Tag: Executive Pastors

5 Things Executive Pastors Should Keep in Mind This Christmas

5 Things Executive Pastors Should Keep in Mind This Christmas

5 Things Executive Pastors Should Keep in Mind This Christmas

It’s no secret that Christmas can be a chaotic time for churches. It’s one of the most highly-attended seasons of the year—and you can expect a lot more unchurched people than usual. Christmas services are also a celebration of one of the greatest moments in history: When God made His dwelling among us (John 1:14).

Everyone and everything in your church needs to fire on all cylinders.

You’ve probably spent months preparing for this one weekend. You might’ve even started preparing a year ago! And on some level, you’re probably feeling pressure to out-do last year’s service. (Maybe church members or even staff are “reminiscing” about something awesome you’ve done in the past.)

As the executive pastor, you’re responsible for organizing, budgeting for, and foreseeing the challenges of your church’s biggest events. So there’s a lot on your shoulders during the holidays. We want to be sure your Christmas service goes off without a hitch and builds momentum as you head into the new year—so we put together five things you should keep in mind this Christmas.

1. Tis’ the season for burnout

You’re not the only one feeling the pressure right now. Many of your staff members are working under a lot more stress than usual. They might be wrestling with performance anxiety as their area of responsibility increases, or their routine tasks start affecting more people and other parts of the service. Every person on your paid and volunteer staff is more susceptible to burnout right now—and that means a few things for you.

Your church needs to be prepared for people to take time off when the holidays are over. Your team needs to rest. Even if people aren’t planning to take time off, you should encourage it. Make arrangements to cover roles, shift responsibilities, and potentially stagger time off so that everyone can get the rest they need.

It’s also important that you create (and model) an environment where people can feel comfortable talking about fatigue and stress—not so they can complain, but so that you can give them the prayer and support they need to make it through this time.

You should always affirm people when they do a good job, but now is a good time to make a point of hunting for things you can praise people for. Encourage your staff to do the same, and create a positive atmosphere that brings out the best in each other.

2. A tech failure will cost you more right now

You carefully budgeted for the entire year, taking into account any purchases you would need to make later in the year. But software and hardware don’t always follow our budget plans. Throughout the year it’s easy to take half-measures and “make do” with what you have to get a few more services out of your tech. If something goes wrong during a Christmas service though, it has a much bigger impact.

Your congregation has high hopes for this service, but they’ll be more forgiving when there are technical issues (although they may be a little embarrassed if they brought friends or family). But visitors are seeing your church for the first time. Making a good impression matters.

If you do purchase new tech for Christmas, make sure you give yourself plenty of time to test it out—ideally in an actual service (or several). But at the very least, you need to have backup plans ready for every possibility. As you set up for Christmas, you should constantly ask: “What will we do if this breaks? And who will be in charge of implementing the solution?”

3. This is the best time to start planning for next Christmas

At this point, there are some poor decisions, unforeseen challenges, and organizational issues you may just have to live with this year. But every time you find yourself saying, “I wish we’d thought of that earlier,” make a note of it. Now is the perfect time to build a list of things you want to stay on top of next year—then you can think of those things earlier.

4. Your giving platform is about to have a lot more transactions

During the holidays, generosity isn’t just a Christian mandate—it’s simply part of the “Christmas spirit.” People have been culturally trained to strive to be more open-handed during this time of year. And you’re going to have a lot more people in attendance than usual. So whether you make a big giving push or not, more people are going to give.

Digital giving is the most convenient way for people to give—especially if they didn’t bring cash or their checkbook. But it’s important to keep in mind: just as you had to prepare your facility to handle more people, you need to be sure your giving platform can accommodate more transactions.

Your giving solution might be fine as is. Or you may need to find a more reliable (or faster) online giving platform. Make sure you contact your customer support team to confirm your giving software can handle a sudden increase in activity.

(Pushpay is an enterprise-grade giving solution. Many of the largest churches in the US trust Pushpay for all their online giving needs. So we can support you, too.)

5. Volunteer training matters even more right now

Christmas is one of those seasons where churches desperately need anyone and everyone who’s willing to serve. Even churches that have well-defined volunteer training and onboarding processes may make exceptions at this time of year simply to make sure there are enough bodies on every service team.

But this isn’t an area you can cut corners. Your volunteers are going to be under more pressure than usual. Their familiarity with your procedures, their tasks, and the larger purpose of their role could make the difference between a visitor feeling valued and feeling neglected. Not to mention, flustered or unconfident volunteers in, say, the nursery, will leave parents feeling like they can’t trust your church to adequately care for their children.

Make this your best Christmas yet

As you scramble to make sure everything goes according to plan, it’s easy for little things to fall through the cracks. Take the time to support your staff and check-in on their mental health. Create backup plans. Save your future self some trouble next year with good notes. And make sure everyone and everything is ready to serve your community with excellence.

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6 Tips to Find Candidates Who Will Stay

One of my biggest hiring rules of thumb is to make sure the job candidate knows that I’m a candidate as much as he or she is a candidate. I only hire the best people, and since they are the best, they have a lot of options too. By being humble and treating the candidate as an equal, you can actually create better long-term employment relationships.

This gets to the heart of what I call “hiring for retention.” Too many business owners treat employee retention as something to do after they hire someone–things like annual bonuses and free lunches on Fridays. But retention actually starts well before the first day of work. Before any employment contracts are signed. Before any offers are made.

 

Retention starts during the recruiting process. The reason: Retention has a lot to do with ensuring cultural fit from the get-go, and not merely incentivizing happiness. Of all U.S. employees who left their jobs last year, 40 percent did so within six months of starting the position–and signs point to bad cultural fit as one of the main culprits.

Imagine if those employees and businesses had assessed one another more accurately from the start. Here are six tips to do just that.

1. Create more choice.

Greater choice gives you a better chance of finding someone with the right mix of skills, experience and personality traits. Search all the places where top people are, including your colleagues’ networks–the best source of quality candidates–as well as, your careers site, job boards, recruitment firms and mobile channels.

2. Hire for attitude, not aptitude.

Knowledge and skills are certainly important for making a long-term hire, but there’s also no discounting cultural fit. When deciding between the two, put personality first. You can train for skill. You can’t train for personality.

3. Broadcast your employer brand.

Give candidates in-depth information about your employer brand and what it’s like to work with you. Fill your culture Web page and social media with regularly updated content about life at your company. This helps candidates decide if they align with your mission and personality and whether they see themselves being happy with you for the long haul.

4. Foster high-touch relationships.

Engage with candidates through several different interactions, such as in-person interviews, lunches, dinners, email correspondences and phone conversations. Have your entire hiring team meet with candidates to gain a full understanding of whether you see a long-lasting match.

5. Let candidates know you are a candidate, too.

Hiring for retention requires you and a candidate to mutually decide to work together. During interviews, let candidates know that they are choosing you just as much as you are choosing them. Ask if they have questions and provide the information you would like to have if you were in their shoes.

6. Always be closing the best candidate.

Don’t dawdle when you’ve found the best candidate. Average time to hire is about 25 working days, according to the Dice-DFH Vacancy Duration Measure. But I’ve found that the best candidate gets snatched up within two weeks. You have to close a candidate to make the relationship happen–not the other way around. If you don’t manage this step well, you often settle for less than the best.

Hiring for retention should be part of every company’s business strategy. Long-term growth hinges on having long-lasting team members, who provide far greater productivity and value than a constantly rotating workforce.

Article written for Inc.Com by Jerome Ternynck, founder and CEO of SmartRecruiters.com