It is important that leaders are not “over-scheduled” and that they enter church staff meetings with their wills surrendered to God’s. “Like you,” said Pete Scazzero, “I have visions and dreams. I’ve got goals I want to prioritize, priorities of where I want to take the team.”
But it is essential that leaders enter meetings not intent on pushing their own agendas but surrendered to whatever God wants to do. Entering the meeting in that frame of mind and heart “is hard work because we want spaciousness and time for this, absolutely, and so in that place of prayerful preparation, I’m getting clarity of purpose,” Scazzero said.
He also pointed out that it is important to go into a staff meeting understanding what its purpose is and that it is key to have longer, extended meetings that take place two to four times a year where the staff can explore their objectives in depth.
The second quality of an emotionally healthy staff meeting is that the meeting begins by making Jesus first on the agenda. Making Jesus the priority, said Scazzero, means taking a significant portion of time at the beginning to spend in God’s presence. If leaders are holding a 60- to 90-minute meeting, they should take 15 to 30 minutes at the beginning to spend with God.
For a one-day off-site retreat, staff members should take the first half of the day to spend devotionally. If it’s a two-day retreat, they should take the entire first day.
“It’s very important that we make being with Jesus first on the agenda,” said Scazzero. “We need it. We’re modeling it” and essentially creating a “template for the whole ministry. And that is that we live and we lead as a ministry, as a church, out of our inner life with Jesus.”
What are staff members doing during this time with Jesus? They might practice silence and stillness or perhaps go through a daily office. “I’m always thinking of what I can do devotionally for our team when we meet together,” Scazzero said.
One practice he implemented at New Life was what he called “appreciations,” where team members started off staff meetings by saying what God or someone else had done that they were thankful for. “It creates such a healthy environment of noticing what God’s doing,” said Scazzero.
Now, some leaders might feel concerned that they have too much to do to take so much devotional time during a staff meeting. “Let me just tell you that you’ll get more done,” said Scazzero, citing Ecclesiastes 10:10. “When you put being with Jesus first, for some reason, you end up getting more done.”
Third, it’s important for leaders “to prayerfully and prudently set an agenda” for the staff meeting. This mindset contrasts with having a cookie cutter approach for meetings or simply finishing tasks that staff couldn’t get to during the previous meeting. It is important for church leaders to take the time to discern what should be covered during church staff meetings.
Executive leaders can delegate some tasks but should not simply hand over the responsibility of the meetings because, again, the meetings are just as important as the Sunday sermon, Scazzero said.
Leaders should follow the example of Jesus, who prayed often, by praying about upcoming staff meetings. And they need to have the wisdom to recognize that there will only be time during a weekly staff meeting for one topic that requires discussion and discernment. It’s also wise to be aware of what can and needs to be dealt with outside of the weekly meeting.
The fourth characteristic of an emotionally healthy church staff meeting is to embrace limits. “There are more things to talk about than possible,” Scazzero said. Limits “are core to our relationship with God” and “are simply God’s gift in disguise.”
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“It’s one of the most counterintuitive, difficult biblical truths to embrace, the gift of limits,” Scazzero continued. “So embrace them. And nowhere is this more evident than in leading a staff meeting. I used to violate this all the time and try to cram so much into a staff meeting. And there wasn’t spaciousness. There wasn’t a sense of, again, Jesus.” Rather, there was “a sense of pressure, anxiety and rush.”
The final quality of an emotionally healthy staff meeting is for leaders to follow up with people in ways that will shape the church’s culture. This means addressing in an honorable way the interpersonal conflict that will inevitably arise during meetings.
People participating in the meeting might be critical, passive aggressive, distracted, or sarcastic. “What do you do?” Scazzero asked.
