening, maybe you should just pause before you continue in this conversation and figure out what our ratios are. We actually understaffed or do we just feel like we are because we have maybe other problems or challenges that need addressed? Doug, I think you just hit on something that I just want to continue down the road. If we're short staffed or we feel like we might be understaffed or say our ratios really are off, you know, we don't have one staff member for every 115, people in our weekend attendance. What are the things, what are the essentials that we must hold on to? We've already acknowledged in this season that that there is a shortage of church leaders. And so there are going to be times when we really are missing a key leader that we really need to help us move the mission forward. What are the essentials? What are the things we cannot forget to do in the urgency or in the scarcity of of feeling or experiencing being understaffed? What are the things we cannot afford to, like, let go of? [00:07:06][83.4]
DOUG PARKS: [00:07:07] Well, I think it's some of the stuff we've talked about in previous episodes. I just sort of highlight again, we got to remember in when you're on a church staff and you're leading in a church, we're in the business of transformed hearts that Jesus, the spirit, the gospel transformed people's hearts. So when I' m thinking about being understaffed, I need to think about and take a temperature also on how are we doing developmentally of the people that we currently have, including volunteers. Now here's the the danger that I found often is somehow a lot of volunteers in my church would have the mindset that maybe someday I could be a church staff member as if that were a dream or a goal. And so that's a pitfall I'd be really careful of fostering, but I think the the developmental side is the essential. And how do we we have to have the mentality as church leaders of how are we handing off ministry, not, how are we just getting a job done? More and more. [00:08:13][65.8]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:08:14] Yeah. I think that's so good. And in, seasons where we feel urgent or we feel like there's scarcity around us, that is really, really easy to start flowing out to the people in our congregation, and then suddenly they are like, oh, there's a scarcity or, oh, we're in a hurry for no good reason or whatever. Like, I think we really have to guard. We might feel those things as church leaders, and I think we have to guard, like, how much does that kind of infiltrate our language in the way we show up? Because if we say, well, we're waiting on this staff member, we're waiting to make this higher before we do this thing. I think that language communicates to people in our church. You don't need to contribute to the solution. We're just going to go out. We're going to find someone to to come back and and be the solution. Instead. How do we invite every single person in any area? Say you're looking for a student pastor, and it's a season of we don't have a student pastor right now, and we don't really have someone internally that's ready to be the student pastor. Okay, how are you inviting all of those small group leaders, even the students, to contribute to moving the ministry forward while you wait to raise up a student pastor? I think we just kind of hit full stop, full pause. Well, we'll we'll pick those things back up when we hire the right person. No, no, no, no, that communicates to people. You don't have to contribute. You don't have to to help. And that's what breeds this consumer mindset. And so how do we get people in the game to contribute even right now? [00:09:40][86.5]
DOUG PARKS: [00:09:42] Erin, I just think you just you're so spot on. And I see it all the time in it's usually in a bigger church where everything. Kind of goes in maintenance mode for that ministry. For example, the youth ministry is perfect where it just goes on like kind of the vision becomes the new leader instead of, you know, real practical tip is that I would give church leaders, like, think like a church planter, like you don't have enough money, you don't have a new enough resource. How would you still advance student ministry if you were a church planter? And if we can bring that mentality into an existing church more, instead of waiting on the new leader suddenly to provide everything we can, we can. It will help in our developmental mindset. And it's not placing too much emphasis on pay. The paid pastorate, which could be a whole nother conversation of how the American church, I believe, is replicating. Generations worth of church leadership, where the modern paid pastorate is a lot considered, like priests in the Catholic Church, where it's only we can do certain things, and the people they can't do these things as opposed to what what we really should be doing is equipping them. And I have a question for you. I've heard you saying a lot, and that is you use a word that I don't know that every church leader is that familiar with the word agency. And that that is a big deal in this conversation around staffing for you as a leader. So first off what do you mean by the word agency. And then how does that apply in this conversation about being understaffed. [00:11:21][99.3]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:11:23] Yeah. when I think of the word agency I think of the concept of freedom or permission to act. So if someone has agency, they, they already have the freedom they receive whatever quote unquote permission they need to act to do something, to engage, to be activated. And so if someone in your church has agency, it