Meet the Authors
Since 1987, Bill Easum (pictured in the lighter colored shirt) and Bill Tenny-Brittian (pictured in the darker colored shirt) have directly served more than 1,000 churches, trained hundreds of thousands of church leaders, and created a wide variety of resources. While serving as a pastor, Easum founded 21st Century Strategies in 1987. In 2000, Easum merged his organization with Tom Bandy’s Thriving Church ministry to create Easum, Bandy & Associates. In 2009, Easum reverted to his company’s original name when he merged his organization with Bill Tenny-Brittian’s ministry.
Easum is the author or co-author of more than twenty books. Tenny-Brittian is the author or co-author of seven books and the publisher of Net Results, a church growth and evangelism magazine.
Book Basics
Since staffing costs account for more than half of all expenditures each year in the majority of congregations and since staff have strategic leadership roles, staffing has the greatest overall influence on the growth or decline of each congregation. Recognizing the importance of effective staffing, Bill Easum and Bill Tenny-Brittian team up to deliver a practical guide based on their decades of experiences with over a thousand congregations.
Easum and Tenny-Brittian begin with the understanding that the staff should never be hired for the purpose of doing ministry, but rather, should be called to equip the saints for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:12). Additionally, given this focus and the dominant current culture, several shifts are needed to move beyond the old model:
- From professional paid staff overseeing volunteers who lead programs to paid servants who equip and coach unpaid servants to oversee most pastoral ministry;
- From a reliance on all paid staff to a combination of paid and unpaid servants;
- From focusing on the needs of the congregation to an outward community oriented focus; and
- From a clear division between clergy and laity to an “it doesn’t matter if you’re ordained or not” approach (p. 22-23).
Easum and Tenny-Brittian’s approach is formulaic and easy to follow. They propose congregations are best served by staffing for the four core processes: (1) bringing people in/inviting, (2) retain them/connecting, (3) discipling them/apprenticing, (4) sending them back into the world. Regardless of congregational size, each parish must give proper attention to all four areas. Recognizing the unique challenges facing congregations within each size category, chapters on each of the four core processes are followed by chapters focused on the four transition points congregations experience if they continue to grow moving from a small solo pastor centered congregation to a large parish led by a variety of individuals and teams with a lead pastor responsible for glocal thinking and future oriented visioning.
So What?
In recent years, the traditional models of church staffing have been increasingly unhelpful in most contexts. Many congregations have responded reactively by assessing their staffing situation as a result of economic changes (greater costs to employ ordained staff, less total income, greater percentage of income needed for maintenance and operations of the church campus, etc.). Far fewer congregations have proactively crafted new models of staffing consistent with readying for ministry in the years ahead. In my experience, the mainline churches most likely to adopt a proactive approach are those that are already large (1,000+ members) and are growing.
- When was the last time your congregation assessed its staffing model? Reviewed each position description and compensation structure as it fits within that framework and in support of congregational mission?
- What percentage of each staff member’s time is spent doing ministry (as opposed to attracting, equipping, or celebrating the ministry of others)? Are staff provided the training and support needed to achieve annual decreases in the percentage of time they do ministry?
Bill Easum and Bill Tenny-Brittian. Effective Staffing for Vital Churches: The Essential Guide to Finding + Keeping the Right People (Baker Books, 2012). ISBN: 9780801014901.