The Right One for the Job

Talk with any senior pastor or search committee in America who hires support staff, and one of their most challenging positions to fill is in the area of worship leadership. The unfolding reformation of worship in our nation is creating unprecedented opportunities in worship ministry for qualified leaders, yet frustration over finding them is at an all-time high.

One such pastor, responding to the analogy that hiring staff was like getting married after a blind date confessed, “I’m so worn out from making the wrong music decision (again) that I’m tempted to just stay single.” Can you relate to that comment? I can, yet hiring a quality worship staff can be one the most tangible blessings any of us in leadership can give to our ministries. With this in mind, here are some suggestions for taking the mystery and confusion out of the process.

Put the Throne Before the Phone

When our music director announced that he was leaving to pursue the Lord’s calling elsewhere, I did what any spiritually empowered leader would do … I panicked! Rather than stopping and asking the Lord for clear direction through an extended season of fasting and prayer, I picked up the phone and started working my network. During that time I never would have admitted to leaving God out of such a strategic decision, but in looking back, that’s exactly what I was doing by trying to make something happen rather than allowing God to lead.

Don’t get me wrong: networking is essential. Dynamic leadership is always developing peer relationships from which to share ideas and insights, but not at the expense of first going to the Lord. We need to slow down and communicate with the Lord. Realize that He longs to offer assistance if your spirit is quiet enough to hear it.

As a sign near my phone now reminds me, “Prayer is the work and ministry is the prize.” It helps me always remember who to reach for first.

ACTION STEPS

1. Set aside a specific day or two away from your office to commit your search process to the Lord.
2. When you feel the urge to control your situation rather than wait on God, meditate on Psalm 62.
3. Recruit an accountability group that will help keep your dependency on God balanced with your determination to accomplish your hiring goals. This group, when prayerfully selected, will offer tremendous objectivity and assistance to your search. Don’t be afraid to include them throughout your process of identifying the right worship staff.

You’ve Got to Heal to Feel

I talk to a lot of numb pastors and worship leaders across the country who don’t feel anything anymore. Worship renewal has, in their minds and hearts, exacted a heavy price for which they begrudgingly pay. Gone is their joy and sense of wonder toward the ministry of worship. How tragic. When this happens, a cycle of fear and discouragement are often set in motion which results in an attitude of control. In this attitude every potential candidate or ministry opportunity is suspiciously viewed as another failure waiting to happen.

If you or your church are faced with this situation, it is imperative that you stop your search immediately no matter how pressing a worship vacancy may appear. A conscientious leader prepares for the hiring process by dealing with past conflicts first. If your working relationship with a former staff member was challenging, understand that it takes tremendous integrity to admit areas where you might have failed and need work as a leader. Confess them!

It is very important to work toward a sense of positive closure to avoid carrying unresolved pain into new working relationships. I know several large churches that regularly have staff come and go without any communication with their church body. This should be avoided at all cost as poor communication breeds tremendous insecurity for your congregation. If you are a worship pastor looking at a new position, one of your first questions should be about the transition and exit of the predecessor. Once you have determined closure, avoid the temptation to revisit old working relationships especially if former staff are still in conflict or unwilling to acknowledge their wrongdoing. Let them go! Allowing the Holy Spirit to aid in your healing before seeking His will in your hiring will be one of the greatest gifts you can give your future worship staff and ministry.

ACTION STEPS

1. Take out your emotion trash and leave it at the cross. Be honest with God—He can handle it. Read Psalm 101, Proverbs 17:9, 1 Thessalonians 5:11-19, and 1 Peter 5:1-9.
2. Take an inventory of your church and it’s past dealings with staff. Deal with internal conflict and sin (Gal. 6:1) BEFORE a new staff member arrives. Have you communicated that you have a vacancy?
3. Involve your accountability group in praying 1 Peter 2 over your congregation as you seek direction in hiring and healing of wounds.

Take Two Looks Backwards Before Each Step Forward

The next step forward in hiring the right worship staff is to evaluate where you have been as a church in the area of worship philosophy and practice. Do not begin the hiring process until you have prayerfully and objectively examined what has worked for your church and what has not. Be a student of your surrounding culture both locally and statewide, but your motivation for change should be determined by what the Holy Spirit has uniquely prepared for your congregation. Help your church think strategically about hiring for today as well as in light of future growth.

