The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

In this episode, Todd Rhoades discusses the implications of delaying the rehiring process in churches. He highlights the hidden costs and burnout associated with not promptly filling vacant staff roles. Todd provides guidance on recognizing when it's time to initiate rehiring to maintain a healthy ministry environment.• Delaying rehiring can lead to hidden costs, such as staff burnout and resentment.• Responsibilities from the unfilled position often dilute team focus and lower quality of work.• Common motivations for not rehiring include cost-saving, but unacknowledged losses occur over time.• Key questions to determine the need for rehiring: mission relevance of the role and pers...

This podcast episode emphasizes the vital role of middle managers, including volunteers, in church leadership. Host Todd Rhoades highlights how these individuals serve as a crucial link between senior pastors' visions and practical implementation, often going unrecognized. The episode offers strategies to support and empower these pivotal roles, underlining their importance in maintaining ministry momentum and preventing burnout.• Middle managers, including volunteers, are key to translating senior pastors' visions into actionable plans.• These roles are often unrecognized but essential for maintaining ministry momentum.• Without middle management, ministries can experience silos, burnout, and unclear direction.• Supporting and empowering middle managers involves clear ro...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the risks of delaying the hiring process in the church environment. While thoughtful consideration during hiring is important, excessive delays can result in losing top candidates, frustrating team members, and stalling church ministries. Rhoades provides insights on balancing deliberate decision-making with timely action, offering a strategic approach to improving hiring efficiency without rushing decisions.• Dragging your feet in hiring can cause top candidates to move on, frustrate your team, and stall your church.• In a candidate's market, more churches are hiring than there are candidates available.• Thoughtfulness is not th...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses how senior church leaders might unknowingly become bottlenecks in their ministry. He emphasizes the importance of recognizing and addressing leadership behaviors that can hamper team dynamics, such as micromanagement and lack of clear communication. Todd advocates for transparency, inviting feedback, and empowering team members to foster a healthier church staff environment.• Senior church leaders can unintentionally create bottlenecks in their ministry.• Key bottleneck behaviors include slow decision-making, micromanagement, and unclear communication.• Leaders should audit their workflow to identify where processes get stuck.• Inviting honest feedback from staff is crucial...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the difficult topic of terminating a church staff member, emphasizing the importance of clarity and timing in such decisions. He highlights the need for thorough discernment, effective communication, and compassionate execution to maintain the health and morale of the church team.• Firing church staff should not be rushed but also not delayed unnecessarily.• Clarity and discernment are essential before deciding to terminate an employee.• Key considerations include clear communication of expectations, adequate time and support for improvement, and the nature of the issues (moral, relational, or performance-based).• Seek wise cou...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades outlines a practical four-step playbook for managing conflict within church staff teams. The episode emphasizes that conflict is inevitable in passionate teams, but it can be constructive if managed well. Rhoades provides a framework to address and navigate conflicts effectively, aiming to restore trust and improve team alignment.• Conflict within church staff is normal and can be beneficial if handled properly.• A four-step playbook for managing conflict: Observe, Name, Navigate, and Coach.• Conflict resolution can lead to greater trust and team breakthroughs.• Avoiding conflict is a bigger problem than con...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades discusses why churches should consider hiring staff based on potential rather than perfection. The episode covers key points about shifting the hiring mindset, identifying potential in candidates, and effectively supporting their growth once hired. Rhoades emphasizes the importance of recognizing and nurturing teachable individuals, as well as creating an environment conducive to their development.• Churches often miss out on candidates by focusing too much on perfect resumes and extensive experience.• The best leaders often need opportunities to grow rather than being fully qualified from the start.• Hiring based on pot...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, Todd Rhoades discusses the importance of tracking specific hiring metrics to improve church hiring processes. He emphasizes the need for churches to pay attention to key metrics such as time to fill, candidate drop-off rate, number of qualified candidates, and offer acceptance rate. Understanding these metrics can provide valuable insights into staff culture, candidate experience, and long-term success. Rhoades highlights that healthy churches combine prayer with data-driven decision-making to build better teams.• Importance of tracking hiring metrics to improve church hiring processes.• Key metrics discussed: time to fill, candidate drop-off rate, numb...

In this episode of the Healthy Church Staff Podcast, host Todd Rhoades discusses the subtle signs of disengagement among church staff members and how to address them before it's too late. He emphasizes the phenomenon of 'quiet quitting' where staff members slowly lose connection without overtly resigning. Rhoades shares strategies for spotting disengagement early and ways to re-engage team members by asking the right questions and providing clear feedback.• Signs of disengagement include reduced participation, lack of creativity, and brief communication.• Common reasons for disengagement: feeling underappreciated, unclear expectations, poor leadership, unresolved conflicts.• Early identification is crucial - listen for behavi...

