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: Why Even 'Healthy' Churches are Struggling to Hire
Even healthy churches with solid theology and stable leadership are struggling to fill open staff positions due to fundamental shifts in the ministry landscape. The talent pool of potential church staff has shrunk dramatically, creating intense competition for fewer candidates who are more selective than ever before.
• Church health is no longer a sufficient magnet for attracting staff—it's just the baseline
• The candidate pool is smaller, especially at mid-career levels, creating higher competition
• Today's ministry candidates are highly selective and interviewing churches as much as being interviewed
• Geographic limitations are more significant, with many candidates unwilling to relocate
• Candidates fear cultural mismatches and are wary of unknown situations after difficult pandemic experiences
• Churches must actively demonstrate their health, not just assume candidates recognize it
• Creating an exceptional candidate experience from first contact is critical
• Reframe job offers as invitations to join a movement where candidates can thrive
• Be competitive with compensation and clear about expectations
• Start searches earlier as hiring timelines have lengthened significantly
Grab a copy of my new book "Silent Alarm: The Quiet Collapse of the Church Staff Pipeline and How to Rebuild it Before it's Too Late" at chemistrystaffing.com/silentalarm.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.
- - - - -
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, welcome back to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes and this is Episode 5 of our Silent Alarm series, based on my brand new book called Silent Alarm. Ten episodes ten urgent realities that are reshaping how we think about church staffing in the United States. And today we're talking about a frustrating phenomenon that your church is doing all the right things and yet still struggling to hire. Here's the scenario You're serving, you're listening right now and you're serving in a healthy church. You've got solid theology, you've got good people, you've got stable leadership and your last staff member didn't leave in crisis. You've got a decent budget, you're in a decent location and you're ready to hire. And then nothing Crickets, no traction, no viable candidates, no momentum, and you start to wonder what gives. Honestly, let me assuage your fears here. You are not alone. That's part of the reason I wrote this book called Silent Alarm because everything is changing and this is the truth. Even the healthiest churches are struggling to fill roles. Big churches, small churches, charismatic churches, non-charismatic churches in the city, churches in the country, healthy churches, unhealthy churches Everybody is having an issue finding really great candidates. So it's not because something's wrong with your church. It's really because something has shifted underneath the church. Okay, so I want to get right to it.
Speaker 1:There used to be a time when doing the right things, having the right culture and theology and sustainable peace and healthy team was enough to attract staff. Matter of fact, every search team still thinks man, everyone would like to work at my church because they love their church. Today, all that stuff, all the healthy stuff, is man. It's still essential, but it's no longer the entire ticket, it's no longer sufficient. And why is that? It's because, honestly, the talent pool of church staff and people that have been called into ministry, or people that have at least said yes to the call to ministry, that talent pool is smaller. And because that talent pool is smaller, the competition is higher, the cost of relocation is higher and candidates are being more cautious than ever before. And a lot of this has to do with the last five or six years of ministry and how tough ministry has been. Candidates are more cautious than ever before.
Speaker 1:So, even if your church is absolutely amazing, here's what you're up against. You're up against fewer candidates overall and the pipeline is drying up, especially mid career. We talked about that a couple of days ago here on the podcast. You're also dealing with highly selective candidates. They are not broadly applying everywhere. They're interviewing you as much as you're interviewing them. They are very highly selective in where they're going to go for their next ministry role and they also have some very real geographic limitations. Many current staff that are looking even in in the search mode are rooted their family, their schools, their aging parents Relocating, which was very common five or six years ago. Relocation is now a major hurdle and it's not a default assumption. We've talked many times I think even here on the podcast where I talk about used to do a national search, national staff search, and those national searches are becoming much more regional and sometimes even more local, just because of geographic limitations and the fact that many candidates are not open to relocating just anywhere anymore and there are cultural mismatch, fears and again, I think this comes out of the post-COVID and what a lot of staff people went through getting their teeth kicked in or getting punched in the gut, however you want to put it during COVID.
Speaker 1:Even healthy churches often don't know how to communicate who they really are and candidates are weary, really weary, of stepping into unknown. And you're also battling crisis fatigue. We talked about this a little bit yesterday. Candidates don't want to join a team if it smells like a fixer-upper. Okay, they've already lived through trauma in the last five or six years. They're looking for stability, yes, but they're also looking for a purpose.
Speaker 1:So if you're a healthy church and you're still struggling to hire, I want you to hear me today. Don't be discouraged, but you do need to be strategic. Here's your truth bomb for today. Health isn't the magnet anymore than it used to be. Health is the baseline. You still have to tell your story, you have to clarify your mission and you have to pursue candidates with intentionality, not just hope that they find you Okay.
Speaker 1:So how do you move forward? What can a healthy church do to stand out? Because, as I've said, healthy churches are having a hard time finding really great candidates as well. First of all, stop assuming that they know you're healthy. You have to show it, not just in your job description, but in your communication and in your interviews and in your online presence. You have to create an amazing candidate experience. You have to kind of woo them. Maybe you've got some woo people on your team. Set those people loose.
Speaker 1:Most churches unintentionally make the process slow and awkward or overly cautious, and candidates are paying attention. Maybe you just need to reframe your offer. It's not just a job. It's a chance to join a movement, a team, a place where they can grow and thrive, because that's what so many of the candidates that we talk to are. They want a place where they can settle down and grow and thrive and join a team.
Speaker 1:If you're not hiring just a function or a position, you're inviting someone into a calling and ask yourself are we easy to say yes to? And that includes clarity and expectations and relocation help and, yes, compensation. You have to be competitive in compensation. In many churches most churches, and I get it You're trying to get the best value you can for the buck. But compensation levels have gone up in the last five years tremendously with inflation and cost of living and everything, and you need to bring some clarity in your compensation and you need to bring some clarity even in that first 90 days on the job what that's going to look like for the candidate. And you need to bring some clarity even in that first 90 days on the job what that's going to look like for the candidate. And you need to start early. If you need someone in six months, you need to start now. The runway is longer than it used to be, searches are taking longer and, yep, even if your church is incredibly attractive and unbelievably healthy, the runway is longer for you too.
Speaker 1:All right, so, big picture, here's the goodness. If you're a healthy church, you can hire. But don't assume that health equals momentum. You still need clarity and strategy and courage. Think almost like dating Just being a great catch doesn't mean people will line up to pursue you. You have to be findable, you have to be clear about who you are and ready to build something together.
Speaker 1:All right, everything I'm talking about today and this week has been a part of our series called Silent Alarm, and it's a part of the principles that I wrote about in my new book called Silent Alarm the Quiet Collapse of the Church Staff Pipeline and how to Rebuild it Before it's Too Late. You know that's a long subtitle, but that's what I came up with. If you're a healthy church but you still are hitting walls and hiring, I really think that this book will help you see why and what to do differently and I unpack a lot more than what I can do in just these 10 short podcast episodes. I really think you, your leadership team, your search team would really find value in just finding out what we're learning about how the whole landscape and hiring staff at churches has changed and is continuing to change. You can grab your copy right now. That's my first book. I'd love for you to grab a copy.
Speaker 1:Chemistrystaffingcom slash silentalarm. Chemistrystaffingcom slash silentalarm. Tomorrow we are going to cross a line into the root of the whole staffing problem because beneath all of this, it's not just a hiring problem, it's a discipleship problem. We're going to talk about that and unpack that on Monday's episode, episode six of our Silent Law series, and you can reach out to me anytime if you have any staffing needs or any question you've got or any feedback you've got on the podcast or on the book. You can reach out to me podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, thanks so much. Have a great day.
