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How To Steal a Church Staff Member

Orginally published on Thursday, October 12, 2006 at 6:03 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Geoff Surratt from SeaCoast Church has a great post at his blog on How to Steal a Church Staff Member. Geoff makes some great points...

Let’s say Seacoast has a staff member you want; someone who is really talented, who would really fill a hole in your staff, someone who could make the turnstile spin if they would just jump ship. What do you do? Do you call our pastor and say, “Hey, I’d like to talk to Superstar about joining my team, what do you think?” Do you call Superstar and say, “Have you ever thought about changing teams? We could really use a superstar like you.” Do you find a “Christian” head hunter company and get them to do the deed. Do you stay away from Superstar entirely because they’re “taken”?

What are the ethics of recruiting staff from other churches? We’ve had a giga-church make overtures to several of our staff members, all without saying anything to our pastor or leadership. In most cases the staff member in question has talked this over with someone up the Seacoast beach from them, but not always. Should they? What’s the ethical thing for the staff member? Is it ethical for the giga-church to fish in our pond without asking our permission. Is there biblical precedent for this kind of recruiting?

“Christian” head hunting is another practice that seems pretty fuzzy. One of our senior staff members said they got a call out of the blue the other day from a guy who just left his name and number with no other explanation. When he returned the call the guy on the other end of the line just started asking questions about his job at Seacoast, how it was going, was he happy in what he was doing. At that the Seacoaster stopped him and asked what he was after. The other guy said he was with a Christian recruiting company and he had several churches who might be interested in talking with him about a job. Basically he was fishing for discontent and then going in for the big catch. All of this without any mention of spiritual authority or responsibility to leadership.

To me there are a couple of principles at work here. One is the permission principle. If my son wanted to marry your daughter I would consider it common courtesy that he would ask your permission. To march into your house and announce he’s taking her wouldn’t be right. Even worse would be for your daughter to tell you that she’s marrying my son in 30 days and you have no say in it. This is not say that this doesn’t go on all the time, it just doesn’t seem right. I think if you want to hire a Seacoaster the least you could do is to drop someone an email announcing your intentions. Even better would be a phone call asking permission to talk to one of our staff members.

On the other side of the coin I think its my obligation to talk over a move with my leader before getting too far along in the process. I’ve had a couple of opportunities to take other positions since I’ve been at Seacoast and in each case I’ve sat down with Greg and talked through the decision. His attitude has always been, “We want you to stay, but if its God for you to leave we’re going to support your decision 100%” Each time it has been obvious that staying is the right course.

In the business world the big eat the small and the best man wins. It seems in the church world we are called to a higher standard. But then again, maybe not.

FOR DISCUSSION: What do you think? Do you need to tell your church boss you’re looking elsewhere? Do outsiders (such as recruiters and other pastors) need to ask permission before contacting you as a staff member about a different job? What should be the proper protocol?

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TRACKBACKS: (1) There are 76 Comments:

Posted by

Friday, May 30, 2008 at 9:29 AM

Having served in my present ministry position for over 13 years, I haven’t given much consideration to leaving my church. However, things are changing rapidly as my present pastor is retiring after over 38 years of service.

Before coming to this position, I told my former pastor that I had been asked to interview with the church that I now serve. He said “you’d better hope it works out, because if you’re willing to be on another church staff, I don’t want you here.” Well, it did work out, but what a horrible way to leave a ministry.

My former pastor took it very personally that I was willing to serve elsewhere, and it took years for us to be able to talk.

All that to say, ...I do not recommend bringing your senior pastor, or anyone else from your present church, in the loop until you know what the Lord’s will is. Your present pastor is biased and cannot be objective about what God is doing in your life.

So, having been burned once, I doubt I would discuss a possible move with my senior pastor. The relationship can change in a instant, and you can find yourself in a desparate position. Suddenly, you find yourself taking a job offer just because you can no longer stay where you were.

Not all senior pastors are emotionally stable enough to handle such things. In a perfect world, the SP would be emotionally healthy, spiritually in tune with God, and able to provide objective counsel, but that’s not the world we live in.

Jackson

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Hi... I'm Todd Rhoades. I'm a Christ-follower, husband, father and I love to connect leaders with other leaders. Hopefully you'll find something here at MMI you like and will return often. If you want, you can find out more about me or follow my every step on Twitter.