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This episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast hosted by Todd Rhoades discusses the challenges and dynamics of being internally promoted within a church staff. While an internal promotion can be seen as a continuation rather than a change of role, it involves significant shifts in relationships and power dynamics. Todd emphasizes the need to openly address and communicate these changes with staff to manage expectations and avoid misunderstandings.
• Internal promotions involve changes in power and relationships.
• Communication about the role change and its implications is crucial.
• New internal dynamics can impact personal relationships and workplace atmosphere.
• Addressing these changes upfront can help mitigate discomfort and confusion.
• The promotion affects not just the individual but also their family and colleague relationships.
You didn't get a new job. Well, you kind of got a new job. You're at the same church. You just got promoted. Uh, and nobody really told the staff, or at least maybe they did, but it wasn't communicated very well. You know, yesterday you were the youth pastor, and today you've taken on a different role. A role in which maybe you supervise the worship pastor. You know, you know the guy that used to roast you in the hallway. You know, your spouse is still in the second role. The elders still see you as the associate, and the team is waiting to see if you'll stay one of them or become one of them. If that sounds familiar, if you've ever been promoted internally and all of a sudden you have a bunch of new reports that used to just be your work colleagues, you're in the right place because we're going to talk about this uncomfortable subject here today on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders at Chemistry Staffing.com. Well, this is not a debate about whether churches should hire internally. This is what happens after a church already does. Um you're a staff member and you got promoted, you're in the same building, but you just have a different cast. I mean, you didn't change cities, you changed power. And that's the part that nobody really thinks through her names a lot of the time. You know, in business, an internal promotion comes with kind of a reset. You know, a new scope, new reporting lines, yeah, maybe a bigger salary, uh, a conversation about what friendship looks like now. Uh, and you got a new title on Sunday and a staff meeting on Tuesday. Uh, and uh you're just you're changing, you're changing your role inside the church. And we've already talked on here on the podcast, uh, even last week, about the difference between senior pastor scores and associate pastor's scores on the healthy church staff assessment. And uh, according to what role and what seat you sit on on the bus, uh, it's a totally
different ball game. You know, let me let me kind of put some skin on this. You know that joke that used to be funny, the worship pastor used to give you a hard time about your sermons. You know, that was that was friendship. Uh now it's a test. If you laugh, you're still one of us. If you don't, they're gonna say, oh, he's changed. If you correct them, you're the new boss who forgot where they came from. Peer grief is real. Here's the deal: they lost a colleague, and you lost a peer group. Nobody held a funeral, so everybody is walking around the body just wondering how everything's gonna land. Um worship pastors, you know, it's it's different when one day you've got somebody working beside you, and the next day they're your boss. Uh and if you report to the person that used to roast by the coffee pot, uh it changes the relationship. Uh, there's an identity problem there with a nameplate now that you're you're not able to roast, right? It just changes everything.
Now, listen, uh you want you wanted continuity. The board wanted a known quantity. Uh, that's why they promoted you. Promoting uh from within was supposed to skip all that awkward season, you know, of hiring somebody from outside the church. It takes them, you know, six months, a year, two years to kind of get acclimated and and actually make changes. But they knew that if they hired you, who already knows the church and they love you and trust you, uh, that they could kind of skip that awkward season. And that's that's a decent thing to think about. But they often skip the conversation um that they really need to have. And and the conversation is just that this is this is gonna be awkward. This is this is gonna be awkward for not just a season. Uh for some people, this change is gonna be awkward permanently. Uh here's how the elders or the board a lot of times see this, because this is gonna affect you if you just got promoted. Uh, they can change the website, they can change the room uh that watched you grow up, they cannot change the room that watched you grow up. They can't, maybe in their own minds, not view you as the youth pastor anymore, even though they just promoted you to senior pastor. There's always an elder, it seems like, who still asks the former first chair what he thinks. So that's a problem. There's always a volunteer who wants to go over your head or to the head uh to a head that doesn't exist anymore. That's a problem. And uh all of this is just really, really awkward, and we don't talk about this enough.
Uh they almost need a sentence from you. Say, hey, I'm in a different chair. Here's what this means, here's what it doesn't mean. Uh and and then there's the person in the second row, you know, the spouse that didn't get promoted. You're st your spouse still sitting where they sat when you were an associate. Uh, you know, the same friends, the same small group, the same people who now will tell them what they really think about your sermon. Uh they didn't get a new cast either. They got a whole new set of landmines. And if you don't talk about that at home, uh you'll talk about it way too late. You see, the family system changed as well, not just one person that got a new job description. It's going to change the relationship that your spouse has with the other staff spouses because they will feel the tension as well. So, and you might not ever even think about this, but if you've been in the position where you've been promoted internally, I'm guessing this is a resonating with you. And you're saying, Todd, oh my goodness, I wish I would have heard this before because I learned so much and I didn't even have a clue what was going on behind the scenes. So, what do you actually do before the next staff meeting? Maybe you just got promoted. What do you do?
Well, I think part of it is just naming the awkwardness because everybody feels it. So sit the team down. Not a vision dump, not a nothing changes speech because they know that that's gonna be a lie. Uh things will change. Uh, but name it. Here's what changes. I evaluate uh you now, I set the calendar now, I will sometimes choose the church over our old hallway jokes. Uh, those are some of the things that are gonna change, right? What doesn't change? What doesn't change? I still know your kids' names. I still remember who covered for me. I'm not pretending that I arrived from another city. The worship pastor shouldn't have to guess whether the roast is still allowed, right? You should set the ground rules for that. So here's the bottom line for this. You didn't get a new job, but you got a new cast. If you don't name what changed, the staff will name it for you in the hallway. And you don't want that.
So here's the challenge. This week I want you to do something uncomfortable. If you're in this position or you've been put in this position in the past few months, if you just promoted for within or you are that person, sit the team down. Have the explicit conversation. Here's what changes, here's what doesn't change, what doesn't change. Name that awkwardness. Everybody knows it's there. Everybody hears it all at the same time because you called a meeting. Now I know this one, this one stings a lot, and I know that you also care about the people who used to be your peers. Uh, that's why you're listening, and that's why you're going to go over and above because those are friends. Those are friends that have just now been put in an awkward situation. Awkward for them and awkward for you. So face it head on, and I think that'll make it much, much better. Doesn't mean it's going to be easy, but it'll make it better. I hope this has been helpful to you. And um, if there's any way that I can help you, maybe you're you're you're in a church where this has not gone well and you just need to talk to somebody about it, I'd be happy to do that. My uh email address is podcast at chemistry staffing.com. All right, we'll be right back here tomorrow on the Healthy Curse Death Podcast. Hope you have a great day.