Have you ever made a staffing change that was supposed to solve everything, only to discover weeks later that nothing improved? That sinking feeling might be a sign you've addressed a symptom rather than the root cause.

When terminations miss the mark, the aftermath can be devastating for your church team. Trust crumbles as staff members wonder who might be next. The room grows quieter during meetings as everyone carefully measures their words. Productivity and collaboration decline rather than improve. Most tellingly, that nagging voice starts whispering, "Maybe that wasn't the right move after all."

...

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

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Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume...

Trust erodes silently in church staff teams through small, consistent breaches like withholding information, avoiding hard conversations, and inconsistent leadership. When trust breaks down, staff members disengage, play defense, and create a culture of suspicion that undermines the church's mission and effectiveness.

• Trust is your team's emotional infrastructure—invisible but supporting everything
• Five trust killers: withholding information, delayed feedback, avoiding hard conversations, saying different things publicly and privately, and inconsistent leadership
• Rebuilding trust starts with naming what everyone already knows
• Consistent actions must communicate: I see you, I care about what you think, I'll follow thr...

Church culture is defined by how your team experiences leadership every day, not just through perks or events, and toxic leadership environments can slowly push away great staff members despite their calling.

• Constant urgency where everything feels like an emergency
• Avoiding necessary hard conversations
• Celebrating success while ignoring burnout
• Critique consistently outweighing encouragement
• Staff never feeling caught up with their workload

• Staff silently question if they can speak up without punishment
• They wonder if anyone cares about their wellbeing
• They question if their ideas matter or if they're just "doers"
• The...

When great candidates disappear from your church's hiring process, it's rarely about salary or location. Top-tier ministry candidates evaluate your church's communication, vision clarity, and culture before deciding whether to continue pursuing a role.

• Churches lose candidates through long gaps in communication
• Vague or inconsistent messaging about the role or hiring process raises red flags
• Overly rigid interviews that feel like interrogations drive people away
• Not involving real staff members in the process isolates candidates
• Top candidates often won't explain why they're walking away—they simply vanish
• Communicate often, even if just to say you hav...

Todd Rhodes concludes the Silent Alarm series with a crucial message about the danger of trying to rebuild church staff pipelines alone. The most resilient churches recognize that rebuilding ministry is too important and complex to be carried solely on one leader's shoulders.

• Too many church leaders are recruiting, interviewing, evaluating, onboarding, and fixing culture alone, which is crushing them
• Isolation feels like control but almost always leads to collapse
• Four essentials for rebuilding: wise counsel, collaborative process, outside perspective, and spiritual dependence
• Rebuilding ministry isn't just about strategy but about obedience and spiritual leadersh...

The interim period between church staff members isn't just dead space to endure—it's a strategic inflection point that shapes your church's future. Todd Rhodes explains how this critical time either heals what's broken or hides it deeper, with no neutral middle ground.

• Churches often treat staff transitions like a pause button while redistributing roles and waiting for a new hire
• The interim isn't about holding down the fort—it's a formative period that will make or break your next hire
• New staff don't walk into a blank slate but inherit whatever environment the interim created

The church of 1997 isn't coming back, and that's actually good news for ministry leaders willing to adapt their staffing approach. Many churches are still hiring for positions that made sense decades ago, using outdated strategies, and wondering why they're struggling to gain traction in today's rapidly changing ministry landscape.

• Culture shifts that once took generations now happen almost daily
• Economic realities have changed dramatically, with living costs making 1990s salaries unsustainable
• Today's leaders want purpose and flexibility, not just defined roles to fill
• Technological shifts have created entirely new ministry needs and positions
• Generation...

We're exploring why promising ministry leaders are quietly leaving church jobs without returning to ministry elsewhere, examining this growing trend that's draining the church leadership pipeline. This "invisible exodus" includes gifted mid-career leaders who still love Jesus but find ministry unsustainable for various reasons.

• Five key reasons for quiet quitting: chronic disappointment with ministry realities, unsustainable family costs, disillusionment with church leadership, inadequate compensation, and uncertainty about calling
• Most leaders don't leave because they've lost faith—they leave because ministry stopped believing in them
• Churches can respond by reaching out to former ministry leaders in their co...

Your staffing problem isn't really about hiring—it's about discipleship. Most churches have shifted from raising up leaders internally to importing candidates, creating a leadership development vacuum that threatens the future of ministry.

