Celebrating Staff Differences

Staff Retreat in Malibu

If you are a Children's Director, Children's Pastor, or Children's Minister, you obviously work on a staff of other ministers besides yourself.  You might work with a Senior Pastor, a Music Minister, a Youth Pastor, and a variety of others.  You might serve on a staff of 5, 10, 20, or 50.  You might be part time, full time, or volunteer. And your Children's Ministry might be large enough to have other staff in your Children's Ministry department, such as an Early Childhood director, Nursery Director, Children's Worship Leader, etc.  But the point today is that there is a mix of personalities, gifts, leadership styles, experiences, core strengths, and a number of other variables.  It would take a very big excel spreadsheet to figure it all out!  I've been blessed to work beside many other pastors and staff members with many strengths, but also a great deal of personalities to figure out.

It is so important for staff members to KNOW each other's strengths and weaknesses in order to be able to serve together most effectively.  I would recommend your staff taking some time together to go through the "Strength Finder" tests, and study the book Living Your Strenghts together (which utilizes the Clifton StrengthsFinder) by Albert L. Winseman, Donald O. Clifton, and Curt Liesveld.  We've spent approximately 9 months at First Pres discussing, dialoguing, and embracing our strengths, and getting to know how to work alongside those we are in ministry with, while understanding that THEIR strengths are different than MY strengths!  (And vise-versa.) "What a concept, right?"

Another extremely helpful book for the children's pastor is Lead the Way God Made You by Larry Shallenberger. I have been through many ups and downs in my various ministry positions, and when I am at my best for the Kingdom, it's when I am freed up to "lead the way God made me."  That means, I have other people around me to pick up the areas where I am not as strong.  I love details. I love planning, I love communicating.  I love helping others catch the vision of where we're going and helping them climb aboard! I don't really love painting scenery, shopping for snacks, or, I really hate to admit this, cleaning up and putting things away after VBS!  (This would not come as a suprise to you if you saw my resource room right now.)

In a perfect world, I could have all the gifts and all the strengths needed to be the perfect Children's Director.... but this side of heaven, that probably won't happen. So in the meantime, it's VITAL that I find, train, and surround myself with others that are strong where I am not as strong!   By discovering how I'm wired, and how I lead, I can ask God to give me those on my team that fill in those gaps (we usually surround ourselves with people who are LIKE us, but that's not the secret to building a strong ministry.)  Remember your calling... "to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."  Ephesians 4:12-13