You want to live your dream life in ministry, right?
You want to pastor a growing church while still having time for your family, hobbies, vacations, and other dreams like writing a book, starting a ministry, or launching a business. But, how do you get there without neglecting your responsibilities as a pastor?
At Ministry Hackers, we believe the key to living your dream life in ministry is having a highly effective staff. You do this by identifying the gaps, learn and capture, train and delegate, and review and reinforce.
Introduction
“A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”
We have all heard this phrase before. You can have the strongest, most stout, and powerful chain to move something, lift something, or secure something, but one weak link in the chain will undermine the efforts of every strong link.
Well, a pastoral staff team works the same way. Pastoring a growing church where people are being discipled in a relationship with Jesus, where communities are being reached, and where relationships are being nurtured takes a lot of effort and a strong pastoral staff team.
Oftentimes, the Lead Pastor is the strongest member of the team because of the level of experience and training she has received. However, too often this means that the Lead Pastor carries the largest load, fills the gaps where others can’t, and picks up the pieces when things fall apart.
If more pastors had highly effective teams and were living their dream lives, then the numbers on pastoral depression, anxiety, burnout, and suicide wouldn’t be so high.
When this occurs from time to time, it falls within the acceptable range of being a Lead Pastor. Unfortunately, too many Lead Pastors are stepping in too much, too often, and with too much involvement. This is what keeps them from having the necessary margin in their lives to enjoy a dream life. All because there are weak links in the chain not properly carrying their share of the load. Most of the time, we immediately think we need to replace those pastors who are considered to be the weak links with someone else. The reality is they simply need more or better training than they received before they came to you.
When Lead Pastors are stressed and overwhelmed, though, they don’t take the time to properly train their pastoral staff members. Most staff pastors are taken through a ‘training’ process that is more about acclimating them to the work environment rather than helping them be productive and effective as staff pastors. What this does is lead to a cycle of overwhelm passed from the Lead Pastor to the staff pastors which breeds an environment of discontent, frustration, and either complacency or burnout.
All the while, Lead Pastors long to live that dream life of ministry they imagined when they first started. A life of praying for people, seeing lives changed, spending time with family, watching kids grow up, and spending time laughing more than crying or yelling.
So, Lead Pastor, if you want to live your dream life in ministry, it is time for you to pause and begin training your pastoral staff more effectively. If you do that, then they will be able to help you carry the load of ministry in a proportionate amount that allows you to live that dream life.
Why Training is Necessary
There is no standardization of training and development for pastors and ministry leaders. Some get degrees, others go to practical ministry training schools. Some get online certificates while others learn from the local pastor at their home church. Still, others compelled by a calling on their lives for vocational ministry simply start preaching and getting into ministry.
The point is, your pastoral staff have a wide range of origin stories before they ever come to you. You see their resumes, talk to their references, and may even be familiar with where they received their training, but you still don’t really know what you are getting and the level of productivity and effectiveness they will have in your location reaching your community.
This is why it is so important you have a proper training experience for your pastoral staff members that goes beyond simple acclimation. Sure, you need to teach them how to access the database, how to turn in receipts for reimbursement, what the weekly schedule looks like, and what you are expecting of them in their job description. But, if you are looking to design a highly effective pastoral team, you need to design a training experience that is capable of developing a highly effective pastoral team.
In his book, “Just as I Am”, Billy Graham says in his regrets section, “I would do many things differently. For one thing, I would speak less and study more.”
Here is a man that has arguably done more to advance the Kingdom of God and make Jesus famous than anyone else in the last century, and his sentiment that he wanted to leave for us all following his footsteps was his regret to not have learned more.
Because of the nature of ministry, we are in constant motion, and training feels like we are standing still. All of us have been there, trying to walk through some training manual or modules all the while just wishing we could go ‘do ministry’.
Though this sentiment is common and even understandable, it is similar to the sentiment of the housebuilder who just wants to live in the house so he skips laying the foundation and just starts putting up walls and having parties. The reality is that it will work for a season, but eventually, the walls will sink, the house will fall, and the party will be over with a big mess left to clean up.
Scripture puts it this way…
If the axe is dull and he does not sharpen its edge, then he must exert more strength. Wisdom has the advantage of giving success.
