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Additional Staff Persons

by James W. Moss, Sr.

The first additional staff person

The first additional staff person should be a full-time secretary. Competent administrative assistants can double a pastor’s time. Most pastors and lay people who don’t have direct access to such a person in their real lives don’t know the required gifts and skills of an effective administrative assistant or how to assess them. A church may wish to ask a layperson that has responsibilities in human resources to assist in interviewing, testing, and recommending for hiring by the church.

There are some benefits to hiring members if they are very competent. There are several disadvantages to hiring members if they fail to function properly. It is very difficult to discipline or fire a member without losing several families in the process.

A second staff person is in order after the pastor has learned to effectively use an administrative assistant. This may take some time especially if the pastor has been used to doing it alone. Congregations requiring pastors to do secretarial work significantly limit ministerial potentials. Pastors are very expensive secretaries.

The "150 Factor"

I believe the maximum one pastor can serve is an average worship attendance of 150. Effectiveness of ministry declines as the congregation passes that number. In fact many congregations won’t pass 150 with only one staff person.

Consider part-time lay staff

Congregations today are taking two different tracks to employ people. On occasion churches are hiring laypersons instead of credentialed clergy. They tend not to be as expensive and are sometimes more focused than trained clergy. However, I would always encourage a church that hires a layperson to undergo the psychological and doctrinal questioning by our credentialing board to make sure they aren’t a potential problem. On other occasions some churches are hiring several part-time persons instead of one or two additional full-time staff people. The advantages are that you can hire vary specific skills. Also you don’t have to pick up the full benefit packages.

The first professional staff hire

Lay leaders frequently think they need to hire a youth person. Hiring a person responsible for youth ministry first is the classic mistake many churches make. Why is that a mistake? That often is not only the first additional hire; it becomes the last as well. In most cases they don’t assist the church in growth. I still believe that the first person employed after the administrative assistant should be a minister of outreach. This person’s assignment is to assist in the introduction and incorporation of new people.

This person could assist with some of the basic care ministries such as the bulletin and telephone ministries for existing participants. They would be responsible for the welcoming program and for strategies to walk new people through the door. This would include the building and cultivation of an active prospect list.

This staff person would be responsible to recruit and train volunteers in each of these ministries. They would also be responsible to see that these ministries are functioning in tip-top form.

This person could also assist in the small group ministry of the church. The addition of new small groups is essential to growth. New people find it difficult to get into old small groups. The most effective method of evangelism available to existing churches is the beginning of relevant new small groups. These groups can only begin and continue with regularity if the professional staff has a commitment to this assignment.

My people spot research suggests that the annual average worship attendance will not tend to exceed 8 times the number of small groups in churches with an average of less than 200 or 10 times the number of small groups in churches over 200 in annual average worship attendance. There are five basic kinds of small groups. They are: Sunday school classes, support groups, care groups, task groups, and athletic teams.

This type of staff expansion increases ministry potentials greatly. A competent outreach minister who functions competently should generate sufficient growth to pay for their additional costs very shortly. This person should also provide sufficient increase to add additional staff people. Using secular terminology, the outreach minister is essentially a salesperson. In Christian terms, they are an evangelist.

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