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 Church Doesn’t Need a New You — It Needs a Real You
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New Year, New Year's, hit you, right? It's also exhaustive. Because deep down, church leaders already feel the pressure every day, not just on New Year's, to be healthier, more strategic, more creative, more efficient, less reactive, and more of everything. But here's the truth. Your church doesn't need the idolized version of you, needs the honest one, the present one, the growing one, the real one. Hi there, my name is Todd Rhodes, and one of the co-founders over at ChemistryStaffing.com, and you're listening to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. All right, let's just call it out. Okay. Let's name the pressure. In ministry, you're expected to lead with vision and care with heart and speak with clarity and think strategically. You need to be organized like a machine, and you need to smile while you're doing it. It's easy to start performing and to hide behind the competence and to package yourself for approval. And even to curate your leadership, it's like it's your brand. But that's not where the transformation happens. It's not for you and not for your church. Authenticity does not mean oversharing, it means dropping the exhausting act of be an ideal leader. And bringing your full self, your weaknesses, and everything, the whole package, into the work that God has given you. You know what builds trust with your staff and your volunteers? I'll tell you what it's not. It's not perfection. It's humility and transparency and the ability to say, hey, you know what? I'm still learning this stuff too. And here's the paradox of the whole thing. When you stop trying to be impressive, you become far more impactful. I know what it's like to look around and feel like you're behind. To scroll through social media and see that other church, that other staff team, the other leader that at least online seems to have it all together. And you wonder, should I be more like that? But here's what your people need in 2026. They need a leader who knows what season they're in. They need a leader who doesn't fake energy that they don't have. They need a leader who's willing to learn and admit that they don't know. And they need a leader who shows up not as a product, but as a person. This next year isn't asking you to become somebody else. Don't try and reinvent yourself. It's asking you actually to be yourself, just to be fully alive and fully surrender because that's who God uses. Here's the bottom line for today. In this new year, stop trying to be someone that your church will admire and start being someone that your team can trust. Real over ideal. Every single time. That's my encouragement for you as we head into this new year. You can reach out to me anytime, even if it's just to say happy new year. Reach out to me, podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, thank you. Have a great new year if we don't talk before, and we'll see you next time.
