Onboarding on My Mind
You did it—you hired someone! We have written at length in this space about challenges facing church leaders today as they seek to fill gaps in their ministry staffs. But what if you have actually pulled it off and have hired a new minister at your church?
What do you do now?
This element of the hiring process, often called “onboarding,” is very much on my mind these days. In recent weeks in the Siburt Institute, I have been in touch with churches who have failed to find new ministers, and with churches who are revising their job descriptions in the hopes of attracting more candidates—but also with ones who are in the joyful flush of having secured a new staff member! We ourselves in the Siburt Institute have recently hired a new employee, and like these churches, we are walking through the process of integrating that new team member into our staff.
Unsurprisingly, there’s plenty of wisdom out there from the business world, whether from more popular sites like LinkedIn or more scholarly resources like Harvard Business Review. But as Ian A. Fair reminded us in Leadership in the Kingdom, leaders of churches can be excessively influenced by corporate approaches. We can absolutely benefit from the fact that more people in the business world are thinking a lot about employee well-being these days—but is there spiritual wisdom out there that can help us, too? I think so, and I want to offer you three situations from Scripture that may be of assistance.
Listening for the Lord. In Numbers 27, God told Moses that he would not be able to enter the promised land as a result of his rebellion against the Lord. At that point, Moses asked God to appoint a leader to come after him, and God did so, instructing Moses to take Joshua and to “commission him” before the whole community (v. 19, NIV). Crucially, “Moses did as the Lord commanded him” (v. 22a). Moses listened and obeyed, and the process of onboarding Joshua as Moses’s successor began. I imagine that, when you’ve had a minister search ongoing, you’ve prayed a lot: for the search committee, for the candidates, for the finalists, for those making the decision, etc. But do we continue to seek God’s wisdom as we do the work of integrating the new staff member? Do we continue to pray, asking God what the new hire needs, in addition to asking the candidate themselves? If you’re like me, this is a step we can easily forget about, but we’ve got to keep listening for the Lord’s voice!
Paying attention to the system. When Solomon died and Rehoboam took over, it was one of the all-time “dumpster fires” in Israel’s history. As told in 1 Kings 12, Rehoboam ignored the advice of his father’s counselors, paying attention instead to his friends’ advice. Civil war ensued, and Israel was literally never the same again. I always heard this story as one of a foolish young man, but now, as an adult who’s thinking in terms of ministry leadership, I see that Rehoboam was also inattentive. As leaders, it can be hard to discern the will and desires of our people; in this case, though, the people told Rehoboam directly, and he simply ignored them. As we work to integrate new staff members into our churches, it is crucial that we pay attention to our people, both the other members of the leadership or office team and also to folks in the church. We know that systems can be somewhat rigid, and they don’t automatically accept new members. We need to keep our eyes and ears open, noticing what’s happening interpersonally in our leadership teams and congregations, so that we can help guide the integration of our new team member.
Intentional mentoring. When I read Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus through the lens of onboarding, what I notice is the intentionality with which Paul mentored these young men. He did not simply give them a task and send them out; rather, he wrote his letters as a mentor, “checking in” while they were in the midst of their ministry. He reminded them of specific tasks (as in Tit. 1:3-9), gave general advice (1 Tim. 6:3-10), encouraged them in their own behavior (2 Tim. 2:1-7), provided them with theological truth for their own nourishment (Tit. 2:11-14), shared testimony from his own life (1 Tim. 1:12-17), and took clear steps to preserve and deepen their relationship (2 Tim. 1:3-7). Just like Paul, we can’t just drop a new minister into a new role and then walk away, assuming everything will go well. That said, we will approach mentoring differently if the person is an old hand or completely new to ministry, and if they come from within your congregation or from across the country. But it’s not a matter of if we mentor, but rather of how. As Ian Aveyard has described in his work on ministry transition in the Church of England, the new hire is accepting new levels or kinds of responsibility, and that brings specific challenges. We want to help them shoulder the load by walking alongside them.
As you can tell, I’m firmly convinced that onboarding a new member of a church staff is a situation that requires a relational approach. Your new hire isn’t just starting a new job, and their role isn’t just a paycheck. Instead, they’re joining your outpost of God’s kingdom, and we want to take intentional steps to help them succeed. At the practical level, onboarding well gives you a better chance to not have to start another hiring process soon, but at the personal level, it will help that minister grow as a person, so that, if and when they do leave, they will be a better minister than when they arrived, having matured by the power of God’s Spirit and by the wisdom of your choices.
May God bless you in your kingdom work!
David
Resources:
Ian Aveyard, “Growing into Responsibility,” in Moving On in Ministry: Discernment for Times of Transition and Change, ed. Tim Ling (London: Church House Publishing, 2013), 31-45.
Ian A. Fair, Leadership in the Kingdom, revised edition (Abilene, TX: ACU Press, 2008).
