Are you hiring the right person for that position? How do you know if the person is the right candidate? Do you have a formalized process that identifies the unique capabilities and talents of your prospective candidates?

Often churches hire the best servant ministers since they have served the church, they have the right servant’s heart and they know the church business already. This may seem to be the correct avenue, but utilizing these criteria as the decision factor leads to higher turn-over, decreased employee morale and lower productivity. Churches, more often than the business community, experience negative repercussions from not having an established process because congregants will leave the church and possibly the entire church community, if they do not feel they were given the right response in applying for a position.

Last year Mission Community Church in Gilbert, AZ implemented a formalized hiring process. Executive Pastor Mike Work says that “by implementing a formal process of candidate selection, behavioral assessments and formalized interviewing, we’ve been able to find staff members (employees) who have a heart for the mission of our church as well as a true giftedness in the work they are hired to do.”
There is an equation to successful candidate hiring. Are you using all components of this equation or just pieces of it?

Competence: This is the initial review of the position and the candidates. Ensure you have an appropriate job description that identifies the top three to six competencies and skills required for the position. This is not a job listing of every responsibility the employee will have; these are the essential functions and experiences only.

Once the job description is clearly written, then all candidates need to submit a resume against that particular job description.

Character: In this second phase of the hiring process, each position goes through a job assessment to ensure that the position is clearly identified, scoped and understood. Without a third-party assessment, it is difficult to understand what candidate behaviors are expected from the position. A “best guess” gets you just that – a best guess employee (someone who might do the job right but also likely will not).

Chemistry: By the third phase of the candidate selection process, your candidate pool may be quite small. The candidates left are the only ones who go through the formal interview process. In this phase and to ensure that you hire the right person, implement a process of structured interviews for at least one round of interviews. Ask the candidates the same questions, interview them in the same style and have the same people do the interviews.

Once the three phases of your process have been completed, the entire interview team meets to discuss the candidates. Each interviewer, including the initial consultant, will review their notes and score each candidate in every area, include a score for each phase of the process. To ensure fairness in your hiring processes, each interviewer score should be calculated. The person with the highest overall score is the one to whom you should make your offer.

As Mike Work sees it, “The new process has decreased our turnover, enabled happier employees and increased productivity since we are now hiring the right candidates for the right positions. To our surprise, it has also helped us better disposition volunteers who applied for these paid ministry positions but were not the right fit.”

Jessica Pierce is founder and president of Accelerated Team Dynamics, LLC, Phoenix, AZ, and is a certified behavior coach. She is executive director of Career Connectors, a community outreach program.  www.atdsuccess.com

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Candidate assessment tools

Wopodo is a candidate assessment tool www.wopodo.com/cc that matches job seekers to specific openings by using a screening process on more than 80 dimensions of workplace compatibility.

A program such as this pre-screens candidates using the DISC assessment and guarantees that applicant for the same price as a typical job board posting.

Essentially, it moves phase two into the pre-screening process saving time, money and resources. Wopodo founder and chairman, Richard Swenson, says that “the patent-pending process will enable almost anyone to make the “perfect hire” the first time because all applicants are pre-screened on more than 80 dimensions of workplace compatibility before you even look at their resume.”

By Tom Harper

The book of Lamentations deals with the apparent contradiction between the biblical principles of harsh punishment and grace.

When God’s people continually disobeyed him, he simply did what he said he would do, even though “He does not enjoy bringing affliction or suffering on mankind.”

As leaders, how are we to discipline our people without alienating them? This aspect of leadership – holding people accountable for their actions – is unpopular in churches, though that is precisely where it must be consistently executed.

A new view of integrity
The biblical definition of integrity is not just doing the right thing, or even doing what you say you will do. For leaders, it is both rewarding and punishing at the proper times. That is biblical integrity. Much of the Old Testament tells of God’s coupling of blessings and threats based on the choices of his people.

Let’s look closer at God’s discipline/reward process in Lamentations:

1. He establishes rules
2. He warns of the consequences for disobedience
3. He pleads with those who disobey
4. He disciplines when the rules are broken
5. He restores relationships through forgiveness and reconciliation

The most overlooked step in today’s organizations is number 3: if you lead, at times you need to plead. Through his prophets, God implored his people to repent. He gave them ample time to turn from their ways to avoid judgment. Though he did not enjoy it, his integrity compelled him to follow through on his threats.

Binding ourselves
One way to enhance our reputations as leaders is to bind ourselves to our threats. This requires taking risks with our follower relationships.

In a Harvard Business School article, “Six Steps for Making Your Threat Credible,” author Deepak Malhotra advises leaders to increase their negotiating power by visibly restricting their ability to retreat. “A public commitment makes it difficult for a negotiator to back down from a threat … There is no better way to make your threat credible than to ensure that you can’t go back on your word.”

Threats are heard louder and clearer when the leader has the guts to address a group head-on, rather than keeping it to one-on-one admonitions. An existing reputation as a threat-keeper reduces the likelihood the leader will have to make good on them.

Of course, we must make realistic threats of punishment – unlike the angry parent who threatens to turn the car around, then has to threaten again when the back-seat squabbling continues. On the other extreme, unreasonable punishment demotivates. What’s the use in trying to please the leader anymore, when he’s left us lying bloody in the dirt?

The power of principle also lends weight to threats. I know a leader who is so fanatical about “the principle of the matter” that he will devote hours of personal time and energy to right a wrong, regardless of the cost.

Is your reputation what you want it to be? Your personal leadership brand is what everyone thinks everyone else thinks about you. In other words, if someone says to a rebellious coworker, “Bill won’t allow that,” different employees may interpret that differently: “Bill is an ethical leader,” “Bill isn’t afraid to lead with conviction,” or “I’m going to stop fighting Bill on this – he has too many allies.”

Effective love/fear
When our people both fear and love us, the stage is set for stellar performance, which leads to job satisfaction and further results. This cycle is fed by the dual-natured leader who isn’t afraid to inflict tough love and appropriate pressure.

A love/hate relationship is the antithesis of God’s perfect love/fear leadership style. In the divine model, a lot of love, mixed with some fear, yields long-term, healthy results. When the Lord disciplines, he grieves. When he punishes, he laments. And when his people obey, he blesses them.

