What Happens When Your Whole Staff Is Under 35 (or Over 60)
•Todd Rhoades•Season 1•Episode 388
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Churches with staff teams clustered in a single age group face a "succession time bomb" that threatens future leadership stability and ministry effectiveness. Healthy church teams intentionally balance generational diversity to benefit from both the wisdom of experience and the energy of youth.
• Age-homogeneous teams create significant blind spots and vulnerabilities • Churches with exclusively older staff face a generational cliff with no succession plan • Young staff teams lack institutional memory and crisis-tested leadership • Generational diversity reflects the body of Christ and strengthens team resilience • Most churches hire based on comfort or cultural fit rather than strategic planning • Audit your current staff by age group to identify gaps in representation • Create intentional mentorship structures both top-down and peer-based • Think 5-10 years ahead about who's preparing to lead and who's preparing to leave • Your next hire should address age-related gaps in your leadership pipeline
If this made you think differently about your staff makeup, reach out anytime at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com. We'd love to partner with your church as you work toward building a healthier, more generationally balanced staff team.
What do a college campus ministry team and a retirement luncheon have in common ? If your entire staff is under 35 or over 60 , your church might look vibrant today , but it could be quietly sabotaging your future leadership pipeline . Stick around today to find out how to fix it and what your staff's age makeup says about your church's future . Yep , we're going to go there here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast . Talk a little bit about the age of your staff . Young , old , middle-aged doesn't make any difference . We're going to talk about it All right . Hi there , my name is Todd Rhodes . I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast .
Speaker 1
I call it the succession time bomb . You can't really build a healthy future if all of your leaders are aging out at the same time and churches with staff entirely over 60 are staring down a generational cliff . There's often a little overlap between retiring leaders and potential successors , because those successors in many churches just simply don't exist . So you need to ask yourself , if your senior leaders all step down next year , what would your next wave look like in leadership , and would they even
be in the building ? Currently , on the flip side , some churches try to stay intentionally young and hip by only hiring 20 and 30-somethings , and while that might boost your TikTok presence , there's a real cost to that as well . There's no institutional memory . Nobody remembers anything about the history of your church . There's no mentorship . Anybody inside on your team , on your staff , that's older , that's been there , done that , that can help you , so you don't have to pay that stupid tax every time . So there's no mentorship . If everybody on your team is young and there's probably nobody on your team who's been through a leadership crisis before A team without seasoned wisdom can be fragile , and one big challenge , one big leadership crisis , if you're all inexperienced and you're all young , can really shatter it . So that's really why I think a generational mix of ages and experience levels and even maturity can be really , really important in your church staff team .
The generational mix really does matter . The healthiest churches don't just serve multiple generations , they staff for them too . Older leaders are going to bring that mentorship and that stability . Younger leaders are going to bring some of that energy and innovation . It's not either or it's both and and . A cross-generational team also reflects the body of Christ . It's diverse in age and still united in mission .
Speaker 1
So why does this happen ? And it doesn't happen everywhere . But there are a lot of churches where you look at their staff page on their website and they're either all on the older side of the spectrum or they're all really young . Why does
it happen ? Honestly , most churches don't really plan for that . They just hire based on comfort or familiarity or just because of culture . Fit , which often means and I've heard this said before I like this guy because they remind me of me . Right , they're like me , they're in the same life stage , they have the same interests , their kids are the same age . They're going to be a great fit for our team and they are a great fit for your team . But you can have too many people just like you , your life stage , your experience level , on your team if you take that mindset . Or they overcorrect after a staff implosion and they swing hard toward one demographic . That could be another way that you know you . Just that's how you end up with who you've got on your team . Either way , hiring is usually reactive and not strategic .
So what should you do ? How do you start ? How do you start fixing this ? First of all , just audit your current staff by generation and age group and notice if there's any gaps . Maybe you don't have any problem in this area , maybe you've got a big problem in this area . Create an intentional mentorship structure , both internally , top-down and peer-based . And this is something that I think is just really valuable to have on your church team is to have younger people that can be mentored by the older people . That's just invaluable , and it makes a huge difference to have that type of mentorship built into your staff structure , even if it's not on paper , even if it's not necessarily intentional , but more organic . That kind of staff really makes a huge difference , particularly for the young people , and it's incredibly valuable for the old people too Old people I'm putting myself in that category the older generations as well , because there's nothing that excites me more , for example , than building into somebody that's young and has years and years of ministry ahead of them . So here's what I would encourage you to do Think five to 10 years ahead .
Speaker 1
Okay , five to 10 years . That may seem like a long time . It may seem like not long enough , but just let's start there . Okay , five to 10 years . That may seem like a long time . It may seem like not long enough , but just let's start there . Okay , five to ten years . Think five to ten years ahead . Right now , just look five to ten years ahead . Who's preparing to lead and who's preparing to leave ? Now you just don't hire for roles , you hire for balance . So your next hire can shift really the whole ecosystem , particularly if you have a smaller staff .
Speaker 1
Here's what I'm not saying . Okay , don't hear me say that you need any kind of quota system or that you need to , that you can only hire somebody of a certain generation or a certain age . That's not what I'm saying . What I'm saying is that your staff age makeup it's
not just a number , it's a strategy , and you know this as you look at your team . If your team is all young , then ask who's guiding them . If your team is all older , then you need to ask a totally different question , and that question is who's being raised up ? If this made you think differently about your staff makeup , let me know . I'd love to hear your comment . You can reach out to me anytime podcast at chemistrystaffingcom If there's any way that I can help you as well , you or your church , as you look to hire a new staff , as you kind of look at this kind of generational setup that you currently have and maybe any kind of generational shifts . This is some of the work that we love to do and that we'd love to partner with churches on , so reach out to me if there's any way that I can help you when it comes to your staff and helping them be healthier . You can reach out to me anytime . Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom .
are done for today . I so appreciate you listening and I really love it when you reach out to me and tell me what you're thinking . Sometimes you push back and say , todd , my goodness , you were totally off on that one . I love that too . As long as you're kind , I love it Usually . No , I don't . Yes , I do , I'm just kidding . Love to hear from you . Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom . Hope you have a great day in ministry and come back tomorrow for more Todd time and hopefully some leadership encouragement right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast . Hope you have a great day .
