There is a revolution taking place in the way traditional congregations hire, manage and compensate their staff. Some of it is healthy and overdue, some of it is painful and short-sighted.

Bill Wilson

The results are striking.

• Clergy benefits are shrinking. Retirement contributions, medical insurance provisions, continuing educations funds are all being watered down or jettisoned in an attempt to balance the books.

• In many congregations, long-standing ministerial and support positions are being eliminated or downsized to part-time status with no benefits.

• Many clergy have gone backward in terms of salary.

• Clergy, like everyone else, have found themselves underwater on mortgages and are unable to move, or to sell their homes when they do move. Years of equity have been erased.

Some new realities are emerging.

First, congregations have come to understand that building a staff exclusively around an attractional, programmatic model is not sustainable. We have awakened to the concept of staffing to a dynamic and compelling vision, rather than to a program. When there is clarity about a congregation’s identity and intended destination, staffing questions take on a new focus and are more likely to result in energy and vitality.

Second, healthy congregations are discovering that a significant part of their staff’s time must be devoted to engagement with their community, rather than simply servicing the wants and desires of the congregation’s members. Being a congregation on a mission to transform a community requires staff that ventures outside the property lines of the church daily. Healthy congregations encourage this and welcome it.

Third, clergy are awakening to the fact that their future in ministry may require them to be bivocational. Many congregations find themselves transitioning from full-time clergy positions to part-time or contract positions hoping for reasonable performance at a more affordable cost.

Fourth, financial shortfalls will continue to create opportunities for creative and innovative staffing models. Entrepreneurial clergy will find ways to package ministry leadership to fit the financial constraints of the congregation. These jobs will not look like the previous generation.

Fifth, collaborative leadership between clergy and laity has taken on added urgency. 

There are numerous implications for congregations and for staff and clergy in this new era of congregational life.  If you are a congregation facing staffing dilemmas, consider this sample:

• Be ethical and fair. I’m amazed at how congregations rationalize unchristian behavior and actions toward their staff. Calling a minister is a covenant relationship that demands a higher standard than simply managing the bottom line. Clergy deserve better than to be treated as disposable property.

• Beware the quick fix. You may think you can solve your fiscal problems by cutting benefits, positions or continuing education funds, but in the long run, you may find yourself exacerbating the underlying issues.

• When you find yourself facing inevitable reductions, treat your staff as by Christ’s Golden Rule. Communicate often and openly with them. Operate out of an ethic of respect and generosity.

• Use your imagination! God’s people can be incredibly innovative and creative when given the opportunity. Thinking outside the box is a divine endeavor that most of us have long neglected.

• If you haven’t revisited your staffing model, do so now. Too many congregations are structured for a 1970s world.

• If you want to improve your staff’s performance, make sure you have a clear and compelling mission/vision that everyone understands. Clarity is so rare, and so needed in this regard.

• The grass really isn’t greener over there. Getting rid of yours and hiring a new minister of music or pastor or youth minister because of unreasonable expectations or outdated metrics will usually cost you more than you’ll gain. 

• Get help from someone who knows the world of congregations. What works at the manufacturing plant or the school system or the local non-profit may not align with the unique life of a congregation.

In the next few days, our son will graduate from seminary and enter the world of full-time ministry. In the near future, I’ll share with you my suggestions for clergy as they face these new realities.

I’m reminded again and again that God’s people have always been at our best when the headwinds were strongest. I have no doubt that we will find our way through this season of upheaval with a renewed sense of God’s leadership and provision.

Blessings to you in that struggle.

Bill Wilson ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) is president of the Center for Congregational Health in Winston-Salem, N.C.

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Comments on staff of churches
written by Maxine J. Bersch-Lovern, May 12, 2012

I am a Baptist and I am 93 years of age, so this makes me "old fashioned" in the view of many, but it is my belief that the calendar age is not relevant to the "born-again" Christian, since the Lord does not operate in the Time dimension only. When we allow Him to take his proper place at the center of our being, and begin the process of re-creating us to our pre-fall condition through the power of His indwelling Holy Spirit, then we are ageless. I have eternal life abiding in me and I never think of myself as "OLD" in the sense of being out of touch with reality. The world is still turning and the Lord is still Lord, the same yesterday, today and forever, therefore all those who are born again are young at heart and chance and change in the world about us can make no material difference in the fact that we as Timeless creatures need to adapt ourselves to the place where we have our temporary dwelling. Variety is the spice of life the saying goes, and we are bound to have differing views of all aspects of staffing the church, but so long as the Lord Jesus is held in his proper place as the head, then His Under-Shepherd will be guided to lead his flock as the Shepherd directs. Any comparison of the Church of the Living God to a secular organization is not apples to oranges for that way it could be assumed they are both fruit. They are not in the same family so that should be remembered. Think of the scriptural application, "what fellowship has light with darkness?" The Church is the Body of Christ in the world. Everyone in the Church is in a "called" position, using the gifts of the Spirit to carry on the work of God in the world. Therefore,even though we are finite, God still is at work in us to complete His plans for the peoples of the world before He stops the cosmic clock and planet earth will literally go up in smoke! The elements will melt! I believe it would be fitting if all heads of denominations that name Jesus Christ as Lord would have conferences, perhaps annually, and plan a unified strategy that we could carry out. Each denomination would retain its identity and all the ways that each is different from the others, for our God who created the universe (and they are now claiming muliple universe but even one universe is beyond comprehension) and so we shoud remember that He is big enough to accomodate all the denomination that name the name of Jesus Christ as Lord. We could be more effective in bringing His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and he taught us to pray for that. Faith without works is dead, James says, and real faith is based on brotherly love and trust. How am I relating this to the staff of the local church? I just feel that sometimes we can't see the trees for the forest, and like a huge ship depending on the Pilot for direction on that shoreless sea, we turn to the Pilot--that constant star who never changes his position and we can rely on Him without any doubt. In the midst of all this twenty first century business, we are never going to be anything less than God's own church, and we'll be carrying out His directives until he brings the curtain down, for there will always be a remnant who will carry them out faithfully

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addition to above
written by Maxine J. Bersch-Lovern, May 12, 2012

I merely wanted to clarify the statement that real faith is based brotherly love and trust. Of course, our faith is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, as the old song has it, but He said, after that is said, we should love our neighbor as ourselves. Then he issued the eleventh commandment that we love one another. We are told that he is building up his church in love--living stone by living stone.

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