May 22, 2025 • 14 mins
In today’s episode, we talk with Pastor John Dougherty as he gives guidance to 190 churches, their pastors, and constituencies in Georgia. He encourages pastors to be open to how the Lord might be working on the heart of a volunteer to think of going into ministry. We can facilitate that when we build farm teams of leading volunteers who could begin to be considered to fill ministry positions in the church as those might materialize.
Show Notes: https://leaders.church/podcast/ep-142-staffing-in-the-local-church/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dick Hardy (00:06):
Hey, friend, it's great to be with you on this
episode of The Church Tipspodcast, and I have the
privilege today to hang out withmy buddy John Dougherty from the
great state of Georgia. Georgia,Bulldogs. Are you a bulldog?
John Dougherty (00:18):
I am a bulldog, baby. Come on. Come on.
Dick Hardy (00:22):
UC, it's get going with you SEC and Big 10 people,
you know? I just say, keepsaying to you SEC, people are a
bunch of Big 10 wannabes. And...
John Dougherty (00:31):
Oh, okay, your podcast is over. I'm sorry
Dick Hardy (00:33):
Your Georgia pastors had very little appreciation for
these stupid remarks of mine.
So, anyway.... Hey, great to bewith you today, John. Thanks for
slicing off a little time.
Today. We're going to talk aboutthe whole issue of staffing in
the local church context. SoJohn has responsibilities
(00:53):
for.... how many churches thatare you responsible for?
John Dougherty (00:56):
Currently, 190.
Dick Hardy (00:57):
190 churches in the state of Georgia, and he
provides great leadership forthem. And a part of the part of
the issue we deal with in thelocal church is staffing. Many
churches, course, just thepastor, but but he or she has
key volunteers that that helpmake things happen. But other
(01:19):
churches have the privilege toto have a staff member or two or
three or four or many more, andJohn really has some perspective
he wants to bring to the tableto help us think through our
staffing needs in the immediateand in the future. So why don't
you just give us a jump start onthis, John of what you're seeing
as you lead these churches.
John Dougherty (01:38):
Well, Dick, thank you for having me. I
appreciate your friendship andthe blessings that you show our
Georgia pastors and all that youdo through Leaders.Church and
cohort we're doing. I'll tellyou, in the early days of
ministry, you know, we could goout and we could look for staff
and we there was, you know, youcould throw a rock in any
direction and hit a youth pastoror children's pastor whatnot,
(02:02):
because there were just thiswave of people wanting todo it.
But times have changed. As amatter of fact, as a overseer
District Superintendent in mydistrict, I get at least
aminimum of one call a day,sometimes two, sometimes up to
five, from pastors saying, hey,I need, I need this staff
person? Do you know anyone? Andwhat we wind up doing is we wind
(02:25):
up sort of cannibalizing thestaff of other churches. Now, I
know that necessity is is there,and we just we've got to fill
our staffing needs, but what Ihave seen work the best is
regardless of church size,basically establishing a farm
team. You know, I know sportsanalogies are the lowest form of
(02:46):
communication, but establishinga farm team in house, and of
course, it's scalable. You know,on, on, let's say you're the,
you're the only paid staffperson at a local church. You
can still do this. It will be ona smaller scale, but basically
growing our own growing our ownstaff. They already have the
(03:06):
corporate DNA of the church,already. They you have a deep
personal relationships withthem. So let's say you're
pastoring. You're the onlypaidstaff person at a church of
150-200 you should never go tolunch by yourself. You should
never go run errands byyourself. There should always be
(03:27):
a person, whether it be a youngperson. I know that we've kind
of thrown the agedemographic outand when it comes to recruiting
staff, because it may be someonewho's middle aged, looking for a
career change or just feelingthe call of God later in life,
but growing that own farm teamlocally in your church, and
basically putting them intothose staff positions, and not
(03:49):
relying on on brick and mortarinstitutions to produce young
ministers, not relying onschools of ministry. Now, if you
have a church of size and youhave resources and youcan
establish your own school ofministry or training facility or
something along those lines,praise the Lord, you can grow
your own. But it is not justdependent upon availability of
(04:10):
resources. I had... growing up,I had a pastor just kind of put
his arm around me and just say,hey, you know, I want you to
just kind of do life well, cometo find out what I learned later
on, he was discipling me into aministry context, and I was
doing ministry. I wasn't paid.
