A Small Staff

I found this article about the bonuses of having a small staff very interesting. The author Craig Groeschel argues that a small staff tends to be better than a larger staff. I found this as a very counter-cultural message in a Western Church that emphasizes success in ministry as being a growing church that leads to a growing staff. Our society is all about production and as leaders our number one mission is to produce other leaders who serve underneath us. Our picture of producing leaders in the church is having more staff underneath us. We feel that it is more efficient to have someone who specializes in a specific field (small groups, discipleship, youth, etc) in order for the Church to function most effectively. Groeschel actually says that having more staff members causes more clearly defined job descriptions. He says that this ultimately leads to a mindset of it not being my job. He also says that more staff members causes a lack of lay leaders to rise up in the church. I found this interesting because you would think that more staff members would cause better one-on-one discipleship in the church, thus growing more lay leaders. However, if you have a discipleship pastor on staff I can see the other leaders thinking discipleship is not their job. Another point Groeschel makes is that more time, money and energy go into a larger staff, thus limiting the time, money and energy spent on other issues. We talk all the time about churches that grow to be inward and no longer look outward but we never seem to talk about staff that grow inward and no longer look outward.