The staffing dilemma

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:08

Hey, everyone, this is Lee Stevenson and I want to welcome you all to the unfiltered podcast Church Planting. And we're having real conversations just about church and the church planting world. My co host here is Danny Parmalee. Say hey, Danny.

Danny Parmelee: 00:00:22

Hello everyone. And I oversee church planting for Converge Mid America.

Lee Stephenson: 00:00:27

So today we're going to take a little bit of time and talk about the staffing dilemma I guess you would have when it comes to church planning, because sometimes I notice in conversations with church planners, I face this myself is when do we hire? Who should we hire? What are the trigger points when we know we can actually afford a potential hire?

Let's begin talking a little bit about your story and your experience.

Danny, when you guys planted epicos Church there in Milwaukee, at what, what point in the history of the church did you guys actually begin to think and hire? And who were those first hires that you made?

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:05

Yeah, and I'll share ours, but I do think ours is maybe a little bit different than a majority of people who, who are starting. Because we started fairly young, we were attracting mostly college students and young professionals without kids.

And so because of that, we, we certainly didn't have a ton of finances. And so for us, staffing didn't happen until a couple years into it. And I think I shared this on another podcast.

So we, we made some mistakes in this area because I thought, well, we don't have money, so we'll just dole out titles instead, like, there you go.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:36

Hey, you're a pastor.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:37

Exactly.

Lee Stephenson: 00:01:38

And, and the idea was don't, don't do that. Right.

Danny Parmelee: 00:01:42

Instead, be patient.

And so, so for us, we started out, I had a friend that joined the team as a worship leader, but he was volunteer, so he had a full time job and was volunteering. So we kind of had that covered, which is, you know, often a first consideration for hire.

And because we didn't have young families, we didn't have children or youth, so that wasn't a real important thing for us. So for a while, we just sustained off of just me. I had raised my full time support and worship leader was, was volunteer.

And so for us, we didn't hire until a couple years in. And our first hire was actually small groups and discipleship.

And so, so for us, that's maybe not a common, common one, but that's where we were kind of busting at the seams, where it was becoming too much for me to, you know, both lead the church, write the sermons and then write small group curriculum, try to get people into groups. And it was also coach the leaders, follow up all that. And, and I would also say it was a core value of ours.

We started with small groups, we multiplied small groups before we ever even launched the church.

And so, so for us, maybe that is, you know, as people think about their trigger points, think about what are the things that you truly do value and, and probably budgetary, that should be reflected there.

So if you are, you are all into world missions, you know, even though that may not be the typical church planting first hire, hey, maybe that is on the consideration we figure out how to, to do that. But I will say for our first hire, one of the things that was important I did, did have some excellent coaching on this.

And, and the best thing that was told to me is that you need to hire the right person, not the best person. And, and this did play its way out for us.

I mean we went through the whole process and you know, posted online, did national search, got the hundreds of resumes, you know, narrowed it down to the 10, did the phone interviews, eventually brought in three, you know, for, for the personal interviews. And there was a best of the three. But we decided, you know what, that's still not the right person.

So we scrapped that whole batch, restarted the process over and, and this is what's hard is that usually by the time you're, you're hiring, it's already, you're almost, you know, it's too late. You realize, oh my goodness, we need someone. And so there's this desperation. If we could just fill this hole, like we need to get someone.

Don't do that. Be patient, get the right person. And I'm so glad we did because we ended up getting the right person. That person is still in that position today.

They were key to not only our small groups and discipleship growth, but the, the health of the church, the culture of our staff.

And so that first hire was so important and it demonstrated to the rest of the church that we kind of knew what we were doing in the area of staffing and how to, how to bring someone in that was from the outside. So that's the other thing for us is that it was someone from the outside.

So we wanted to really make sure, you know, that as best we could that there was at least a good, good culture match there. So how about you? I know you guys were quite different in especially timeline.

Lee Stephenson: 00:04:57

Yeah, both, both church plants. We kind of made a decision to hire some key person, key staff before we actually had a grand opening.