They didn't payme. He paid mybought my lunch occasionally,
(04:31):
but there was this heart ofplease Jesus with my life. And
so I found that that was verysuccessful in working with me,
and I'm seeing that work in thelocal church context as well,
where these churches arebasically raising up their own
staff.
Dick Hardy (04:47):
Well, I am so glad to hear you say that, John, I'm
having similar kinds ofconversations with guys,
particularly ones... and we findthat it doesn't, it doesn't meet
their immediate need. If theyhaven't done this, if you
haven't been preparing peopleand all sudden you need a youth,
(05:10):
guy or gal, you can't justpresto, bangle, have it appear.
But for those who will hear whatwe're talking about today and
actually begin to put things inplace to bring people along,
you'll be amazed at what canhappen. I've told I've told
people, take people in yourchurch out of the box, that you
(05:31):
have them in, you've got them ina box, that they are a they're a
department manager or a generalmanager of a Walmart, yes, and
you say that's their profession,or they're an insurance agent,
that's their profession, andwe're grateful for those
professions and the incomes theymake and the tithes that...
(05:52):
we're grateful for all that. Butthat very point you just
mentioned about people,particularly in in mid age, we
don't know what the Lord mightbe saying to their heart in
terms of potential careerchange. And the more we can do
to help build a farm team and bewilling to think of somebody in
(06:17):
a career field to potentiallycome into ministry is gold. It
really is
John Dougherty (06:22):
So let me give you an example of what you're
talking about. So we have apastor, a gentleman who's
pastoring a church. He is theCOO of a major hospital chain, a
billion dollar budget, 1000s ofpeople in his downline was
(06:42):
discipled in a local churchsetting by a pastor he was just
attending, and then he beganteaching Sunday school, and he's
serving and all these otherthings and and through that,
that season of discipling, herehe is pastoring a church. This
guy has the capacity to to do somuch, but God spoke to his heart
and said, I've called you intothis later in life. And so here
(07:05):
he is, lead pastoring acongregation now, and that's a
great example of what you'retalking about.
Dick Hardy (07:10):
Well, it really is.
And you know what I've I've toldguys and gals, you know, find,
find yourself a little six orseven weekdevotional study that
you do with four or five handpicked people. Yes, pick the
book of Nehemiah. Do a littlestudy you, you don't tell them
(07:32):
on the front end, hey, I'm goingto disciple, disciple you so you
become a youth pastor someday.
You're just discipling them anddoing the very kind of thing you
just mentioned, John and andyou're sittingaround in this
setting together where you'restudying the book of Nehemiah.
And here's what you want towatch for. Are they attentive to
(07:53):
what you're talking about? Arethey doing the assignment? Are
they reading? Are the how arethey responding to your
leadership in the group. Whatare they doing to lead in the
group? Are they showing up?
You're watching a variety ofthings... patterns that you
would say that's the kind ofthing I want in my staff members
(08:13):
of the future. And you just dothat over and over and over
again, not everybody of yourfour or five people are going to
matriculate into that, but youdon't need everybody. You need a
youth pastor. You need achildren's or something,yes. So
(08:34):
I would say, the more you can doof that, the better you can,
you're going to be.
John Dougherty (08:41):
And it is.... it is time intensive. It does
require on our part. And so wehave had the mindset in the last
30-40, years that we depend onother institutions to produce
our staff. But there's nobodythat's going to have your vision
for yourchurch, have yourcorporate DNA, your church DNA,
and have your leadership DNAmore than the individual that
(09:04):
you raise up to fill those staffpositions. And yes, it is, it's
a lot of work, but I think theproduct at the end is going to
be better than anything you'llbe able to draw from another
organization. So personally, Ilean into that. And even me now,
I take people, even though Ihave a large organization, I'm
still taking one, two or threeand grooming them into these
(09:26):
positions of leadership, becausewe do see the potential in them,
and I think that that's reallywhere the church is going to be
going in the future.
