Your Ministry Team Isnt a Family... Its a Jazz Band

Calling your church staff a "family" might be undermining your team's effectiveness by normalizing dysfunction and avoiding necessary accountability. A better metaphor might be a jazz band, where diverse talents work together with rhythm, trust, and excellence toward a shared mission.

• Families often tolerate dysfunction in the name of loyalty
• The family model leads to keeping toxic staff and avoiding hard conversations
• Jazz bands require each member to bring unique skills while working in harmony
• Trust is foundational in jazz bands - when one player drops the beat, everyone feels it
• Healthy church teams "tune before they play" by ensuring alignment before action
• Staff should still care deeply about each other, but with clear boundaries
• Care without clarity creates chaos in ministry teams
• Stop aiming to be a family, start becoming a band

Contact us at podcast@chemistrystaffing.com if you need help developing a healthier church staff or hiring new team members.

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.

Chapters

• 0:00 Church Staff: Family vs. Jazz Band
• 1:08 Problems With the Family Model
• 2:16 Jazz Band Metaphor Explained
• 3:20 Learning from Jazz for Staff Health
• 4:52 Rhythm and Trust, Not Forced Bonding
• 6:07 Closing Thoughts and Contact Info

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

What if I told you that calling your church staff a family might be one of the things that's holding your team back? Why? Think about it. Families tolerate dysfunction, but let's compare that to, I don't know, say, a jazz band. Right, they depend on trust and timing and talent, and today we're going to talk about the difference. We're going to unpack this metaphor. It'd be fun I love to do stuff like this. We're going to unpack the metaphor between calling your church staff a family and maybe considering your church staff to be more of a jazz band, and hopefully this metaphor can help you unlock, maybe, a healthier, more agile ministry team culture. All right, so let's go. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and I'm your host. Right here You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, so it sounds really nice.

Speaker 1: 1:04

As a staff, we're one big, happy family, but in reality, families often put up with unhealthy patterns in the name of loyalty. And in ministry, when we consider our staff a family, we act like families a lot of times, and here's what it looks like. We keep toxic staff because we've been through so much together. We're family, right, we avoid having hard conversations because they're like a brother. To me they're like family. So we don't have the hard conversations. Maybe there are blurred lines between pastoral care and professional expectations. Because we look at ourselves as a family, you ever think to yourself we're too close to have this confrontation. That's the family model that's creeping in. And the truth of the matter is the church and your church staff isn't a holiday dinner, it's a mission, and that mission needs something stronger than just a sense of family and sentimentality. Okay, so what I want to do is look at a contrast to saying our church staff viewing them as a family, and maybe let's use this metaphor. Let's look at our church staff. Maybe, instead of a family, look at them as a jazz band. All right. So stick with me. I know, stick with me. Please Indulge me just for a second Picture with me a jazz band, all right.

Speaker 1: 2:31

Every player brings their own instrument. They bring their own skill set, they bring their own flavor. Nobody's trying to be the star. They're riffing off each other and they're adapting in real time. Right, in a jazz band, trust is foundational. If one player drops the beat, the rest feel it. In a jazz band, timing is absolutely everything. Great teams know when to lead, when to support and when to stop playing right. That's part of being in a jazz band. In jazz band, your talent matters, not in a prideful way, but because excellence honors the music and the audience. So imagine your team not as one unit that thinks the same, but as a collection of diverse voices, each kind of bringing something essential to the collective sound. Let's talk a little bit. Let's stick with this metaphor. Okay, again, stick with me here.

Speaker 1: 3:28

What can jazz bands teach us about church staff health? I'm all about church staff health, right. First thing is, staff dysfunction isn't always loud, it's often silent. But the truth is, if you're in a jazz band, you can't fake that chemistry. It's obvious when it's not working. Have you ever heard a jazz band that just wasn't very good? I have. And you can tell if the members of the band don't trust each other, if they're not gifted in their own instrument, in their own area, if they're not working together, that dysfunction it's going to show very quickly.

Speaker 1: 4:05

And here's what healthy church staff teams do, that jazz bands often do. Okay, they tune before they play. They know that alignment comes before the action. They listen more than they speak because they know that ego is going to destroy that improvisation and they take turns leading, because silos aren't the goal, harmony is the goal and, just like a jazz band, church staffs practice. I mean, they practice a lot. Every day is a practice. You become closer to your team. You understand what this team member's real talents are, where their strengths are, where their strengths aren't. So every bit of that is a practice every day and they give feedback with grace and honesty.

Speaker 1: 4:52

The question for you is when was the last time your team had real feedback that didn't feel like betrayal? We need to be clear. Your ministry team should still care deeply about one another, just like a family, right? I'm not saying that you don't care deeply. But care without clarity is going to create chaos. And, if you think about it, this jazz band model it still honors the relationships, but it places a healthy boundary around roles and expectations and performance. You can still love each other, but you also have the courage to say, hey, we're out of sync here, we're out of sync, okay. So here's the bottom line for today. Your staff doesn't need more forced bonding or passive, aggressive silence that often happens when we talk about family. A lot of families are like that, your staff. What they need instead is rhythm and trust, and maybe even a little bit of jazz. Is rhythm and trust and maybe even a little bit of jazz? Stop aiming to be a family, start becoming a band.

Speaker 1: 5:52

If this hits home for you, I'd love to hear your response. Maybe you're like Todd, that's totally bogus, can't believe. You just recorded a podcast. I'd love to hear from you too. Just be gentle and nice, but you can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. And if there's any way that I can come alongside your church, help your church become a healthier place, a healthier staff, maybe by hiring a new staff member, I would love to have a conversation with you about that possibility as well. You can reach out to me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right, that's it for today. I hope you have a great day and we'll be right back here tomorrow when we have a Church Dad podcast.