The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Real Reason Your Meetings are Useless (And No One Will Tell You
Most church meetings suffer from silent dysfunction—they're over-controlled, under-prepared, or merely performative, leaving staff secretly wishing they were emails instead. We crack open this uncomfortable truth and provide practical solutions to transform your team gatherings into meaningful, productive experiences that staff actually want to attend.
• Three hidden reasons church meetings don't work: they focus on reporting instead of relating, lack clear purpose, and push real conversations to happen after meetings end
• Staff often "fake nod" during meetings because speaking up feels like dissent in unhealthy church cultures
• Start meetings by clearly stating the purpose—"This meeting exists to..." rather than jumping straight to agenda items
• Change your questions from "What do you have for us?" to "What's the most important thing we need to tackle today?"
• Create space for authentic connection through simple check-ins about celebrations or needed support
• End every meeting with clear action items—who's doing what by when—to eliminate fog and ensure progress
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Let's be honest, it's just you and me here, right?
Speaker 1:Most church meetings are either over-controlled or under-prepared or just plain performative, and no one's saying it out loud.
Speaker 1:In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to crack open the silence and we're going to talk about the silent dysfunction behind those eye-rolling-worthy moments in the meetings that you experience and show how exactly you can create gatherings that are actually worth your team's time. So thank you for joining me today. My name is Todd Rhodes and I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast every weekday. What if I told you that your staff dreads your staff meetings and they're just too polite to say it? Church meetings are supposed to bring some clarity and some unity and propel ministry forward, but often they're just confusing or they're performative or they're just plain awkward, and most of them actually are very boring and mundane. So today we're going to talk about why and maybe some ideas on how to fix it before your team completely checks out. So stick around. This could be something that could really change the way that you lead and it could really change and pump some energy into your next church staff meeting starting today or this week, whenever your next staff meeting is Okay. So let's talk first of all about the elephant in the room. This meeting could have been an email. Isn't that a joke? It's not really a joke to your staff, it's actually how they actually feel, and most church staff meetings are a cocktail of either over control You've got one person that talks 90% of the time, guess who or maybe under prep, maybe nobody's really sure why they're even meeting in the first place, or it could just be a performative agreement. Everybody nods, then gripes in private after the meeting. What's the worst part? No one says really anything. Because in church culture, speaking up a lot of times especially if you're not in a healthy team speaking up can really feel like dissent, so people fake nod instead of giving real feedback.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk a little bit about the three hidden reasons that church meetings don't work and I don't know if this is your church staff meeting, but I bet it's a lot. So three hidden reasons that church staff meetings just don't work. A lot of times Maybe you hit all three of these and you're like whoa Todd, we need to work on this. Maybe you just hit one, but maybe these will be a little bit eye-opening for you. Okay, here's reason number one Meetings are just about reporting, not relating.
Speaker 1:Okay, maybe you run through the calendar items like a machine gun You're in, you're out, you're done. But there's not really any space built into the meeting for connection or reflection. Your staff really need purpose and people, not just bullet points and brunch menus. So that's reason number one. Maybe you're just all about reporting and not about relating. Reason number two no one knows what the win is. I was on staff with somebody at one point and they said I don't know what game we're even playing. Just tell me what game we're playing. I'm happy to play the game, I'm ready to play the game, put me in the game, but I just need to know what game we're playing and what the rules are. So reason number two is no one even knows what the win is.
Speaker 1:What's the purpose of the meeting? Is it just a weekly sync? Is it vision? Is it decision-making? If it's not clear, if you don't know, if people walking into the meeting are not clear about why you're having the meeting, guess what People mentally check out, sometimes even before the meeting starts. So clarity is kindness. You have to have a purpose of the meeting. Don't have a meeting just to have a meeting. Okay.
Speaker 1:Reason number three the real conversations happen after the meeting. And you know this one it's the hallway. The proverbial water fountain Do we still have? I don't think we still have water fountains most places, but the hallway, the parking lot, the group text. If your culture doesn't feel safe enough for honesty in the room, that honesty is going to always leak out somewhere else, and somewhere else. That's not really healthy.
Speaker 1:So how do we fix this, todd? What? So? Yeah, we've got some of these problems, but what do we do about it? How do we fix our staff meetings? You can fix it fast, even if you're not the boss. Here are some tips, okay.
Speaker 1:Tip number one start with a. Why Don't start with the agenda? Start with the purpose of the meeting. Say it out loud every week this meeting, we're here in this meeting, this is what we're going to accomplish. This meeting exists to fill in the blank, okay.
Speaker 1:Tip number two change the questions that you're asking. Stop asking what do you have for us and start asking something like it's just kind of a rephrase right, what's the most important thing we need to tackle today, or where are we stuck. We like to do we need as a team at chemistry, we like to do a SWOT analysis Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and what's the T? Oh, email me and tell me the T, because I'm forgetting the T right now. We like to do a SWOT analysis and just determine what's stuck, what are our opportunities, where do we need to move forward? What do we need to talk about? Even Great way to start a meeting. You don't want to do that every week. That would be monotonous, that would get you back into one of the other problems. But change the questions and start asking what's the most important thing we need to tackle here today. And then here's the last tip for you Create some space in your meeting for some real talk.
Speaker 1:Even if it's three minutes of just authentic check-in, that can really shift the energy in the meeting. And you can ask a couple questions. You could say what's something we're celebrating here? Or where do you need support this week? How can we help you in your ministry area this week? Here's a bonus End the meeting with action. Who's doing what by when? End every meeting with a clear plan, no fog allowed. This is going to give clarity your meeting. It's going to give everybody something to leave the meeting and have something to do, rather than just go and talk about how nobody really accomplished anything in the meetings. So that's it. If your meetings have felt dry, here's the bottom line. If they felt dry or long or lifeless lately, you're not alone. You're not alone, but it doesn't have to stay that way. Hopefully, some of these tips will help you along the way.
Speaker 1:Every day I hear from people that are listening to the podcast and reach out to me and either say, hey, I enjoy the podcast, or you totally missed it here, todd. Or just hey, I've got something I want to discuss, or I need help with my church with some hiring or firing or dicey staff situation. I love to get your emails. I love to interact with you. If you're listening or watching right now, I would love to hear from you. Just reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. If there's any way that I can come alongside your church and help you with anything Healthy Staff related, I would love to do that. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today. We will be right back here again tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I hope you'll join me then. You.
