Such wonderful recommendations.

Our church does not have a staff retention program as such, but we do practice most of your procedural recommendations.

I think it is important that pastors in particular should know more about Human Resource/Personnel procedures and practices than we are trained to do.  I have the benefit of having worked in an environment where these issues were practiced in the corporate world.

If we know the elements of what the book presents, we can call it what we like, or what we think the church/board will accept and endorse, but the practical elements should definitely be present.

Again, it may take years of preparing for the future to have the long range plan together and once again, we must look beyond the immediate future to where the church will be long after we are gone.

Thanks for the helpful reminders.

In the words of Howard Hendricks, these points are “a beautiful theory murdered by a gang of brutal facts.” The reality in most churches is that board members are ill-equipped for any functions of effective staffing: identifying, screening, interviewing, hiring, evaluating, coaching, or terminating.  It doesn’t help that most senior pastors are equally inept.  Reading this book might be a start, but I doubt it - there are so many nuances to effective staffing that have to do with other subtle, but extremely determinative realities: staffing experience (or lack of it) among board members and senior pastors; the emotional dysfunctions and deficits of the board members and staff; the nature of the role of a “founding pastor” and the subsequent concentration of power that results; the loyalty to a long-time, but incompetent staff member (sometimes this is the senior pastor!); the inability of a senior pastor to grow in his leadership role as the church grows (e.g. from entrepreneurial leader to manager/organizational leader); etc. etc. etc.  Staffing is the “royal” executive skill for the same reason that marital success is a bigger challenge than success in “work” - it requires so much personal health AND specific skills that most people haven’t acquired because they don’t have any exposure to them in their developing years (e.g. parents or mentors).  The answer to real staff retention is much more complex than the simple list presented here.  I don’t know if the authors cover the reality in their book (I haven’t read it yet) but I have a feeling that they haven’t addressed these other issues - it’s a much “messier” group to deal with.

I do not mean to advocate forsaking the example of Jesus, but if we examine the human resource/personnel procedures, they are easily followed by those who follow biblical procedures in human relationships.

I agree wholeheartedly with Jim Dyke’s assessment.

We must remember that we are responsible as spiritual leaders to learn and train in areas dealing with staffing.  If we are dealing with human relationships, we must go to the scriptures and follow those teachings that deal with employers and employees first in a biblical manner, then follow up in a legal matter (Caeaser’s territory).

The biggest problem is leading both ourselves and the “sheep” to the greenest pasture regarding such matters as staff or pastor/congregation relationships.