• Churches have forgotten that disciple-making is leadership development
• The pipeline for ministry leaders is drying up as fewer young adults consider ministry careers
• Too many churches wait passively for fully-formed candidates rather than developing their own
• When churches stop discipling people into leadership, ministry becomes professionalized and transactional
• Building your pipeline starts with identifying three people under 30 with spiritual leadership potential

Even healthy churches with solid theology and stable leadership are struggling to fill open staff positions due to fundamental shifts in the ministry landscape. The talent pool of potential church staff has shrunk dramatically, creating intense competition for fewer candidates who are more selective than ever before.

• Church health is no longer a sufficient magnet for attracting staff—it's just the baseline
• The candidate pool is smaller, especially at mid-career levels, creating higher competition
• Today's ministry candidates are highly selective and interviewing churches as much as being interviewed
• Geographic limitations are more significant, with many candi...

We tackle a harmful church hiring myth: the fantasy of finding the "unicorn" or perfect candidate with impossible qualifications at a modest salary. While churches wait for this mythical person, positions remain open, current staff get overloaded, volunteer morale drops, and the congregation suffers.

• Churches waste months or years holding out for candidates with conflicting qualifications (seminary trained but relatable, visionary but administrative)
• The perfect candidate is not coming, but great staff members might be right in front of you
• Phrases like "we're waiting for the right person" often mask unclear hiring priorities
• Prolonged vacancie...

Ministry staff are carrying unprecedented emotional weight from difficult experiences, and hiring churches must learn to address the pain behind every resume to build healthy teams.

• The last five to six years have been incredibly difficult for ministry staff
• Many candidates have experienced being ghosted, micromanaged, caught in power struggles, or laid off without warning
• Unprocessed pain turns into baggage that will show up in a candidate's next role
• Instead of just reviewing credentials, ask about how candidates have processed difficult experiences
• Important interview questions include asking about the hardest part of their last minis...

We're facing a growing crisis in church staffing—the quiet disappearance of mid-career ministry leaders who should be stepping into senior leadership and mentoring younger staff. This exodus creates a dangerous vacuum where churches lose experienced leaders in their 30s and 40s who have accumulated valuable ministry wisdom.

• Mid-career leaders represent the backbone of church staff teams, bridging veteran leadership and the next generation
• Former youth pastors, worship leaders, associates, women in ministry, and executive pastors are leaving at alarming rates
• Churches didn't just lose these leaders—they wore them out, ignored their development, and assumed th...

The church staff pipeline in the US is quietly cracking beneath us, systematically changing in ways that threaten our future leadership. This episode introduces Todd Rhodes' new book "Silent Alarm" which addresses the diminishing flow of qualified, healthy, experienced candidates in the church hiring pool across all roles.

• The pipeline of leaders entering full-time ministry is slowing dramatically
• Churches continue posting openings with unrealistic expectations about candidate availability
• This isn't just a hiring slowdown but a long-term leadership crisis decades in the making
• Churches may receive applications but struggle to find candidates who are the righ...

The most dangerous season in leadership might be when everything feels fine, leading to comfortable coasting rather than courageous direction. Leadership fatigue often comes not from crisis moments but from the slow, steady grind of keeping everything afloat when courage is needed to disrupt stagnation.

• Warning signs of leadership coasting include avoiding overdue decisions
• Relief when your team stops asking questions indicates potential problems
• Not initiating tough conversations for months suggests building issues
• Recycled vision talks signal operating on ministry autopilot
• Leadership autopilot doesn't crash immediately but quietly drifts off course
• Courage often looks...

We explore why promising candidates often disappear during the church hiring process and how to stop unintentionally scaring away top talent. Your hiring process communicates volumes about your church culture, and candidates assume how you hire is how you lead.

• Disorganized processes communicate disorganized churches and staff
• Today's candidates consider multiple churches simultaneously, not just one at a time
• Long delays between communications often cause candidates to lose interest or trust
• Poor follow-up, vague answers, and overselling positions are common mistakes
• Intimidating interview settings without relational warmth drive away good candidates
• Fast, clear, and k...

Ministry leaders often confuse burnout with boredom, but these conditions require completely different solutions. Recognizing the difference can help you take the right steps to reignite your passion and purpose in ministry.

• Burnout is about depletion while boredom is about stagnation
• Warning signs of boredom include scrolling during meetings, minimal sermon prep, and lack of dreaming
• Both conditions can make you question your calling, but they need different approaches
• Boredom doesn't need rest—it needs new challenges and growth opportunities
• Practical strategies include learning new skills, changing routines, and mentoring someone new
• Getting curiou...

