Home Pastors Articles for Pastors Why Your Church Needs to Be More Picky About Hiring

Why Your Church Needs to Be More Picky About Hiring

This isn’t a list of qualifications a person must have achieved in order to be invited to join the team at Buffer (although I’m sure there is plenty of that—they need designers, coders and developers—people with specific skills, just like any other company). But each of the qualities listed here fall within an individual’s control.

These are attitudes anyone can have if they choose.

And there’s something really powerful about recognizing that. Because now being picky about whom you hire isn’t about shutting certain people out and inviting others in.

It’s really about painting the image for what you’re trying accomplish as a community of God-followers, and then asking the question:

Does this person fit with the mission and vision?

Can they handle the responsibility that would be given to them?

Second of all, Buffer’s list doesn’t have to be your list. 

This is equally important because what Buffer is trying to accomplish with their company might be very different than what you feel God is calling you to as a church. That’s OK. The beauty is, there are very few rules when it comes to developing guidelines for whom you want to hire and who just isn’t a good fit.

The only guideline I would give is this: It needs to be consistently held and to fit with your mission and vision.

And here’s the other thing: You have to create it. 

Buffer didn’t wait around for their employees to decide what the mission and culture of the company would be. Neither did Nike or Starbucks. Instead, each of these companies had laser focus, from the time they were small. They knew exactly what they wanted, what they were about and what they were after.

And they didn’t let anyone or anything deter them from it.

Sometimes that meant firing people, I’m sure. Other times it meant not hiring them. They simply weren’t a good fit.

When it comes to your church culture—the culture of your working teams, and the culture and attitude of the congregation—hiring could not be more important.

It’s your responsibility. It’s in your hands. Don’t wait and wonder what might happen. Build it from the ground up.  

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justinlathrop@churchleaders.com'
With over a dozen years of local church ministry Justin has spent the last several years starting business' and ministries that partner with pastors and churches to advance the Kingdom. He is the founder of Helpstaff.me (now Vanderbloemen Search), Oaks School of Leadership, and MinistryCoach.tv all while staying involved in the local church. Justin is obsessed with connecting people to people and lives his life daily to make the world a smaller place. He now serves as a consultant in the area of strategic relations predominately working with the Assemblies of God, helping to build bridges with people and ministries to more effectively reach more people. He blogs regularly about what he has learned from making connection at www.justinlathrop.com.