means they're not waiting on a leader to give them permission to take the next step. But they have permission to act. They have permission to to bring the best of who they are and to do something with it. And so we could talk about agency on our staff, like how much agency do our staff members have? That's a whole other conversation. But I think people in our church, how much freedom do they have to show up and contribute? Do they have to jump through a hundred hoops to be able to to jump in? How clear is it for somebody to show up and say, I have something to offer? And so I think a great example of this is, I was in Brazil this last week and got to, just witness the church in Brazil. And it's just feels important to mention, like God is moving. The church in Brazil is just so alive. It's just pretty exciting. But one of the really interesting things is there are giant churches in Brazil. There's a bunch of small churches, a bunch of giant churches, just like here. And even the giant churches have tiny, if not non-existent staffs. The pastor most pastors in Brazil are by vocational hmhm, even in bigger churches. So they work at that full time, really as the church, you know, as the pastor. But they're not paid full time. And then they have another job that they keep. And there was only one church I encountered that had a staff there, a church of probably 6000 people, and they had, I think, five staff members. [00:13:07][104.5]
DOUG PARKS: [00:13:08] Wow. [00:13:08][0.0]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:13:08] So your ratios are not very different. [00:13:11][2.9]
DOUG PARKS: [00:13:12] Smithereens. [00:13:12][0.0]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:13:13] Yes, exactly. But I was watching and I was asking, how is this, how is this a thing? Like, what are you guys doing to create this kind of culture where it's not so dependent on the staff or even the pastor, and it's just so profound. It was like, well, if people want this experience and want to have church, they're going to have to contribute. They're going to have to do something. And if they want the people that they love to have this experience, they're going to have to show up and help make the experience happen. It's that simple. So if you like coming here and you like what you experienced, you better help make it happen for the next person. And so that is definitely a cultural reality. But I think the American church can learn something from that. And so I bring that back to the agency conversation, because no one shows up in that church and thinks, I can't do something here. I have nothing to offer here. But instead they're invited in. And on week one, they are invited to join a community of believers in a group, and they're invited to sign up to serve week one, and they're invited to come back and serve that next week and contribute so that someone else can have the same experience that they had. And so we could get into that. That could be a whole other episode on the Brazilian church. But there's something to be learned that we are living with some assumptions that a staff is the only way to do this, because there are churches around the world who are the same size or bigger than our churches, who are thriving, who are engaging people who are reaching their communities, and they're not dependent on church staff alone. [00:14:37][84.4]
DOUG PARKS: [00:14:38] Yeah. It's you're spot on. Like we have church in Central Florida to a partner church. I see that, they have a Spanish speaking campus. It's pretty sizable. It's like 1500 and very few staff. And it's amazing when I facilitated for that group almost entirely leadership or volunteers, they are all deeply engaged. And, it's just a different mindset than like, as when I lived in, local church, we we just didn't do that. And I don't know why why that is. I'm curious though. Yeah. You've had this pain. I know, because we we have, known each other for a while. What are how are you thinking about the question right now as a leader of how am I going to solve being understaffed? I'm hearing us kind of hit on this. You know, strategy number one, we need a more developmental mindset. We need to be raising up our leaders from within us. Okay. Yeah, but I'm going to flip the script on you and ask as you've been understaffed for a while and searching for positions. What are some of the practical tactics you're taking to try to fill those positions right now? [00:15:57][79.2]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:15:59] Yeah, I think that's a great question. I would say one of the things we're trying to do is figure out any place that we have a position that we're hoping to hire that is not currently. We don't have someone in that role. We are trying to use that. Every single moment is a learning opportunity to to really say, so what is it that we actually need? Like as we are living without this position, what are we learning about what this position actually would offer us and actually what it doesn't need to step in and offer? What of this have we been able to to hand off to volunteers? What of this? Have we been able have we realized, man, we actually don't need to do that anymore. And so I would say, for for church leaders listening, if you have vacancies, you shouldn't just be assuming that, especially if you have a vacancy for over six months or a year, your needs might be different by the time you come to a place of filling that vacancy. And so you should be learning and asking great questions all the way along the way. What do we actually need? Have our needs changed? Have we handed some of this off to other people in in our church, so that the staff member doesn't need to fill this whole role. And so there's actually been a couple of positions with time that we have decided we actually don't need that. The other thing I would say is when someone steps off your staff that carries a particular role, our instinct is to say, we need to rehire that position. What if you took 3 to 6 months to just learn? Once that person has stepped off staff. Do we still need that role? Do we still need that role to look the same? What about that role should change? What about that role? Should we invite volunteers to step into. So we don't just have to to fill it in, you know, just fill it right away. And so I would just say challenging assumptions is something, I'm working on just trying to ask great questions. Does that answer your question, Doug? [00:17:46][107.8]
