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
What If Your Job Description Included the Fruit of the Spirit?
Ever notice how church staff evaluations rarely mention the qualities Jesus actually embodied? We've created a culture where filling seats trumps filling hearts, where productivity metrics overshadow spiritual growth.
What would happen if we flipped the script? Imagine your next staff review asking not "Did you meet your goals?" but "Did you grow in gentleness?" The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—offers a revolutionary framework for measuring ministry effectiveness that goes beyond conventional checklists.
This spiritual reframing acknowledges a painful truth: you can absolutely crush your performance metrics while spiritually withering inside. When ministry becomes just another production line, we inadvertently reward burnout, hustle culture, and people-pleasing behaviors that ultimately damage the souls of those leading our churches. The question becomes: are we developing staff who reflect Jesus or just staff who can fill seats?
Implementing this approach doesn't mean abandoning structure or accountability. Rather, it means expanding our definition of success to include spiritual formation alongside task completion. Start small—perhaps by focusing on one fruit each quarter, weaving it into staff meetings and one-on-ones. Ask questions that probe deeper than performance: "Do I show care even under pressure?" "Am I leading with joy or just going through the motions?" "Do I bring calm or chaos to team environments?"
What we measure inevitably shapes what we value. If we only track productivity, we'll miss the soul of ministry. But if we measure Christlikeness, we'll develop the transformational leaders our churches desperately need. Ready to reimagine leadership development at your church? Reach out at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com—let's build spiritually healthy teams together.
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What if church staff evaluations measured how well we reflected Jesus, not just how many events we pulled off or how full the seats were on Sunday? Today, here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, we're going to explore a powerful reframe. Think about this what if we use the fruit of the Spirit as ministry metrics? I know it's a radical shift away from performance checklists and toward spiritual transformation. We're going to talk about that today. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and also your host right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, so, as I said, what if your next church staff review didn't ask Todd, did you meet your goals? But instead asked something like Todd, did you grow in gentleness? Okay, now that's not just a feel good question. It's really a spiritual reframe that could change how we lead and live as ministry staff. Now stick with me, because this might totally blow your mind and totally change the way you lead your team and yourself.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's first and I'll talk about the problem that I see a lot of times with performance metrics. Okay, in churches, most church job descriptions focus on results, and I get it how many volunteers you recruited, how many events you executed, how many weeks, how many Sundays, how many weekends you preached. But here's the quiet truth you can absolutely be crushing it on paper and still be spiritually just withering inside. And when we measure ministry stuff like it's a business and purely a business, we start rewarding burnout and hustle and people pleasing. Maybe you've been a part of a church that really valued performance and metrics and making sure that you check off everything on your job description, all those tasks that you have to do. Maybe you've been a part of a church like that. But the truth is ministry it's not just a production line. It's much more important than just producing. It's really soul work.
Speaker 1:So what does scripture say that we should grow in? It's a familiar passage. We probably preach on it and hear messages on it and read it quite often. We probably recite it to our kids. But this is not. Galatians 5, 22 and 23 is not just a kid's memory verse. It's really a blueprint. A blueprint for spiritual maturity love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness. Print for spiritual maturity love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Speaker 1:Imagine just for a second close your eyes If you're driving. Don't close your eyes, but imagine with me for a second, if your staff meetings started with how are you growing in peace this season Instead of are you hitting your benchmarks? And benchmarks are important too. I'm not saying that you throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm just saying tasks are important, but spiritual growth and vitality and your spiritual health is much more important than checking off the task. And when we ask the right questions with our staff, those questions might actually get to the heart of discipleship. Those questions might actually get to the heart of discipleship. So what are the things that we should be looking for that reflect Christ-likeness in ourselves and in our staff? Okay, so, let's not toss the structure. We do need clear goals, but what if your church's staff review form included something like this, just bringing in some of those spiritual aspects, maybe a section, just one-off questions?
Speaker 1:Love Do I show care, even under pressure? That could be a performance, something that you want to have a conversation with, because if there's not a love there, if you're checking off all the tests and you don't have love, what does scripture say about that? All right. So love, do I show care, even under pressure? Joy am I leading with joy or just going through the motions? Again, this is an early indicator If you're going through the motions and getting the job done but you're not doing it with joy. It's going to be a different conversation when we sit down for this review next year. Right, peace Do I bring calm or chaos to the team environment? Patience how do I respond when others slow me down and feel free to steal every bit of this? Okay, kindness, am I creating a safe and gracious culture? Self-control Am I managing my emotions and my time and my energy wisely? Those are just some ideas, but these are more than just ideals. They're signs of spiritually healthy leadership.
Speaker 1:And if we're not growing in these, does the checklist really matter? Does anything else really matter? So how in the world, todd, would you introduce this to a church staff culture? Because this is pretty foreign. Okay, I think, if you throw everything out there, I remember when I became an elder in church this is a little side note when I became an elder of the church, there was a whole checklist of they were going to look at everything about me and I get that, and it all came out of scripture. But it was like, todd, we expect all of this, all of you.
Speaker 1:Maybe you start with one fruit, because this is foreign to most churches, particularly in the realm of a job description or a job review. So maybe you start with one fruit, maybe you start with peace. That becomes maybe your natural theme for the next quarter and if let's say that you're using peace for the next quarter, maybe during your one-on-ones you can reflect and start to see these conversations, reflect on how each staff member is cultivating peace in their hearts, in their homes and their team dynamics at work. It doesn't mean you stop measuring attendance, but it does mean that you also start measuring alignment with the spirit, which is what we're talking about here and over time, introduce this, introduce another one, maybe for another month or another quarter, but over time this shift is going to help build a culture of transformation, spiritual transformation and how you're doing spiritually, over just checking the boxes and the transactions. So here's the takeaway what we measure shapes what we value, and if we only track productivity, we're going to miss the soul. But if we measure Christlikeness, we'll actually start to see the kind of leaders our churches desperately need.
Speaker 1:If this video sparked something with you, if you're like Todd, this is a great idea, but I have no idea how to implement something like this. Reach out to me. You can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. Maybe this is something you just want to do on your own outside of your church's structure. Maybe you're just like Todd I need this. I need somebody to hold me accountable, I need somebody to coach me in this, because I'm not as healthy as I know. I need to be. Reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to hear your story. Maybe we can hop on a quick Zoom call and see if there's some way that we could partner together, either with myself or somebody on my team here at chemistry that can help you. We're all about building healthy staff and healthy church staff structures, so if there's any way, we can help again. Podcastchemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today. We're here every weekday, monday through Friday. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm your host and you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We'll see you next time you.
