Staffing a Small Church, Part 2:

When to Move from Volunteers with Paid Staff

Rev. Dr. Jack L. Daniel

I know of a small New England church that received an unexpected bequest of $5 million. The giver was an elderly gentleman who had only a remote connection to the church. Apparently, the church had ministered to his family in the distant past, and he never forgot their kindness. The pastor and church leaders were totally surprised. Almost overnight, they were able to start paying their previously volunteer staff members.

Since that scenario is unlikely to unfold in your church, how do you decide when it is time to start paying your volunteers . . . and how do you do it? Here are some suggestions for the “when.”

WHEN TO PAY STAFF

  • WHEN the Job Is Mission Critical. Decide if the position is essential for the future growth and health of the church. God uses spiritually gifted leaders to advance His church. Don’t jeopardize that growth by penny-pinching positions. Determining whether a position meets those criteria is plainly a judgment call based on the vision and values of the church. As I said in the previous article, “Staffing a Small Church with Volunteers,” I believe the most critical positions are Worship Leader and Children’s Ministry Director, for obvious reasons. Unless you have such leaders in your congregation who are willing to volunteer, you will most likely have to pay them. Less critical jobs like property management and administration may still be left to volunteers.
  • WHEN the Job Has Outgrown the Volunteer. Effective leaders will usually grow their ministries to the point where the job is taking so much time and energy away from family or a full-time career that they can no longer afford to donate their time. Remuneration may make it easier for them to stay on task. This often happened in the course of my long ministry. It was often an easy sell for the Elders to fund the position because the person had already proven his or her value to the church.
  • WHEN the Pastor Is “Waiting on Tables.” Sometimes, urgent ministry needs pull the pastor off his primary job of “prayer and ministry of the word” (Acts 6). The risk to the pastor is burnout. Wise church leaders will quickly see what is happening, and rather than lose their shepherd, they will hire the necessary staff.
  • WHEN an Evangelistic Opportunity Requires a Specialist. Look to see where the Holy Spirit is moving. It may be ministry to an ethnic subculture in the local community or a gospel-receptive demographic in the church. Our church identified young mothers, middle-school children, and divorced people as key demographics whose needs prompted us to hire pastoral care and youth ministry professionals.

HOW TO PAY STAFF

Paying your staff after relying on volunteers to handle ministries certainly presents challenges. But they are not insurmountable, even in a small church.

1. Find the Money. The biggest challenge for most churches is finding the funds to pay staff. I have found that if you have made a hire after much prayer and discussion, and in response to the Lord’s leading, that individual will pay for himself or herself through growth in the church. Let faith overcome fear as you wrestle with your budget.
 
2. Hire from Within. As much as possible, we tried to find candidates within our church family. This was easy if previously volunteer staff persons had done such a great job that they had obviously earned the job. Dismiss the old idea that churches shouldn’t hire from within because if you have to let the person go, it will tear the church apart. My answer to that is, if you hire the right person, you probably won’t have to let them go. We followed that old but wrong advice many years ago in hiring an administrative person. It was a front office position with lots of interface with the congregation, but the qualified pro we hired didn’t know our people and was not the friendly face of the church that we had hoped for. She also lived about 45 minutes away and had a busy home life with a young family. She often had to miss work in the winter because of bad weather and family crises. In the end, and after not too long on the job, she decided to leave. We eventually found someone from the church who had both the admin skills and the people connections, and she ended up serving on staff for many years.
 
3. Hire Carefully. It is far more complicated to let a paid person go than a volunteer. As pastor, be involved in the hiring process. In my former church, there were two votes in the hiring process: the Elders’ vote and my vote. If the Elders were not unanimous, we didn’t hire; if I said no, we didn’t hire. If the candidate is an outsider, vet them thoroughly. Consider three qualities: character, competence, and compatibility. Christian character is primary, but also competence, so look at their credentials and track record. Compatibility is also vital—you want the person to fit the culture of the church. In my experience, compatibility is more often overlooked than the other two traits, usually with bad results.
 
4. Hire on an “Intern” Basis. A trial period built into the contract gives both the candidate and the church an opportunity to see if the hire is a good fit. A six-month or one-year internship should be enough time to decide if the person is called.
 
