TEAM MINISTRY – CHURCH STAFF, MINISTRY STAFF & LEADERHIP TEAMS
Part of the ministry resources on Team Ministry
- Ministry Staff, Church Staff Teams – focuses narrowly on the team dynamics of paid ministry staff
- Church Leadership Teams – focuses broadly on the team dynamics of ALL appointed leaders, including staff, elders, deacons, etc.
- Ministry Resources on Job/Role Descriptions for Church Staff Teams
- Related Ministry Resources – including General Ministry Resources on Team Ministry, Team Ministry – Church Member Involvement, Team Ministry – Personnel, Church Staff Evaluation, etc.
- See also the extensive section on using the DISC Profile for Ministry Teams
Ministry Staff, Church Staff Teams
Comprehensive Manuals on Ministry Staff Teams
- Bill Easum and Bill Tenny-Brittian, Effective Staffing for Vital Churches: The Essential Guide to Keeping the Right People — A very prescriptive approach for building staff around four functions of missional effectiveness.
- Gary McIntosh, Staff Your Church for Growth: Building Team Ministry in the 21st Century — The best text on the full range of ministry staff issues.
- Gilbert Rendle and Susan Beaumont, When Moses Meets Aaron: Staffing and Supervision in Large Congregations – Full of instructions and reproducible tools on hiring, supervising, and evaluating church staff.
- Lyle E. Schaller, The Multiple Staff and the Large Church — An older but still very respected volume that addresses every aspect of staff development.
- Harold J. Westing, Church Staff Handbook: How to Build an Effective Ministry Team — Great resources on some of the more realistic church staff issues. A long-time standard.
Associate Staff Ministry:
- Mike Bonnem and Roger Patterson, Leading from the Second Chair: Serving Your Church, Fulfilling Your Role, and Realizing Your Dreams — Addresses the character, competencies, and chemistry that make for effective second-tier leaders. The best conceptualization of “second chair.”
- Doug Fagerstrom, The Ministry Staff Member: A Contemporary, Practical Handbook to Equip, Encourage, and Empower — A great resource, not on how to lead and nurture ministry staffs altogether, but on how to make one’s best contribution as a ministry staff member.
- Theodore P. Fields, All the Pastor’s Men: The Associate Minister in the Black Church Setting — Covers the unique opportunities and challenges of associate ministers in African-American churches.
- Martin E. Hawkins and Kelli Sallman, Associate Pastor: Second Chair, Not Second Best — Insight on effective job descriptions, team-building, self-care and stress management, managing conflict, and professional growth.
- David Hopewell, Sr., Keys to Becoming an Effective Associate Minister and Church Leader — Helpful journal from one who spent over twenty-five years in the associate pastor role.
- Robert J. Radcliffe, Effective Ministry as an Associate Pastor: Making Beautiful Music on a Ministry Team — Provides unique features not found in other literature on the subject.
Leading from Less Influential Roles or Power-Imbalanced Situations:
- Resource Guide, Leadership in Subordinate Roles – Looks at the broader issue of how influence is wielded from roles that are may not structurally imbued with a high amount of control, but still strongly affect outcomes.
- Geoffrey M. Bellman, Getting Things Done When You are Not in Charge — Excellent “how-to” on wielding influence from a subordinate position, written from a business perspective.
- Katherine Crowley and Kathie Elster, Working for You Isn’t Working for Me: The Ultimate Guide for Managing Your Boss — Directed specifically at how to deal with a difficult superior.
- Phyllis Beck Kritek, Negotiating at an Uneven Table: Developing Moral Courage in Resolving Our Conflicts — Sound advice on how to grow in self-respect, moral strength, and clear communication in situations where one feels powerless.
- John Maxwell, The 360-Degree Leader: Developing Your Influence from Anywhere in the Organization — The famous leadership guru, John Maxwell, offers specific principles for leading down, leading up, and leading across.
