Stop Hiring Eliab

This episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, hosted by Todd Rhoades, discusses the pitfalls of hiring based on outward appearances rather than character when filling church staff positions. Using the biblical story from 1 Samuel 16, where Samuel almost anoints the wrong king, Todd highlights the importance of evaluating candidates' internal qualities rather than being swayed by polished resumes and appearances. He emphasizes the need for interview questions to focus on character and heart to make better long-term hires for church positions. • Importance of evaluating character over appearance in hiring. • Biblical reference to 1 Samuel 16 and Samuel's near mistake with Eliab. • Outward appearances are easy to assess but can lead to bad hires. • Character leads to lasting, effective staff members. • Recommendation to include character-focused questions in interviews. • Chemistry Staffing assists churches in finding the right candidates.

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If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

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Transcript

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The Resume That Ends Your Search

SPEAKER_00 0:08

You know what? The best looking candidate in that stack of resumes you have on your desk might be the most dangerous one. Not because he's a bad guy or gal, but because he makes it really easy to stop looking.

Why 1 Samuel Guides Hiring

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, and I am one of the co-finders over at ChemistryStaffing.com. You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're in the middle of a series, three-part series. Part one was yesterday. We're looking at 1 Samuel chapter 16, and we're talking about filling staff positions and what we can learn from something that was written almost 3,000 years ago. Yesterday we learned that God has a plan for your search. Matter of fact, he's actually got the right person for your search. And today we're going to continue in 1 Samuel chapter 16. Samuel is at Jesse's house. That's where we left him. That's where God sent him to find a king. And

Eliab Looks Like The Answer

SPEAKER_00 1:06

he walks in to the living room of the house of Jesse. And in walks Iliab. Iliab is an impressive person. He is the oldest of the brothers. He is tall. And man, is he impressive? He looks exactly like a king should look. And that's what Samuel is there to find. He's there to find the next king. And remember that God told Samuel, I've already picked the person, but I want you to go there and anoint him. So Samuel thinks, surely, when he meets Eliad, the first one he meets, surely this is the one. The prophet, the professional, he almost anointed the wrong man in the first 30 seconds. And we talked yesterday about how the parallel to what Samuel's job is is what the search committee is in modern-day churches when you're looking for a staff person. And I have seen search committees that make really rash decisions. They hire the first person. Looks good. Sounds good. Everything seems to be really good, and we need this position filled, so we just hire him. A lot of times you fall hard for the polished candidate that shows up almost on day one of your search. But listen to

Talent Impresses Character Lasts

SPEAKER_00 2:28

what happens. Listen to what God says to Samuel. Because God stops him cold. He said, Do not consider his appearance or his height. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. Read that in a committee meeting sometime. Watch the room go quiet because everyone in it knows that they've been scoring the outward appearance. That's normally what we do first. And Eliab shows up in your search too. He just wears a little bit different outfit, right? He maybe he's got the big platform, maybe he's got some great sermon clips, really impressive resume. You meet him and he's good looking, he's got a confident handshake, and none of that's bad. None of it's bad. And some of it matters, but none of it tells you exactly what he's like inside, what the inside the person is actually like. So talent gets you a great first Sunday, but character gets you a great tenth year. Let me repeat that again, because that's really important. Talent, that outward appearance that LEM had, that talent will get you a great first Sunday when you hire that person. When you hire the LEM. But character, that what's inside, what's underneath, is gonna get you a great tenth year. So here's what we've learned placing pastors all across the country in our work of chemistry staffing. The outward is really easy to measure. So, because it's so easy to measure, a lot of search committees, a lot of hiring teams seem to overweight. Okay? They put more weight into the outward appearance. The heart, however, is hard to measure. So committees a lot of times skip it. And that's exactly backwards. You need to ask the questions that reveal character, not just confidence. How do they treat people who can't help them? What did their last exit actually look like? Who in their life tells them the truth? Top candidates can smell a template, and healthy churches can smell a candidate that's all outward. But it's easy if you're only looking for outward, and if you're only looking to fill a position, you're gonna a lot of times hire the wrong person. So here's the bottom line for today.

Audit Interview Questions This Week

SPEAKER_00 4:49

God's hiring criteria is one sentence, okay? The heart, not the outward. If your process spends 90% of its energy on the outward appearance of the resume and the sermons, your process could be upside down. So here's how you can test this week. If you're in the middle of a search, pull up your interview questions. Okay? You've got a list of them. Maybe you've maybe you're getting ready to interview somebody, or maybe you interviewed somebody last week, or whatever. Pull up those interview questions and count how many measure talent versus character. And if it's lopsided toward talent, you're screening for Eliad. So add three questions that really get at the heart, and then actually weigh the answers. Tomorrow we're going to continue part three, close out this series. God's promise about who he sends and why the person in your pulpit or on your staff matters more than almost anything else you're going to decide.

Get Help With Your Search

SPEAKER_00 5:48

If you need help seeing past the outward appearance on a real search, reach out to me. I'd love to be able to help you through how we can help discern that and how we can help you not to hire the Iliab, the one that you think looks great on the outside, but is going to be a total disaster. You can reach out to me anytime, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. One of the things that we hear from search committees all the time, and it's a great concern. And it's one of the main reasons that churches hire a chemistry staffing to help them in their searches, is they'll just call up and say, Todd, we've made some bad hires in the past and we don't want to do it again. And that's one of the big reasons that churches hire chemistry or a search firm in general, is they want some outside eyes and ears to get to know them and to let them know what would be a great fit at their church. So we take a lot of the time, a lot of the time investment. We take a lot of all the tedious front-end work, all the marketing and everything, and come alongside and really walk with your church to help you find not the but the person that God really has called to your church. Because he's out there. He's that needle in the haystack that we talked about yesterday, and we can help you find him. Reach out to me anytime to start a conversation. We'd love to talk with you. Podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, that's it for today. Join us again tomorrow as we close out the series.