The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
We're all about helping create a healthy, positive, and spiritually positive environment for church staff members and leadership teams.
The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Five Pillars of a Great Hire: What Churches and Candidates Must Agree On
What are the five pillars that can make or break a church staff partnership? Discover the secrets to lasting success in church staffing as we kick off a transformative series on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm Todd Rhoades, co-founder of chemistrystaffing.com, and together we'll uncover the vital components that ensure a harmonious fit between church staff and candidates. From theology to culture, personality to skills and abilities, and the all-important chemistry, each pillar plays a critical role. Our journey begins by laying a strong foundation with theological alignment—the cornerstone that fosters unity and prevents division.
This episode is your gateway to understanding how to spot potential misalignments early in the hiring process and turn cautionary flags into a bright, green path forward. Whether you're on the hiring side or seeking a new role, this series is packed with practical insights to help your church team not just survive but thrive. As we dive deeper into each pillar in future episodes, starting with theology, join us for a thought-provoking discussion that promises to equip you with the knowledge to forge strong, lasting partnerships in your church community. Subscribe now and prepare for a journey that could redefine your approach to church staffing.
Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com
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Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and your friend on this daily journey to build stronger, healthier church teams. Okay, I've got a confession to make to you. I lied to you on yesterday's podcast. I said today we're going to talk specifically about theology. We're going to mention theology today, but today I want to introduce I mentioned yesterday the five kind of things that we work with both churches and candidates here at chemistrystaffingcom to help churches and staff find together what we hope is a healthy long-term fit. By healthy, long-term fit, we're talking five years or more.
Speaker 1:You've probably heard the stories. Maybe you've lived them. Chances are, if you're like me, you've lived them where a hire looked really great on paper but fell apart in practice. Or if you're a person and been in the church, it looked great on paper, it looked great, sounded great on the interviews. You got there and it's like, oh, my goodness, what did I just move my family for? More often than not, those problems can be because one of these five pillars that I'm going to talk about today was out of alignment. Okay, and that's part of actually that's what we do at chemistry is I'm going to mention these five pillars and unpack those for you just broadly, today. And then, starting tomorrow and then part of next week, we're going to take a different episode for each of the five pillars and pull them out. But if something went awry, either in your hire, or if you hired a new staff member and something didn't work out, or if you are a staff member and you went to a new church and it didn't work out, it's probably because one of these pillars was out of alignment. So we're going to dig in and we're going to discover what these five pillars are, number one and then number two, how we can identify yellow flags and even red flags during the interview process to make sure that we get these five pillars right. And again, foundationally, what we say at Chemistry is that between the candidate and the church and the candidate, all five of these pillars have to be in alignment. If even one of these pillars is out of alignment, the chances of a healthy, long-term fit go down substantially, substantially. Okay, so let's start with a high level view of what these five pillars are. Again, these are areas where alignment matters most between a church and a candidate and a church. Get these right, get these right and you're setting yourself up for success. Miss one, and I tell you what you're really rolling the dice it probably is not going to work out, at least for a long-term, healthy fit.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the first pillar theology. Theology is the foundation, right, of course it is. It's a church. If your church and a person you're interviewing, a candidate don't agree on core theological beliefs, it's going to lead to some tension or worse, some division. And I'm not just talking about the big stuff like salvation or authority of scripture. Sometimes it's the smaller, practical things, like views on baptism or spiritual gifts that can trip you up.
Speaker 1:So what we do at Chemistry is we have all of our churches and all of our candidates fill out a theological assessment even before we start talking to them, even before we onboard start the search, even before we start talking to the candidate, and we ask them about 25 key theological questions. And we ask the church, we ask the candidate, we put those together and we identify areas that there might be some misalignment. Okay, so that we can at least start that conversation. What you don't want to do on any of these pillars is hire somebody or accept a job and then, six months in, figure out oh crap, we don't align here. We want to identify those potential areas of misalignment before that happens, before the transaction takes place, and then at least talk about those things and make sure that you're going to be compatible. Make sure that you can turn that yellow into a green or maybe you turn the yellow into a red flag and determine that, hey, theologically this is just not going to be a good fit.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the first pillar is theology. Second pillar is culture. Okay, culture fit is huge. Every church your church, my church has its own unique vibe and not every person will thrive in every environment. So maybe your church is super laid back and relational, but the person that you're interviewing is going to thrive in a much more structured, formal setting. That mismatch it could work if you work things out and you have good discussions beforehand, but a lot of times that mismatch is just going to create a lot of tension and they're never going to feel at home in your church and you're never going to feel like they're a real part of the team.
