Staffing for growth

 In his book, Staff Your Church for Growth, Gary McIntosh quotes a couple of other authors, Lyle Schaller and C. Peter Wagner regarding staffing problems. Schaller wrote, "The most common policy is to staff for numerical decline. A smaller number of churches staff to maintain on a plateau in size. A relatively small proportion staff to grow in numbers." Wagner's contribution was that "Most churches are understaffed for growth. They are staffed for maintenance and survival, but not for growth. If your church is to sustain growth momentum, staffing must become a very high priority." I agree with both assessments.

Smaller churches are often served by a solo pastor. These churches stop growing once they reache the limit of the pastor's ability to handle all the tasks assigned to him or her. For most churches that will mean they will stop growing once they reach about 120-150 people. Few pastors can adequately minister to more than that number. Some might grow beyond that, but it's not uncommon for them to begin seeing people exit the back door as more and more of their needs are unmet, and their attendance will begin to settle back down to the above range. It's not the pastor's fault, although it's often blamed on the pastor. That is just all the people a pastor can reasonably connect with and serve.

A church with a solo pastor and 120 or so regular attenders is staffed for maintenance. If a church wants to staff for growth, they need to begin adding staff at about 100 in attendance. This may be ministry staff, it might be support staff, and it might include volunteer staff, but more people need to be added to the leadership. A good ratio for a growing church is 1:100, one staff person for each one hundred people in attendance.

The most aggressive growth-minded church I've encountered was running about 450 in attendance. They had 18 people on staff and were seeking a senior pastor at the time. They did not have a youth minister; they had a Jr. High girls minister, a Sr. High girls minister, and so forth. They were very aggressive in their staffing because they had a large vision for growing and reaching their community, and that vision was being fulfilled.

Of course, one of the challenges for staffing for growth is the financial aspect. Churches will complain they cannot afford to add staff for each 100 people because the money isn't there. Perhaps adding staff won't produce the growth they seek, and their current finances won't support more staffing salaries and benefits. They decide once they reach more people they will then add the staff to support that growth. Unfortunately, without the needed staff, the growth probably won't happen. Even if it is, it might not be maintained while seeking the additional staff.

Smaller churches also should be thinking about better utilizing their volunteers as staff persons. Too many smaller churches use their volunteers in non-productive committees and boards rather than making full use of their gifts and time in more productive endeavors. Paid staff is not always needed in smaller churches when there are gifted volunteers who can lead various ministries if they are freed from the maintenance activities too often assigned to them.

If your church is serious about growing, it needs to look at how it is staffed and how it is using its volunteers.