And so first time around our church plant in Arizona there was three of us that were full time staff leading up to the actual grand opening. I had a full time executive pastor which, you know, there is a different mentality on how you define what an executive pastor is.

Some people want a more business administrator, others want kind of a second tier leader of teams and developer implement implementer. That's who we chose to go with was the, the second option.

We were really looking for a high level key implementer that could complement my gifts from a leadership and be really active in building teams and reproducing teams.

And then we also hired a children's pastor right off the bat we had a real solid worship team that was able to handle that at a volunteer basis right off the bat. But part of it for us was we, we aimed at a launched large type of model.

And so we put a lot of emphasis, a lot of energy and creating traction within the community towards the grand opening and had an expectation that if we were to hit a certain number at the grand opening, we have instant momentum and we didn't want to lose that momentum. And so part of the reasoning and the thought process behind that was let's have a staff team in place.

So that way if we were able to create this big wave, we can actually ride that wave and they potentially could carry us on in the future in a very healthy and positive way.

But on the upfront that required us to raise a whole lot of extra money in order to be able to do that because we just knew it was going to take a long time for our church to actually grow, to be able to be at a place where they could support three full time staff. We were able to get to the point where the other staff guys were off of outside support. Within nine months of the grand opening of the church.

I went ahead and stayed on outside support at some level for the first three years to help the church kind of grow into that.

And it, it honestly took us about two and a half years to get to the point where we were fully sustainable at those, those levels second time around, similar approach. I just know myself well that I need that, that second chair leader next to me for us to, to create the most momentum.

And so that we decided to launch this time around, same type of model, had an executive pastor on board before we actually had our grand opening.

We didn't have a next gen or children's pastor or youth pastor this time around, but we did do worship and we put some extra money towards the worship experience this time around. Partly because it was looking at who do we have in the feeder and what kind of team do we have to pull from?

We didn't have a lot of worship people early on to pull from. So we just knew that we needed somebody that could bring them together, give them vision and help them move forward.

But we did have a lot of key experience volunteers in the children's ministry and that allowed us to be able to get children's up and running right off the bat.

And even the first time around, we didn't have a youth pastor for probably two and a half, three years in the making before we actually hired a youth pastor. It was all volunteer led in those early days, which I think helped us have a little bit of financial margin to be able to do what we were able to do.

Danny Parmelee: 00:08:41

That's awesome. Can you talk a little bit about, especially the first time around when you don't have a track record, no one knows who you are.

How did you get people to join your staff on a hope and a dream that someday maybe they'd be able to draw a real salary from it and speak to how much of the support did they personally raise and did you have. Yeah. So did you have relationship? Is this like, hey, these are friends or is it like, hey, this is some person? I don't know.

I put out an ad and said, raise your own support and if this works out, awesome. If it doesn't, you know, good luck.

Lee Stephenson: 00:09:15

Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. It was a hard con job, I think is the best way I could describe it. Danny. You know, the first hire was our executive pastor.

I probably interviewed eight or nine guys that I had leads on and stuff. Not necessarily. I think only went after one person that I had a prior relationship with, friendship established. And he's like, no, you're crazy.

And that was a pretty quick conversation. But everybody else was a lead that I just followed up. Went and grabbed lunch together or something of that sort.

Breakfast and just begin to sit and talk about the vision of the church. And again, kind of, you know, replaying what you said at the beginning of the episode.

The importance of having the right person versus the best person. Not everybody fits the culture or would be a good chemistry fit for me as a lead pastor. Eventually we found a guy and.

And we just spent two hours sitting and talking in a restaurant. And he had actually been following our blog and thought it was really cool of what we were doing and how we were doing it and kind of had this.

He was already been a part of a church plant experience going back three years prior and just thought, oh, It'd be kind of fun to do this again, not knowing that our wives knew each other and they had actually kind of set up the conversation for us to sit down and begin to talk. But I think the importance was set.

I set very clear expectations right off the front of saying, hey, this is a support raising type of moment and I will do everything I can to go above and beyond to help you raise the support. Knowing that I had probably more avenues and more experience at raising money versus his current experience and, and connections.