Ecclesiastes 10:10
As the Lead Pastor, this isn’t self-serving in any way. In fact, I would argue that it is one of the most selfless responsibilities you have. The staff pastors you have on your team are not just your resources serving in your ministry, they are pastors in the Kingdom initiative of making Jesus known and bringing lost souls into relationships with him. For this reason, while they are on your team serving alongside you, one of the most important things you can do is train them, develop them, and equip them for a lifetime of successful ministry.
So, the question is, how do you create a training experience that develops high effective pastoral staff members so that they can live out the fullness of their calling while also paving the way for you to start living your dream life in ministry?
I have 4 proven steps that I have used for over a decade and have trained and developed over 300 pastors and ministry leaders that I want to give you. Here they are…
How to Properly Train a Highly Effective Pastoral Staff
Overview
One of the reasons why Lead Pastors do not train their pastoral staff well is because it isn’t easy and can be very time-consuming. As I have already mentioned, it may be one of the most important things you can do as the Lead Pastor, but I also don’t think it should take up all your time. Especially in this age of technology and increased online engagement.
This simple framework I have used for over a decade makes training your pastoral staff easier and has evolved and developed a lot over the last 10 years. What started as a printed manual and became a digital ebook can now be designed to be an experience your pastoral staff will not only enjoy going through but will likely become a pivotal point in their overall ministry development that will shape how they pastor the rest of their lives.
Step #1: Identify the Gap
As I mentioned at the beginning, your pastoral staff members came to your team from a wide variety of training experiences. Some were fuller than others, but all of them, including the most extensive and intense training experiences, have things they miss.
For six years I had the privilege of working alongside some of the most incredible leaders I know training and developing young people for full-time ministry. We were focused on being an elite training program with partnerships, high-profile pastors investing time and energy, and seasoned veterans of ministry as well as scholarly educators.
In my opinion, we created a pretty amazing program and sent off hundreds of students into ministry. But, looking back on the experience and the trajectory of those students who have gone into ministry and pastor at a pretty high level, there are noticeable gaps in their training that we simply missed.
Ministry is complex and really made up of three main parts: theological, practical, and spiritual. That’s why ministry training is really a lifelong endeavor rather than a 2-year, 4-year, or 6-year experience.
To have a highly effective pastoral staff, one of the first things you must do is identify the gaps that exist. Basically, determine what they know and don’t know. Where are they proficient and where do they need to improve.
You do this for a few reasons.
- Manage Expectations on Time and Performance
Whether you are hiring a new pastoral staff member or you have pastors who need to improve, you need to have realistic expectations on how long the training will take and what performance level you can expect from your developing pastor.
For instance, one area you need to be able to hand off from time to time is preaching. You can’t preach every week because that isn’t healthy, and you can’t bring in a ton of speakers unless you have the budget for it. Instead, you need to develop the preaching capabilities of your pastors.
But where are they on their experience level? Are they completely inexperienced? Can they develop a sermon but have a hard time delivering it? Do they have a dynamic delivery but struggle with the structure of their content?
When you identify these gaps you can have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the training process.
2. Be Laser Focused to Avoid Wasting Time
Once gaps are identified, then you know exactly where you need to spend your time and focus on the development of your pastoral staff. Again, as the Lead Pastor, time is a scarce resource for you as well as for them, so you don’t want to waste time training in areas that your staff pastor is already proficient in.
By identifying the gaps, you will be able to customize a training experience that has a high degree of impact for them and minimizes the time commitment for both of you.
Step #2: Learn and Capture
As a sophomore in high school, I had a football coach that the varsity coach would describe as “forgetting more football than most coaches ever know”.
Most likely, that’s where you are as a Lead Pastor. You have probably forgotten more ministry than your pastoral staff has ever known…in some cases collectively. This is why I encourage pastors all the time to capture what they have learned in notes, a book, or, better yet, a training experience.
For you to train a highly effective pastoral staff team, you need to provide a clear path of learning for them. A haphazard, sporadic, random training experience is better than no experience, but an intentional training experience that leads them through a logical progression of learning and application is vital to their developing ministry skills.
