The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Ministry Role That Shouldn’t Exist Anymore
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Alright, there's a roll on your church staff that used to make a lot of sense, but now it might just be dragging your whole team down. Today, on this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're gonna unpack some legacy positions that need a serious update or need to go away entirely. If your staff org chart hasn't changed in 10 years, this episode's for you. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders of our chemistry staffing.com, and I am your host right here every day, every weekday, anyway, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Well, every church has that one role that's kind of a legacy left over. We talked about this a couple weeks ago on the podcast. It sounded uh it sounded perfect, it sounded right in 2006, uh, but in 2025 it's it's barely functioning. And today we're naming that one ministry role that probably shouldn't exist anymore, and why keeping it might be hurting your mission. So stick with me. This one's gonna shake up your org chart in the best possible way, but it might get a little uncomfortable. Well, let's talk about legacy roles. Okay, legacy roles are roles that you have in your org chart, roles that you have funded and staffed with probably a really faithful person for a very long time. But legacy roles are the roles that have kind of outlived their effectiveness. A role that was created to meet a need that you had 10 years ago as a church, but the the ministry context has changed. Uh, but the role is still around, it's still there, it's still doing the same thing, still has the same job description as 2015. The result can be misalignment and confusion, and it can be even mean some gaps in execution. All right, so let's let's talk about an example here. I'm just picking one out of the air here. Let's talk about a pastor of outreach, okay? Uh, maybe you had a pastor of outreach. It was created during a big door-to-door campaign back in 2010. Okay, today they're still on the staff, but nobody actually knows what they do. And the truth is, when roles lose clarity, people lose purpose. So, how do you know? What are the signs, Todd, that I'm hanging on to a an outdated role on my team? Well, here are some good indicators, okay? If you have a role whose job description description hasn't been updated in more than five years, that might be a legacy role. And you said, like, Todd, well, none of our job descriptions have been updated for another for the last five plus years. That's another question for another day and another podcast, okay? But um if you you should really look at roles where you've not even looked at the job description for at least five years. Okay, maybe um staff or elders aren't articul can't articulate the value of the role anymore. You just like I said, you either don't know what that person does or what that role does, or you just can't say how it fits into the overall value. Uh the person in the role could be constantly jumping into random gaps. So maybe they're the pastor of outreach, but they're doing a bunch of other things. They're filling in gaps, and they're filling in gaps because really their main job function doesn't really have a purpose anymore. Uh, it could be that it's become just a siloed position instead of a team integrated one. Um and and all of these things, these just aren't HR problems. They're not just our org chart problems, they're they're mission problems. Because when you st when you hang on to these outdated roles, you stop creating space for what your church actually needs next. A couple weeks ago, when we talked about it, we talked about pastors kind of inheriting staff roles. But regardless of whether you're a new pastor or not, uh you may have some of these legacy positions on your team, and it's time to really take a look at it. It's a difficult thing to take a look at, but sometimes you just have to take a look. So, how do you reimagine or retire a role with integrity? Okay, that's really what it comes down to, and that's where the awkwardness comes in. Okay, I've got I've got some steps for you here. Step one, uh, audit your current staffed culture and ask what's missing, what's redundant. Are there overlaps uh where you've got two or three people, maybe uh one or two legacy people that are kind of overlapping with some people that are actually kind of mission-centric. Um, or maybe you're totally missing something on your team. So audit your your current staff structure, ask what's missing. Ask what do we have too much of? Okay, that's the first step. Second step is uh just start to have open conversations with the person in the role. Um, they likely feel that misalignment too, right? They've been probably waiting maybe for five or more years for somebody to have this conversation with them, and and they're just kind of there, they're feeling it too, but they don't know what to do either. So that's step two. Start to have some open conversations. Step number three, design roles around your future notes uh needs, not your past tradition. So you need to start to dream a little. That's step three, where you've already started having some conversations, but you're already starting to design roles around where your church is now and where you're going in the future rather than past, you know, 10, 15 years ago, past tradition. And then step four, consider repurposing skills rather than replacing people. All right, it could be that that person that's in that legacy role, they might have the best heart. They might have been on your staff for 25 years, they might be people that you absolutely love, but you don't need the position anymore. Chances are you can repurpose their skills because they love you, they love the church, they love Jesus. Um maybe there's something else that they can use their skills, their God-given talents for. See if that makes sense. Uh, because uh repurposing skills is is much better than replacing people. The goal isn't to cut team members, it's not to cut your staff, it's not to cut your budget. Sometimes you have to do that. But that's not the goal here when I'm talking about legacy positions. The goal is to create a team that reflects today's mission, not yesterday's momentum. Okay, final thought. Here's the bottom line for today. Your church's future might be stuck behind a staff role that's run its course. You need to build for what's next, not what has been. Hope this has been helpful. If you'd like to continue the conversation or you need some help or some consultation or some coaching in this area, reach out to me. I'd love to be able to see what we can do together. Uh, we always work better together, right? Uh, and you can reach out to me anytime. Uh, podcast at chemistry staffing.com is my email address, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, well, that's it. Another week in the books here at the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hope you have a great um weekend, and we'll be right back here. Right here for you. Um,