Dick Hardy (09:33):
Yeah, no, that's good. You know, in the immediate
I've, I've dealt with a fewchurches, and they've said,
Okay, I've gotta find somebody,you know, you can do the kind of
thing John referenced here a fewminutes ago, that, you know what
we've always done. We get on thephone and we try to rip somebody
off of some other church, and wedon't use those terms, but that,
(09:55):
you know, we're, what is Godsaying to you? We do those kinds
of things. Yes. Um, or you canengage a search firm, which is
fairly new to the landscape inthe last 10-15, years. There's
Slingshot Group out there.
There's Vanderbloemen, and we'renot endorsing one or another or
any of them, but, but you dohave to pay different than
calling your buddy and saying,like people call you, Hey, John,
(10:19):
I need such and such. You dohave to pay for that. If your
church is in a position to dothat, it would be we're in the
immediate if you haven't trainedpeople internally, that is one
way to get it done, and probablyget it done quicker with less
headaches. But money is going tobe out of your pocket to do
(10:40):
that.
John Dougherty (10:42):
Exactly, and just talking about economy of
effort and expenses, yes, it isgoing to be time intensive to
raise your own.And yes, you mayhave an immediate need, and I
understand that, but you'regoing to spend less ultimately
raising up your own, and you'llhave a higher degree of quality
in that individual, then youwould be hiring a headhunter to
(11:06):
go out and snipe staff from fromother churches. And I know we do
cannibalize those and and look,it's necessity. I get that. I
understand. And so I'm not inany way condemning anyone you've
got to fill those needs. But,man, I think is, if you get
proactive now and start reallydrawing those leaders up, you're
(11:27):
going to find out that you'vemade a very valuable investment.
Dick Hardy (11:30):
Well, that's good.
John, give us a parting shothere. You know, if they, if the
viewers, the guy or the gallistening to this, you know,
they say, okay, Dick and John,I'm with you. What would be the
parting shot you'd say, if youdon't remember anything we said
at all, you gotta remember this.
What would that be?
John Dougherty (11:49):
I'll tell you what the Lord is speaking to me
this morning. Is that, the localchurch pastor... you know,
sometimes we get so into leadingand we get so into, and we made
such a profound life andemotional investment into our
church, we forget sometimes thatGod is more invested and more
(12:10):
concerned about the success ofyour church than you are,
Dick Hardy (12:13):
Than you are. Yeah.
John Dougherty (12:14):
He is more concerned about that. It is ever
present in his mind. And for me,there is comfort and and
actually some some liberation inthe fact that I know that God is
more concerned about the successof this ministry than we are.
And so we need to rest in that.
And yes, we need to put forththe effort and we need to work
hard, but we also need toremember God is ever present in
that, and he is more concernedabout it than we are.
Dick Hardy (12:38):
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good. John. JohnDougherty, thank you very, very
much for taking time to hang outwith me on this key subject. I
mean, it's boots on the ground.
This is right where we live aspastors when we're trying to
fill staff positions and tocontinue to move the ministry
forward. I greatly appreciateyou taking time to be with us.
John Dougherty (12:58):
Absolutely, anytime.
Dick Hardy (12:59):
You know, to the viewers, we thank you for
hanging out with us on thisChurch Tips podcast. I would say
if you have need of anythingrelative to your church, we'll
be honored to have you go toLeaders.Church, we provide a
variety of resources for you.
Also, Church University, there'sa number of full courses
available to you. We just standready to serve the local church
(13:21):
in any way we can. So to all whohave hung with us on the podcast
today, make it a great onetodayand be blessed.
Jonathan Hardy (13:31):
Hey, Jonathan, here real quick before you go,
everything in your ministryrises and falls on your
leadership. So investing in yourleadership is essential to
staying healthy, and that's whyI want to invite you to join us
inside the leaders dot churchmembership. This online
streaming service for pastorsgives you access to more than
300 videos plus trainingmaterial to level up your
leadership and improve yourministry skills. If you'd like
(13:53):
to do that, I want to invite youto go to Leaders.Church/boost.
