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
They Hired Outside
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When You Almost Get The Job
SPEAKER_00So you made the final three, but you didn't get the job. At your turn. Sunday you still have to make the not a long senior pastor search you never applied for. It could be any chair. Could be executive pastor, worship, kids, leave. You were good enough to be in the room, and now they want you to help the new person find the copier. It hurts. It stings when you put in for an internal role that you get passed over for. But it's not the end of the world. We're going to talk about it today, though, because this affects a lot of church staff across the country. And maybe it's happened in your church. Maybe it's happened to you. But we're going to talk about it today. Here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. Hi there. My name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at Chemistry Staffing, your host right here every weekday on the podcast. All right, so this is not leftover staff during a 12 to 18 month pastoral search. So we talked about that on Friday on the podcast. This is the person who applied, who made the cut, maybe made it to the top one or two or three people, and then ultimately didn't get picked. And let's say final three. There's a real heartbreak there. There's a difference between not applying and almost winning. And you put your name in, your spouse knew, half the staff knew. And then the call came. And it was the news that you had not hoped for. But they said we're going to go in another and in another direction. Hey, we we thank you for your heart. We love you. We value you. Please be in the service on Sunday. Please continue on in your role. But you didn't get the position. Now, in business, an internal finalist who loses gets a conversation and a runway. But in sometimes in a church, you're just asked to move on and be a team player. And I'm telling you, when this happens, there are three doors that show up really fast. And you have to figure out exactly what to do.
Three Doors After Being Passed Over
SPEAKER_00So I call it stay, stay, sabotage, or slowly disappear. Those are really the three doors. The old Monty Hall, what was that? Let's make a deal. Do you want door number one, which is stay, door number two, which is sabotage, or door number three, which is slowly disappear. Let's talk about each one of those. Each one of those doors. Okay, stay. If you choose door number one and you stay for real, you really need to recalibrate and you need to get on board. You need to lean in, you need to not be upset, and you need to be fully leaned in toward the person who got the chair that you really wanted and applied for. Okay. I'm telling you, that's really difficult to do, but sometimes you can do it. Sometimes you can do it, and sometimes that's what God calls you to do. Okay. So that's door number one. Door number two is Marty, I'll take door number two. That's the sabotage door. That's when you smile in the meeting and you starve them in the hallway. You won't call it that. You'll call like maybe protecting the culture. But it's the you don't stay and lean in. You stay, but you sabotage even behind the scenes. And sometimes you don't even know you're doing it or you're not trying to be intentional, but your ego's been bruised a little bit. And you smile in the meeting, but you know, you're collecting a paycheck and you're not really all bought in. And can I say this? Sometimes we actually hope that the person that they picked over you fails. That's sabotage, okay? That's door number two. Door number three is slowly disappear. And this is probably the most popular one, at least in the short term. You slowly disappear, you show up, you take the paycheck, you do the minimum, and you start browsing listings on your phone for different church roles while you're in the parking lot on the way out to your car. Okay? So this is what we found in our survey, in our healthy church staff survey from last year is that a little over 50%, 51.1% of paid staff thought seriously about leaving in the past year. 61.9% are not fully committed to staying, and only 38% are we called fully anchored. They're like all zoned in, they're ready, they're leaning in, they're ready to go. And a passed over finalist will look loyal on a team until the day that they aren't. Now, I know most of your hearts. If you're the church, you were trying to get the best person. If you're the one who lost, you're trying to be mature. That's decent. But asking the person who almost got the job to onboard the person who did, without a real conversation, first, at least, isn't maturity. It's just convenience that only you would do in a church for crying out loud. So Sunday still has to happen, somebody still has to stand up there, somebody has to clap, somebody has to make the announcement look unified. And that's the internal finalist that if you're not careful, you're going to use them as a prop. And that just will not go over well. That worship pastor who lost the chair shouldn't have to run the new hires first Sunday. The kids director who made the final three shouldn't have to post the announcement graphic. Just be kind to the person. And it's hard for the church. Many churches just don't think about it through the candidate's perspective. They just think they didn't get the job, but they didn't get the job, but they're still on the team, and they have to answer the person that
How Churches Should Handle The No
SPEAKER_00you just hired for a role that they thought that they should be hired for. So what does a decent church do before making the announcement? They tell the candidate, they tell the truth before the lobby does. If you're at the church, sit down with the internal finalist this week, before the public announcement, not a thanks for applying email, a real sentence, why they didn't get it, and what you actually want for their future here. And don't pitch a bunch of bull here, okay? You need to be honest. And if you want them to say, say what that path looks like. And if you don't, say that too. An honest no is kinder than a year of maybes. And if you're the person, decide stay or leave on purpose, not by quiet quitting. You can look up the archives on quiet quitting for this podcast and get a whole series on what quiet quitting is, but don't quiet quit. Make the decision, either stay or leave, and do it on purpose. Feeling valued is probably the largest gap that you're going to feel in this position if you were passed over. And feeling valued is the largest gap between staff who thrive and staff who struggle, according to our assessment. You cannot feel valued by a church that used your hope as a search process and then asked you to clap for the person that they eventually hired.
Why “No Plus Assignment” Hurts
SPEAKER_00So here's the gut check for today. The cruelest version of this isn't the no. It's the no plus the assignment. Hey, can you help them get up to speed? You're so good with people. That's not stewardship. That's asking somebody to train the person who took the future away from them that they named out loud. And if they offer, that's their gift. But if you assign it, that's your failure. The new hire deserves a clean start. The internal finalist deserves a clean decision. And neither one of those things happen in the orientation meeting. So here's your bottom line for today. If you made the final three and you didn't get the job, if Sunday's the first time you talk about it, you didn't honor them, you used them. Alright, that's it for today. I know this one hurts a little bit, especially if you've lived it or gone through it either at your current church. Maybe you're going through it now or you went through it in the past, you're still trying to figure out how to deal with it. Maybe it happened to you ten years ago and it still stings. Also know that, hey, most churches care about people. I'm glad that you're listening because sometimes we just don't think through what this would be like if we were in their shoes. If they were really excited about a new role at the church and they just got the rug pulled out from under them and they're asked to stay on and support the next person. That's really hard. So they're going to need an extra heaping dose of care and discernment. And you need to come to the realization that they just they might not be able to make that transition. Matter of fact, I don't want to pull a number out of the air, but most staff can't. Most staff can. So you need to prepare for that eventuality. All right, that's
Choose Stay Or Leave On Purpose
SPEAKER_00it for today. I hope you've enjoyed listening to this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, even if it was intense one. We're here every day, Monday through Friday, and we'll be right back here again tomorrow. Hope you'll join me on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
