We continue the “Ten Best Ways to Ruin Your Church Staff” to avoid for those pastoral leaders who want to keep and develop quality staff ministry colleagues, (For those pastors who want to get rid of troubling church staff, then this is the way to do it!). Today, no. 4: Neglect a Theology of Calling.
4. Neglect a theology of calling. A key question on a theological of calling is, “Does the church call the staff, or does the pastor “hire” the staff?” Answer the question one way and staff “belongs to the pastor.” Answer another way and it reframes the staff’s relationship with the congregation and its members. Insecure pastors will have a tendency to get in the way of the staff members’ relationship with the church. This puts them in a perpetual triangle between staff members and the congregation. The triangulated dynamic is the same, though the behavior takes many forms: protecting staff from congregation or vise-versa; limiting access to church members (one pastor did not permit pastoral or program staff to visit church members in the hospital); keeping staff and church leaders at a distance from each other (one pastor did not allow the personnel committee to meet with staff unless he was present); or playing “let’s you and them fight” with staff and congregational members or committees.
Secure pastoral leaders foster a theology of calling in their congregations. They allow the church to call and take ownership of their staff. And they allow staff members to work out their relationships with the congregation.
From, Perspectives on Congregational Leadership: Applying Systems Theory for Effective Leadership, by Israel Galindo. See the new Perspectives on Congregational Leadership blog site.
Yes, yes, yes! Have you ever noticed how many pastors/heads of staff refer to the associate pastors as “my staff”? In addition to what you’ve outlined above, I think insecurity is a big part of this. Thanks for your continued “thinking out loud.”
An effective Pastor will express himself through the staff so that they are an extension of his ministry to the church. Jesus did this with the 12. And the 12 appointed others. There is a vital principle which must be respected and that is that no man can serve two masters. If a staff sees their chain of command as some multiheaded beast they will always choose devotion to the head that most sympathizes with them.
Pastors who try to isolate staff from members may be acting out of a bad past experience where staff and members developed unhealthy alliances or resistance. That can happen and a leader must trust God to help resolve such problems. But building walls and barriers is only hurting himself.