Tom Harper is president of NetWorld Alliance, which publishes ChurchCentral.com, in Louisville, KY.  www.networldalliance.com

Staff have idealistic expectations when the clergy are perceived as parents and congregants as siblings within “the family.”

By James Osterhaus

John Crosby, senior pastor, was looking at a possible $200,000 to $300,000 shortfall last year. Christ Presbyterian (CPC) in Edina, MN is a church of 3,000 people and a $5.1 million budget with 65 FTE staff positions that had just spun off a young adult congregation of 1,500 to set up their own church.

Toward the end of 2008, with the economic downturn, shifting staffing patterns, and the start a new congregation, CPC leadership knew that some hard decisions would have to be made. Some of these decisions would be driven by ministry philosophy shifts. Others would be driven by the hard realities of personnel, whose skill sets no longer fit with the retooled positions.

When the smoke cleared at CPC, three full time and five part-time people had been let go. After two contentious town hall meetings, John realized that this was a congregational storm that would take time to weather, with people second-guessing decisions. Paradoxically, this storm has unfolded just when ministry numbers and general response to ministry has trended upward.

Downsizing church staff introduces to leadership challenges in at least two areas, the first of which is organizational models in the church. Organizational models feeds right into the question of alignment, often confused by the revolving organizational models.

Organizational models of the church
The Family/Business/Community Conundrum. What generally makes church life and functioning so very confusing is the fact that, like no other organization in society, church encompasses the people’s expectations of family, business and community.  Each of these elements must be held in tension, and each must be understood clearly, or else confusion will ensue. Because churches are in fact families, and those who work on staff are often church members, the emotional impact of being downsized has repercussions of, “My family just threw me out” and the congregation chorusing, “You can’t let go of Suzie, she’s family!”

As a family, the clergy are perceived as parents and congregants as siblings. Church members feel as though they are coming home, and therefore have particular idealistic expectations as to what they will find, and how they will be treated. When paid staff members are also church (i.e. “family”) members, the expectations rise beyond the average business employee.

As a business: Churches, especially those with multiple staffs, have organizational  considerations that require the principles of business. People are hired to do particular types of work according to their individual skill sets, performance standards are established and maintained, salaries are set, and work is accomplished and evaluated. When work falls below par, accountability kicks in and people may be fired for poor performance. When there is a budget shortfall, considerations as to staffing needs are prime considerations.

As a community: Churches are also spiritual communities. Members manifest certain gifts, bear the burdens of one another, and generally become intentionally involved in one another’s lives to the betterment of the individual and the building up of the community (a.k.a., body life). Unlike the above two models, community members have no assumed hierarchy (“neither male nor female, slave nor free”). There is mutual accountability, with no one being “more privileged” than another.

Unfortunately, as often happens, these three separate functions become confused. When business considerations are handled with family patterns, problems arise.  Likewise, if community and family aspects are treated as business it becomes institutionalized. These three models must always be appreciated and negotiated.

A question of alignment
Alignment has to do with configuring all the resources of the church (staff, programs, buildings, budget) so that the mission of the church is carried out. In recent years, churches have turned to some form of strategic planning in order to rationally align.

Strategic planning helps churches understand the current state of the church, helps determine what the church is called to be, and provides tangible and immediate action steps for the next part of the journey.  It provides focus, structure and alignment. Strategic planning helps determine the realities of the church, shape or sharpen core values, mission, and strategy, and point to next steps to move the church from being good to being great.

When church leaders are hit with budget shortfalls, more often than not they begin the process backwards, asking, “How many salaries do we need to cut in order to make up the $200,000?”  Leadership does need to wrestle with hard questions when downsizing looms. But the questions must be asked in the proper sequence so that the downsizing can have a chance of becoming ‘right-sizing.’

Here are questions that I find important:
1. What is the trajectory of the church plan? This is where strategic planning or vision discussions are critical. It is these discussions that lay down the “roadmap” of where the church is going, and how it plans to get there. Without this roadmap, churches usually spin around in circles.

2. Is the church aligned with the desired future? Now it is time to look at the staff patterns. But this should be done in the context of evaluating all church resources (programming, facilities, etc.). Churches so often are misaligned, hanging onto programs and people long after these have served any useful purpose in furthering the church toward its desired future. This actually leads us back to the church as business, family and faith community.

3. Who is responsible for the downsizing? Ministers tend to assume that the entire burden rests with them. And in some cases this is true. But polity in many denominations dictates that much if not most of this responsibility rests with the board, or a personnel subcommittee of the board. Certainly, the minister may play a critical role in positioning the board’s conversation about downsizing.

Probably the biggest danger that I see when it comes to staffing issues of any kind, and certainly downsizing, is the focus on personalities rather than positions.

So what do we do about this?
Leadership must take into consideration what “hat” they are wearing as they prepare to act (e.g., Am I the parent of a family? The CEO of a business? A sitster in Christ?) And it must always be made clear to staff and congregants how these differing “hats” will confuse us if we aren’t clear in going forward. Then, the following considerations are important:

As a business:
•    In considering downsizing, care must be taken as to who is let go, what programs will be affected, and how the overall trajectory of the church’s mission will be affected.
•    The more time that is given the congregation to understand the need for downsizing, less surprised they feel. This should include town meetings where people can air their questions and frustrations.
•    Care must be taken to cut deeply enough the first time so that a second cut is not necessary. In an attempt to lessen anxiety, church leadership often does the minimum cut, hoping the problem will evaporate, only to have to return and cut more later.

As a family:
•    Those that are left behind in the organization face their own challenges. Layoff refugees get to keep their jobs, only to face rising workloads, sinking morale, ongoing anxiety — and the uncomfortable feeling that they ought to be grateful for it all. If an employee is fired for cause, another worker can rationalize that he or she deserved it. But when a layoff of an equally qualified peer occurs, it sends the person left behind reeling.

As a faith community:
•    Those who lead our churches often do not realize the profound effects downsizing can have on the organization as a faith community. Trust is the critical foundational element to the healthy functioning of a faith community. Downsizing often destroys that sense of trust. This is particularly prevalent when the layoffs were unsuspected and seemed to come “out of the blue.” To combat cynicism and maintain trust, lines of communication between leadership and staff and congregation must be robust throughout the process.

Fortunately for John Crosby and CPC, the church has a clear sense of who they are and where they are going. This, coupled with open communication with the congregation as the downsizing unfolded, minimized the negative impact experienced by the church.

Dr. James Osterhaus is a senior partner with TAG Consulting, Fairfax, VA, specializing in leadership coaching. [www.transformingchurch.net]

By Sherre Stephens

More than 1 million ordained ministers work throughout the United States. Properly structuring their compensation plans — with an eye toward tax efficiency and legal compliance — is a complex endeavor. Unfortunately, well-meaning, but untrained lay leaders and staff frequently handle this task.

Key elements of an appropriately formulated compensation plan are:

• Awareness of the dual tax status of the minister
• Compliance with the reasonable pay rules (salary, housing allowance and benefits)
• Attention to properly structured benefits for tax-efficiency
• Recognition of benefits “beyond the basics” — their purpose and importance.

Most ministers are employees for federal income tax purposes, but are self-employed for Social Security (SECA) purposes in the exercise of their ministry. Few ministers, such as traveling evangelists or interim pastors are self-employed for federal income tax purposes. This means that most ministers should receive a Form W-2 not a 1099. Awareness of these rules sets the foundation on which the church begins to build its compensation plan for the pastor.

All churches and nonprofit organizations are subject to the reasonable compensation rules for its employees, including the pastor. Pay and benefits satisfy these rules if the total amount is reasonable and necessary to carry out the work. In other words, if the economic value of the compensation plan does not exceed the value of services performed, then pay is reasonable. Compensation in excess of this standard may result in penalties or jeopardize the tax-exempt status of the organization.

Salary and housing
The criteria for this first component of the compensation plan — salary and housing allowance — takes into account the education, skills, responsibilities and experience of the minister matched with the needs of the church and its surrounding community. Look to what similar churches in comparable areas (rural, suburban, inner-city) provide.

The portion of salary designated as housing allowance requires thought as well. While this portion of pay is exempt from federal income taxes to the extent it complies with applicable rules, it is subject to SECA. Further, when housing allowance consumes a large portion of salary, it may have an adverse impact on certain benefits. For example, consider contributions to the retirement plan.

A church is permitted to base its retirement plan contributions on salary plus the portion designated as housing allowance. However, whether the contribution is valid under tax law generally depends on salary exclusive of housing allowance. As the portion of salary designated as housing allowance designation increases, so does the likelihood that contributions may exceed allowable limits.

Properly structured benefits
Churches need to set benefits, separate and apart from salary and housing allowance. Just as many laypersons in the church have jobs where cash salary is separate from benefits, a church needs to establish a stand-alone benefits regime. The major reason for this approach is three-fold: stewardship, tax-efficiency and compliance with applicable law.

Stewardship: When a church separates benefits from salary/housing allowance, it is a better use of its resources. Properly structured benefits preclude unintended taxes. Generally, when the church and minister enter into the negotiation of how salary is allocated, the portion allocated to benefits is taxable to the minister. In effect, the church unintentionally diverts a portion of its resources to taxes and the minister’s cash flow is diminished.

Tax-efficiency: Consider medical insurance premiums under the negotiated approach. Because there is a choice between cash and the benefit, the medical insurance premium is a taxable benefit. If the benefit is non-negotiable, then it is a tax-free benefit. Thus, the minister’s cash flow is not reduced unintentionally.

Compliance with applicable law: No matter how the church labels a benefit, its taxability is determined by the tax code.

Here is a list of basic benefits to include in the church’s benefits package:

• Medical and dental insurance
• Retirement plan
• Life and disability insurance

Beyond the basics
Having covered compensation and benefits basics, there are other elements of pay that are important to include in the total plan for the minister.

Social Security supplement: Because the minister is self-employed by Social Security (SECA) in the exercise of his ministry, he is responsible for paying the full 15.3 percent. Consider adding to his pay the 7.65 percent the church pays for its non-ministerial employees.

Accountable reimbursement accounts: Use of these accounts fit into the categories of good stewardship and tax-efficiency. Rather than provide the minister with an allowance for his car, books, education, etc., it is far more effective to handle these benefits through accountable reimbursements.

Fringe benefits: A 125 or cafeteria plan can benefit all staff members. This type of plan allows the minister to pay for non-covered items, such as co-pays or deductibles, on a pre-tax basis. The tax savings yields more cash flow.

Reward effective leadership. Scores of literature proclaim, and studies validate, that appreciation has a positive impact. Recognitions of appreciation may range from simple notes of “thanks” to significant gifts of recognition. When the reward tends toward the significant, once again, good stewardship and tax-efficiency is important. Apart from a spontaneous gift, most rewards are taxable to the minister. It is prudent to structure the reward in a manner that complies with legal limitations and maximizes the resources of the church.

Dollars and cents cannot define the full value of the minister and his ministry team. It takes planning and some expertise to structure a compensation plan that is compliant, tax-efficient and applies church resources wisely.

Sherre Stephens is a certified employee benefits specialist and director of executive services for GuideStone Financial Resources, Dallas, TX.  www.GuideStone.org

In times of lean staffs, your church can become volunteer-centered

Five steps in making your church a more effective volunteer-led congregation.

By James Higginbotham

With the recent economic downturn, some churches are closing their doors due to lack of money. Many are choosing to downsize their facilities or abandon their multi-million dollar buildings in an effort to stay open. Churches are often forced to lay off staff members, some of whom were recently hired. Now, churches are trying to find out if it is possible to keep the 
church running smoothly while running with lean staff.

One church that has been running with a lean staff for many years is Calvary Austin [ www.calvaryaustin.com ]. They currently have five staff with about 1,000 members. During their early years, the church existed in a low income neighborhood, generating lower-than-average offerings from its membership. Running with a lean staff was essential to cope with their increased growth.

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From volunteer baristas for their onsite coffee bar to volunteer-based building maintenance, they learned that not all church activities had to be performed by the staff. When volunteer resources were not available due to time or lack of specific skills, they contract to local businesses. This not only extended their skill set beyond the membership, it offered opportunities to get to know local businesses and invite them to weekend services.

Volunteers reduced labor cost

As they began to outgrow their current building, they started a building campaign to raise funds for a new location. The cost of the new building, renovations and materials were beyond their means, so they again turned to their volunteers for help. They purchased a building previously occupied by a grocery store and converted it into their new church building using their volunteers to reduce the cost of labor.

Utilizing more than 200 volunteers, they converted one-third of the building into their new church location in just six months. Tasks the volunteers performed included project and volunteer coordination, financial tracking and reporting, preparing meals and babysitting for work crews, landscaping, painting, demolition, stage setup, media setup and cleanup.

While they have experienced additional growth during this time, they still utilize a lean staff and depend heavily on volunteers to accomplish much of their church operations.

Using volunteers well

How did they do it? Let’s examine five steps you can take to become a volunteer-centered church.

1.) Have a well-defined vision. A volunteer centered church requires that your volunteers know and understand the vision of your church. Volunteers are often occupied with a career and family, so having a focused vision will help them to know if the work they are doing for the church is contributing to this vision.

Create a short, memorable vision that helps focus your volunteers. The more complicated or wordy the vision, the more likely they will forget it. Make sure the vision is easily visible and permeates throughout your printed materials, sermons and signage.

Volunteers have short memories. Be sure to communicate it often, as volunteers are busy and need to be reminded on a routine basis. It will also help them to make better decisions during their day-to-day volunteer work, as they will use your vision to guide them.

2.) Limit your programs. The natural desire for a church is to attempt to address every opportunity that comes its way. The result is a drive to add more ministry teams and staff to tackle these opportunities. The problem with this approach is that it isn’t a scalable solution. There are always more opportunities than you can handle and never enough money or people to go around.

Limiting programs allows your volunteers to select from a limited list of serving options. While it may seem that more programs mean more opportunity for volunteers to signup, marketing research indicates that more choice can paralyze rather than encourage decision making. Restricting your programs makes it easier for volunteers to find a way to use their skills while still providing plenty of opportunities to serve their church.

3.) Invest time with your volunteers. Staff members are often inside the same building and are able to spend time together on a personal level, creating camaraderie. While volunteers should be focused on the tasks at hand, they desire the same fellowship and personal growth as your staff. Your job as staff is to create this kind of environment not only for yourself, but for your volunteers as well.

Encourage your leaders to create quarterly team meetings that are casual, allowing volunteers to share in recent successes and discuss upcoming projects. Have them spend one-on-one time with volunteers over coffee outside the normal work time. Reward your volunteers often with praise and small gifts from the church, such as a gift card to their favorite restaurant or handwritten thank you note.

4.) Provide guidance and opportunities for growth. Volunteers need guidance from their staff and leaders during difficult times, but they also need room to grow. Every volunteer brings a unique mix of personal experience and talent to the church. Find the balance between micro-managing your volunteers and failing to give them the support they need.

A great way to create this kind of balance is to break larger tasks or projects into smaller milestones. Each milestone should have a small list of tasks to accomplish toward the larger goal. At the end of each milestone, review the tasks accomplished, provide some feedback, and discuss the next milestone. These smaller milestones can provide great teaching and discipleship moments, help the church improve their volunteer process and ensures that volunteers are on the right track.

5.) Constantly develop and train volunteer leaders. Raising volunteer leaders is essential for churches with a lean staff. These leaders will be directly involved with their team’s day-to-day effort and will know the volunteers that are excelling or require special ministry needs. They can also identify candidates for future leadership positions within the church.

The most effective way of developing volunteer leaders is through consistent training. Finding or developing a core set of training materials will provide the foundation they need during difficult leadership situations. It also demonstrates the staff’s desire to invest and support their leaders.

Servanthood focused

Finally, remember that a lean staff must learn to be servants of its volunteers. Don’t let your staff perform all of the big projects and leaving the leftovers to the volunteers. Instead, let the volunteers own the projects.

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This may require more time, training and course correction, but it will create a more creative and independent volunteer base as time goes by. Plus, it will reduce the burnout of your lean staff.

James Higginbotham is the editor of www.VolunteerCentered.com, a website focused on helping churches with volunteer management, leadership and recruiting.

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Learning from lean staffs during lean times

With many congregations facing tighter budgets as they weather the worst economic recession in decades, a survey earlier this year of U.S. church leaders by Christianity Today International and Leadership Network shows that a small percentage of churches are able 
to continue doing ministry while keeping staffing costs — the single-biggest expense for nearly every church — well below national averages. Lean Staffing survey of 735 leaders 
of Protestant and evangelical churches shows that one in seven spends less than 35 percent of its annual budget on staffing costs.

Responses included churches of all sizes, from attendances of 50 to 20,000. Among 
findings:

• Lean staff churches do a better job with volunteers and lay leadership development.
• Lean staff churches invest a noticeably higher percentage of their budget beyond the
• walls of their church.
• Growing churches spend a smaller percentage of their budget on staffing costs, so
• they’re “leaner” than plateaued or declining churches.
• Staff costs become leaner with size — as overall weekend worship attendance increases, but not dramatically so.

Historically, churches in recent years spend, on average, about 45 percent of their total budgets on staffing costs — and sometimes more. The Lean Staffing study separated 539 respondents to generate the “lean staffing” comparison: 15 percent of that group spends less than 35 percent on staff, while the rest spend between 35 percent and 65 percent. The study used 35 percent or less as a benchmark since it represents a sizable decrease from national averages and helps with statistical comparisons. A 46-page report on the survey results is available for free at store.churchlawtodaystore.com/lestsure.html.  — RK

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Knowing more about volunteercentered.com

VolunteerCentered.com is a website that provides in-depth articles on volunteer leadership, management and recruiting. They also offer a variety of resources, including a free eBook on volunteer recruiting.

In addition, they offer consulting to churches that desire to improve their administration, church building campaigns, technology and volunteer management processes.

Full-time staff members and church volunteers will find a number of resources to help make a positive impact with volunteers and community.
— JH

The benefits of long-term incentives

A well-defined benefits approach will attract and retain ministry talent.

By Sherre Stephens

Effective and gifted employees are essential to a growing church or ministry. Their services impact ministries and their communities. By offering long-term incentives, churches will have better employee retention. Other than traditional benefits, there are additional programs that keep ministerial staff engaged over the years.

Some churches offer a sabbatical commensurate with accumulated service. Other ministries fund travel abroad that enriches the employee’s ministry discipline. Also, churches will fund the cost of an advanced degree or extra classes.

Taking that a step further, churches can establish and fund a scholarship in the employee’s name at his or her Alma mater or seminary of choice.

Still, traditional benefits typically account for about 40 percent of a minister’s total average compensation package. In an economy where employees face rising costs of everything from food to gasoline, benefits are increasingly important for employees considering a new position.

The value of health insurance

Recent research shows that most Americans value their employment-based health benefits far greater than the actual dollar amount that employers pay toward the coverage. In fact, a 2009 Health Confidence Study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute reports that when asked to choose between $7,800 in employment-based health benefits and $7,800 in taxable income, 72 percent of those surveyed chose the health coverage.

Economic factors and trends affect ministries. A 2008 Southern Baptist Convention Compensation Survey found that the denomination’s senior pastors change jobs, on average, every seven years (six years for other ministerial staff). This is comparable to professionals in the secular world. The Department of Labor cites that professional secular employees change jobs an average of every six years. Not surprisingly, benefit coverage factors heavily in attracting and retaining ministry talent.

A well-designed benefits approach is effective in attracting and retaining talented and gifted employees. Depending on the location and ministry needs, the addition of certain incentives can give any church a leading edge. A judicious and well-balanced benefits package reflects the value your church places on the staff — and valued employees naturally focus more on their ministry assignments.

Establishing a salary and benefits package entails some research. Often a compensation committee takes on this role. Benefits package design should take into account the wide range of  options available on the market today. It is important to align the ministry assignment with salary and benefits that are comparable and consistent with churches in your region.

Many view healthcare coverage as the foundation of all benefits packages. Although expensive, it is an important way for churches and ministries to provide for the welfare of their staff. To reduce plan costs, church leaders can have staff members pay the difference for family coverage. Alternatively, they should consider a cost-sharing approach.

Next level health plans

There are new options that take health plans to the next level, mitigate the cost to the organization and attract staff known as Consumer-Directed Health Plans. These insurance plans are getting a lot of attention, both from the media and from potential employees. That’s because these plans allow employees to assume greater responsibility for the level and cost of healthcare, while the organization saves on plan costs.

Consumer-Directed Health Plans use three separate and distinct programs provided by the IRS:

1. Health Reimbursement Arrangements: Employer-owned funds that save employers money yet also allow them to provide first-dollar benefits for their staff. When used in conjunction with high-deductible health plans, the savings in premiums provide funds to reimburse employees all or a portion of their deductible expenses.

2. Health Savings Accounts: Employee-owned accounts that allow employees to save for personal healthcare expenses in a tax-free and portable vehicle. You must use an HSA only with a qualified high-deductible health plan.

3. Flexible Spending Accounts: Completely employee-funded, and contributions are good for one calendar year plus a three-month grace period. They allow employees to pay approved out-of-pocket expenses with pretax dollars.

When employees plan for the future they should consider the possibility of disability, accident, serious illness and even death. Offering both short-term and long-term disability plans is an excellent way to protect an employee’s financial security.

The most common type of retirement plan for churches and ministries is a 403(b) plan. For employees who are maximizing contributions to their 403(b) plan, consider offering a non qualified deferred compensation plan.

Beyond the traditional benefits package of retirement and health/life/disability insurance, here are some additional employee benefits offered by an ever-growing percentage of ministries:

Long-term care coverage: A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says that people who reach age 65 have a 40 percent chance of entering a nursing home. And about 10 percent of those who enter a nursing home will stay there for five years or more.

Enhanced disability coverage:  Look for disability plans that offer a greater percentage of income replacement.

Milestone rewards/ recognitions: At a set number of years, add another week of paid time off, increase employer-matched funds or contribute a dollar amount to an employee’s nonqualified deferred compensation plan.

Relocation reimbursements: Make a down payment on a home and/or cover moving and transition costs.

Financial and estate planning: Reduce personal concerns by assisting with financial and estate matters.

The right benefits package can factor heavily in whether pastors and staff members commit to a life of serving your church.

Sherre Stephens is director of executive services for GuideStone Financial Resources, Dallas, TX. [www.guidestone.com]

How important to a church is having an Accountable Reimbursement Plan (ARP)? With an ARP, expense reimbursements and advances are not reported as wages and are exempt from withholding and employment taxes. Without an ARP, reimbursed expenses, even when legitimate, must be reported as wages and are subject to withholding and employment taxes. Even if an employee or minister takes the deduction on their personal return, some additional tax will be paid.

An ARP has three essential elements:

1.) Expenses are only reimbursed for deductible expenses submitted under the requirements of the church’s plan.

2.) Expenses must be substantiated to the church by IRS required documentation, within a “reasonable” time of being incurred.

3.) Excess advances must be returned to the church within a reasonable period.
The expense reimbursement element has three subparts:

• The employer must establish and operate the ARP. An employee cannot be reimbursed tax-free simply because they submit expense records. While a plan does not have to be in writing, having a written plan facilitates proving its existence to the IRS if challenged, and provides a structure for describing employer specific requirements.
• The ARP must only reimburse expenses meeting the requirements of the ARP, and the ARP reimbursements must be in addition to the regular compensation. An employee who does not meet all the requirements of the plan cannot receive a taxable reimbursement in lieu of meeting requirements. An employer cannot substitute tax-free reimbursements for compensation the employee otherwise would have received.
• The ARP must only reimburse for deductible business expenses and specifically identify the reimbursement or expense payment, keeping these amounts separate from other amounts (such as wages).
• The expense substantiation element has two subparts:
• Travel, entertainment, gift, and car expenses describes the information and documentation requirements in more detail.
• Required documentation must be submitted within a “reasonable time.” The IRS regulations provide that documentation submitted within 60 days of the expense being incurred is always reasonable. Longer periods would be subject to IRS challenge. Even if the church cannot afford to pay the expense immediately, it must be submitted to be non-taxable when finally paid.
• Excess advances must be refunded and not converted to taxable income. Advances and refunds must be done within a reasonable time. IRS regulations provide that advances made not more than 30 days before the anticipated expenses are paid or incurred, and refunds made within 120 days after expenses are paid or incurred are always reasonable. Again, longer periods would be subject to IRS challenge.

The IRS has identified two significant issues for attempted ARPs that fail to comply with the requirements:

1.) Under the regulations, a rare or occasional failure may only result in that expense reimbursement being taxable, but inconsistent compliance or chronic failure may result in all reimbursements under the program being taxable, even those that complied.

2.) For senior pastors and other executive level employees, unreported taxable income due to a flawed reimbursement ARP would be an “automatic excess benefit.” Top level employees are treated more harshly than other employees for these mistakes. If the church secretary’s flawed reimbursement is discovered in an IRS audit, the reimbursement simply becomes taxable and subject to interest and penalties. If the senior pastor’s reimbursement is discovered, the amount, plus interest, must be refunded to the church and a 25 percent penalty paid to the IRS.

Implementing an ARP is a two step process:

1.) The church board adopts a resolution that church ministry expenses will only be reimbursed when IRS required documentation is submitted within a reasonable time of the expense being incurred.

2.) The church administrator begins enforcing the resolution, by only reimbursing when required documentation is provided within a reasonable time.

More details and forms are in IRS Publication 463, and Dan Busby’s book, 2009 Church and Nonprofit Tax & Financial Guide, available in bookstores and at www.ecfa.org.

A qualified ARP saves the employee taxes and personal record keeping. For the lay employee, the savings may amount to 10 percent or more of each expense they reimburse under the ARP. Minister employees also benefit, though the savings are less easy to quantify. Consider your church’s reimbursement process, and assure your employees the maximum tax savings.

John Butler is tax counsel at Capin Crouse, Greenwood, IN. [www.capincrouse.com]

In a recent ministry blog, a pastor wrote, “One thing that really bothers me is having to pay musicians to play in worship. My worship leader insists that since they are professional musicians we have to pay them. We have professional teachers teaching Bible fellowship classes and leading small groups, and none of them ask me to pay them for teaching.”

This is an argument that has been discussed for many years between church leaders. Before you read any further, just know that I cannot give you a definite answer to this age-old question. I can, however, offer some thoughts based on personal experience and observation.

To pay or not to pay

There are two schools of thought on this issue. The first is the all-or-nothing philosophy, which says that either every musician is paid or none are.

One of the churches in my hometown pays every choir member, musician and technical operator. No volunteers. Everyone takes home a paycheck. This is a lucrative set-up for many people. The churches that pay everyone on their team tend to have extremely high quality music programs. The downside is that their passion for the vision of the church can potentially get lost in the “gig” mentality.

Most churches, however, operate on the other side of this coin, where no one gets paid. This is good for the budget and church unity, but quality often suffers.

It is also important to note that just because people volunteer doesn’t mean that their motives for being involved are pure. Musicians often want the spotlight to fill their own needs and insecurities. This need transcends a payroll. The second school of thought is the pay-some-but-not-all philosophy.

This has its own set of advantages and challenges. The success of this approach hinges on clearly defining what positions get paid and what their responsibilities are.

Additional responsibilities

If you only pay some of your musicians, I would suggest giving them additional responsibilities for which they are being paid. Those responsibilities can go beyond just playing: things like organizing music, leading a sectional rehearsal or transcribing music. This can minimize the tendency for the volunteer musicians to wonder why they aren’t getting paid too.

If the church decides to pay the musicians, it is important to have a consistent scale that is clearly defined prior to hiring a musician. Each scale is different based on the community where the church is located.

In a time where churches are looking for ways to trim their budgets, it is important to be creative with alternatives to paying musicians. For instance, if space is available, consider opening up a church classroom during the week for your musicians to give private lessons, or give them priority when recommending musicians for outside paying events, such as weddings.

Using volunteers

My experience has taught me that the best results are achieved with a volunteer team of musicians who are led well. It is the job of the music director to challenge, inspire and motivate their team of musicians.

Everyone wants to be part of something great! If the music director is doing his or her job, they are constantly raising the bar of excellence and pushing the creativity to a point where people are lining up to be part of the team. As a music director, I intentionally build in frequent opportunities for our music team to surprise themselves with their ability to execute seemingly impossible music. This success creates an energy that cannot be replaced by a paycheck.

The final answer in the debate over paying musicians really lies within each team and its core values. Serving is not a core value of some churches. In those churches, paying all of the musicians is probably a better option.

In a church that promotes everyone serving and utilizing their gifts to better the local church, a volunteer team is usually the best option. There may be a few key positions within those teams that are paid, but the core is made up of volunteers.

People receive great fulfillment in knowing that they are a part of something that is contributing to a greater cause — the cause of Christ. It sounds very cliché but there is value in building treasures in Heaven that last. Teams that serve their church with passion and excellence are storing away treasure for eternity.

Jeff May is director of music ministries, North Point Church, Springfield, MO. [www.northpointnow.org]

“Our group comes together on Monday afternoons to debrief the service and design the upcoming services,” says Rich Nibble, director of worship arts, First Baptist Church of North Collins, CO.

“We’ve noticed that it’s very easy for debrief meetings to turn into ‘what I liked and didn’t like’ sessions without a lot of tangible takeaways.

“In order to stay on track, we’ve come up with a list we use as a guide so our debrief comments are geared toward making our services better in the future,” he says.

Vision — Did we hit the vision of the church?  Did the message come across clearly?

Climax — What and where was the climax of the service?  Is that where we wanted it? Action — What was the response we were looking for from the congregation? What were we asking them to do/learn/feel?  Did we get that message across clearly?

Connection — How well did we connect with the congregation (worship teams/announcements/drama/other creative elements/sermon/response/prayers/etc…)? Did we lead well?

Feel — Did the feel of the service match the message?  How did the flow of the service work? Did people leave energized/tired/pensive/excited/etc?

Language — Did we use insider language or would someone unfamiliar with our church (Christian/non-Christian) have understood everything that we talked about?  Did people need to bring any knowledge of the church to the service to understand certain things?

Transitions — Did we transition from element to element well?  Did we lose connection with people do to technical aspects?

Technical issues — Were there any technical issues that need to be fixed for future services or is there any training that needs to take place so we can communicate as clearly as possible?

By Ronald E. Keener

Michael Leahy knows of what he speaks. He was addicted to pornography. On the first page of his introduction of his latest book, Porn @ Work: Exposing the Office’s #1 Addiction (Northfield Publishing, 2009), he notes that “70 percent of all online porn access occurs during the nine-five workday.”

Churches and pastors and Christians aren’t immune from porn. Steve Siler, director of Music for the Soul, a Nashville-based ministry, has released “Somebody’s Daughter: A Journey to Freedom from Pornography” in a DVD/CD multimedia compilation featuring a TV documentary detailing the lives of three men and one couple active in Christian ministry who struggled with and overcame addiction to pornography.

Church Executive asked Leahy to respond to some questions about porn and its pervasiveness even in the offices of pastors and church staff:

Can you cite evidence about the prevalence of porn being accessed by pastors?

The most commonly cited evidence came from an informal poll taken on pastors.com that cited somewhere around 40 percent of pastors surveyed responded that they had viewed Internet porn within the past couple of months. Based on my own personal experience talking with pastors and church leaders, it’s becoming a major problem thanks to the availability, affordability and anonymity of Internet porn.

Is prayer or self-control important in avoiding porn?

It’s an important part of an overall strategy for recovery, but I have yet to meet anyone in my past 10 years of recovery from sexual addiction who’s been “delivered” from this addiction simply on the basis of prayer alone. There’s always an aspect of repentance associated with being set free from this addiction or habitual sexual sin. Prayer coming from someone without a truly repentant heart is rarely effective.

How should pastors counsel church members using porn?

“Flee sexual immorality,” plain and simple. Turn and run. For those members who they suspect might be addicted, they should definitely refer them to a certified Christian counselor who has at least a 40 percent caseload of patients with sexual addiction. I’ve heard too many stories of people getting bad counsel from pastors and counselors who aren’t familiar with the unique challenges associated with this disease of the heart.

While there are individual success stories about overcoming porn, what hope can we have for eliminating porn in our culture?

Practically no hope. Pornography and sexual sin has been around since long before the time of Jesus. So while I believe it’s hopeless to imagine a world free of porn, there is hope for those Christ followers who have the courage and determination to resist sexual temptation.

How do you counsel people who say they can walk away from porn?

Usually people who say they can just walk away from porn whenever they want to are deeply involved with the material and have no intention of giving up their habit. In other words, they’ve never really tried to give it up. To them, I just say “good luck” and tell them that more than likely we’ll be talking again some day, perhaps after they’ve lost everything and want to get well.

What are the three major trends you say are converging to create a high-risk work environment?

Our hypersexual media, emerging and enabling technologies, and the pervasive sociosexual pathologies are all coming together to create a kind of “perfect storm” where disorders like sexual addiction are flourishing, both at home and in the workplace. It’s something we need to be talking about as a society; how we’re all becoming enablers of this cancer that’s spreading across our land.

How does a man approach his wife about being addicted to porn — and still keep his marriage intact?

Very carefully. This is a perfect example of where the benefits of an experienced, professional Christian counselor are invaluable. There’s definitely a right way and a wrong way to break the news to your spouse. Just unloading all your “stuff” at once so you feel better is a good example of what not to do.

Briefly, how does one recognize a sex addict at work?

It’s not easy, but there are definitely tell-tale signs that a person looking for such a thing will notice. I coach leaders and HR professionals as well as pastors to pay particular attention to an individual’s inappropriate sharing of their sexual beliefs. That’s a lot harder to pick up on in a church setting as compared to a secular business, where such sexual small talk may be more acceptable. But in both environs, there’s always a combination of symptoms that will show up as declining work performance, habitual lateness, missed meetings, large blocks of unaccounted for time, increased irritability, and the like.

What should a church do to counsel or help men overcome the porn problem?

To begin with they need to realize that it’s not just a problem that guys have. Women make up more than 40 percent of all new admissions to in-residence sexual addiction recovery programs. Of the 40 million daily visitors to pornographic Web sites, a third are women.

To offer real help, churches need to work at becoming a “safe place” for men and women to come forward and seek out help and resources. This doesn’t necessarily mean that every church should have a recovery group program or even have a counselor on staff. But they should know what churches in the area do have those resources, and they should be willing to refer their people and church attenders to those programs and individuals.

As for sermons that reach the whole church, we’ve had a lot of success by using an interview format where the pastor and I sit down together on stage before the congregation and he prompts me through the sharing of my story and the hope and help I found in Christ. We’ve used a similar style of casual but rehearsed conversation in our BraveHearts Men’s Conferences as a way to share the power of story.

Last January 10 churches in the Atlanta area promoted this one night conference as a father-son event, and we were all amazed as we noticed that among the 1,200 who attended, the group was pretty evenly split between men and boys. Several of the pastors later confided in me that while they were excited so many teens showed up, their strategy was to use this approach to reach the men who they knew needed to hear my message the most — and it worked marvelously.

How does porn change or confirm a man’s view of women?

It typically influences a man’s view of women (and a woman’s view of men) starting at a very early age — typically 12 or 13 for boys and 16 and over for girls — as they’re exposed to porn for the first time. When kids are exposed to porn they’re also exposed to a belief system that is highly sexualized and objectifying of both women and men. It’s definitely not the picture of relationships and healthy sexuality that one sees in God’s Word.

Do churches have any legal liability that comes from porn on their computers?

Absolutely, and that’s something the pastors I talk with seem to be unaware or unconcerned about: The risk of costly litigation due to claims of sexual harassment and/or harboring a hostile workplace environment. I think we’ve all seen how costly sexual sin can be when it hits the courtroom as we’ve watched the Catholic church grapple with a long history of pedophile priests. Even though they were and are an extremely small minority, its cost the church far more than the hundreds of millions of dollars we read about in the headlines. Its eroding the confidence and support of the faithful.

What do you mean in your last chapter: “Tackling the problem of sexual misbehavior at work is really about restoring respect for the individual.”

Those who willfully consume porn and commit sexual sins lack respect for themselves and others. They denigrate God and our very humanity through their disrespect and selfish consumption of that which doesn’t belong to them — the sexual essence of another. These are lessons we can start teaching our kids at a very young age.

What are we missing in this whole topic that you’d want to share?

Pornography and the issue of sexual sin is just a small part of a much larger issue, that of an enemy hell bent on doing whatever it takes to try to defraud God of the glory he deserves. While this area of sexual sin is unquestionably the biggest factor keeping men on the sidelines and out of the game God intended them to shine in, overcoming such lifelong sin habits can also equip our spiritual leaders with one of the most powerful personal testimonies a man can have. The sooner the church recognizes that fact and becomes a “safe place” for those who see their sin condition and want to get well, the sooner we’ll be able to turn the tide on this epidemic of sexual sin in the church.

PUSHING PORN AWAY
www.BraveHearts.net
www.SomebodysDaughter.org
www.MusicfortheSoul.org
www.NationalCoalition.org

Jeff was the new children’s pastor at a mid-sized church in Florida. He had come well-recommended even though all of his prior experience had been at a smaller church where he wore many hats. Jeff and the senior pastor at the church had developed an instant rapport and he had sailed through his meetings and interviews with the selection committee.

But soon after he was hired and much to everyone’s dismay, Jeff was crashing in the children’s ministry. He was having trouble connecting with the children and many of them were afraid of him. Six months later, Jeff was gone.

Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common. A new staff person is hired and they “looked so good in the interview,” but the reality plays out differently. Enter the advocates of assessments and personality profiles. They contend that the interview, while important, rarely breaks through the veneer that experienced employees put up during the hiring process.

Unique strengths

More important, they say, is for the employer to understand that each person has unique strengths and fundamental weaknesses. The challenge is to identify people whose strengths match the work they are asked to do.

Assessment and personality profiles strive to do just that. The assessment can include competency based role plays and behaviorally anchored structured interviews. The personality profiles are administered on-line or paper-based and consist of scores of multiple choice questions designed to measure various factors of one’s personality.

There are many different profiles on the market and each uses different terms based on the detail of what they are measuring. In general, you can expect dimensions such as the following:

• Emotional Stability
• Extroversion
• Openness
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness

Requiring candidates to complete a profile, however, only gives half of the picture. Not only will you want to understand the candidates’ behavioral preferences (their strengths), you will also want to understand the behavioral characteristics needed for the role in question.

Interestingly, most churches that I have worked with and churches that I polled for this article either do not use any type of profile tool or if they do, they never tie it to the strengths needed for the position for which they are hiring. If that’s the case, why even go to the trouble of requesting a profile?

Profile open positions

Churches that opt to use personality profiles should take the extra step to profile their open positions as well. Most profile vendors offer tools to help with that process. For example, Leading From Your Strengths, offers a product called Position Insights that guides organizations through an online question and answer session. The result is a report that identifies “the unique strengths demanded by the position.” Another company called Caliper assigns a consultant to interpret each personality profile and during those conversations the consultant helps determine the job profile too.

What’s the result of effective profiling? Armed with an understanding of the needed strengths for an open position and the ability to accurately identify candidates with those strengths, churches can expect a higher success rate in selection decisions. One company even boasts that 85 percent of the people they recommend are performing at the top of their field after one year.

Sound too good to be true? You’re not alone! Detractors worry that great candidates will be missed because their profile was not an exact match for the job. This concern is valid for two reasons. Some organizations place too much weight on the profile and do not balance it with other important search and hiring steps. Also, in the sometimes willy-nilly world of church operations, the human resource function can be inconsistently administered resulting in a poor outcome.

Cost is another factor to consider. Some of the assessments are offered free of charge (but be careful of freebies — look for reputable test publishers with verifiable information behind their claims). Others charge a nominal fee for their test ($20-$60) and additional money to assist in interpreting the results ($200 and up). Profiling the positions can carry an extra charge. There are also full-service firms that will allow you to completely outsource this portion of the process. Many organizations simply find personality profiles too cost-prohibitive.

Considerations for profiles

My recommendation for personality profiles is to use them intelligently. I would counter the cost argument by pointing out that the cost of replacing an employee is far higher. When you consider all tangible costs like severance, travel and relocation as well as intangible costs such as lost productivity making personality profiles part of the hiring process makes sense. Check out the turnover calculator provided by the Department of Labor if you are still unsure.
(www.dol.gov/cfbci/turnover.htm)

Second, understand that personality profiles are a tool and effective use of them requires three things: selection of valid profiles; consistent use; and dedication to accurately identifying the strengths needed for the open positions.

Third, I would challenge you to realize that your church, like every church, has unwritten rules, unspoken codes of conduct and a culture that has developed based on who you are and what you believe. Understand your DNA and use it to your hiring advantage. For example, if your church has a strong culture of following the rules, then hiring someone who views rules more as general guidelines will cause unwanted conflict. Personality profiles can accurately identify traits like rule-following.

Finally, I will caution that profiles are not the end-all answer to the hiring challenge. The goal of the hiring process, simply put, is to find and hire the right person for the job It involves attracting quality candidates, screening effectively, utilizing perceptive interviewers trained to ask the right questions, checking references and running background checks. If you choose to use personality profiles, use them as a great way to obtain one more piece of valuable information in the overall hiring process.

Jennifer Hickl is a human resources consultant for Life Catalyst Consulting, based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. [www.lifecatalystconsulting.com]

Personality profiles have different names depending on the developer of the profile and the nuances of the questionnaire. Some focus more on determining behaviors, some on personality traits and others on strengths and talents. Here are some of the more common terms:

• Psychological Inventories
• Behavioral Preference Measure
• Strength Indicator
• Talent Assessment Instrument
• Behavioral Assessment

DISC — www.discinsights.com
Myers-Briggs —  www.humanmetrics.com
Strengthsfinder —  www.strengthsfinder.com
Leading From Your Strengths  —  www.ministryinsights.com
Caliper Profile — www.caliperonline.com