Hiring
What are the best practices for hiring staff? Should you hire from inside or outside the church? Should you hire quickly or take your time, even if it stresses out the staff filling in temporarily? Should you check references and do background checks?
Four Ways to Turn Off Pastoral Candidates
The hiring process of a new pastor or ministry director is like going to a school dance. When you know the candidate, the process is like a high school dance; if you don’t, then the [...]
Why the Apostle Paul Could Not Work at Your Church Today
“I wasn’t able to lead my church during the Christmas Eve service this year.” It was just a few short weeks into the New Year and I was with a pastor friend from a neighboring [...]
Five Common Search Committee Mistakes
In churches, universities and nonprofits across the country, search committees gather with high hopes and the intention to see a great leader chosen to lead their organization. None set out to fail, but in our [...]
How to “Fire” a Church Volunteer
One question I frequently receive when talking about recruiting and retaining church volunteers is what to do about a volunteer who isn't working out. In other words, how do you “fire” a volunteer? This is obviously [...]
Where Shall I Focus My Attention?
At the start of the XPastor Online Course on Operations 101--Staffing, I had been in my current role as Director of Ministry Operations at Calvary Bible Church for fourteen months. Calvary is a multi-campus church [...]
Opportunity Profile
XPastor tries to help churches by providing some of the essentials for running a church—items like job descriptions, employment applications, review forms and church policies. Below is the Opportunity Profile for the Director of [...]
Should You Hire From Within?
Thinking of hiring internally? When a church needs to fill a staff position, one of the first questions is always, “Do we want to hire someone from somewhere else, or do we want to hire [...]
The Hiring Process
One of the most exciting and challenging aspects of working together in a staff context is finding the right hire to fill an open position. The excitement comes from understanding that the staff group/team is [...]
A Ten Step Process for Hiring Church Staff
I’ve hired a handful of staff members in my time; however, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I’ve never committed the full process to paper—all in one place. After processing the XPastor Online Course material [...]
Staff Your Church for Growth
Gary McIntosh’s book, Staff Your Church for Growth, is ambitious in its broad coverage of topics related to developing a team to lead a church---all within the context of the current dynamics of American [...]
All Rise—Church Staffing
I am not an XP yet, but I do hope to be one when I grow up. In my pursuit of knowledge about the role and the many areas an XP has to keep [...]
The Interview Process and Sample Questions
To get to the in-person stage of the interview process, the candidate has successfully gone through one or two phone interviews. Below are some ideas for how the in-person interviews should proceed. Included are [...]
Opportunity Profile Example
XPastor tries to help churches by providing some of the essentials for running a church---one of these items is an Opportunity Profiles. An Opportunity Profile should be prepared to aid in orienting candidates to [...]
The Hidden Step in Hiring: Get to Know “X”
In my career, I have hired dozens and dozens of pastors, ministry directors and church workers. There are huge differences between hiring people in each one of these categories. To name just a few, there [...]
The Cost of Hiring Mistakes
In most churches, the ministry year begins September 1. Kids get promoted to new classrooms, youth programs have new plans and preachers begin a new series. Many people decide to find a church in September. [...]
Opportunity Profile Example
XPastor tries to help churches by providing some of the essentials for running a church---items like job descriptions, employment applications, review forms and church policies. Below is the 2005 Opportunity Profile from Grace Covenant Church [...]
“Calvin Grads Dominate 2006 Pastors’ Draft”
Never forget to laugh! Here is some great fun from Joel Kilpatrick, founder of Larknews. You don't know about Lark News? It's a Christian version of The Onion ... so put on your sense of [...]
How to Get Hired at a Large Church
David Fletcher gave this PowerPoint presentation at Dallas Seminary in 2002. There was a "snappy" discussion on the topic that was highly animated at times. This 28-slide PDF begins to explore some of the issues of [...]
Ten Steps to Hiring Great Pastors and Directors
Executive Pastors face an enormous challenge—hiring great staff. An XP called me because he had a hiring dilemma. “I think that I have a great candidate, but I need your input.” In working with church [...]
How to Hire: The In-Person Interview
There are many steps to successfully hiring a new pastor or director. In the first five steps of the process, you have posted the job, received resumes and conducted interviews by telephone. The sixth step [...]
Hiring 101: How the “Great” Ones Do It
Hiring. Just saying the word out loud for many pastors produces audible groans, pained expressions and rolling eyes. Hiring. Everyone knows it’s a necessity; hardly anyone sees it as glamorous. Yet a few, perhaps, see [...]
Hiring For Right Fit
An important word when talking about hiring is chemistry. And it seems to me that there’s hardly a topic that could be more important or relevant for today. Every winning sports team seems to have and talk [...]
Hiring: Last Step, Best Step
In the art of hiring the right candidate for a position, I’ve found that the last step is the most important. After all the work of creating a position, describing it accurately, and reviewing [...]
When Hiring a Worship Pastor
This article is for Senior Pastors and Executive Pastors that are involved in the hiring process. For some of you, you’ve been there, done that and have some great insights to share with us. [...]