Again, that'sLeaders.Church/boost. Well,
thanks again for joining us onthe church tips podcast, we'll
look forward to seeing you nexttime.
Hey, friend, it's great to be with you on this
episode of The Church Tipspodcast, and I have the
privilege today to hang out withmy buddy John Dougherty from the
great state of Georgia. Georgia,Bulldogs. Are you a bulldog?
John Dougherty (00:18):
I am a bulldog, baby. Come on. Come on.
Dick Hardy (00:22):
UC, it's get going with you SEC and Big 10 people,
you know? I just say, keepsaying to you SEC, people are a
bunch of Big 10 wannabes. And...
John Dougherty (00:31):
Oh, okay, your podcast is over. I'm sorry
Dick Hardy (00:33):
Your Georgia pastors had very little appreciation for
these stupid remarks of mine.
So, anyway.... Hey, great to bewith you today, John. Thanks for
slicing off a little time.
Today. We're going to talk aboutthe whole issue of staffing in
the local church context. SoJohn has responsibilities
(00:53):
for.... how many churches thatare you responsible for?
John Dougherty (00:56):
Currently, 190.
Dick Hardy (00:57):
190 churches in the state of Georgia, and he
provides great leadership forthem. And a part of the part of
the issue we deal with in thelocal church is staffing. Many
churches, course, just thepastor, but but he or she has
key volunteers that that helpmake things happen. But other
(01:19):
churches have the privilege toto have a staff member or two or
three or four or many more, andJohn really has some perspective
he wants to bring to the tableto help us think through our
staffing needs in the immediateand in the future. So why don't
you just give us a jump start onthis, John of what you're seeing
as you lead these churches.
John Dougherty (01:38):
Well, Dick, thank you for having me. I
appreciate your friendship andthe blessings that you show our
Georgia pastors and all that youdo through Leaders.Church and
cohort we're doing. I'll tellyou, in the early days of
ministry, you know, we could goout and we could look for staff
and we there was, you know, youcould throw a rock in any
direction and hit a youth pastoror children's pastor whatnot,
(02:02):
because there were just thiswave of people wanting todo it.
But times have changed. As amatter of fact, as a overseer
District Superintendent in mydistrict, I get at least
aminimum of one call a day,sometimes two, sometimes up to
five, from pastors saying, hey,I need, I need this staff
person? Do you know anyone? Andwhat we wind up doing is we wind
(02:25):
up sort of cannibalizing thestaff of other churches. Now, I
know that necessity is is there,and we just we've got to fill
our staffing needs, but what Ihave seen work the best is
regardless of church size,basically establishing a farm
team. You know, I know sportsanalogies are the lowest form of
(02:46):
communication, but establishinga farm team in house, and of
course, it's scalable. You know,on, on, let's say you're the,
you're the only paid staffperson at a local church. You
can still do this. It will be ona smaller scale, but basically
growing our own growing our ownstaff. They already have the
(03:06):
corporate DNA of the church,already. They you have a deep
personal relationships withthem. So let's say you're
pastoring. You're the onlypaidstaff person at a church of
150-200 you should never go tolunch by yourself. You should
never go run errands byyourself. There should always be
(03:27):
a person, whether it be a youngperson. I know that we've kind
of thrown the agedemographic outand when it comes to recruiting
staff, because it may be someonewho's middle aged, looking for a
career change or just feelingthe call of God later in life,
but growing that own farm teamlocally in your church, and
basically putting them intothose staff positions, and not
(03:49):
relying on on brick and mortarinstitutions to produce young
ministers, not relying onschools of ministry. Now, if you
have a church of size and youhave resources and youcan
establish your own school ofministry or training facility or
something along those lines,praise the Lord, you can grow
your own. But it is not justdependent upon availability of
(04:10):
resources. I had... growing up,I had a pastor just kind of put
his arm around me and just say,hey, you know, I want you to
just kind of do life well, cometo find out what I learned later
on, he was discipling me into aministry context, and I was
doing ministry. I wasn't paid.