Speaker 1:So, theology and culture. The third is personality. Now personality might seem a little less important but trust me, it matters. Somebody's personality impacts how they lead and how they work with a team and how they connect with people in your church and in your congregation. And a great fit on paper can fall apart if the personalities don't mesh. So we're going to unpack that in a future episode. We're going to do one episode specifically about personality and finding a good personality fit.
Speaker 1:So the three pillars so far theology, culture, personality. The fourth one is skills and abilities. So here's the thing about skills. They're essential but they're not the whole picture. A lot of churches will hire on skill but they'll forget about theology and culture and personality, and that's a huge mistake. It's not the whole picture. The candidate needs to have the right abilities to do the job, but you also need to assess how they use those skills. Are they humble? Are they teachable? Do they complement the rest of your team? Skills are really important.
Speaker 1:And then five is chemistry. Chemistry, that's the secret sauce, right? That's why we named our company Chemistry Staffing. This one you might think it might be a little harder to define, but this is what we tell churches and candidates we can at Chemistry Staffing. We tell churches and candidates we can at Chemistry Staffing, we can work with you and your church and we can work with you as a candidate and we can help you come to a pretty good conclusion on whether or not there's a match or a mismatch on theology and culture and personality and skills.
Speaker 1:Those first four pillars. But this fifth pillar, this chemistry. This is really. This is boots on the ground right. This is meeting face to face. This is shaking hands and sitting across the table. This is sharing with your team and sharing with your staff and sharing meals together and determining. Maybe it's a day or a few days, a weekend, to determine is this somebody that is going to be a great fit? Is this somebody that I want to work with? Is this somebody if you're interviewing? Is this a church where I would want my family to go? Is this a church where, you know, I'm just all in, I'm so excited about it? If you're looking to hire, is this a person that I'd love to have over to my house? Have them and their family over to my house on Tuesday night for a barbecue.
Speaker 1:Those kind of chemistry questions it might seem like it's a little harder to find, but it's that intangible sense that somebody just man, they just fit, they connect with me, they connect with the team, they connect with the leadership, they connect with the congregation in a way that just feels natural. It's not pushed or shoved or forced. And let me tell you, when chemistry is missing, you can have theology and culture, you can have personality, you can have all the skills and abilities in the world, but if there is no chemistry, you're going to feel it. You're going to feel it. So that's why these pillars are so important. They give you a framework for evaluating candidates holistically. It's really easy to get tunnel vision in one area like oh man, they're a great communicator. It's really easy to get tunnel vision in one area like oh man, they're a great communicator. Oh man, I really like their theology. But if you neglect the other pillars, you could end up with somebody who's technically strong but a poor fit for your church. I don't know how many times I've heard people coming off that call me and say Todd, we made a bad hire, but I just liked him so much I laughed at his jokes. He's a cool guy. He's just not a fit here. Cool gal, this just isn't the church for her. So practical application Okay, bottom line.
Speaker 1:Here's what you need to do this week. If you're in the process of hiring, or even just thinking about it, take some time to evaluate how these five pillars play out in your church, and I want you to ask yourself five questions. You might have to go back and rewind a little bit on this to get this, but here are the five questions. Number one what's your non-negotiable when it comes to theology? What are the hills that you will die on theologically? Number two what's unique about your church culture? What does your next person, your next hire, need to know about your church's culture? And if you're looking at a new church job, what do you need to know about the church's culture that you're thinking about going on staff with? Number three what type of personality is really going to thrive on your team? Number four what skills are truly essential? Have to have skills in order to do this job. And then, number five how are we going to assess chemistry during the hiring process? Write those down, share them with your team, get some clarity on these areas before you start interviewing and you'll save a ton of headaches later.
Speaker 1:I'd love to hear how these pillars resonate with you Again in the next five podcasts. We're going to take one pillar per podcast and break those down, but I'd love to hear how these resonate with you. Podcast and break those down, but I'd love to hear how these resonate with you. And don't forget, if your church needs help hiring and you want chemistry staffing to kind of help you implement our process, to bring these five pillars into your interview process, reach out to me. If you're a candidate and you're looking for a new role in 2025, reach out to me as well. Just, podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom.
Speaker 1:We're in the middle of a series. The next five episodes are going to be taking a look at each one of these five pillars, so don't forget to hit that subscribe button Tomorrow. We're going to deep in this time. I am being honest with you. We're actually going to dive into that first pillar, which is theology. We're going to talk about how to navigate theological alignment without getting stuck in the weeds. It's going to be a really good conversation. I hope you'll be back for it tomorrow here on the healthy church staff podcast. Have a great day.