Remember, trial balloons may work for the evaluating the weather but never for worship!

ACTION STEPS

1. Use your accountability group to develop a worship survey for your congregation.
2. Develop volunteer focus groups within your congregation to comment on what is personally meaningful for them in worship.
3. If you are relatively new to your congregation (1-3 years), it is your responsibility to learn your church’s worship history. Conduct interviews with lay musicians, review print materials, call former staff members and listen to audiotapes of past performances, worship experiences, and messages on the topic. Do not underestimate the value of this exercise.

Before You Draft Your Staff, Cast Your Vision

This principal is absolutely vital to your success in hiring the right worship staff, yet countless churches repeatedly hire staff without drafting a vision statement.

Think about it. What candidate, worthy of your call, would not appreciate knowing your values for worship up front? What new staff member would not enjoy the freedom of starting a ministry with a solid vision track to run on? What church would not feel the security of having a clearly expressed worship vision statement that is championed by their new staff?

When we were in the process of hiring both a music director and programming director in the same calendar year, our worship staff redrafted our vision statement to allow for these new positions to minister with security and clarity. The result was a “vision track” we all could take ownership in. Ownership is always more significant than authorship.

Your hiring decisions concerning a candidate’s heart, talent, calling, etc., are brought into tremendous clarity as potential staff are evaluated in light of your vision rather than your vacancy.

ACTION STEPS

1. Gather vision statements from local churches and businesses. Keep a file of the ones you like. Local secular and Christian bookstores, libraries, church networks and various ministry web sites can also be good resources.
2. Write down your vision for worship using the grid of Scripture, prayer, history, resources, culture and future needs. Develop a personal vision statement that might include principals related to your faith, marriage and family. If it is not too personal, include this as a resource for serious candidates to get to know you personally.
3. Communicate your vision for worship in sermons, articles, informal talks, music rehearsals, prayer sessions before, during and long after your worship staff has been hired. There are numerous shorter mission statements found in Scripture that could be embellished into vision statements. Read John 10:10.

Hiring Helpers Rarely Helps

I was hired for my first full-time worship position when I was 22—I looked like I was 12. I wasn’t hired for my experience; in fact, I probably should not have been hired that young, especially for a growing congregation of 2,500 people. But the pastor struggled with insecurity, which resulted in several seasoned staff members leaving. Rather than hiring qualified leaders, he hired young seminarians to serve as a controllable, cheap labor force.

Hiring is not about control, but empowering the most gifted individual you can find to do the job better than you. There can be no better staff situation than where leadership is secure enough to celebrate successes and champion each team member to higher levels of achievement for the kingdom of Christ.

ACTION STEPS

1. Study Luke 5 to discover, in the life of Christ, knowledge concerning: recruitment, vision, empowerment, purpose and pacing. The book of Nehemiah is also a great study in leadership.
2. Make reading biographies of great leaders part of your annual reading list. Suggestion: read J. Oswald Sanders’s Spiritual Leadership once a year.
3. Evaluate your leadership style. What ways could you develop empowering leadership values in your team? Does your staff or volunteer leadership feel more like helpers or influential leaders? How could you help them change?

An Interview Is a Reflection of You

With the previous five principles in place, you can finish strong in the most important step of hiring. Throughout the interview process, remember that you are being interviewed by your staff prospect as well. Wise churches will make this experience as meaningful and memorable as time and resources allow. The following are essential goals that will aid in a successful interview for both you and your candidate of choice.

• GATHER NAMES—Identify as many potential candidates as possible that fit your vision. For some churches, the first place you should look is right in your own ministries. The benefits should be obvious.

Next, look in your community. Visit local services, universities, and parachurch organizations, and consider qualified volunteers from larger churches in your area. Always get permission before informally talking with candidates—even if they are volunteers. In addition to talking with music staff, don’t forget many youth pastors can be effective worship leaders as well. When you have exhausted local contacts, look for out-of-state candidates that have some relationship with your present staff, church family, or towns in your area.

While classified ads and other print exposure are helpful, be prepared for a lot of unqualified “tire kickers.” Place your posts only where people who have an interest in worship will read them. Keep a file of other church posts that are similar to your needs. Call or write these churches and ask for resumes of candidates they have no interest in pursuing; those candidates may be just what you’re looking for.

