What Do Church Staff Do?
Back in the day, I organised my life with a Filofax. (For those too young to know what that is, it looked like this.) One time when I was visiting a church group, someone took it out of my hands and started leafing through my diary, saying, “I just need to know what on earth a pastor actually does!”
So, I’ve long been aware that there is an intense interest in what church staff do, because it can be a black box to most church members, even though they are the ones who are largely paying for it!
Unlike the clergyman John Stott, who was once accused by a fellow train passenger of being “a parasite on the body politic,” I’ve never been told by anyone that church work is a complete waste of resources, but I do hear a range of questions, including:
Why does our church have so many staff?
Why can’t we find a volunteer to do X instead of paying someone?
Why are none of our staff sorting out X?
Why don’t we have a paid youth worker / worship leader / evangelist?
So, I thought it worth taking some time to demystify decisions about church staffing.
We want to answer those questions according to biblical principles, so here are a few basics:
The love of God compels all Christians to be in ‘full-time ministry.’ None of us ever have a day off from being renewed in the image of God and living for him in his world.
Every Christian is a priest (1 Pet 2:9). In Christ, each one is set apart as ‘reverend’ and as a ‘minister,’ and that reality is wholly independent of whether or not we are paid to fulfil a particular role.
The New Testament sets an example of leaders not seeking payment for ministry (1 Cor 9:15-18), and that was codified within the next few generations of the early church (Didache 11:5).
However, the New Testament also teaches that those who benefit from someone’s service ought to honour them, including with money (1 Cor 9:14), even a wage (1 Tim 5:17), and commends people who do so (Phil 4:10-18).
There was plenty of money moving through shared ‘accounts’ in the early church. Jesus and his disciples were supported from a common purse (John 12:6, 13:29), even as Jesus instructed the continuation of tithing (Matt 23:23). The sharing of “all things,” described in Acts 2:44 was not simply organic and individual-based, but involved money being handed over to leaders (Act 4:35-37) and distributed through organised systems (Acts 6:1ff, 1 Tim 5:3-16).
These principles together teach us that a Christian community thrives with ‘every member ministry’ and need not have paid staff, as long as they are careful to attend to honouring people for their service (including, where appropriate, with money); and that a church may have paid staff, but must then be careful to honour volunteer ministry as of equal significance.
How, then, is a church to determine what staff to employ?
One point of reference might be the Old Testament practice of allocating one tribe (Levi) of the twelve tribes of Israel to a different economic status, in which they received income from the other tribes. On that basis, we might imagine one in every 12 church members to be employed, but almost no church could afford to do that, and that highlights the reality that the number of staff in most churches is determined simply by affordability. Indeed, the vast majority of churches would like to appoint more paid workers, either to meet their own needs or the needs of others, but cannot currently afford to do so.¹
In Oxford Community Church, we have been helped by a practical rule of thumb, which prioritises voluntary service and helps us to determine a suitable level of staffing. We know that many church members volunteer 4 hours a week within church life, often combining a couple of ministry roles, and that some even give 8 hours a week. So, where a role can be done in less than 8 hours a week (e.g. leading a community group, being on the youth team), our strong expectation is that it can be done without paid employment. Where a role takes more time than that, we look at splitting it up, so that it might be covered by a few people working together (e.g. a rota of different worship leaders). And then there are some time-consuming roles that really benefit from being done by one person (e.g. leading the youth team, or managing church finances), and that’s where we look to employ someone. Then, when we employ anyone, their induction includes discussion of the wider culture of volunteering, with an encouragement to find a distinct volunteer role in the church alongside their employment.
How does staffing change with church size?
