A casual visitor to our church offices would notice nothing unusual at first. The staff of twelve-seven men, five women-consists of five full-time ministers, a full-time director, two part-time assistants, and four interns. We range in age from twenty to fifty-seven.
But there’s one oddity: Only two of us were “imported” to Oxnard. All the rest are home-grown.
Growing a church staff is a serious commitment with us, stemming back over fifteen years to my days at Calvary Baptist in San Bernardino. A tough young high school junior named Scott began attending our youth group. He was a natural leader but also a fighter, with drug involvement. When he spoke, everybody listened; when he led, everyone followed.
To the delight of all, he received Christ and became active in the group. The associate minister, who worked with youth, made good use of his talents over the next three years.
Then came the associate’s resignation. We began the normal process of reviewing resumes and conducting interviews. But why? We valued continuity in the youth program, and Scott, then a college sophomore, was a good resource. We asked him to become our part-time youth coordinator.
“Who, me?” was his response. Yes, you, we said. We promised to help train him further, and he accepted the position.
At the same time, we hired another layman to serve in finance and visitation ministries. The congregation was not unanimous about all this, but very soon they saw a flourishing youth program that was touching great numbers of unchurched teenagers. Scott knew their world, spoke their language. Over the next year, we decided this model would be the basis of future leadership development.
More Testing
By the time I came to Oxnard, Scott was in seminary. We called him to be our minister of youth and gave him a mandate: spend 60 percent of your time selecting and training three youth interns from the congregation to replace you eventually.
The interns were:
1. to be committed to Christ and to ministry;
2. to be teachable;
3. to submit a written statement of personal Christian experience and goals to the board of deacons for approval;
4. to give twenty hours a week to the church;
5. to be also studying for the ministry in college or seminary;
6. to spend at least half their time training lay replacements.
The church, in turn, would:
1. train them in youth work;
2. pay a modest salary;
3. promote them in responsibilities and title as warranted.
We plunged ahead, experimenting, failing, and refining the process. One of the initial threesome, Jeff, became the full-time minister of youth (Scott’s old post) within two years. He went on to train John, who replaced him in the youth position so he could become our minister of evangelism.
The second intern dropped out when he came to realize that youth ministry was not for him. The third, a married man, dropped out because he could not make ends meet working as an intern and going to school at the same time.
So we were one-for-three. We saw more of the realities of our approach, but we were also excited about Jeff’s tenacious spirit and developing talent. He had been turned down back in 1977 when he had applied for the youth position. The reasons: inexperience, mistakes he had made as a member of the congregation, and his marriage to the church’s “Cinderella girl.” Excellent training from Scott had overcome inexperience. Jeff even overcame the unreasonable expectations people laid upon him for marrying into such a prominent family. He developed his own identity as a youth leader.
Building a Structure
We gradually developed from a “watch me and tag along” approach to more organized training. We broadened our efforts to do more for the intern than develop a specialty, e.g., youth or music or Christian education. While each of them held a specific responsibility, we began exposing them to all phases of church work:
Administration
Public speaking
Evangelism
Discipleship
Finance
Pastoral care
Ministry to seniors
Program planning
Camps and retreats
Counseling
Conflict management
Some of this training happened in a classroom. Much of it came through modeling by the staff member as the intern attended board and committee meetings, sat in on counseling sessions, helped draw up a department budget. When the full-time staff was smaller, an intern was on the platform every service. Now, space does not permit that, but interns still have ample speaking opportunities before youth and adult audiences as well, and they are critiqued afterwards.
The greatest challenge for an intern, we have found, is to train lay workers. The intern is usually highly motivated and very smart-but also impatient and immature. Disappointment is not uncommon. But we insist that interns must learn not only to do but also to train. That is what Scriptures such as Ephesians 4:12 and 2 Timothy 2:2 are all about.
Sifting and Sorting
We have now had eleven interns over six years. Four of them are presently on our full-time staff, two men in youth work and two women in music. Two others have gone on to serve other churches. Three no longer serve the church in any professional capacity, and that is all right. They had a chance to discover their strengths and weaknesses as they faced such questions as “Have I received a call to the ministry?” “Do I have the ability and gifts to be a minister?” and “Am I fulfilled in this work?” It is a great plus for the intern and the church to sort out these questions early.
John, who trained under Jeff, is a good example of this. The son of an evangelist/pastor, he and his family came to the church when he was seventeen years old. He was quite free with his criticisms of our program, and while he was often right, he didn’t gain much of a hearing.
