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 Staff Meeting You Should Probably Kill
Not every meeting adds value, and some are actively damaging your church staff's energy, creativity, and morale. We examine which staff meetings you should eliminate and what to replace them with to boost team productivity and happiness.
• Three telltale signs of toxic meetings: nobody prepares, people stop contributing, and staff leave discouraged
• Many church leaders keep unproductive meetings because it feels like leadership
• Common misconception: sitting around a table equals moving ministry forward
• Bad meetings reward loud voices while punishing introverts and over-preparers
• Alternative approaches: 10-minute async Monday updates, written check-ins, monthly strategic huddles
• If you must keep the meeting, redesign it: make it shorter, more focused, less reporting and more problem-solving
• Find your team's ideal meeting rhythm - not too frequent, not too rare
• Take inventory of your meeting schedule and ask team members for honest feedback
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Not every meeting is helpful. In fact, some could be slowly killing the energy and the creativity and the morale of your church staff. In today's episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, I'm going to tackle the staff meeting that you should probably kill and learn what makes meetings toxic and how to tell if it's doing something more harmful than what to replace it with instead. Wow, that's a lot to go over today in about six or seven minutes, but I'm glad you've joined me. My name is Todd Rhodes, I'm one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom and you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, today we're talking about unproductive church staff meetings. Have you ever can I get a witness, anybody ever been to a church staff meeting that you're just like oh my goodness, why are we all here? They're actually paying us all to be here and talk about this. Are we all here? They're actually paying us all to be here and talk about this. But what if I told you that there's one recurring meeting on your calendar that's costing your team trust and momentum and maybe even their sanity? And that's what we're talking about today that kind of meeting. Let's talk about the staff meetings that you should probably kill. Stick with me at the end of this podcast today. Hopefully, you'll know exactly which meeting needs to die and how to replace it and how to buy back some of your team's energy without losing all that clarity.
Speaker 1:All right, let's talk about toxic meetings. Okay, here are three really good signs telltale signs actually of a toxic meeting. Number one nobody prepares for it. Okay, nobody prepares for it. Number two people stop contributing. They just don't even talk during the meeting. And number three if everybody just checks the boxes by attending but leaves discouraged, now you might not have a meeting. You might have a ritual going on there, okay, and not the good kind. And the truth is, some church leaders keep meetings alive long past their usefulness because it feels like leadership. Right, I'm leaving, we should probably have a meeting, but the reality is just sitting around a table is the same as moving ministry forward.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what you think you're doing versus what you're actually doing, okay, you think we should have a meeting every week, or we should have a meeting about this once a month, or whatever you try and get. What you think you do it is. You think it's good to get everybody around the table and keep everybody informed. We're building alignment here we're creating some shared momentum. That's what you think is happening in the weekly email. Or you're just rewarding the loudest voices because you know who's going to talk and who's going to talk the most, and you know who's not going to say anything. You just know before you go into the meeting. Maybe you're punishing your introverts and over preparers. Right, meetings need to. They should have a clear outcome, a really tight agenda and a visible value for everybody that's involved, and if they don't, you probably should cut it or at least try to fix it. Okay, so what do you do instead?
Speaker 1:There are some things that you can replace just this boring, mundane, overdue meeting that's just draining the life out of everyone. What are some things you could do? Maybe you do a 10-minute async on Monday with a Monday update via video or via Loom. Okay, it's just something that you can send out to the whole team. It's really quickly done, very quickly, but it gives them hey, here's the 911, the information, everything that you're going to need to know, or just a touch base. You're going to get as much leadership ability out of that than you are an hour-long staff meeting where nobody really knows why they're there. Maybe it's just a written slack or a team's check-in. Maybe it's a once-a-month strategic huddle that's actually worth showing up for.
Speaker 1:Okay, I found that church staff Churches do staff meetings. One of there's the Goldilocks thing, right, you never meet, which is way too cold, right, or you meet too often, which is way too hot. And very few churches find that happy medium where you get that rhythm. Maybe it's once a month for you and your team, maybe it's once a week, but you need to find that rhythm. And if you find that you're doing too many meetings and you must keep the meeting, then maybe you just redesign it. Maybe you make it shorter, maybe you make it more focused. Maybe it's less reporting and more problem solving. Maybe it's actually listening to people rather than dictating what's coming out of your mouth. Maybe you rotate who leads, so it's not always the same person journeying on and off. And let me tell you what almost guarantee this, almost guarantee this your staff will thank you and your culture will breathe a little bit easier.
Speaker 1:Oh, what is the meeting that needs to die on your calendar this week? Maybe it's not a full staff meeting, maybe it's an update with your assistant that you do every week, but maybe you need to do every other week. Maybe it's something totally different, but what is one meeting there's? Probably. If you get your calendar out right now and look at your calendar, there's probably one reoccurring meeting on your calendar for this week. That just needs to die, or at least not happen as often.
Speaker 1:Okay, here's the bottom line for today. Meetings are not I'm not anti-meeting, but bad meetings. I am anti-bad meeting, bad meetings. Areal and your team deserves better, and you do too. All right, so take an inventory of how much time you spend in meetings and see if all of that is really necessary, and ask some of your team members about your regular meeting with them. Is this something that? How's the rhythm? Do we need to do it more often, less often? What do we need to change? You might get some feedback that make you and your staff incredibly more happy and even get a little bit more done because you're not sitting in meetings all the time. All right, I hope this has been challenging for you today. My name is Todd Rhodes. You're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We're here every weekday, monday through Friday. You can reach out to me anytime, any questions. Maybe you've got an idea for the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I would love to hear from you. Just reach out to me. Podcast at chemistrystaffcom. Thank you, have a great day you.
