How to Retain Your Best Church Staff

Learn how to build toward the future of your church by getting your best young staff to stick around.

Aaron Buer

Digital giving apps and tools

There’s something that happens with young and talented staff members in churches.  They do great work.  They build a strong ministry and then…they leave.  They are presented with a better opportunity somewhere else, and they take it.

You’ve probably lived through a few of these.  Or, maybe you’re that younger staff member who is considering an exciting opportunity.  

Here’s a question:  How do you build toward the future of your own church when your best young staff leave?  If you’re going to have a future, you need those young and talented people to stick around!  

So, how do you keep your best staff?  I’d love to share a few things I’ve learned leading my staff.  

 

Invest in Them

One of the reasons young and talented staff leave is because they don’t feel valued.  They feel like you don’t care about their future.  They feel like a cog in a machine.  If you want to keep your best staff around, invest in them.  Here are three ways to invest in your staff.

  1. Invest in them relationally.  Build quality relationships with your staff.  Get to know them.  Ask great questions about their family and life outside of work.  

  2. Invest in their development.  What can you do to grow your best people in their skills?  Could you send them to a conference, pay for a class, or possibly even a master’s degree? 

  3. Invest in them by helping them make connections with key leaders.  Sometimes providing young leaders with proximity to the executive pastor, senior pastor, or board members makes them feel valued and important.  

 

Give them Influence

Often, young and talented leaders leave because they don’t feel like they have a voice.  In other words, they don’t feel like they have influence.  If you want to keep your best people, you’ll have to give them opportunities to influence.

A key idea is something one of my mentors calls a “stretch assignment.”  Can you give your emerging leader a project that is a little beyond their experience level?  An important event?  A new ministry to launch?  Stretch them and provide them with an opportunity to lead and influence.  

When people feel challenged, they usually stay engaged.  Inviting your best staff into greater leadership and influence is a great way to keep them around.  

 

Challenge Them

In my experience, the kind of leaders you want to keep are the kind of leaders who aren’t satisfied with mediocrity.  They have something in them that is constantly driving toward excellence and improvement.  

Here’s what often happens:  We like a particular staff member and want to keep them so we don’t challenge them.  We don’t give them feedback on their weaknesses and how to improve because we don’t want to hurt their feelings. 

This is exactly the wrong approach!  The kind of leaders you want to stick around crave constructive feedback that will help them grow and become a better leader.  

One of the most strategic things you can do is to find ways to share constructive feedback with young and talented leaders.  Rather than feeling like you don’t like them, they will likely feel valued because you took the time to help them achieve their potential.  

 

Reward Them

Here’s a crazy idea.  What if you said this to your young and talented staff member that you really hope sticks around: 

“Listen. We think you are doing an incredible job and you have huge potential in leadership.  We want you to stick around.  We want you to be part of this church.  Here’s a $2000 bonus.  Did I mention that we really want you to be a part of our staff team for a long time?”  

Can you even do that?!?  

We do it all the time!  Seriously.  And you should too.  We call it a “retention bonus.”  Once a year, we look around at our staff and ask “Who would we be really sad to lose?”

We make a list and then we give those people a sizable bonus.  I’m just saying you can do this, and you probably should. It’s a great way to keep your young and talented staff around.  

 

Wrap Up

You need your young and talented staff.  They are your future.  How can you invest in them, give them influence, help them grow and reward them so that they want to stick around?  This could be an important focus for you and your staff over the coming months.  

Discover how our Groups tool can help you organize and manage one-on-one meetings effectively.

Explore Groups Tool

Looking for an easy-to-use software to help manage your church?

We'd love to show you what we built!

Join 10,000+ happy churches using Breeze ChMS™.

Name
loves Breeze

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Name
loves Breeze

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Name
loves Breeze

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Suspendisse varius enim in eros elementum tristique. Duis cursus, mi quis viverra ornare, eros dolor interdum nulla, ut commodo diam libero vitae erat. Aenean faucibus nibh et justo cursus id rutrum lorem imperdiet. Nunc ut sem vitae risus tristique posuere.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
David P.
loves Breeze
St. Pauls United Methodist Church

Breeze has been incredible. Their customer service, commitment to innovation, and their product are top-notch. I love the features, the ease of use and the mobile applications.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Karen M.
loves Breeze
Hillcrest Church

All of our database needs have been more than met, it's easier to use than the last database we had, and the price is amazing - what a value this has been to our church! All of our staff can use this software and they do regularly. We use it to track…literally anything a church could possibly need to track regarding it's attenders.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Chris K.
loves Breeze
Crossroads United Methodist Church

Breeze has been a great asset to our church and congregation. Especially from an administrative standpoint, it has been the most adaptable and easiest church database I have ever used. The features from blast emails to giving on-line, and texting have been one of our greatest assets. Thank you!

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Ed R.
loves Breeze
Church Admin

We switched from a major, web-based ChMS to Breeze and our decision is confirmed every day. We are a medium size church and we use Breeze for contributions, member management, event checkin and a few other applications custom to our church. I had trouble getting any staff to use our previous ChMS but almost all staff are using Breeze. The product is very well designed, extremely easy to learn and use and customer service is incredible.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Ellen G.
loves Breeze
Grace Church

Breeze has opened the communication highway for our congregation and staff, with very little training. Because members can update their own records and search easily for other members - and map their locations, send emails and text right from Breeze, they love it and our data is more real-time accurate. Our ministries are stronger, because they can trust the data in Breeze, which is easily accessed anywhere, anytime.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Steve H.
loves Breeze
First Presbyterian Church of Ramsey

Breeze is the first ChMS my volunteers have actually embraced. That's because it's so easy to use. The software is very flexible and gives us the opportunity to make decisions based on actual data we've collected and not just hunches or stories we believe to be true.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Allicia B.
loves Breeze
Ellel Ministries Canada

I cannot say enough about Breeze. Their customer service is so friendly, you feel like you have friends and family helping you get started, they're prompt to reply and will do whatever they can to help you get things sorted out. It's been so easy to learn, our staff is loving it and best of all even our staff who are not computer savvy find it a breeze (pun intended). We are just thrilled by our choice.

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!
Kevin D.
loves Breeze
Central Baptist Church

From the start of our process looking for an online solution, Breeze has exceeded all our expectations. Fast data import, fast and friendly customer support, and we can’t say enough about how much we like the program itself. Very well designed and user friendly. On a scale of 1-10, Breeze gets a 15 from us!

Try a demo of Breeze for yourself!

Rated 4.9 stars – 700+ reviews