New Friday Feature: Ask the ChurchStaffing/MMI Guy!
- Posted by: Todd
- Posted on: Fri, June 10, 2005
- Viewed 41
- (11) comments so far
OK... my life's an open book (mostly)... anyone have a question?
OK… just for fun, I thought we’d try something new (and hopefully fun). Every Friday, I’ll answer at least one reader question that you’d like to ask me. No real rules, other than if I don’t want to answer, I won’t. So do you have a question about ChurchStaffing.com, MMI, the blog, or me personally that you’ve just been dying to ask?
Comments
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Jackson on Fri, June 10, 2005
My church is starting to search for a part-time employee to run our children’s ministry. They’d cover from babies to 6th graders. We have a ministry in place, but we need someone to be able to devote 20 hours a week to make it thrive, etc.
So - got any big pitfalls to avoid with this, or nuggest of wisdom, mistakes of others we can learn from?
bernie dehler on Fri, June 10, 2005
Todd, what’s your testimony, even up to what God’s been doing in your life recently. Is it on the web somewhere?
...Bernie
http://fgn-letters.blogspot.com/
Pete King on Fri, June 10, 2005
Todd,
I have one. Since you spend a lot of time pouring your ministry into us, is there something your would like your readers to pray about? Maybe it’s regarding this ministry. I’m not sure if you feel comfortable sharing that issue with us but it seems one sided when you do so much for ministry leaders everywhere and get very little in return. If things are going well and I’m praying they are, what other plans do you have regarding churchstaffing.com?
tw on Tue, June 14, 2005
We are HUGE WillowCreek and that kind of church fans, we love and appreciate the fact that mega churches are reaching 1000’s of people. We are totally pumped about relevant churches, ones that our unsaved relatives would feel comfortable in. We so
appreciate each and every church type, style, etc…and choose to believe ministers everywhere do what they do, how they do it, based on their love for people and the Lord. However, we are betwixt two,
and hoping you can help. Since we love them all, and see greatness in all of them,
how do we get settled in what kind of church
we want to hook up with and be on staff at?
We’ve been involved with the corporate mindset, seen positive and negatives, been involved with churches HUGE on leadership, and some that are like “what? leadership, what’s that? Who’s John Maxwell?” Quite
frankly, we’re trying to get clear direction on what church TYPE would be best
for us, this season of of life, etc.
Any tips you can give us to narrow the field, we’ve established some core values,
but feel we need to narrow the field more,
but not sure how to do it. Any help you can give us would be greatly appreciated!
blessings, tw
Tony Byrd on Thu, June 16, 2005
Hey there -
Here’s a question ...
We’re still a young church (5 yrs. old), but we’re finding that our ministry needs and opportunities are surpassing our resources and ability to pay staff members. I’m sure this is the case at just about every church, but we’re trying to create solutions as best we can and have been very seriously considering hiring volunteer staff members. Obviously we’ve got plenty of volunteers serving throughout our church and in leadership of individual departments, but so far any general staff members we’ve had—people who create and oversee budgets, participate in high level decision making and strategizing, etc.—have been officially in our employ and financially compensated for their efforts.
Do other churches officially “hire” non-paid, volunteer staff? If so, what differentiates them from paid staff (other than the fact that they’re doing this pro-bono)? What’s the criteria for “this is when we hire” and “this is when we don’t”. How do you keep people from feeling like they deserve compensation as much as the next guy (and I’m guessing that would eventually be true in some situations), or feeling like they’re being taken advantage of? If you have a minute to give me your thoughts I’d really appreciate it.
Tony
bernie dehler on Thu, June 16, 2005
Tony-
To answer your question, read the article from this link:
http://www.mmiblog.com/monday_morning_insight_we/2005/06/_megachurch_pas.html
It will answer all these questions…
...Bernie
http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/247
kd on Thu, September 08, 2005
Just wondered how you deal with people who interpete scripture differently than you. Do you silently pray or confront them or just turn the other cheek and not say anything? I have run into differences before and not wanting to be divisive or mean[?], I just want to be loving and would like to know how other people handle that situation. Thanks!
Craig Gordon on Tue, October 04, 2005
Our Church has gone from 400 to 248 worshiping members over the last ten years, and there are some who are asking why we need a Associate and a Senior Pastor? I know that there is an awful lot of intangibles, but is there a number where you would add another pastor or subtract another Pastor?
Bernie Dehler on Tue, October 04, 2005
Craig said:
“ I know that there is an awful lot of intangibles, but is there a number where you would add another pastor or subtract another Pastor?”
Craig, I think you’re looking at it backwards. It’s not that the church has money and asking if it’s ok to spend it on salaries, etc. It should be that you have God-directed plans, then you get the funding and personnel to carry it out. Maybe that’s why your church is shrinking… no vision? If your church had the vision, seems like you wouldn’t be asking the question…?
I’d think if someone asked why there’s the assoc. position, you’d be ready with many answers…? If there’s no vision, then all there’s left is “fire-fighting”… maintaining status quo…?
...Bernie
Monica on Sat, November 05, 2005
Todd,
I have a question that might be interesting to discuss on this blog.
I’ve recently learned about a philosphy that basically does away with Youth Ministry as a “department”.
It states that we should no longer encourage the “drop-kick” mentality of parents by allowing them to drop off their children and teens for some much-needed Biblical teaching, only to be picked up an hour later by those same parents. Doing this means we’ve missed ministering to the parents and have thus missed empowering the parents as teachers.
Rather, we should bring in family units and minister to the whole family. Share topical discussions, Books of the Bible, and current events as a family and no longer emphasize the “split” of age groups. Though the families are together during some teaching, there would still time to split into small groups (based on gender, or age, or parent/child depending on the topic at hand).
So, there may be a movement coming which discredits Youth Ministry altogether and places our current Youth Ministers between a rock and a hard place.
Any thoughts, and any discussion from others?
LB on Sat, December 17, 2005
Question for the MMI guy:
Why are the resources for church leaders that appear on Pastors.com and CreativePastor.com all fee based (okay, Pastors.com has 5 sermons that are downloadable for free, but everything else is fee based)?
I do understand that internet resources are not free, but the prices charged for the resources are much higher than cost-based prices. And, surely, people like these could find people who are willing to underwrite the costs - for the sake of assisting other leaders who dearly want to, and are working to, enlarge the Kingdom but who cannot afford to pay - if they wished. (I used to get print Bible studies from such a ministry.)
Is “the world” in charge of this part of their ministry? Is it due to some contractual requirement by the publisher they’ve signed up with, so the publisher can get their cut? Or maybe it’s the equivalent of ensuring that the college coach gets additional income from his own show, camp, and endorsements? (Sells his sermons for $4 each, or $19.95 per series, or whatever).
So, are these church leaders (specifically Rick Warren and Ed Young in these cases) insensitive to the number of church leaders who have no funds available for resources? are they locked into contracts that require it? What’s the real deal?
Thanks.
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