The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
Church Staff Goals That Actually Stick - Avoid January Burnout
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It's Wednesday, January 7th already. You're three days into the new year, New West mentality, right? The goals are written. The vision board is up. But the team meeting had all the energy. Everybody's back in the office. Everybody seems pretty well hyped up. But somebody just asked for an extension on something that was supposed to be totally doable. Your youth pastor looks like he's already drowning. And you're wondering if you set the bar a little too high again. And here's the thing: we're three days into the new year. And three days in, it's already starting to hit the fan. Can I say that on a podcast? It's January 7th, and it's when reality meets optimism. Okay. And if this sounds familiar, that's what we're going to talk about today because most of us are goal setting like we work in corporate America. We talked about this on Monday, but I think it's important to bring back with a little bit different angle today. We set goals like we work in corporate America, but we don't. We're working in the kingdom of God. Hi there. Welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over chemistrystaffing.com, and your host right here on the podcast. And church work just doesn't operate on quarterly review tricks. You're dealing with people's souls, not sales numbers, with somebody's marriage when it implodes in February and derails your small group launch. That's an issue. When the building floods in March and your budget projections totally go out the window, that's ministry, folks. And you know it, and I know it, and it's just a harsh reality that sometimes just bites you. Ministry has a rhythm that doesn't really care much about your January optimism. Ministry, I guess you could say, is a lot like shingles, right? Shingles doesn't care. Have you ever seen those commercials? Shingles doesn't care. And neither does ministry. And that's where most goal-setting frameworks start to completely fall apart. And yes, even on your third day back into the office. Because it's a trap a lot of times. We copy what works in business, we copy what our friends are doing outside of ministry. And then we sit back and we wonder, why isn't this working? Why does this fail so miserably in our ministry setting? We set those numeric goals for spiritual outcomes and we plan like we control the variables that really only God controls, and we measure progress like we're running a startup business, not shepherding souls. And then after all of that, we sit back and we blame ourselves when life interrupts our beautiful plans. Now listen, hear me. Having direction and intention is biblical. Jesus had a mission, Paul had objectives, but they held their plans with open hands. We talked about this on the last few episodes of 2025, about how we have a plan and God has a plan, and sometimes though those don't match up, and God's plan looks a lot different than the plan that we had in store, or at least what we thought was going to happen. So what actually happens in ministry is a lot of times we'll set these directional goals, not destination goals. So instead of saying we're going to launch three new small groups, try create pathways for a deeper community. It's specific, but it if you get off track or something else happens, you don't come off as feeling like you're a complete failure. Maybe instead of saying we're going to increase youth attendance by 30%, maybe we say we're going to build stronger relationships with teenagers. Now that might sound vague, but the 30% isn't the thing, right? That's not the real goal. The real goal is actually to build stronger relationships with teenagers, to build that discipleship in. And if you do that, hopefully the 30% will come afterwards. But you just have to kind of reframe it, focus on habits and systems, not outcomes that you have no actual control over. You can ask, what kind of a leader do I want to become? Not just what do I want to accomplish? And you need to plan for those interruptions because in ministry, interruptions are often the ministry. Let me repeat that because I think that's really important. You need to plan for the interruptions. How do you plan for the interruptions? They're interruptions, you didn't see them coming, right? But just know as you plan for this year, as you kind of look at what you want to do, know that God is going to bring some interruptions, some side things that are going to happen outside of your control. And because you're in ministry, these things are going to happen. And it's in those interruptions, those things that we didn't plan on or didn't want to have happen or didn't expect. It's often those interruptions where some of the best ministry, some of the most long-lasting ministry, some of the greatest ministry outcomes are going to happen. Alright. So let's talk about goals one more time. Okay. Let's talk about the Wednesday test. Alright. It's Wednesday. Your goals should survive a Wednesday in January. They should work when you're tired. Your goals should work when somebody quits unexpectedly. And they should work when the budget is getting really tight. And if your goals only work when everything's going perfectly, they're not ministry goals, they're fantasies, and guess what? You're never going to accomplish them. So here's my advice for you: build margin into everything that you plan. Expect that half of your ministry will go to things that you didn't plan for. Here's the bottom line. In ministry, the best goals aren't about hitting those targets, they're about staying faithful to the direction that God is calling you, even when the path gets messy. Because it will. This week I want to give you this challenge. I want to want you to take one goal that you set for this year and consider rewriting it as a direction instead of a destination. Focus on the kind of leader or team that you want to build or become, not just what you want to achieve. And then make it Wednesday proof. Remember, faithfulness over time beats intensity over a short sprint. And God's more interested in your character than in your metrics. So keep going. You're doing better than the than you think you are. Hey, I hope you'll come back and join me tomorrow. I don't know if you're wondering about maybe it's time to dust off that resume. I know December and January, I'm in the church staffing business. That's my role at chemistry staffing, I help churches and staff members connect. And I know December and January, with all the introspective ex and introspection that happens, a lot of people are dusting off their resumes right now and asking me, hey Todd, can you look at my resume? But tomorrow we're going to talk about, hey, maybe you don't need to dust off your resume. Maybe the problem isn't where you are or your church. It's just you. We're going to talk about that tomorrow. Okay, so I hope you'll come back right here tomorrow on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, and I will see you
