The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
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The Healthy Church Staff Podcast
The Side Hustle Question for Ministry Staff
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Your youth pastor just landed a really sweet consulting game. Worship pastor has been getting some speaking requests, and your executive pastor quietly launched a coaching practice. It seems like everybody's got something going on inside, and you're wondering, is this a healthy thing or is this a problem? Today we're going to talk about it here on the podcast. We're talking about the question of side hustles in ministry and talk about whether that might be quietly reshaping church staff as we know it. Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffing.com, and your host right here every weekday on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Most church staff can't live on their church salary alone. Now that's not an accusation, that's just the math in a lot of places. And the gap between ministry calling and financial reality, it seems like with everything happening in our economy over the past couple of years, that gap seems to be getting wider. People and ministry staff and your staff might be finding creative ways to help close that gap. But here's where it gets a little bit complicated. Because sometimes side income becomes the main thing over time. The consulting calls start happening during office hours, or the speaking prep takes over for the weekend that should be for sermon planning. The best creative energy might be going to that things that is paying better, or at least has potential to pay better. And suddenly your part-time staff member becomes part-time for you too. The church becomes the side hustle all of a sudden, rather than the side hustle being the side hustle. Now listen, nobody wakes up wanting to shortchange their church, at least very few people do. Sometimes we just have to consider the the heart behind the hustle, right? Don't think that these are greedy people. Most of the time they're not. They're gifted leaders trying to use their skills and abilities and in ministry to pay the bills. Most of them would choose their church role if the math worked better. But when it doesn't, they figure they have to be creative. The question isn't whether they should need extra income. The question is how to handle it. Alright, so let me talk about maybe a mind shift, a little bit of a framework that actually works here, okay? First of all, radical honesty about the financial gap. We just have to be honest here. If your church pays a really great salary, then awesome. But lots of churches don't, and that's the gap that we're talking about. So if your church struggles to pay a really good wage, you need to be radically honest about that gap. Don't pretend that your salaries are competitive when they're not. I talked to a lot of churches, and I was on a call not too long ago with somebody, and I said, hey, they were talking about hiring a youth pastor. And I said during the course of our conversation, I said, the days of hiring a youth pastor for$35,000 are over. Those the that ship has sailed. About 10 minutes later, I asked him what they were planning on paying their next youth pastor, and he said$35,000. But then he went on for 10 minutes, and maybe he's listening, and justified, hey, that's what the cost of living you can make it here on$35,000. Okay. Okay. The first thing you need to do is you need to be radically honest about the financial view. If it's not there, it's not there. But if it's there, don't pretend it isn't. Don't pretend your salaries are competitive when they're not. You need to address the elephant in the butt. Okay, so that's number one. Be incredibly honest about it and take an inventory. Second, clear boundaries on time and energy. If somebody needs outside income, help them structure it. Set expectations about availability and focus. And at the same time, that allows you the opportunity to protect the hours that belong to the church. So that's number two. Just have the conversation. Number three, leverage it when it helps the mission. Leverage it when it helps the mission. And churches are all over, all across the spectrum here. Some churches are like, no, we want you to be able to do this because when you do things outside the church, it actually helps us because you get outside exposure. Other churches are like, nope, nope, do not do that. We do not want you doing anything. My third point is when it makes sense, when it could help the mission of your church, leverage it. Sometimes their outside work builds skills that are gonna benefit them in their role at your church. Sometimes it raises their profile in ways that will help the church. So don't automatically assume that it's a competition. The staff members who handle this well, they're transparent about what they're doing, they're protective of their church responsibilities, and they're honest when something's not working. The ones who don't handle it try to hide it or try to minimize it, and that's when the trust breaks down. Here's your bottom line for today Side income is not the enemy. Sacred side income is when you don't have the conversation about that gap and they feel like they have to go and do this kind of under the table. That's where the lack of trust and that's where all the anxiety comes in. Okay? So here's your challenge for this week. Have that conversation that you've been avoiding. If you're staff, be honest about what you're considering or what you're already doing. And if you're the senior pastor, ask about the financial pressure your team's feeling. Man, we're just getting ready in a couple weeks. I'm really excited about releasing our 2025 from last year, the results of our uh church staff health assessment. And we're gonna do a couple of weeks and unpack that here, and you'll be able to grab the free report. But one of the things when it came to compensation was when we heard from people when they took the assessment and when they gave us their narrative answers, one of the things was, man, one person said, I love ministry, but I can't go to the grocery store with it, saying that there's a gap there between what I need to feed my family and what the church is able to pay. So if you're the senior pastor, ask about that financial pressure that your team might be feeling it, and then try to work together to find solutions. Maybe your church can't pay any more money, okay? But there's probably some things that you can do at least getting it out on the table and opening that up. Because here's what's going to happen, and this is what we found in our assessment in our survey from last year and the last three years, actually, is that if you don't mind that gap, you're gonna end up finding somebody else because they can't stay where they can't afford to be. So work together to find solutions that honor both your staff members' calling and their need to eat. Healthy churches figure this out together. They don't pretend that tension doesn't exist, they don't put their head in the sand and think everything's hunky-dory. They have the conversations and they're honest. They're honest about the gap. If there's a gap there to begin with. All right, I hope that's been helpful for you today. If you're a staff member, maybe it's helpful. Maybe you need to have a conversation with your supervisor. And uh, maybe you need to think about what your options are there. If you're a senior pastor or an executive pastor, and this has become more and more of an issue, it could be that there's a bigger gap there than what you think there is. And that's something that you need to tackle and you need to discuss. That's it for today. I hope this has been helpful for you here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. We'll be right back here again tomorrow. Hope you have a great.