5. Be Cautious about Hiring Family. Nepotism is tricky in paid positions. The congregation and the leadership have a need and a right to evaluate the person’s performance, but they will be reluctant to criticize a pastor’s wife or children, though they are very likely to grumble. Further, you, as pastor should avoid being in the position of having to defend your family member’s job performance.
 
6. Don’t Merge Staff Positions. It is often tempting to merge different part-time jobs in order to create a full-time position. However, because we all play to our strengths, the job we like will get most of the attention, and the one we don’t will be neglected. I speak from personal experience. My first full-time ministry position was as a youth pastor and Sunday school superintendent. I loved the youth ministry and poured myself into it. I hated counting crayons, recruiting teachers, and ordering Sunday school supplies.
 
7. Hire Specialists. Small churches need only one generalist, and that person is typically the pastor. After that, hire part-time specialists in the areas of ministry the church needs. Trust the Scriptures on the importance of spiritual gifts in the healthy functioning of the church. Look for evidence of gifting in the individuals you are considering hiring to meet specific needs.
 
8. Prevent Salary Comparisons among Staff. When staff are able to compare their compensation with that of other staff, it can cause major problems. We learned the hard way that the solution is to lump all of the staff salaries into one category in the annual report. The Elders made it clear that the individual amounts were only available on a need-to-know basis, and curiosity was not a need-to-know. This saved a lot of jealous comparisons. We also found out—again, the hard way—not to give annual bonuses. In a lean budget year, it was impossible to claw back the bonuses that staff had become accustomed to and depended on. Instead, we looked for better, creative ways to celebrate our staff.
 
9. Have Staff Report to the Pastor, not the Elders. The Elders are too far removed from the day-to-day work of the staff to know precisely what and how they are doing. Staff should report to the pastor, who then reports to the Elders. We would periodically have our staff visit an Elder meeting so that Elders could get better acquainted with and pray for the staff person and so that staffers could briefly but directly report on their ministries.
 
10. Work with Inherited Staff, Until . . . When a new pastor arrives at church, there are typically some staff members already in place. Sad to say, this is often a source of conflict, which is why some denominations require that the whole staff submit their resignations when a new pastor is called. Then, on a case-by-case basis, they may be rehired at the will of the pastor. For most churches, though, that is not the rule. Probably, the key is for a new pastor to arrive with the right attitude of Christ-like humility and a willingness to learn from the existing staff. They were there before you and likely know the church culture far better than you. With your leadership supporting your authority, strive to clarify the expectations you and the staff members have for one another. If a staff member is not able to perform to your legitimate expectations, then, again, with the support of your leadership, train them. If they are not skilled or gifted enough, then the pastor and church leadership have to decide whether to let them go. If the staffer is unwilling to submit to the pastor’s authority, then the leaders must make it clear that there is no place in the Body of Christ for insubordination. Over time, if you are prayerful, patient, and not overly anxious, these situations often resolve themselves one way or another. On the other hand, trying to remove a paid staff member for incompetence or insubordination can be very tricky. Many a new pastor (including this one) has had to resign because he misjudged just how much power and support a secretary or music director had.
 
11. Accept That Your Dream Team Won’t Last Forever. Just like a coach who patiently builds a great sports team, only to have the players scatter after the championship win, so too pastors are continually rebuilding their ministry teams as some members are lured away by bigger churches and others move on to other things. We simply begin again, and again, and again. Keep praying as Jesus instructed us to, asking the “Lord of the Harvest to send workers,” for the harvest is great, and the workers are few.
 
Check out Part 1 of this article: Staffing a Small Church with Volunteers
 

Jack L. Daniel is Field Director for Overseed, a nonprofit ministry organization whose vision is to revitalize historic New England churches by recruiting, training, and supporting godly pastors to serve in their pulpits. He is Pastor Emeritus of Free Christian Church of Andover and North Andover, MA, a congregational church he pastored for 35 years. Jack holds degrees from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (M.Div.) and Andover-Newton Theological School (D.Min. in Pastoral Counseling). Retired from full-time ministry in 2012, he remains passionate about preaching the gospel and coaching younger pastors.