DOUG PARKS: [00:17:47] Yeah. It's it's really a good mindset. Have you actually done what you just said? Like, really. And give us an example of, like, what happened. [00:17:57][9.7]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:17:59] With which one? [00:17:59][0.6]
DOUG PARKS: [00:18:00] Either one. I don't care. [00:18:01][0.8]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:18:01] Okay. Yeah. So, we are in a season at Canyon Ridge where, we have had no student pastors for six months. We we haven't had a middle school pastor for a year and a half, and we haven't had a high school pastor for six months. And, the temptation was to just rehire both of those roles and middle school pastor and high school pastor. And instead, we have just recently made a shift, and we are going to hire a student pastor in the season. And then we're working on developing and raising up some other people. We already have to see what other things could they step into, what other leadership could they step into. And so we've changed our student staffing structure, in this season to kind of because we've answered some of those questions and looked at what do we actually need and who do we already have? And in our walls, we don't have two people just ready to step into student pastor roles. Okay, so let's bend. Let's adjust the team. Let's invite more volunteer presence. And so that's kind of the most immediate example I could give you. [00:18:58][56.5]
DOUG PARKS: [00:18:58] it's great. It sounds, scary. [00:19:00][1.6]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:19:02] It's terrifying. [00:19:02][0.2]
DOUG PARKS: [00:19:03] Yeah, yeah. That's it. [00:19:04][1.2]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:19:05] And you have to be living to be willing to live in, in a mode of. Oof! We definitely have some lack right now. You know, we definitely feel something missing. But I think that in those moments, we're actually required to look more at what is essential right now, you know? So, Doug, as we kind of turn the corner on this conversation into the more practical side, for for church leaders or people listening that really are understaffed right now or really are living in this kind of the in-between of waiting for to fill positions or hoping to create new positions or whatever the case may be. What's what's the first couple things you would tell those people to do? [00:19:43][38.0]
DOUG PARKS: [00:19:44] Well, other than some of the the intervention kind of trying to change mindset that we've already covered? I would say, okay, if you're going to get down to literally, okay, we need to fill this position and we don't have the money to go hire search firm or we're not going to do that as a first step. I, a good friend of ours, Dave Miller, is at Leadership Pathway. He has this little exercise that I'd encourage everyone to do, and that is sit down. Your staff, give them ten minutes of clear time and a piece of paper or a computer, laptop or whatever, and then have them list out two columns. One is who are people, you know who potentially could fill this role. And then the secondary column, who are people you know, who are well networked. And I've found just time and time again, giving space for people to think, your staff to think, including you. And then that question, who are the people we know who are of influence or could help fill this role? We will generate oftentimes a list to follow up with that. I don't know, 2050 names that then you can begin doing the old school shake in the relational network tree. That's what we all used to do. And people still do, to get there. That's a really pragmatic, tip that we've, we've seen again and again. It's really helped. [00:21:12][87.2]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:21:13] Yeah. We we just did that. We just use that, tool and we actually made a hire out of it. Did you really? We knew. Yeah. Somebody we knew knew somebody. And so we were able to make a production hire out of it. And it's really awesome. So yes, I can't recommend that enough. Well, Doug, this conversation has been fun. Kind of debunking some myths about what it means to be understaffed. Looking at some, maybe some ways to reframe our thinking around staffing and how we think about being understaffed and what we do right now while we wait, what kind of questions we ask, what assumptions we need to challenge as we, seek to continue to raise up leaders all around us. And so thanks for listening to the Intentional Churches podcast. It's been fun to chat. Thanks, Doug, for hanging out today. [00:21:54][41.5]
DOUG PARKS: [00:21:55] Thanks, Erin. So glad you're back. [00:21:57][1.4]
ERIN JOHNSTON: [00:21:57] Yeah. Thanks, listeners. We'll see you soon. [00:21:57][0.0]
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