The greatest opportunity to contact candidates is through the Internet, and it’s cheap! Use your search engine to locate various worship sites. I found our current music director by posting our vision online. I was able to locate individuals who had experience in local church worship. I then sent them personal copies (sanctified spamming) of a letter based on values taken from our vision statement. We received names from around the country, as well as different parts of the world.

1. ORGANIZE MATERIAL—Ask for a resume, one-page vision statement, family picture, reference list, and a simple tape. Our music director position was for a highly skilled writer, arranger, and keyboard player. Initially, I was overwhelmed by CDs, but what I wanted to hear was a candidate’s spontaneous worship without hiding behind the benefits of technology. This turned out to be one of our best screening tools as music software and studio production can turn many a mediocre musician into Mozart.

As you review your material and exhaust references, and references of references, you should begin to identify a few serious candidates. If a candidate has e-mail access, you will want to mix phone conversations with e-mail communications. Besides being efficient and cost effective, e-mail requires that one express himself in written form. Initial questions related to philosophy of ministry and worship should be communicated via e-mail to have a written record that can be discussed in person at a later date. Be sure to keep detailed notes of all phone conversations along with questions you wish to cover before you make your next call.

Be prepared to send out a packet of materials as well. This information should be well thought out as candidates will initially evaluate your entire ministry based on whatever brief contact they have with you. Included in your packet: message tapes, bulletins, newsletters, church reports, worship vision statement, financial package (a candidate should never have to guess), and a detailed job description. Many churches also include a list of specific questions and personality profiles. Our church has 20 prepared questions that candidates are asked to fill out as well as three profile tests. These tests are invaluable resources for objectively evaluating the gifts and compatibility of potential staff.

1. ASSESS PROSPECTS—Don’t make the mistake of only budgeting for a candidate’s salary. Many churches have established a budgeted line item for future staff recruitment. Set aside funds for you and another leader to travel to see your top prospects. Tell serious candidates early in the process that your church leadership will most likely visit them. Work out the details so you can observe without threatening their present ministry or staff relations.

Once you’re at that stage in the process, you should have the freedom to visit with very little lead time in order to observe a service that has not been planned, unconsciously of course, for your benefit. While you are in town, remove as many hospitality burdens off your candidates as possible. Meals, overnight stays, transportation, etc, should be your responsibility. Spend time in a candidate’s home, but keep it brief. By listening and observing, you will learn volumes about a possible candidate by seeing them in their own setting.

1. LISTEN TO COUNSEL—It is amazing how attached you can become to the prospects you begin to favor, even if they are not the right choice for your church. It is important, then, to be accountable to others throughout the hiring process, those who can be totally objective. One pastor who was far along in his interviewing process confessed that he subconsciously did not want to ask any more probing questions of his prospective staff member for fear that he would not be “the guy.” Wise, godly council is a tremendous asset to your search process (Prov. 2:1-7).

1. SELECT STAFF—Once you’ve narrowed the candidates down to one or two, he or she should be invited to informally and confidentially visit your church without having to perform platform duties.

Our interviews typically begin Saturday with a casual agenda and conclude Monday after lunch. Prepare an itinerary, in advance, so they know exactly who they are meeting with or what they are doing before they arrive.

Include unstructured time, transportation, and maps for prospects to explore your community on their own. A balance between meetings and process time will allow everyone involved opportunity to prayerfully evaluate input. I also recommend not housing candidates with church members. After a long day of interviewing, your candidate does not need to entertain. Keep your interview process short.

After an informal visit, it is time to schedule a more formal trip, assuming God is directing both parties involved. I recommend doing this within two weeks of the first trip, as both you and your candidate will need closure. A candidate’s spouse should not only be invited for this visit, but he or she should participate in many of the discussions that follow. It is very important to include a variety of people in a variety of settings—both musical and otherwise—to get objective input throughout the interview process. It is exhausting work best shared by a group rather than one person. Remember to keep your vision and hiring priorities before you at all times.

As the Lord leads you in your staff-hiring discovery, remember God has uniquely created the ideal candidate for your church. Enjoy His blessing! “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Prov. 3:5-6)

Dan Millheim serves as Worship Pastor at Harvest Church Watauga, TX and can be reach at dmillheim@theharvestchurch.org.

Content provided by www.worshipleader.com.