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

Many churches waste time searching for perfect ministry candidates that don't exist. This unrealistic quest for a "ministry unicorn" leads to extended vacancies, team burnout, and missed opportunities to hire promising leaders with potential to grow.

• Churches often create impossible job descriptions seeking candidates with every qualification imaginable
• Warning signs of unicorn hunting include searches lasting over nine months with no frontrunner
• Search committees frequently disqualify strong candidates over minor flaws or preferences
• Prolonged vacancies lead to staff burnout and loss of church momentum
• Better approach: look for faithfulness, fruitfulness, teachability and mission alignment<...

Pastors who need to be the smartest person in the room unintentionally silence their team and hinder collaboration, eventually causing creative staff members to leave or stop contributing.

• Insecurity often drives leaders' need to have all the answers
• Dominating meetings with answers tells staff "you're here to execute my brilliance"
• When people don't feel invited to contribute, they check out mentally
• Creative staff either leave or stay and become silent
• Leaders should invite input by asking "what do you think the next step should be?"
• Empowerment isn't just a buzzword—it's a discipline

Ministry today resembles an ER room more than a boardroom, requiring church leaders to adopt skills similar to emergency medical professionals to navigate chaos effectively while preventing burnout.

• Learning proper triage - treating the most urgent issues first rather than reacting to the loudest voices
• Understanding that compassion means prioritizing what truly matters, not treating everything equally
• Recognizing not every idea needs immediate implementation or every email an instant reply
• Bringing calm to chaos like ER nurses do during critical situations
• Modeling peace and stability when budgets tank, conflicts erupt, or programs fall flat
•...

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume...

Calling your church staff a "family" might be undermining your team's effectiveness by normalizing dysfunction and avoiding necessary accountability. A better metaphor might be a jazz band, where diverse talents work together with rhythm, trust, and excellence toward a shared mission.

• Families often tolerate dysfunction in the name of loyalty
• The family model leads to keeping toxic staff and avoiding hard conversations
• Jazz bands require each member to bring unique skills while working in harmony
• Trust is foundational in jazz bands - when one player drops the beat, everyone feels it
• Healthy church teams "tun...

Personality assessments like the Enneagram can provide valuable insights into how staff members process the world, but they fail to reveal character issues that often emerge under pressure. Todd Rhodes explores why churches must look beyond personality typing to build truly healthy teams.

• The trap of putting people in boxes based on their personality type
• Why personality tools describe behavior but don't diagnose dysfunction 
• How a person with a "perfect" personality score can still be toxic for your team
• The difference between personality (static) and character (revealed under tension)
• Warning signs when someone uses their...

Church leaders often confuse constant motion with progress, using momentum to mask deeper issues that need addressing. Slowing down isn't failure—it's a faithful choice that allows space for healing, growth, and sustainable ministry that Jesus himself modeled.

• Momentum feels like growth but can actually be directionless motion
• Constant activity often hides anxiety, unhealed trauma, or unresolved conflict
• Churches fear pausing because silence might surface pain or inadequacies
• Warning signs include always saying "we don't have time," launching new programs without evaluating old ones, and postponing conflict resolution
• Healthy solutions include canceling one thing withou...

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume...

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume...

Every leader has an expiration date, and creating a succession plan is a spiritual responsibility that demonstrates wisdom rather than weakness. Great leaders prepare for their eventual departure, ensuring their ministry continues seamlessly when they're no longer present.

• What would happen if you disappeared tomorrow - would your church staff know what to do?
• Most pastors wait too long to think about succession planning
• If you can't hand off your role, you haven't led, you've just occupied
• Your team is already thinking about your succession plan, just not with you
• Creating a succession plan signa...

Most church meetings suffer from silent dysfunction—they're over-controlled, under-prepared, or merely performative, leaving staff secretly wishing they were emails instead. We crack open this uncomfortable truth and provide practical solutions to transform your team gatherings into meaningful, productive experiences that staff actually want to attend.

• Three hidden reasons church meetings don't work: they focus on reporting instead of relating, lack clear purpose, and push real conversations to happen after meetings end
• Staff often "fake nod" during meetings because speaking up feels like dissent in unhealthy church cultures
• Start meetings by clearly stating the purpose—"This meeti...

The key to better ministry leadership might be borrowing wisdom from an unexpected place - the marriage therapist's office. We explore three powerful insights from counseling that can radically improve how church leaders listen, lead, and love their staff and congregation.

• Learning to listen to understand, not just respond - pushing past our "fix-it mode" to truly hear others
• Creating space for honesty by asking open-ended questions rather than leading questions
• Recognizing that sometimes silence isn't just awkward, but sacred
• Stopping the rush to fix problems and starting to see people first
• Understanding that valid...