Small Tasks, Big Ripples: Your Staff's Hidden Impact

Discover how your role in church staff can resonate with purpose and transform lives, including your own. Join me, Todd Rhodes, as we reveal the uplifting findings from our recent church staff health assessment; a staggering 78% of church employees are witnessing the profound influence their service has on their communities. Yet, it's not just about the numbers. In the heart of this dialogue, I unpack the importance of recognizing every individual's unique contribution, emphasizing the essential part church leadership plays in nurturing this culture of appreciation and impact. We're looking at the real stories behind these statistics, understanding what keeps our church staff fulfilled, and identifying where the gaps might be.

Then, we extend a hand to you for an opportunity to deepen that understanding with our 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment. This isn't just another survey; it's a chance to receive a personalized report that reflects on your role's vitality and efficacy. I'll walk you through what you can expect from the 50 or so questions that probe into the core of your church staff experience. By participating, you're taking a step towards enhancing your personal well-being and ministry effectiveness. So, grab your headphones and let's embark on this journey together, because come Monday, we'll have even more insights lined up for you right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

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Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hey, welcome to this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast. Happy Friday to you if you are listening, on the day that this podcast is released. If it's not Friday, happy whatever day it is to you. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and we are here every day, monday through Friday, on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast to serve as, hopefully, your guide on this journey of discovering some of the unseen impacts of our daily work, and that's really what we're talking about today. We're talking about how even the smallest tasks that we do as church staff members can create big ripples throughout our entire church and even our community.

Speaker 1: 0:50

This is part of our series that we've been doing this week. Today's our last one on church staff job satisfaction. Last week, we looked at communication. We're on a long series, a multi-week series here, talking about healthy church staff members. If you're a church staff leader, someone that leads a staff hopefully you can get some practical advice on making your team better. If you are a staff person, hopefully you can get some helpful advice as to helping you to become a healthier staff member. So let's get on with it.

Speaker 1: 1:23

Today we're taking a look at one of the responses we got from our 2023 church staff health assessment that we did last year. We just started our new one. I'll give you some more information about that here in a second, but one of the statements that we made and asked for feedback, and we got feedback from a little over a thousand church staff people, which is, I think, a great response. This is the statement that we gave them. The statement reads like this I feel like my work is making a positive impact on the congregation and the community, so it's really a question of job satisfaction. You feel like you're making a positive impact in your current role. So, first off, start with a good part of this, as I have been on each of these episodes A whopping 78% of church staff 78% feel that their work has a positive impact, and that's really.

Speaker 1: 2:21

Can we talk just for a second? That's really why a lot of us we feel called to church ministry, but why a lot of us chose church work is because we wanted to make a positive impact on people and a positive impact on the spiritual lives of people. So 78% actually do feel that, feeling good about the difference that they're making. Now know that it might be different in your church. This is on average of church staff members and what they've told us. If you have a healthy church staff, that number might be a lot higher. If you have a church staff that's struggling on a health standpoint, it might be much lower. But overall, 78%, that's pretty good. But what about the rest? We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1: 3:00

About six don't see the fruits of their labor as impactful. Matter of fact, they either disagreed or strongly disagreed with that statement. So 6% don't find that as impactful. Another 16% are on the fence. Maybe they wobble back and forth day to day, week to week, month to month. Sometimes they feel like, yeah, I'm making an impact in my role here. Other days they feel like or other months they feel like I don't feel like I don't. People, both in the neutral and the dissatisfied, uh, feeling like they're not making an impact. Maybe, if you're one of these people, maybe you're wondering if all the behind the scenes magic that you're doing it really makes any difference. And let me give you a spoiler it does make a difference. So let's look first of all at the 78% that said that they do feel fulfilled and that they feel like they're making a meaningful impact in their church and community.

Speaker 1: 3:50

For the majority of those people that feel like they are making meaningful contributions. It could be because of effective church leadership. It could be because your church does a really good job of creating missions and goals and has crystal clear communication. It could be that your church has some really exciting ministry opportunities that are really affecting people and changing lives and you're seeing some real elements of spiritual change in people. It's these elements that help keep staff connected. It's these elements that those 78% of the people are really dipping into and it's these elements that helps everybody or at least these 78% see the big picture, showing that everything from tweaking little things here and planning things here and doing outreach events can touch lives and makes a difference in the lives of their church, makes a difference in the lives of their church. So those are the positive ones.

