6 Strategies For Keeping Your Best People In Ministry

6 Strategies For Keeping Your Best People In Ministry

Aaron Buer

Digital giving apps and tools

A few years ago, my favorite baseball team, the Detroit Tigers lost a good one. I don’t mean a game. I mean a player, Max Scherzer.

The Tigers lost him to the Washington Nationals after the 2014 season and he’s gone ahead and won two Cy Young awards since then. He’s been an All-Star every year.

He has absolutely crushed it since leaving the Tigers. And how have the Tigers been doing?

Can we talk about something else?

Ok. But for real. Have you ever lost a good one? Have you ever lost a good employee or volunteer?

Ugh. It hurts to see a great person leave your organization. You lose momentum. You have to find a replacement and then there are all the “what ifs.”

What would we have been able to accomplish if they hadn’t left?

What kind of church would we be if we still had them on staff?

Having gone through it once or twice, I’m not really interested in doing it again. So, I’ve developed a strategy for keeping the good ones.

What follows is six strategies to keep your best people. I hope it’s helpful.

1. Tell

Keeping your best people starts with telling your best people that they’re your best people.

I’m actually serious.

Look, you’re not allowed to have favorites as a parent but you are when you’re an employer. The honest truth is that some people are more valuable to your organization. This doesn’t mean that they are more valuable as human beings, it just means that their particular giftset, experience, personality type or whatever, is more impactful for your particular church. So, tell them!

A few years ago, I was undecided about the future direction of my ministry career. Right around that time, my boss pulled me aside and said something like,

I know you’re getting offers to go elsewhere. Look, I can’t lose you! We need you around here. We want you on the team and we have a spot for you in the future.

I’m telling you, I’ll never forget that conversation. It deeply impacted me and well, I’m still here and I have no plans to leave, partly because I feel valued and appreciated.

If you want to keep your best people, whether they are employees or volunteers, make sure you tell them that they are your best people.

2. Ask

The second strategy is to ask your best people what they want.

Here’s a question I ask my best people:

What do you want to be doing in five years? And, how can I help you get there?

Employees want to feel valued but they also wanted to be invested in. This is especially true of the millennial generation.

I’ve come to see the value in investing in my employees and their future career goals, whether that means they are part of my church or not. It’s an investment in the kingdom.

My hope is that every person who worked for me would look back on their time at my church and say,

That was a place that cared about me and invested in me.

Recently, I asked this “five year” question to one of my best people and they responded by telling me that they wanted my job. Whoa.

I was like, “Is that a threat?!?!” Ok. Not really.

I actually took this to be a good sign.

My desire is that our organization culture would be less about competition and more about investment and development.

The bottom line is: If you want to keep your best people, develop them. Ask them what they want to be doing in five years and help them get there.

3. Share

There’s something inside of all of us that just wants to know. We love inside information.

Honestly, it just feels really good to be in the “know.” It makes us feel important.

When it comes to keeping your best people, there is a simple strategy: Share privileged information with them first.

Let me explain what I mean.

When you are about to share a big announcement with your staff, not everyone should find out at the same time. It’s the same thing we do with family or friend news.

When you announced your engagement or pregnancy, your parents didn’t find out on Facebook. You told them personally because, well their relationship is more important.

The order in which we share important information is strategic.

Have you ever been in a staff meeting in which an announcement was made, but you already knew the details because your boss shared it with you beforehand? This is exactly what I’m talking about.

In that moment, you felt like an insider. You felt privileged.

Your boss was smart. The way we share information can communicate value to the people who receive it.

The next time you have an important announcement, consider the order in which you share that information. Your best people should receive the information before everyone else.

If this sounds like favoritism...refer back to strategy #1.

4. Invite

People want to have a voice. We all long to be heard.

When people listen to us, we feel valued and appreciated.

If you want to keep your best people, invite their voice into important conversations.

A few years ago, I was invited to participate in a three day strategic planning off-site with our higher level leadership. I’m telling you, I felt like a million bucks when I received that invitation.

Here’s the thing, we often wait too long to invite emerging leaders into key conversations.

We say things like,

They have to earn it.

Or,

They aren’t ready.

Look, if you want them around, invite them in!

Who cares if they don’t contribute much of value early on? They’ll learn.

In fact, they’ll grow in wisdom faster if you invite them into conversations with the wisest leaders of the church.

If you want to keep your best people, show them value by inviting them into important conversations and decisions.

Also, this strategy works very well with key volunteers. The next time your team has a strategic offsite, consider inviting one or two important volunteers.

5. Give

Recently, I read Growing Young by the good people at Fuller Youth Institute. It’s an important book.

If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend picking it up. The book is based on years of research around Christian high school students and their transition into adulthood.

One of the key findings of the book is that students who stick with faith and church in life after youth group, are often students who were given significant serving and leadership opportunities.

I believe this phenomenon is true with students and with employees as well.

If you want to keep your best people, give them significant work to do. Pull them into important projects, assign them duties that stretch and grow them.

People need to feel valued, invested in and also challenged. Employees who are bored often go looking around for something new.

If you are interested in keeping your best people around, give them challenging opportunities.

6. Pay

Alright, I saved the best for last.

If you want to keep your best people, you have to pay them fairly.

When it comes to church and ministry, the compensation package usually isn’t the motivation for accepting a role at a church but it is often a factor in leaving. None of us are in this work for the big money but we have to pay the bills, feed our kids and put tires on the van.

I don’t believe it does anyone any good to overpay people, but I do think it is wise to compare compensation packages with other churches in your area as well as businesses with similar roles.

For example, our church regularly makes market adjustments based on market trends.

Also, when it comes to the topic of money, when’s the last time you gave your best people a performance based bonus? Over the last few years, I have received bonuses for carrying extra work, a particular project or sermon, or whatever, and each time, I felt like a hero.

It feels amazing to get a bonus!

If you want to keep your best people, pay them fairly and throw in bonuses to make sure they know they are appreciated.

Wrap Up

Well there you go.

Six strategies for keeping your best people around. I’m sure you have great ideas around this topic as well.

We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to leave a comment below.

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