Remember, you aren’t just trying to teach them enough to help you carry the load, but you are developing ministers of the Gospel to advance His Kingdom and reach a lost world. It is worth creating an experience that is effective and adds tremendous value to them and their ministry future.
An intentional learning path also helps you and your pastoral staff to be on the same page. When each pastoral team member goes through the same training and development, then your staff culture is strengthened because you are all on the same page, with the same expectations, and the same understanding of how ministry is done on your team.
Every basketball team utilizes the same fundamentals of basketball, but each team has its own approach to how those fundamentals are used to create a unique team dynamic no other team has. This is accomplished because the coach uses the same process of training for the entire team.
In the same way, your team will be more efficient, will have higher morale, and will accomplish more when they have gone through the same intentional, clearly designed training experience. This is what makes them a highly effective pastoral staff.
Step #3: Train and Delegate
Delegation is where most Lead Pastors freeze up. Either they hesitate to hand off responsibilities because they are unsure of the level of quality the pastor being delegated to will perform, or they delegate poorly and see their worst fears realized when things are dropped and deadlines are missed.
When you properly train, though, you happily delegate responsibilities and tasks with full confidence that things are in capable hands. A well-developed and engaging training experience allow you to delegate freely and lighten your load. In the last step we talked about creating an intentional learning process, but in this step, it is about creating an engaging experience. So, now that you have designed a clear path for training, it is time to put it all together.
The key to providing an incredible training experience while also keeping the time commitment low for all involved is utilizing an online training platform. My go-to training platform is Thinkific. It provides a great suite of tools, is simple to use, can be easily integrated into your current website, and does not break the bank.
When you use an online learning platform you maximize your time and the time of your pastors in the training process. For your pastors, they get to go through the training whenever it is convenient for them, and they don’t have to sit down with you all the time to receive the training.
This not only maximizes everyone’s time, but it also maximizes the relationship you have with your pastors. Instead of sitting down to teach or train all the time, you can sit down and field questions, have deeper conversations and even share your own stories on how what they learned can be applied.
Your relationship with your pastors is grounded in you providing them with wisdom and insight in person while they are receiving information and instruction through an online experience.
By the time your pastors have completed their training experience, you are ready to delegate almost anything to them with complete confidence and almost no anxiety. Which allows you to turn your attention to do the things only you can do and begin to live your dream life in ministry.
Step #4: Review and Reinforce
In this final step of creating a training experience that develops highly effective pastors, you will turn your attention away from training toward reviewing their development and reinforcing what they have just learned through the training experience.
Dirty delegation happens too often in the church because things are delegated and there is no follow-up until things are falling apart. Once your pastors have completed a training module or course, follow up with them about how they are applying their new skills and review their performance level.
What you are focusing on is giving them constructive feedback on their performance so they can continue to improve. Reviews and assessments should not be punitive or browbeating, but they should have one focus: the development of the pastoral staff member.
As the Lead Pastor, these reviews will also create a trail of performance for you to determine things like compensation, promotion, or even termination. It removes a large percentage of subjectivity from the conversation and provides a much more objective lens to look through. Most of all though, it creates touchpoints for you to champion the ongoing success of your pastoral staff for the sake of the advancement of the Kingdom of God.
Conclusion
You want to live your dream life in ministry, right?
Well, so does every pastor on your pastoral staff. Just as they can provide you with a clearer path to living that dream life, you can provide them with the skills and abilities to live their own dream life.
When you create a training experience that is intentional, focused, and enjoyable to go through, you have laid the foundation for building a highly effective pastoral staff team. When you have that, ministry is a lot more fun, things get done faster and at a higher level of quality, and everyone has the opportunity to make a greater impact on this world for Jesus.
It is worth your time and effort to follow these four steps to start building your highly effective training experience that designs a highly effective pastoral staff team.
In fact, it may be one of the most important things you can do.
Sources
- Why Do Ministers Need to Be Trained by Lawrence Bilkes
- “Just as I Am” by Billy Graham
- 5 Reasons to Get the Best Training For Ministry You Can by Wayne Stiles
(Some links in this article are affiliate links, sales links, or promotional links for Brandon Pardekooper Consulting, Ministry Hackers, and partners.)
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