And in the same similar approach with our, our children's guy that we hired that, that first time around, say, I can't promise you, but this is what I can promise you.

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:13

You know, can you, can you go.

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:14

Back that, can you do everything?

Danny Parmelee: 00:11:16

So with that, the executive pastor, were they raising a full time support and how did you explain that as far as saying you need to ask for donations monthly for a year, or were you saying, hey, just raise a year and then from there we'll kind of see how it goes?

Lee Stephenson: 00:11:39

I told them, aim for a year of full support and do the best that they could possibly do. Now the reality was everybody early on sacrifice, nobody made the income in which we all wanted to be making.

You know, so there was a level of sacrifice across the board.

But one of the things that we approached it differently, it was kind of, I know a lot of guys mentality when it comes to hiring or even the fundraising side when they're bringing on staff, it's like, hey, go out, do your best, I'll cheer you on, God bless you in that effort. But if you only have 75% come in, you're only getting paid 75%.

I kind of came at it with a different mentality with our guys and just said, hey, all those supports going in the same pot, and so we're all getting paid out of the same pot.

And I think what that did was really brought a level of unity and built loyalty right off the bat that they realized, you know, if you're getting a pay cut because the sport hasn't come in, I'm getting a pay cut because support hasn't come in and that I'm bleeding with you in that process. Now that also served as a great motivator to me to go out and raise more money to be able to support these guys.

And honestly, that's really what happened. I would say the number two guy that we hired probably raised about 50% of his income that first year.

I had to come up and try to raise the other 50% for him. And we were able to do that. And the nice thing was, nine months in, we were able to get them totally actually office support.

Danny Parmelee: 00:13:12

And I think something to speak to here that's really important is understanding that if you go that route, if you pitch that to people to understand that it is going to be more difficult for a support staff to raise support. And so if they're lagging and you're like, well, hey, I did it, you know, I raised my full support. I.

I kind of think of this stratification of difficulty of raising support, where on one side, if you've got the overseas exotic, you're in a jungle in a hut, trying to reach people, that's going to be like your easiest support to raise. And then it gets harder as you're like, okay, maybe, you know, raising for a European country. Okay, well, at least you're still overseas. Now.

You talk about in the United States being a church planner, that's even a little more difficult. And the more difficult thing than that is your support staff on a church. And so it is. It's difficult.

So I just think that's a good thing to let them know, because we can shoot ourselves in the foot as church planners, that we're excited.

We get someone to sign on the dotted line, they see that you've raised your support, but then they go out there and they only can raise 25 or 30% what they and their family needs. They're feeling bad about it, you're feeling bad for them, and then it can just be not a good situation.

Lee Stephenson: 00:14:29

So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. How do you. How did you process? Because everybody wants to add staff. Like, that's an exciting thing when, like, man, I.

We were able to hire this guy. How did you strategically go about knowing what position should we hire next versus this position?

And what were some basic trigger points in your mind? Did you wait till you had 25% of their income in the bank? Did you wait till you had 100% of their income in the bank?

You know, what level does faith come into that, Danny, in the process as well?

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:05

Well, it's always faith, but I would say we definitely lean more towards the side of. Until we knew that we wouldn't have to cut them type of thing so that if anything happened, yeah, they move their family here.

It's like, oh, man, it just, it's. We, sorry, we don't have the pay for you anymore.

Lee Stephenson: 00:15:21

We don't have the money now.

Danny Parmelee: 00:15:22

That's, you know, that'll. That'll be a different maybe Upcoming podcast that we can do just on. On budgeting stuff.

But for us understanding that each for majority of positions within the church besides maybe missions, those eventually create growth in the church and growth economically as well. But there's usually a lag time, 12 to 18 months.

So you don't have a children's person, you hire a part time or full time, your children's ministry continues to grow, there's impact, the giving follows that the position pays for itself. Okay. But again, there's that lag time in there. And this is actually a ripoff from Bill Hybel's book.

He said the only one that is and is the missions one. So you're hiring someone to give away more money and give away stuff. Stuff. So.

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:09

Exactly.