Like Jeff, he married a young lady in our congregation. He went to the Los Angeles area to finish college and also served as a part-time youth minister there. Upon graduation, several churches near the seminary of his choice invited him to become their youth minister. Our church, by contrast, was two and a half hours away and offered substantially less income. But John accepted, because he valued the training he knew he would receive. He and his wife even became our custodians in order to balance their budget.
Seminary is now completed, and John has been our full-time minister of youth for a year and a half. He is beginning a doctoral program in education and will no doubt settle in that field of ministry. The internship and staff position have been valuable transitions for him en route from cocky seventeen-year-old to mature minister.
Other interns have discovered, to their benefit, that youth ministry is not all glamour. Some of them, excellent speakers, have fallen down in the areas of teaching, administration, and especially in training others. Again, they have been the wiser for the experience.
Does Home-Grown Mean Ingrown?
Some may worry that to grow your own staff is to produce a group of clones. That syndrome, we have found, is only temporary. The case of Scott and Jeff illustrates the point. They are by nature opposites in many ways: Scott is analytical, a great planner, but not particularly creative nor emotional. Jeff struggles with organization, but he’s a spellbinding speaker and very sensitive.
The first few months Jeff trained under Scott, absorbing his priorities and program goals, he appeared to be a carbon copy. But as Jeff kept developing, his strong points began to reappear. He was moving toward the outlined goals but by different means. And as Jeff trained the support staff under him, the best of both worlds emerged, enriching everyone.
We also combat ingrown tendencies by requiring staff members to go to outside leadership seminars. We bring in several guest professionals to speak to our staff each year as well.
What about Respect?
I admit it is easier for a congregation to give credibility to a “prophet from another country” than to someone who has grown up before their very eyes. After all, these are the not-so-long-ago boys and girls of the Sunday school.
The entrance standards of our intern program help this problem somewhat. Everyone knows that interns have to qualify on a number of criteria and pass the muster of several reviewing groups. Thus, they are part of a tested and approved program of the church. In fact, their salaries come from the missions budget, since internship is considered part of our outreach.
Early in the program, we had to fight for credibility. We had to keep reminding people that these were ministers in training, not finished products. The program gradually began to prove itself, and endorsements started coming in. People even began boasting about “our men and women” who give leadership in “our church.”
As the youth group sees their peers becoming interns, they view them with admiration. We have a constant flow of applications from our own youth. We cannot employ them all, but we have been able to stretch the roster by taking on some on a nonpaid basis.
Presently, thirteen men and women of various ages are preparing for ministry in various colleges and seminaries. A number of them will go overseas, while others will come back to serve us. Still others will serve in other churches.
An Approach for All Ages
Growing your own staff is more than just a program for the young. A few years ago, while I was visiting an elderly woman in the hospital, a member of our church came by. I watched in amazement as she cradled the woman in her arms, shared Scripture with her, and gave comfort. What stunned me was that she was far more capable at this kind of ministry than I was after thirty years in the pastorate. She reminded me that not all ministry gifts reside in the trained clergy.
After the visit, I stepped outside the room and began to talk with Arlene. “Would you be interested in joining the church staff?” I asked.
She, the mother of four grown children and wife of a local businessman, was shocked. “I have no training,” she replied.
“You have a natural ability to love people. You can be trained.” I promised that we would equip her with everything she needed to be our minister to seniors.
After a few days, with great reluctance, she accepted. Our staff tutored her; she got further training at a local hospital, and we also sent her to specialty conferences on pastoral care. She has become an excellent director of seniors work. She is performing ably and productively.
Arlene has even expanded, at our invitation, into areas traditionally reserved for the clergy. She has conducted four funerals. Why shouldn’t she? She is the one who spent hours at the bedside of the person and ministered to the family all along. Who better can minister in the moment of need?
We are excited about growing our own staff in this way, because it means the ministry of the church has been given back to the laity. Their excitement is our excitement. It may be easier for the professional to do the work, and to import other professionals as needs come along. But the slower process of training laity to use their gifts is, we think, the superior process. We view home-grown staffs like home-grown vegetables-if you don’t mind the work, they’re the best!
Editor’s note: In October, 1983, Robert Bradford moved to Seattle to assume a denominational post. His replacement as senior minister at Oxnard is “my son in the faith, Scott.” Says the author, “This is greatly fulfilling to me since I have discipled him for the past fifteen years. I hope to translate this philosophy into my new regional position in the Northwest.”
Robert C. Bradford was pastor of First Baptist Church, Oxnard, California, 1977-83. Since writing this article, he has become executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of the Northwest.
Copyright © 1984 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
