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
Culture Fit: More Than Just Buzzwords
Ever wondered how to ensure a perfect hire for your church staff? Discover the secrets behind making thoughtful hiring decisions that lead to thriving ministry teams. Join us on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast as we uncover the crucial elements of culture fit and personality impact. We begin with the concept of culture fit, exploring how aligning a candidate with your church's unique identity—its values, vision, and ministry style—is key to long-term success. Through insightful questions and real-world examples, understand the potential pitfalls of culture clashes and how to navigate them.
In the second segment, we dive into the realm of personality and its significant role in ministry effectiveness. Understand why a candidate's personality is not just a nice-to-have but a must-have in building a cohesive and harmonious team. We'll emphasize the interconnectedness of culture fit and personality, providing practical guidance to help your church staff grow and flourish. Don't miss this enlightening episode, packed with the knowledge and strategies you need to make your next hire a resounding success.
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.
- - - - -
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?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.
Hi there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrestaffingcom, also your guide right here on the podcast to hopefully a healthier, more connected church team. Today we're tackling the second pillar of a great hire. If you remember, if you're new to the podcast and maybe you missed it go back and listen to last week's podcast. We did an intro on Thursday and then went with the first pillar on Friday. We're talking about the five pillars of a great hire. Last week, on Friday, we talked about theology. Today we're going to talk about culture fit. The other three we're going to talk about culture fit. The other three we're going to talk about this week are personality. We're also going to talk about chemistry and we're also going to talk about skills and abilities. All five of those are what we call at Chemistry Staffing pillars that all the churches and all the candidates need to be on the same page on if they're going to have what we call a healthy, long-term fit. So today we're talking about culture fit, and I know that culture fit can almost sometimes feel like a buzzword. It's one of those phrases that we like to toss around without always stopping to define it. But the truth is, culture fit isn't just a nice to have. It's really the glue that holds a team together and makes ministry teams thrive. So today we're going to dive in to what culture fit really means, how to recognize it and why it's essential to helping you find the right person for your team.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's start with the obvious question what in the world, todd, is culture fit when we're talking about hiring a church staff member? Or maybe you're on a staff right now and you want to know do I fit the culture of my church? At its very core? Culture fit is really about the alignment between the person and the church's unique identity Okay, the values, the vision, the way the church does ministry. And when you're hiring, it's not about hiring people who look or think exactly like you Chances are you won't find that person anyway but it's about finding someone who can thrive in your specific church culture and church environment. Okay, so here's a truth I want you to remember. If you get one thing out of this podcast, this might be it.
Speaker 1:Today, every church has its own DNA. Maybe your church is highly relational with, maybe, a casual, almost like a coffee shop vibe, or maybe you're the opposite of that. Maybe you're very structured, maybe you're program driven and you have a focus on excellence and precision. Now, neither is better or worse. It's just who you are and you need to know. The key is to know your own culture, and if you can't really define what makes your church unique, it's going to be really hard. If you're hiring a new person to come on that team, it's going to be really tough to identify candidates who will thrive in your culture.
Speaker 1:So here's a few questions that I think will help you to determine the DNA of your church and remember the presupposition here is that every church has its own DNA. So here are three questions I think you could ask. First of all, what are the unspoken rules of how we work together? What are the unspoken rules of how we work together? Here's a second question what values show up in the way that we lead and worship and serve? And then, finally, how do we handle conflict? How do we handle feedback? How do we handle collaboration?
Speaker 1:Now, secondly, here I want to talk about the danger of culture clash when church culture and fit is off man. You're going to feel it. If you're a supervisor and you hire a staff member that doesn't share your culture, you're going to feel it. If you are a staff member and you don't share the DNA of your church, you're going to feel it. And a new hire, especially, might have all the skills in the world, but if they don't align with your values, it's going to create friction maybe not on day one, but very soon, okay. So let me give you an example. Once knew about a church that had a very laid-back kind of relational culture and they hired a youth pastor who was really highly task-oriented and brought a ton of structure to the ministry. And on paper it looked great, but in practice the relational dynamic suffered so much because students and volunteers just felt disconnected and within a year the youth pastor moved on. Church had to rebuild trust with the ministry team and it was all because the culture there was just a culture clash there, okay.
Speaker 1:So how do you find, how do you access CultureFit during the hiring process? Let me give you a few strategies here. The first is just as obvious you ask culture-focused questions Instead of asking only about skills. Ask some culture questions. What kind of team environment do you thrive in? And if you're a candidate going for a job interview, ask culture-focused questions when you have an opportunity to ask what kind of team culture, what kind of team environment is it? What's it like to work at this church? The second question maybe describe the best leadership culture that you've been a part of and what made it work for you. Another thing you can do is introduce them to the team.
Speaker 1:I always say it's a red flag if you go on site for a job interview, for a church job interview, and they isolate you from certain people. That's a red flag. So when you bring a candidate in into informal interactions, make sure that you do that with your staff, and sometimes chemistry and culture are best observed in natural settings and not in formal interviews. You'll learn more at barbecues and meals and just sitting across a table outside of the interview than maybe what you'll even learn on the interview. And then be honest about who you are. This goes for the church and for the candidate.
Speaker 1:Don't sugarcoat your culture to attract a person. Don't sugarcoat who you are to get the job at a church. Be upfront about the good, the bad, the ugly, the quirky. Everybody is quirky, everybody is quirky, everybody's weird. The right person will appreciate the honesty. And then lastly, and I'll leave you with this, there's one caveat I want to talk about really quickly, and it's that, while culture, fit is critical, you don't want to create an echo chamber. Okay, it's great, a great hire will align with your culture absolutely, but they'll also bring some fresh ideas and perspective. It's about harmony, not uniformity. Okay, so here's your action step for today.
Speaker 1:Take some time this week to reflect on your church's culture and gather your leadership team together maybe your next staff meeting and ask these questions together Number one what makes our church unique? What makes us unique? Number two what kind of people thrive here? What kind of people thrive here? That's going to tell you the kind of person that's going to fit your culture. And then, number three what kind of people tend to struggle? Who have we had on our team? Who, maybe as a key volunteer, who left and just didn't work out because they struggled? What kind of people tend to struggle? And once you've clarified these things, write them down and let me tell you this will help you in the hiring process, but it also helps you in the onboarding process and, just long-term, building a stronger team dynamic.
Speaker 1:Okay, hey, if you're in the middle of a hiring season and wondering how to assess culture, we have a kind of a program that we use here that we've developed over the years. It works really well at identifying culture fit. I'd love to help. Shoot me an email anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Share what you're working through. We can hop on a quick Zoom call and I'm here for you. Would love to help however I can. If you're enjoying this series, don't forget to hit subscribe, share with a friend or a fellow colleague.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow we're going to dive into the third pillar of a great hire, and that's personality. How does personality impact ministry effectiveness and why even does it matter? It's going to be fun. You won't want to miss it. Okay, that's it for today. Remember culture fit not just a buzzword. It's a critical piece of building a healthy, thriving team and if you take the time to define your culture and look for candidates to align with, it'll save you so many headaches down the road. All right, thanks for spending a few minutes with me today. I hope you have a great day. I'll see you back here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. You.