- John Maxwell, Becoming a Person of Influence: How to Positively Impact the Lives of Others — Equips leaders to exercise influence regardless of position.
Church Leadership Teams
First Reads on Church Leadership Teams:
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- Larry W. Osborne, Sticky Teams: Keeping Your Leadership Team and Staff on the Same Page — The most practical guide available to help ministers develop and maintain critical relationships with board (elders), staff, and congregation. It replaces The Unity Factor.
- John Laster, Gaining Traction: Field Guide for Leadership Teams — The most theoretically rich and practically realistic look at how church leadership teams function in actual practice.
Theology and Spiritual Formation of Church Leadership Teams:
First Read:
- Ruth Haley Barton, Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups (Transforming Center Set) – Barton designed this book to be a “one-stop-shop for leadership groups who wish to become a community for discernment.” Excellent guide.
Other Helpful Resources:
- George Cladis, Leading the Team-Based Church: How Pastors and Church Staffs Can Grow Together into a Powerful Fellowship of Leaders – Offers a theology for leadership teams based on a perichoretic image of the Triune God as a choreographed community. Builds upon this to suggest seven attributes of healthy leadership teams.
- Stephen A. Macchia, Becoming A Healthy Team: Five Traits of Vital Leadership — Explains the best practices of teamwork, but with more biblical integration and spiritual formation.
- Danny E. Morris and Charles M. Olsen, Discerning God’s Will Together: A Spiritual Practice for the Church. Revised and Updated — An excellent guide to spiritual perspectives and practices for leaders to generate decisions attuned to God’s leading for one’s congregation.
- Alan N. Wright, The Spiritual Dimensions of Team (TCP Leadership Series) — Focuses on the softer dimensions of team functioning such as team spirituality, emotional climate, and energy.
Other Ministry Resources on Church Leadership Teams:
- Dr. Paul Ford, Your Leadership Grip — One of the most widely used systems to help capitalize on each team member’s spiritual gifts.
- Kenneth O.Gangel, Team Leadership in Christian Ministry: Using Multiple Gifts to Build a Unified Vision – A widely used encyclopedic volume on the dynamics of team leadership.
- Kenneth Gangel, Coaching Ministry Teams: Leadership and Management in Christian Organizations – Similar in scope to Team Leadership in Christian Ministry, but through a more prescriptive rubric of coaching ministry teams.
- Les McKeown, The Synergist: How to Lead Your Team to Predictable Success – McKeown shows how most teams lack a crucial ingredient that keeps them locked in perpetual gridlock among three common types – visionaries, operators, and processors. This gridlock can be reversed through the work of a synergist who can knit them together into a powerful force.
- Diana Whitney, Amanda Trosten-Bloom, and Jay Cherney, Appreciative Team-Building: Positive Questions to Bring Out the Best In Your Team — An application of Appreciative Inquiry (AI) to use positive questions to generate the highest possible contribution of the human capital that makes up a team.
Ministry Resources on Job/Role Descriptions for Church Staff Teams
- Larry Gilbert and Cindy Spear, The Big Book of Job Descriptions for Ministry: Identifying Opportunities and Clarifying Expectations for Ministry – provides several templates for role descriptions of virtually all functions in the church, both paid and volunteer, along with a CD that allows readers to tailor the information to their contexts.
- W. Byrne Herbert, Job Descriptions and Duties for Church Members and Workers — Provides several boiler plates for role descriptions for all functions in the church.
Related Ministry Resources
See Other Resources on Ministry Team, Ministry Staff:
- Team Ministry – Intro
- Team Ministry – Church Leaders and Church Staff
- Team Ministry – Church Member Involvement
- Team Ministry – Personnel, Church Staff Evaluation
- See also the extensive section on using the DISC Personality Profile for Ministry Team-Building
- Church Involvement, Spiritual Gifts in Ministry
- Church Administration, General Manuals
- Managing Volunteers in Christian Ministry
See Resource Guides on Over 100 Areas of Christian Ministry: