Bad Hires in the Church

One of the ministry blogs I read on a regular basis is, Shaun In The City.  Shaun is the lead pastor of a new ministry, Courageous Church, in Atlanta.  He is a young guy with a different approach to ministry.  About a week ago, he wrote a post titled, 10 Mistakes I’ve Made (so far) as a Church Planter.  I was impressed with his candor and transparency and it’s one of the things I like about Shaun.  He is very forthcoming with his successes and his mistakes.  By way of his blog he shares what’s going on with Courageous Church and his personal life as a husband, father and pastor.

Of the 10 things he shared, I was particularly drawn to #7 – I made a few really bad hires.  Now, I don’t know if these “hires” were paid staff members or volunteers and I’m not going to get stuck there because it’s irrelevant.  I’m just glad he put it out there because it’s a mistake that occurs repeatedly in the church.

Sometimes I think because we are Christians, we skip important steps when we place people in leadership positions.  We fail to do our homework and find out who the people are behind the mask.  In many ways finding potential ministry leaders is just like courtship and dating.  In courtship, we put our best face forward, which in this case is our church face that may be combined with what I call church speak.  Those two combined with not knowing a person’s motives for wanting to work in ministry can lead to a “a really bad hire.”  One thing I know for sure is (particularly for a young church) people don’t work at a church for the money.

There are a variety of reasons/motives for working in ministry and all of them are not pretty.  I’ve worked in ministry for more than 15 years, both as paid staff and volunteer staff for a new and struggling ministry.  Of reasons that people want to work in ministry, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly:

The Good

• They love the Lord
• They have a passion for ministry
• They see a need and want to help

The Bad

• They want to ride the wave of something new and exciting
• They want to use the pastor and/or the ministry for their own selfish reasons

The Ugly

• They want to get next to the pastor (you can read between the lines here)
• They want to get close to the pastor’s family (usually to get to the pastor)
• They want to prey on people (yes I spelled that right)

About Pastors

By nature of the calling, most pastors love God, ministry and people.  Most (not all) are warm, outgoing people who are trusting.  They love people, they trust people and often believe people’s motives are pure.  This type of pastor needs their antithesis to work with and complement them.  That person can be a spouse, administrator, board member or associate pastor – someone that the pastor knows can keep a confidence and they can trust their judgement.

What to Do About Bad Hires

I’m a person of few words – get rid of them.  You may want to take the warm, fuzzy Paula Abdul approach and let them down easy or you may take the unabashedly direct, Simon Cowell approach.  Whatever approach you choose, get rid of them, they will poison the rest of your staff and your congregation.

I know this sounds cold, but I also believe that every ministry staff should have at least one Peter on board – not the one who denied Christ, but the one who would cut you to protect Him.

The Biblical Precedent for Leadership

• Exodus 18: 21: select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials.
• 1 Timothy 3:10:  They must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve as deacons.

When a ministry is young, it should operate with a skeleton crew.  That may make it difficult on the few tested and trusted people working with the ministry, but we must remember what Jethro told Moses and what Paul told Timothy.  There’s no way to get around it.  Before you can trust and test people, you must get to know them.  That takes time but it’s time well spent.

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Tags: bad hires, bad leaders, church leadership, ministry leaders, Staffing