Ministry PTSD: Leading Staff Who've Been Hurt by the Church

This podcast episode explores the concept of 'Ministry PTSD,' a condition seen in church staff members who carry emotional wounds from past negative experiences in ministry environments. The host, Todd Rhoades, discusses how these invisible wounds manifest in behaviors such as paranoia, hypervigilance, and difficulty in trusting leadership. The episode offers strategies for church leaders to support and build trust with wounded staff members without taking on the responsibility of healing them, emphasizing consistency and communication as key elements in creating a stable and trusting environment. • Introduction of 'Ministry PTSD' affecting church staff members. • Wounded staff may exhibit behaviors like paranoia and lack of trust due to past negative experiences. • Strategies for leaders include creating consistent and predictable routines, without taking on a therapeutic role. • Importance of recognizing the difference between leadership and therapy in dealing with wounded staff. • Encouragement for church leaders to communicate openly and consistently to rebuild trust.

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Transcript

When A Great Hire Feels Off

SPEAKER_00 0:09

You hired Paul about three months ago, started back in March as a staff member at your church, and Paul is really talented. Paul loves Jesus. And Paul shows up every single day. But it still seems like something's off. Paul flinches when you give him feedback. Paul assumes the worst immediately about leadership decisions, you've noticed. And he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Welcome to Ministry PTSD. And if you've got a staff member, or maybe you're experiencing Ministry PTSD, you're at the right place today because we're going to talk about that because it's way more common on church staffs than what we care to admit. Hi there. My name is Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com, and your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast every Monday through Friday. Well, a lot of staff carry around invisible wounds. Most wounded staff members don't announce it though. They don't announce their damage. They just live in it. They operate from it. They've been thrown under the bus before at the previous church. They've had pastors lie to them. They've watched really good people get fired for political reasons. They've been blamed for things that weren't their fault. And now they're on your team. And it's just

Signs Of Ministry PTSD At Work

SPEAKER_00 1:36

different. You're not used to dealing with somebody that has carried this hurt into your church and into your staff. Here's what ministry PTSD is what I'm calling it. Here's what it looks like. And it's different than a healthy staff member because they're still carrying some baggage. We always tell candidates when we talk to them in churches, when we talk tell them when they're going to interview candidates, that you can't ask this person to pay for other people's sins. Okay, and that's what a lot of times happens when a candidate comes on your staff but is leaving a really bad situation. There's some PTSD-like symptoms, and you're going to see them, and they're going to show up in ways kind of like this. Could be some of these ways. It could be that you find that they document everything in writing. Maybe they're hyper-vigilant about church politics. Maybe they assume leadership meetings are always about them. Maybe they're just a little paranoid. They read rejection into normal feedback that you give. They keep their resume updated just in case. They're excellent at their job, but they're terrible at, as Charles Barclay would say, terrible. They're terrible at trusting. Now, listen, they're not being dramatic. What they're being most likely is protective. And you need to kind of read into what they're feeling and what they've been through. You have to offer a little bit of sympathy here. You need to kind of walk with the wounded. And hopefully, this isn't something that you didn't know before you hired them. Hopefully, you had the conversation about some of the hurts and some of these PTSD things that were going on at their last church. And you hired them anyway. So now you do need to walk through some of their wounds. You need to acknowledge the elephant without making them have to go into great detail and open up all those wounds. I know churches can be hard places to work. And that's it. Don't make them tell their war stories.

Building Safety Through Consistent Leadership

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Create predictable rhythms that they can count on. Because, yeah, you are paying for other people's sins. You're paying for the way that this person was treated at their last church. So you need to be able to help them rebuild the trust, even though you've done nothing to break the trust. And that can seem frustrating at times. So create predictable rhythms that Paul or somebody like Paul can count on. Same meeting time, same check-in style, same follow-through. Wounded people need to see that there are patterns of safety that are a part of this new role at your church. Be boringly consistent with your word. That's how you build trust. Be boringly consistent. If you say Tuesday, something's going to happen, make sure that it happens on Tuesday. If you say Tuesday, mean Tuesday. If you say, we'll revisit this, actually revisit it. Over-communicate your thought process. Here's why I'm asking this question. This feedback isn't about your job security. Hey, I'm thinking out loud here. I'm not making a decision. So those are some of the things you can do. Here are some of the things that I think you can do with somebody that is suffering from past church hurt and they're now currently on your staff.

Your Role Is Space Not Fixing

SPEAKER_00 5:04

The leadership mistake that a lot of people make with hurt people is they try to heal them. Don't try to heal them. You're their boss, you're not their therapist. Don't make their healing your mission. Don't take their triggers personally. Don't rush their trust timeline. Some wounds take literally years to heal. Your job, don't you hear me here? Your job is to create space for them to heal while they work, not to fix them while they work. Okay? Wounded staff members often become your low your most loyal team members. They know what bad leadership looks like. So they recognize and they appreciate good leadership, and that's what you need to model. They've seen churches implode from the inside, so they'll fight really hard, harder than anybody else to protect healthy culture. They just need time to believe that this place, your church, is different.

The Bottom Line And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 6:08

Here's the bottom line for today. You cannot heal their wounds, but you can stop creating new ones. Leading wounded people. Man, it's holy work. Thanks for doing it with patience and grace. And maybe you need to share this with another leader who needs to hear it. Maybe you need to re-listen to this again. Because it really hit a nerve. Maybe you need to reach out and just say, Todd, let's have a conversation about this because I really need some help. I could use some expertise, some help, some coaching on how to lead my staff, many of whom are hurting, or how to lead a staff member like Paul, who just needs to see that this is a safe and healthy place where leadership is going to have his back. Reach out to me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. I'd love to have that conversation with you and see if there's any way that we can help your church or just have a conversation and see if there's any way that I can offer assistance to your church. Love to do that. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. We'll be back here again tomorrow. Hope you'll join me right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Have a break.