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
Silent Alarm: The Pipeline is Quietly Breaking
The church staff pipeline in the US is quietly cracking beneath us, systematically changing in ways that threaten our future leadership. This episode introduces Todd Rhodes' new book "Silent Alarm" which addresses the diminishing flow of qualified, healthy, experienced candidates in the church hiring pool across all roles.
• The pipeline of leaders entering full-time ministry is slowing dramatically
• Churches continue posting openings with unrealistic expectations about candidate availability
• This isn't just a hiring slowdown but a long-term leadership crisis decades in the making
• Churches may receive applications but struggle to find candidates who are the right fit
• The candidate pool is aging while mid-career leaders are disappearing
• Young leaders are increasingly hesitant to enter ministry
• Churches that recognize this shift early can reimagine hiring expectations and develop internal pipelines
• This 10-part series will explore what's broken and how churches can rebuild something better
Get the book "Silent Alarm: The Quiet Collapse of the Church Staff Pipeline and How to Rebuild Before it's Too Late" at chemistrystaffing.com/silentalarm. Contact Todd with feedback at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.
Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.
Hey there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, and we are kicking off a brand new 10-part series based on my brand new book, silent Alarm. I'm really excited. I have never written a book before, and so this is my first book. It's called Silent Alarm. I'm really excited. I have never written a book before, and so this is my first book. It's called Silent Alarm.
Speaker 1:The subtitle is the Quiet Collapse of the Church Staff Pipeline and how to Rebuild Before it's Too Late. We're going to talk about what I've written about in this book. It's a wake-up call for every church leader who's hiring or struggling to hire, and today we're going to start with a truth that nobody wants to admit, and that is that the pipeline is breaking. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm so glad that you've joined us right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, you may not hear it, you may not feel it, but the church staff pipeline in the US is cracking beneath us. It's not loud, it's not sudden, it's quiet, but it's systematically changing and it's dangerously changing, and if we don't act, we won't just lose momentum, we're going to lose our future leaders. So here's what I mean by pipeline. Okay, it's the flow of leaders into full-time ministry New pastors, new worship leaders, youth staff, children's ministry workers, executive pastors, associate pastors all the people who used to be stepping forward and preparing and applying and raising their hand and saying I'll go, I'll serve, I want to be full-time in ministry at a church.
Speaker 1:That flow, it's slowing, and it's slowing dramatically. It's drying up and in some places it's almost stopped completely. And yet churches are still posting openings like nothing's changed. They're still expecting 40 qualified applicants in 30 days. Churches are still assuming that the next great hire is out there just waiting for them somewhere, more and more. That's not just optimism, that's denial. Because I want to be really blunt and in the book I'm pretty blunt. It's not a doomsday thing, there's actually encouragement at the end of it. But the blunt part is this and you're probably sensing this, but maybe you've not ever put words to it the number of qualified, healthy, experienced candidates in the church hiring pool is dropping, and it's not just for hard to fill roles, it's for every role, it's across the board. Just for hard to fill roles, it's for every role, it's across the board. And unless and until your church recognizes the shift and adapts your expectations and your process and your priorities, you will stay stuck.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is. I'm going to drop a truth bomb on you here. Okay, this isn't a hiring slowdown. Okay, it's not just a hiring slowdown. It is that, but it's more than that. This is a long-term leadership crisis that's been happening for a couple generations here, actually at least the last 25 years. It's a long-term leadership crisis in slow motion and, believe it or not, it's already affecting your church, whether you know it or not.
Speaker 1:Let's get really practical. Okay, you may post a job and get 100 resumes, but none of them are the right fit. Matter of fact, you're probably not even getting 100 resumes anymore. You might get 50 or 40 or 30 or 20, and yet you struggle to find anybody that seems to be the right fit. You might go months without a viable candidate and your staff may actually be considering other options because they're exhausted and you can't find them. Any backup. You may be unintentionally competing with other churches for the same 12 people, right? And the worst part, most churches don't even realize this is even happening. They just assume hey, it's a tough season, it's a weird hiring cycle. It's not.
Speaker 1:This is really a systemic shift, and that's what I talk about in the Silent Alarm book, because what we're seeing at chemistry staffing and we have a unique perspective. I have a unique perspective that probably only a handful of people in the country have. And I'm not trying to handful of people in the country have and I'm not trying to think I'm greater than anybody else I am definitely not but I'm in a unique position where we're doing about 75 searches right now chemistry staffing. So we're working with 75 churches that are all looking to hire their new staff. So we start to see the trends that an individual church might not get to see. So we see firsthand across hundreds of searches. And I'm telling you this is not just, it's not an aberration, this is actually a thing.
Speaker 1:The candidate pool is aging, mid-career leaders are disappearing, young leaders are are more and more hesitant to enter the field at all and many potential pastors have left the pipeline entirely because they're burned out or they're disillusioned or unwilling to do it the old way. And meanwhile, churches are looking for the same things that they looked for when they were hiring back in 2012 and wondering why it's not working in 2025. The opportunity working in 2020, 2025, okay, the opportunity, and I know what I'm saying. It sounds grim and what a great way to start a 10-week series. Like you're getting a 10-day series. You're going to want to come back every day and listen right To hear Todd go off on how horrible things are in the church. That's not it at all. It sounds grim, but let me tell you this is a huge opportunity if you respond, and that's what the book is about. Churches that recognize the signs early can reimagine their hiring expectations and they can invest in internal pipelines and they can expand their definition of fit. They can create healthier environments that attract and keep staff, and they can lead the way forward instead of scrambling to keep up. But none of that is going to happen if we just keep pretending that the old pipeline still works.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let me give you a little foreshadowing of what this series is and isn't okay For the next this is day one, so we're going to do this. For the next this is day one, so we're going to do this for the next 10, nine more episodes. This series isn't just information. It's really meant to provoke some action. Okay, so over the next nine episodes, I'm going to walk you through what's broken and why it's happening and why your church can start rebuilding something better.
Speaker 1:But today, let's just start with this. This is your bottom line for today. Ask your hiring team what if our hiring challenge isn't just about timing but about the pipeline itself, because the alarm is sounding. It's just not loud but it's urgent. Okay, if you would like to get ahead of this and you're like Todd, not like you like to buy your book, I would love for you to do that, and you can do that by going to chemistrystaffingcom slash silent alarm. You can purchase a copy of it over on Amazon. You'll probably have it tomorrow and you can follow along during this. These next nine episodes Again, chemistrystaffingcom slash silentalarm.
Speaker 1:And if you would like to reach out to me for anything, I would love your feedback on this series as well. Good or bad or ugly, reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today, and tomorrow we are going to dig a little bit deeper into the disappearance. We mentioned those mid-level career leaders that used to be everywhere in the church. They're disappearing. We're going to unpack that tomorrow as we continue the series on the silent alarm. All right, thanks so much. We will be back tomorrow. Hope you have a great day.