They didn't payme. He paid mybought my lunch occasionally,
(04:31):
but there was this heart ofplease Jesus with my life. And
so I found that that was verysuccessful in working with me,
and I'm seeing that work in thelocal church context as well,
where these churches arebasically raising up their own
staff.
Dick Hardy (04:47):
Well, I am so glad to hear you say that, John, I'm
having similar kinds ofconversations with guys,
particularly ones... and we findthat it doesn't, it doesn't meet
their immediate need. If theyhaven't done this, if you
haven't been preparing peopleand all sudden you need a youth,
(05:10):
guy or gal, you can't justpresto, bangle, have it appear.
But for those who will hear whatwe're talking about today and
actually begin to put things inplace to bring people along,
you'll be amazed at what canhappen. I've told I've told
people, take people in yourchurch out of the box, that you
(05:31):
have them in, you've got them ina box, that they are a they're a
department manager or a generalmanager of a Walmart, yes, and
you say that's their profession,or they're an insurance agent,
that's their profession, andwe're grateful for those
professions and the incomes theymake and the tithes that...
(05:52):
we're grateful for all that. Butthat very point you just
mentioned about people,particularly in in mid age, we
don't know what the Lord mightbe saying to their heart in
terms of potential careerchange. And the more we can do
to help build a farm team and bewilling to think of somebody in
(06:17):
a career field to potentiallycome into ministry is gold. It
really is
John Dougherty (06:22):
So let me give you an example of what you're
talking about. So we have apastor, a gentleman who's
pastoring a church. He is theCOO of a major hospital chain, a
billion dollar budget, 1000s ofpeople in his downline was
(06:42):
discipled in a local churchsetting by a pastor he was just
attending, and then he beganteaching Sunday school, and he's
serving and all these otherthings and and through that,
that season of discipling, herehe is pastoring a church. This
guy has the capacity to to do somuch, but God spoke to his heart
and said, I've called you intothis later in life. And so here
(07:05):
he is, lead pastoring acongregation now, and that's a
great example of what you'retalking about.
Dick Hardy (07:10):
Well, it really is.
And you know what I've I've toldguys and gals, you know, find,
find yourself a little six orseven weekdevotional study that
you do with four or five handpicked people. Yes, pick the
book of Nehemiah. Do a littlestudy you, you don't tell them
(07:32):
on the front end, hey, I'm goingto disciple, disciple you so you
become a youth pastor someday.
You're just discipling them anddoing the very kind of thing you
just mentioned, John and andyou're sittingaround in this
setting together where you'restudying the book of Nehemiah.
And here's what you want towatch for. Are they attentive to
(07:53):
what you're talking about? Arethey doing the assignment? Are
they reading? Are the how arethey responding to your
leadership in the group. Whatare they doing to lead in the
group? Are they showing up?
You're watching a variety ofthings... patterns that you
would say that's the kind ofthing I want in my staff members
(08:13):
of the future. And you just dothat over and over and over
again, not everybody of yourfour or five people are going to
matriculate into that, but youdon't need everybody. You need a
youth pastor. You need achildren's or something,yes. So
(08:34):
I would say, the more you can doof that, the better you can,
you're going to be.
John Dougherty (08:41):
And it is.... it is time intensive. It does
require on our part. And so wehave had the mindset in the last
30-40, years that we depend onother institutions to produce
our staff. But there's nobodythat's going to have your vision
for yourchurch, have yourcorporate DNA, your church DNA,
and have your leadership DNAmore than the individual that
(09:04):
you raise up to fill those staffpositions. And yes, it is, it's
a lot of work, but I think theproduct at the end is going to
be better than anything you'llbe able to draw from another
organization. So personally, Ilean into that. And even me now,
I take people, even though Ihave a large organization, I'm
still taking one, two or threeand grooming them into these
(09:26):
positions of leadership, becausewe do see the potential in them,
and I think that that's reallywhere the church is going to be
going in the future.
