One of the main bugaboos of many pastors is learning how to staff a church. In reality, knowing how to staff is simple if you just use your noggin.
The following is based on any size church. If the church has under 500 in worship, some of the following staff should be volunteer or one paid staff may oversee two or more of the tasks listed. By the time the church is over 500, there should be a paid staff member, part or full time, over each of these.
- Staff to increase the number of new visitors on Sunday. If the number of visitors isn’t increasing each year, sooner or later the church stalls and begins to decline. It’s really that simple. So you need a staff person to ensure that the number of first-time guests increases. Up to 500 in worship, the pastor should cover this responsibility.
- Staff to assimilate new people. It’s easier to keep new people than it is to attract new people. So you need an assimilation system in place and someone to oversee it. In most churches, this person is a worship leader who understands the importance of hospitality.
- Staff to disciple people. Under 500 in worship, this is spread among all the staff. But around 500 and above, small groups should become a major concern and will need someone to oversee the system. If you don’t have small groups, then what are you doing to disciple people? Very few people are truly discipled by simply attending worship.
- Staff to send people out into the community to become backyard missionaries. The true measure of a church is not its size but what difference is it making in the community. So you need someone to organize weekly events in the community where a growing number of people who participate in worship are in the community doing three things: blessing the community, blessing the ones serving, and creating visibility.
Tweet ThisSo there you have it. See how simple it is?
Finding and keeping the right people isn’t quite that easy. That is one of the reasons why my partner, Bill Tenny-Brittian, and I wrote our book, Effective Staffing for Vital Churches: The Essential Guide to Finding and Keeping the Right People.
Question: What else would you like to know about how to staff in these four ways? Share your questions in the Comments section below.
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Hey, tried contacting you directly but your Captcha Code on your contact page isn’t allowing anything to get through.
Any how, when you reference numbers of people in your articles, such as, “So you need a staff person to insure the number of first time people increases. Up to 500 in worship the pastor should cover this one,” do you mean 500 members or do you mean 500 in worship attendance?
Additionally, if a church plants a satellite and the main church is, let’s pretend, over the 1000 mark but the satellite is under 100, do your rules of thumb for how leaders behave based on church size apply to the satellite based on the mother church size or based on the satellite church size? Thanks!
Hi Luke, apologies for the Captcha … I’m having it trouble-shot, but it should be working for the time being. Let me know if it doesn’t let you through again in the future.
The pastor should do the first-time visitors follow-ups until there are approximately 500 in average worship attendance. However, if the church is having so many first-time guests that the lead pastor can’t get to all of them within two hours or so, then other up-fronters should help share the load (the pastor doesn’t get to stop, s/he just doesn’t have to do them all).
As for the satellite question, the site pastor serves in follow-up unless there is no site pastor … and which case, other up-fronters will have to do the follow-up.
Let me know if I’ve answered the question you asked … or if I made a mess of it. 🙂
bill tb
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