When a church is growing, it will add staff to take on roles that were once covered voluntarily, and that contributes to the perception that smaller churches have a stronger volunteer culture and rely less on staff. However, the reality is more complex than that. Statistics from the US indicate that the ratio of Sunday attendance-to-staff is fairly consistent across all church sizes (graph), with the most common ratio being one full-time-equivalent for every 35 Sunday attenders (graph).²
Right now, Oxford Community Church has about 350 adults (plus 100 children/youth), with weekly Sunday attendance somewhat lower than that, so a typical full-time equivalent staff might be around 7 to 9, depending on how you count, and that’s roughly where we are:
Pastoral staff: 3.8 FTE (me, Bev, Sanjay, Liam, Al, Ezzy)
Other ministries: 1.3 FTE (kids, youth, students, global mission)
Admin: 2 FTE (local church office), plus 1.6FTE (parent charity staff: HR, finance, safeguarding, buildings, etc)
TOTAL: 8.7 FTE
Much research has been done on the changing staffing dynamics in growing churches, producing descriptions of how things typically work for different-sized congregations. I have found Lyle Schaller’s ‘church size typology’ (from Looking in the Mirror, 1984) to be the most helpful, and I have often recommended it to people who have either moved to a new church of a size they have not previously experienced, or to people whose church is rapidly growing (or shrinking). He describes a range of church sizes according to their average Sunday attendance:
Under 35
Decision-making is shared across the congregation, although in practice there is usually one person or family who are the controlling voice. If they employ a pastor, that person is usually expected to provide all pastoral care and handle all administration, but not necessarily setting direction. Schaller likened this size congregation to a ‘Cat,’ as they tend to be very independent-minded and to hiss at strangers and at change!
35-100
Schaller likened this size to another animal, a ‘Collie’ dog, as these congregations tend to be very family-oriented and affectionate. They normally employ one pastor, and often also an administrator. Church members expect to have immediate access to those staff members, and it matters to them that “everyone knows everyone else,” with a strong sense that the whole of church life is everyone’s business.
100-175
A ‘Garden,’ in which the greater range and diversity of groups and activities means both that most people don’t know the whole church, and that the church needs more staff, who need to have more specific roles, such as ‘youth pastor’ or ‘worship leader.’ The senior leader is expected to be in touch with everything, but cannot remain connected to everything at all times, so they must be like a ‘gardener’ who keeps abreast of the health and growth of the whole garden without being overwhelmed by the fact that the work is never done.
175-225
A ‘House,’ in which there are more distinct departments (‘rooms’). Also, more matters arise that are beyond the expertise of any staff, and so require outside help, like a householder calling in a plumber. These churches need outside friends who can contribute significantly in areas of weakness, and so they may well invest some of their budget in gaining external input, as well as whatever staff there are on-the-ground. Also, as the senior leader is required to oversee a wide range of groups and activities, more pastoral ministry needs to be delegated to a ‘pastoral care team,’ which usually means more paid pastoral staff.
225-450
Like a ‘Mansion’ that requires a handyman, chef, butler, gardener, etc., these churches must grow a larger staff team with more specialised roles. There is always something that needs to be fixed, but also an expectation that things will be done with excellence, and these churches are usually well-organized and well-led. Much more attention needs to be paid to role definition and discipline, so that everyone can be clear how their service contributes to the overall health and mission of the church.
Schaller then goes on to describe even larger churches: ‘Ranch’ (450-700) and ‘Nation’ (700+). Though he wrote this list over 40 years ago, and despite the many social changes that have happened since then, his categories are still meaningful today and describe realities that many of us recognise from our own experience.
Of course, the exact size thresholds are debatable and will vary in different locations. A church blessed with many healthy retirees or in a location with a low cost of living will have a stronger volunteer base and can get away with fewer staff than a working-age congregation in an expensive city. Still, those different types of community organisation (Cat, Collie, Garden, etc.) follow from the fundamental ways in which humans relate and organise, and they explain many of the differences between churches in the extent and nature of their staffing .
I hope this post has been helpful in demystifying a few things, and I’m sure it also raises new questions. Please do pop those in the comments below, and I’ll do what I can to answer them.
NOTES
(1) There is a minority of churches that have determined not to employ anyone, but rather to use their income in other ways, such as funding global mission. This can be a wonderful thing, though it will mean that church forgoing some sorts of local activities. Also, this arrangement sometimes has its roots in the leader’s unwillingness to submit to the kind of accountability that comes with being paid.
(2) https://www.churchsalary.com/content/articles/how-many-staff-members-should-your-church-have-