Dick Hardy (09:33):
Yeah, no, that's good. You know, in the immediate
I've, I've dealt with a fewchurches, and they've said,
Okay, I've gotta find somebody,you know, you can do the kind of
thing John referenced here a fewminutes ago, that, you know what
we've always done. We get on thephone and we try to rip somebody
off of some other church, and wedon't use those terms, but that,
(09:55):
you know, we're, what is Godsaying to you? We do those kinds
of things. Yes. Um, or you canengage a search firm, which is
fairly new to the landscape inthe last 10-15, years. There's
Slingshot Group out there.
There's Vanderbloemen, and we'renot endorsing one or another or
any of them, but, but you dohave to pay different than
calling your buddy and saying,like people call you, Hey, John,
(10:19):
I need such and such. You dohave to pay for that. If your
church is in a position to dothat, it would be we're in the
immediate if you haven't trainedpeople internally, that is one
way to get it done, and probablyget it done quicker with less
headaches. But money is going tobe out of your pocket to do
(10:40):
that.
John Dougherty (10:42):
Exactly, and just talking about economy of
effort and expenses, yes, it isgoing to be time intensive to
raise your own.And yes, you mayhave an immediate need, and I
understand that, but you'regoing to spend less ultimately
raising up your own, and you'llhave a higher degree of quality
in that individual, then youwould be hiring a headhunter to
(11:06):
go out and snipe staff from fromother churches. And I know we do
cannibalize those and and look,it's necessity. I get that. I
understand. And so I'm not inany way condemning anyone you've
got to fill those needs. But,man, I think is, if you get
proactive now and start reallydrawing those leaders up, you're
(11:27):
going to find out that you'vemade a very valuable investment.
Dick Hardy (11:30):
Well, that's good.
John, give us a parting shothere. You know, if they, if the
viewers, the guy or the gallistening to this, you know,
they say, okay, Dick and John,I'm with you. What would be the
parting shot you'd say, if youdon't remember anything we said
at all, you gotta remember this.
What would that be?
John Dougherty (11:49):
I'll tell you what the Lord is speaking to me
this morning. Is that, the localchurch pastor... you know,
sometimes we get so into leadingand we get so into, and we made
such a profound life andemotional investment into our
church, we forget sometimes thatGod is more invested and more
(12:10):
concerned about the success ofyour church than you are,
Dick Hardy (12:13):
Than you are. Yeah.
John Dougherty (12:14):
He is more concerned about that. It is ever
present in his mind. And for me,there is comfort and and
actually some some liberation inthe fact that I know that God is
more concerned about the successof this ministry than we are.
And so we need to rest in that.
And yes, we need to put forththe effort and we need to work
hard, but we also need toremember God is ever present in
that, and he is more concernedabout it than we are.
Dick Hardy (12:38):
Oh, that's so good.
That's so good. John. JohnDougherty, thank you very, very
much for taking time to hang outwith me on this key subject. I
mean, it's boots on the ground.
This is right where we live aspastors when we're trying to
fill staff positions and tocontinue to move the ministry
forward. I greatly appreciateyou taking time to be with us.
John Dougherty (12:58):
Absolutely, anytime.
Dick Hardy (12:59):
You know, to the viewers, we thank you for
hanging out with us on thisChurch Tips podcast. I would say
if you have need of anythingrelative to your church, we'll
be honored to have you go toLeaders.Church, we provide a
variety of resources for you.
Also, Church University, there'sa number of full courses
available to you. We just standready to serve the local church
(13:21):
in any way we can. So to all whohave hung with us on the podcast
today, make it a great onetodayand be blessed.
Jonathan Hardy (13:31):
Hey, Jonathan, here real quick before you go,
everything in your ministryrises and falls on your
leadership. So investing in yourleadership is essential to
staying healthy, and that's whyI want to invite you to join us
inside the leaders dot churchmembership. This online
streaming service for pastorsgives you access to more than
300 videos plus trainingmaterial to level up your
leadership and improve yourministry skills. If you'd like
(13:53):
to do that, I want to invite youto go to Leaders.Church/boost.
Again, that'sLeaders.Church/boost. Well,
thanks again for joining us onthe church tips podcast, we'll
look forward to seeing you nexttime.
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The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.