Speaker 1: 4:51

But what about those 6% especially that feel like man and maybe you're like this? I've been like this a couple times in my ministry career for you Just man, I just feel like I'm spinning my wheels. There's no momentum. I don't know if what I'm doing is making a difference. Don't bother. It's crucial. It's crucial for leadership to step in here, and maybe by involving these people that don't feel like they're making an impact. Maybe putting them in, maybe get this, maybe a more impactful role, or maybe just showing them, helping them, showing them how their efforts are really making a difference or not just a drop in the ocean.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Sometimes seeing is believing and we just need to make sure that these people see that they're making a difference. And if you're one of these people you don't feel like you're making a difference, can I challenge you just to step back, deep down that you are making a difference. It might not be as much of a difference as you want to make, but I see very few people that are engaged, that are really zoned in, are trying to do a good job at a church, that are not making an impact in individuals. That's what your job is, and my hunch is even though you might not see it, if you really take a step back, you're going to see that you are actually making a difference. Okay, so let's talk about those that are neutral, and that was a fairly good percentage. About 16% of people said that they're neutral on that. So how do we, if you're feeling neutral, if you're a leadership in a leadership role, maybe just doing a better job, showing them how their efforts, like I said, are not just a drop in the bucket, so that they can see that really what they're doing is make a difference.

Speaker 1: 6:26

And I mentioned this a couple days ago on the podcast that we a lot of times in churches do not celebrate victories, we just move. We don't take time to celebrate victories, we just move on to the next thing. And for people that it's really important that they get to celebrate the victories, that they get to see even the small gains, the small impacts that their work is making. So as a leader, you can help do that. And if you're one of these people that just wonder if you're spinning your wheels, take some time to reflect and I bet, if you look at it, you're going to find some places where you are really making an impact. So if you're in leadership, you really have a great opportunity to ramp up some impact awareness with the staff.

Speaker 1: 7:12

Back when I worked with Leadership Network, one of the things we had to do we were a nonprofit, much like most churches right, that's another podcast topic but we were a nonprofit and we did every year what we called Kingdom Impact Reports. I've seen some good examples of churches that do a great year-end summary, a beautiful-looking PDF that kind of says, hey, this is who we are as a church and this is what we've done. We had to do this and we did it for our donors, because we wanted to show our donors that, hey, what you're doing is making a difference here. We called it our Kingdom Impact Reports. You should be doing this on a regular basis. You should be telling stories not only to your staff but to your congregation. Some kingdom impact reports hey, this is how this is. When you give your time, when you give your money, this is the impact that your church and that we are having. And maybe you start not doing this with the whole church, but maybe you start sharing some of these success stories in staff meetings Some individuals that made key decisions, number of baptisms, number of decisions for Jesus, number of just people that are stepping up volunteering cool stories Every church has them, every staff member has them.

Speaker 1: 8:20

A cool story that happened. Share those stories. It's going to help move the dial, I guarantee it. It's going to help move the dial. And let's not forget everyone in just these sessions to really bake this into kind of our DNA, that this sense of purpose is so vitally important for everybody to feel it's not a one-way street. It shouldn't be a one-way street.

Speaker 1: 8:45

Allow people to speak in to their job descriptions so that they feel like they've got some input into areas that are making a real difference. What ideas do they have? There was a pastor not too long ago that said we were doing a staff search for him and he said I just want somebody to come in and give me something to say no to. But that's great. He wants to challenge his staff to come in and give ideas and that shares that. There's open communication there. But another thing is that you want to be able to be open to that. A lot of give that pastor credit for saying no, I want to hear ideas. Encourage staff members to give you ideas. Okay, so that's.

Speaker 1: 9:26

The topic for today is how to help your staff and, if you're a staff member, how to feel like you're making a really big impact in both your church and community. This is vitally important, particularly if you want to keep your staff around and if you want to be at your church for a long time. You have to feel like you're making a difference. It's just absolutely vital Love to have you take if you want to be at your church for a long time. You have to feel like you're making a difference. It's just absolutely vital Love to have you take.

Speaker 1: 9:51

If you haven't already run over to churchstaffassessmentcom, you can take our free 2024 Church Staff Health Assessment, absolutely free. We'll ask you about 50 questions, then give you a customized report that gives you a score between 0 and 100. We're not trying to sell you anything here. We're just trying to help you to become a better and healthier staff person. So we hope you'll check that out today at Church Staff Assessment. Okay, thanks so much for listening. Hope you have a great weekend. We'll be back here again on Monday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.