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
Ministry Staffing Math: Why Your Numbers Don’t Add Up
This episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast discusses the pitfalls of traditional church staffing models and emphasizes the need for a unique, mission-driven staffing strategy. Todd Rhoades, co-founder of Chemistry Staffing, advises against relying solely on budget ratios and staff-to-congregation formulas. Instead, he encourages churches to consider their specific context, volunteer engagement, complexity of programs, and local conditions to design an effective staffing strategy that aligns with their mission.• Avoid copying other churches' work charts or using rigid staffing ratios.• Traditional staffing methods can lead to being overworked, underfunded, or misaligned.• A staffing strategy should support the church's mission rather than follow typical formulas.• Consider volunteer engagement, program complexity, and local cost of living.• Churches should define their mission before determining staffing needs.• Consultants' formulas often ignore individual church dynamics.• Encourages a mission-driven rather than formula-driven approach.
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Staffing a church isn't about copying another church's orchestra or by following some kind of rigid ratio. But that's what a lot of churches do, and they end up either being overworked or underfunded or misaligned. Today on this episode of the Healthy Church Step Podcast, we're going to talk about how to think about staffing in your unique context. What works for your church is not going to work for every church. We'll unpack some common myths, we'll talk about why the percentage of budget rule might actually hurt you, and how to build a staffing strategy that actually supports your ministry. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders here at ChemistryStaffing.com, and I'm your host right here every weekday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Let's talk about your church. Are you overstaffed? Are you understaffed? Or are you just staffed weirdly? Maybe you don't know. Most churches never really ask the question. They just inherit a staff structure and they try and make it work. If you're a senior pastor and you moved to your church in the past couple years, you inherited a structure. If you're a senior pastor and you've been there for 20 years, maybe you didn't inherit, maybe you inherited a structure 20 years ago, but maybe you've developed that structure over time. But today we're going to talk about how your staff math might be off and how you maybe need to realign your team so that your ministry isn't running in circles. So that org chart you've been using, whether you've been there for two years or 20 years, it's probably built on a lot of history, a lot of legacy roles. We've always had an associate pastor. Maybe it's built on budget leftovers. Hey, whatever's left after facilities and missions, and we pay all the bills we're going to put into our staffing budget. Maybe you've got even a crisis-based hire on your team, or two. We lost our youth pastor. Quick, we got to find somebody. And that means that your team might be full of really good people solving the wrong problems, or you might have really good people solving the same problem three different ways because there's no real strategy. So you really need to, I think, and this is gonna this is gonna maybe push some people off the edge here. I think you really need to beware of these budget-based formulas that a lot of consultants will tell you about. Churches often use rules like maybe one full-time staff member per 100 people or 80 people or 60 people. I've heard all different kinds of numbers there. Or they use a certain percentage of your budget, should be going towards staffing. 50% is just the number that's thrown out there. If you're if your staffing or your personnel budget is about 50% of your total budget, then you're probably within line. If you get over that 50%, maybe you're off. But I would warn you against these formulas. I think they're great starting points a lot of times, but they're not right for every church because these formulas will often ignore some really important things about your church that make your church unique. Things like volunteer engagement. How much volunteer engagement do you have? How complex are your programs? How effective are your staff? What's local cost of living? You might have a really lean team that's burning out, or you might have a really bloated team that's bored and still fit in within those parameters that a lot of consultants would give you. What I'm suggesting though is that you build a staffing strategy, not just a staffing structure. Don't just ask, what do we need next? Ask questions like, what are we trying to accomplish this year? What's falling through the cracks? What would we stop doing if somebody left tomorrow? And yeah, you can use data like attendance trends and giving and volunteer hours to drive your staffing decisions. Matter of fact, I would encourage you to dip into some of that data rather than just your gut feel. Because clarity of mission always precedes clarity of rules. You can't really, you really shouldn't hire anybody new onto your church staff and then expect to come up with a mission. You need to have the mission first before you hire the staff person. So here's the final thought for today. There's really, I think, no real universal staffing formula. There, there are some things out there that will help you get start to get in the ballpark. But there is a right-sized, right fit team for your mission at your church. And that's what I want you to lean into and figure out. And it's not going to just be a percentage, and it's not just going to be a number compared to the number, a number of staff compared to the number of people you have in your church. It's going to be a sincere staffing strategy where you look at what your mission is and how you're going to accomplish it. If you're like, Todd, I need some help here. I just don't know. I don't know if we've got a bloated staff that's bored, or we've got a lean staff that's burning out, but I want to find the sweet spot. This is one of the things that we can help you with at Chemistry Staffing. Just reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. Love to have a conversation with you and see if there's a way that we can work together and partner to get you in that healthy zone for your particular church. All right, that's it for today. We're here every weekday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope this has been helpful. Drop me a comment. What's one staffing role that your church is unsure about right now? I'd love to hear podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. I'll be right back here tomorrow. Hope you have a great day.
