#1 Way To Inspire Your Staff Plus 9 Other Encouragements

# 1   "I've Got Your Back."

LOYALTY:  one way to define loyalty is "not saying anything negative about someone behind his back."  Except for a trusted confidential personnel group, all talk about staff by the lead pastor to others publicly and privately is that of a raving fan.

And it goes beyond this.

Lead pastor loyalty protects the staff from the church critics.   Church people rarely go the staff member with a criticism, but often tell the lead pastor.  Staff deserve "innocent until proven guilty" status.  It’s easy to immediately give the impression of agreement with criticism of a staff member and then say you will look into it.  That is disloyal.   Whenever anyone comes to the lead pastor with a criticism, my standard reply is, "That does not sound like the Jerry that I know, but I will check into it."  Memorize that!  This graciously disagrees with the comment until the criticism is verified.  Usually it is not.

The lead pastor has the thickest armor and should use it to shield his staff from the all-to-often petty and unwarranted criticism.

This loyalty goes both ways and is to be expected by the lead pastor of his staff.

Note: Without local church membership the leadership is either too dictatorial (not accountable to anyone) or too vulner-able to unbelievers and uncommitted (accountable to the wrong ones).  Without local church membership a believer has no local church leadership they have stated they will submit to as their biblical spiritual authorities (no affirmed accountability to godly elders/overseers/pastors).

#2.  "Kiss Your First Love."

RESPONSIBILITIES:  to assure their passion will be their primary job.  Sometimes staff members must wear more than one hat, when that happens they must to wear their favorite hat most of the time.

Some staff hate to do some of practical expectations within the ministry they love.  I'd much rather have a youth pastor who was a magnet for kids, but did not get staff reports in on time than the other way around of presenting timely great reports but not many students are getting discipled.

Sometimes the lead pastor sees a better fit for staff in differing ministries but a staff member does not see it at first.  Give extra TLC here.  I once made a switch of a college pastor with a middle school pastor.  There were several reasons I had for making switch that I'll not go into.  I asked them to trust me that my decision was best for each of them as a better fit.  I thank God they did. At first the college pastor chaffed at the change to leading the middle school ministry.  But in time he proved to be incredibly outstanding in that ministry.  He loved it.   The pastor who took over the college ministry likewise excelled in that role and then went on to be a successful church planter and lead pastor of a healthy fastest growing church in AZ.

#3  "Plenty of Beans" 

COMPENSATION:   churches tend to properly compensate the lead pastor and poorly compensate his staff.  I strive to compensate my staff well.  As the saying goes, "if you want monkeys, pay peanuts."  I desire the best staff and so believe they deserve the best support.  This compensation package should include a quality insurance coverage, generous vacation time, retirement and allowances (books, coffee meetings, seminars, etc).

This assumes a church large enough to support several full-time ministry staff, but the principles can be scaled and applied to the small church with part-time staff.   Be as generous to the staff as possible.

4. "No Time Card" 

HOURS:   for salaried staff the issue is productivity, not hours put it (hourly employees follow HR legal requirements). This is made clear at the point of hiring, "When I say 'Whoa!' it's a compliment, but if I must say 'Giddy-up!' it's a sign your days may be numbered."

With a passionate self-motivated staff, there's no need to set hours, but they can burn out.  So give them extra time off, especially after a time-demanding ministry period.  Call it a study leave, mini-sabbatical, or whatever to satisfy any HR requirements, but well-deserved time off costs the church little or no more money and replenishes a valued staff member.

5. "Open Door, Open Ear, Open Lunch" 

COMMUNICATION:   the lead pastor must be readily available for the key staff.   Staff pests should be removed. Quality staff respect the time of lead pastor so much they must be encouraged to call or drop in when they have a need.  Then its time for the lead pastor to listen!  We senior pastors are usually not good listeners.  I found I had to intentionally discipline myself to lock my jaw!

As an extension of the open door and open ear communication, I find the open lunch highly beneficial. I randomly take out a staff guy for lunch just to hang with him, no agenda,  just a relationship-building time. I always pay.  Lunch with female staff requires an extra staff person for obvious reasons.