Danny Parmelee: 00:16:11

But yeah, I think for us it was really important to know and again, we always were.

It's all there is that tension, there is that balance where you're stepping out in faith, you're trying to stay a little a bit ahead of the curse so you're not behind. You know, like, oh well, we should have hired a children or youth person two years ago.

Now we lost all the families that we ever had the potential to reach.

And at the same time not just thinking, well, if we just go out on a whim in faith and just hire all these positions that they're going to create great impact and growth. So what, what about you guys?

Lee Stephenson: 00:16:43

Yeah, yeah. There's a couple things that we use as a grid and framework.

For me, when it came to hiring staff, one was there is staff that you hire, I would say that bring more income in and then there's staff that you hire that doesn't bring more income up. In other words, it's money going out of your budget. So what that would be an example would be say a bookkeeper or an admin assistant.

It doesn't mean that they're not important, but the reality is they're so task oriented that they're not helping establish new relationships. Bringing new people in versus your expectation of a pastor would be that, hey, they're actually helping us grow.

They're helping us do better at what we're doing. So they're bringing more people, which equates to more income coming in.

On the budgetary side of things, any position that we are looking on the income side bringing in was we were looking at somebody could help us grow the ministry. 100, 150 people.

If we felt this was a type of person in that role that could actually help us grow to that 100, 150 person in attendance, then they would in essence pay for themselves in that position. And then the other thing we looked for was I wanted to have 75% of their income sitting in the bank before I actually pulled the trigger on that.

And same kind of philosophy, thinking that it would probably take us 3/4 of a year to begin to grow and gain enough momentum to be able to absorb the remaining 25%. And so that for me, I was, that was a safe competition.

Danny Parmelee: 00:18:18

How did you balance when the staff were the ones that were asking for more staff and that could be done by volunteers or even I guess for yourself of determining like, well, that's something like, we've always had a volunteer. Why should we start paying someone to do that? Why don't we just get more, get more volunteers for that?

Lee Stephenson: 00:18:37

Yeah, yeah. To me, the staff people were people that oversaw a lot of volunteers. And so that to me, put a level of this is more critical to hire.

I always found that more the administrative staff side of things always was asking for more. And I was okay for that to just always, for them to just always be. If I felt like that's where they were now.

They weren't getting upset or felt disrespected, but they always wanted, oh man, I wish we could hire this person, that person. I got them in their sweet spot.

And the, the other side of that was we just set real kind of black and white when it came to how we budget, saying, you know what, 50% of our income goes to staffing, period. We don't want to go above that and we'd like to actually over time decrease that.

And so there is an expectation that you are raising up key volunteers. And, and if that's, if you're incapable of doing that, then you're probably not the right person to lead this ministry forward anymore as well.

Danny Parmelee: 00:19:43

Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

I just, we always just realized it was kind of this, this tension of not wanting to take away from the volunteer culture, but also just not being cheap, you know what I mean? And saying, oh well, we could do this cheaper by just like burning people into the ground, just rubbing them right into the ground type of thing.

And those are always the kind of decisions that need to be made by the planter and the staff team as they continue to kind of grow and are making more decisions based, team based decisions.

Lee Stephenson: 00:20:15

Absolutely. I think my biggest recommendation is if I've given a church planner advice on the hiring process.

Take your time, do your homework, do your due diligence, make sure you don't bypass the process and the interviewing, and then you need to pay attention to the income side. You know, I always tell guys, like, nowhere in the Bible does it say that you have to have a youth pastor.

But the Bible does say if you have a youth pastor, you have to pay them what they're worth.

Danny Parmelee: 00:20:40

Yeah.

Lee Stephenson: 00:20:40

And so pay attention to that, even from a scriptural standpoint, to make sure you're stewarding God's assets in a. In a way that's God honoring and also honoring to the position itself.

Danny Parmelee: 00:20:52

Cool.

Lee Stephenson: 00:20:53

Well, thanks, guys, for being with us. This has been a fun conversation about staff, and specifically in the church planning world, this is unfiltered.

And until next time, keep it real, guys.