The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Culture of Overfunctioning
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Sometimes the most productive teams are actually the most unhealthy. And when pastors and staff overfunction and overfunction for long periods of time, doing for others what they can and should be doing for themselves, it creates dependence and burnout and imbalance. And today on the podcast, we're going to dive into kind of this quiet, toxic culture of overfunctioning and the pressure to overperform, and what church leaders can and should do instead. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders here at ChemistryStaffing.com. And also your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're here for you every Monday through Friday. And I hope you'll join us. I'm glad you're joining us today. What if I told you that the hardest working person on your church staff team could actually be doing the most damage? I know it sounds crazy, but stick with me. Overfunctioning can be one of the sneakiest ways that church teams lose their health. And we're going to talk about how it starts and how to spot it and what to do when you realize that your team's just trying to do too much for too many people all at the same time. Let's start with talking about what staff overfunctioning is and why it happens so often in ministry. Overfunctioning means taking on responsibilities that rightfully belong to others. It could look like doing ministry for volunteers instead of equipping them. That's a biggie. Maybe it's making every decision because it's a faster you can implement it faster, so you're making decisions based on speed. Maybe it's rescuing staff who are constantly underperforming, so you it's just easier to do it yourself. Maybe you're owning the emotional burden of everybody else's problems. And in the short term, man, it looks helpful. It looks like you're doing the right thing. But over time, in the long term, it will create a culture of dependence and burnout and eventually entitlement. And ministry leaders are especially prone to it because we feel responsible for everything. We feel responsible for everybody, everyone. We like to be needed and we don't like to disappoint people. But there is a cost. There is a cost to constantly overfunctioning as a church staff. Overfunctioning will eventually lead to burnout. It can lead to resentment from staff who feel like they're being taken for granted if they're being asked to overperform and it's not stuff that they're taking on their own. And it could be just an underdevelopment of emerging leaders because you've got a small group of people that's doing everything. A bottlenecked system can occur where everything depends on one or two people that get it done and just take responsibility without even knowing it, leaving everybody else out of the loop. So the hard truth is when you overfunction, you underempower. Let me say that again. When you overfunction as an individual or as a staff, you underempower. And the longer it goes unchecked, the more your team or you expects you to carry on what was never yours to hold in the first place. So we've defined what overfunctioning is, what it looks like, how it rears its ugly head. How do you break that cycle? How do you get out of this overfunctioning cycle? It starts with asking some questions. What am I doing that somebody else should own? And this is a tough one because we like to hold things tight. We don't like to let things go. But what ask yourself today, right now, even, push pause on your podcast player. What am I doing? What do I have on my calendar? Take a look at your calendar. What are you doing today? What meetings are you in that somebody else should be owning? That you don't need to be there. You don't need to be doing this thing. That's the first question. Take an audit of your responsibilities. Take an audit of your calendar and your motives. Are you being driven by guilt because, man, somebody's got to do it? I just got to do it. Are you driven by fear? If I don't do it, it won't get done. Are you driven by control? I mean, I got to do it or else it won't get done right. Audit your responsibilities and your motives. And then, and this is the hard part, you need to start transferring that ownership slowly, but clearly and with support. You don't just throw things at people and say, do it and forget about it. You have to support them as well. You need to empower your team to be able to learn and to grow and to fail. They might not do it the way that you would do it. They might not do it as well as you would do it. They might fall flat on their face, and that's okay. You got to be there to empower them and help them to learn and grow. And you need to build that accountability that isn't just about outcomes, but it's about ownership. Okay, here's the bottom line for today. Overfunctioning. Listen here. Overfunctioning is often a systems problem, not just a personal one. Sometimes you've got to change yourself, but you also have to change the system and what the system expects. That system, yep, that you built many times. Change the system. Don't just push through with more effort. You can you can give more effort for a little bit of time, but you can't keep compounding more effort upon more effort upon more effort. It just doesn't work. All right, final thought. Ministry is heavy. This is heavy stuff that we're doing. But when we carry what isn't ours, we rob others of the chance to lead and grow. All right, I'd love to hear from you today. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. What's one thing that you need to stop doing this week, or somebody else can step up and do for you? I'd love to hear. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Reach out to me also if there's any way that I can help your church with any hiring or any kind of staff related, healthy staff related initiatives, or just want to have a talk about what's going on at your church, I'd love to have that conversation. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. Hope you'll join me again tomorrow here on the podcast.