This "Open Door-Open Ear-Open Lunch" policy is predicated on a weekly staff meeting that includes team relationship building, a collaborative atmosphere, along with coaching, reporting, evaluating and planning.

6. "You Hold the Rope" 

EMPOWERMENT:  this is the old maxim--"give authority commensurate with the responsibilities."  Staff need the freedom to make decisions in their ministry within clear boundaries.  One of my sayings is, "You get the rope -- you can lasso the steer or hang yourself -- but it's your rope."

Of course staff also need room to fail.

One of my mentors taught me that the basic job description of any staff member to answer two questions in his ministry: (1) is it biblical? (2) is it working?  That's a long rope of empowering freedom!

I must add here that no staff member should be accountable to a lay leader (lay elder, deacon, committee chairman, etc.), but serve under the supervision of the lead pastor or his designate.   Staff are to recruit, train, release, and oversee the non-staff ministry volunteers--it's a part of the "rope."   Putting staff under a board member or church committee usually takes away the "rope" and ties the staff members hands.

7.  "No Sharp Turns" 

VISION:  the most important area where the lead pastor leads is in vision casting.  But the staff should have the greatest input and influence on the vision.  When the captain of the ship makes abrupt hard turns, the crew fall down, or worse, fall overboard.

The lead pastor's "fresh vision" usually means more demands on an already hard-working staff.   Crisis may require major changes.  Everyone understands a sharp turn is necessary when an iceberg is ahead.   But a clear-seas hard turn toward a new island makes the crew wonder what new island destination will be next.

8.  "Only Race Horses"  

WINNERS:  the staff is like a team of horses pulling the stage coach with one big difference, they can choose to leave the team.  If nags (by this I do not mean old, but lazy & incompetent--older staff can be the fastest race horses on the team!) are allowed to remain long on staff, the race horses will look for a different team.  Race horses are highly employable, and can pull elsewhere.  Nags are not in demand, so the nags stay unless removed.

This may seem unkind, but the truth is this--no winner on the staff likes to look around and see losers.  Lead pastors must make the hard decision to remove the nags to retain the race horses.  No one should hire who is afraid to de-hire when necessary.  As a lead  pastor, there are times I must humbly admit my mistake in a poor hire and make the necessary change.  One evidence that the lead pastor is a nag is he's unable to attract race horses.

9.  "S.T.P. Me" 

LEADERSHIP:   this dates me big time, as STP was a popular oil additive said to increase engine performance even in race cars (it lost a law suit for false advertising!).  S.T.P. here means Set The Pace, which is what the lead pastor must do for the staff.   The lead pastor models punctuality, work ethic,  follow-through, personal outreach, joy, optimism, prayer, courage, humility, a loving marriage, devoted parenting, clothing style, life-long learning, a healthy lifestyle, loving the church family, and excellence in all of his ministry responsibilities.

The lead pastor wants a staff he can be proud of, the staff want the same of their lead pastor ... someone with admitted weaknesses, yet overall a person worthy of leading the pack.

10.  "I'm Here Today, Here Tomorrow" 

LONGEVITY:   when the lead pastor leaves, trauma is felt by everyone in the church, but the greatest uncertainty is felt by the staff.   They wonder what will their new lead pastor be like and will he like them. No lead pastor can promise he will never be called to another ministry, but he can make it clear he as far as he knows he is there for life--he is excited about the vision and future of the church.

Early in my ministry, in a momentary time of discouragement I foolishly shared with my staff I had questions about my future with the church and the church's future--a month later one of  my best staff team members had found another ministry thinking I was looking to leave.

Before any lead pastor accepts a call to another ministry, he should count the cost on the staff team that bought into his vision when he recruited them.   That is not to say God will not call a lead pastor elsewhere, just to stress the security an effective lead pastor brings to the staff with longevity.  Staff turnover is inevitable and necessary, but high staff turnover is unhealthy for the church.  Frequent lead pastor turnover almost assures the church will decline.  Long-term lead pastors attract a longer term staff.