Attention to Details

Managing staff is both difficult and wonderful work. In one sense, you and your staff are living together under the same banner of our Lord and in the soccer field (you can see this illustration on this web site under the resources tab) of values and goals that the leadership board has ordained. It can be great.

Here are some things I’ve learned over the years which might be helpful to you. I call this list the Miscellaneous Majors:

• Celebrate! Every staff meeting should have some good news for which to thank the Lord.
• Pray together regularly, especially about Sunday services. If possible, include all secretaries, maintenance staff, assistants, and part-time people for this once-a-week prayer time. The Sunday worship service is usually the one event of the week that everyone owns and is a part of in real ways.
• It’s amazing how much more gets done if we don’t care who gets the credit, and if we really want Jesus Christ to have the glory.
• Most staff problems start with personality differences or little irritations. Perhaps one of the reasons Jesus told us to go to the person who offends us is that He was thinking ahead to the idea of the church staff. But to prevent the necessity of having people running around settling offences most of the day, perhaps we should encourage our staff to not be so easily offended.
• If you are the head pastor or leader of your ministry, use “we” when referring to staff or goals or vision, not “I.” Don’t call the people on your team “my staff.” Refer to them as “our staff,” and include yourself as one of them.
• Fight for the benefits and salaries of staff members at the bottom of the ladder. Often church boards or finance teams will reward the main leadership but forget about the others who can barely make a living.
• Don’t ask people to work harder than you do or to do things that you would not be willing to do.
• Honor the spouses of your staff at least once a year with a dinner or retreat.
• Put in writing your policy on how criticisms of staff will be handled. It’s a tough situation, because the obvious desire to have them go to the staff person has already been neglected.
• Do not pay women on staff less than you would pay a man doing the same kind of work or with the same span of responsibility. Surely God would not condone that.
• Eat and have fun together often. Most weekly staff meetings benefit from being a brownbag lunch, because good relationships and fellowship happen over meals. Even if it’s just PB & J!