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. 6: Maintain a dysfunctional personnel committee.
6. Maintain a dysfunctional personnel committee. Most congregations of a certain size have a personnel committee, church-staff committee, staff parish relations committee, or a variation of the sort. And, in most congregations, that committee tends to be the most underfunctioning and ineffective committee. There are many causes for it, including the fact that laypersons often feel inadequate, and therefore reluctant, in critiquing or addressing the work of the clergy. When it comes to staff persons, most church members have little understanding of what their work entails. Another factor, however, is that pastors spend too little time investing in that committee and developing that group into an asset for the congregation and its staff.
The result is that staff and personnel issues are neglected until they become a crisis of enough proportion that resolution of the matter becomes impossible. It’s akin to the complaint of ministers that by the time a couple in church come to them for marital counseling, the decision to separate has already been made. Other consequences are a lack of staff performance review and development, a failure to acknowledge the good work and celebrate the accomplishment of staff. In many cases a pastor’s failure to cultivate a highly functioning personnel committee results in tolerating mediocrity in staff members (which only ensures that you’ll lose the good staff).
Effective pastoral leaders cultivate the resources that foster health and responsibility in the congregation, and the personnel committee can be one of those. They challenge their congregations to hold its pastoral staff accountable, and they encourage their member to aim for high standard in all called to serve and lead.
From, Perspectives on Congregational Leadership: Applying Systems Theory for Effective Leadership, by Israel Galindo. See the new Perspectives on Congregational Leadership blog site.
