Creating Authentic Connections in Church Staff Teams

In this special roundup episode of the unSeminary podcast, we highlight key insights from three previously recorded interviews focused on strengthening church staff teams. In celebration of the Summer 2025 issue of Executive Pastor Magazine, this curated compilation revisits rich conversations with leadership experts Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird, executive pastor Ken McAnulty of Arise Church, and Diana Rush from Eastside Church. Each segment dives into unique aspects of staff development—from shared leadership and onboarding strategies to the art of leading from the middle in multisite churches.

Healthy Leadership Teams: The Power of Shared Leadership [Listen to the full episode]
With Dr. Ryan Hartwig & Dr. Warren Bird

• Hartwig and Bird, co-authors of Teams That Thrive, argue that shared leadership isn’t just biblical—it’s practical. Thriving church leadership teams intentionally embrace collaboration and commit to daily disciplines like running effective meetings and distributing leadership tasks evenly.
• One surprising insight from their research of over 140 churches was that many teams couldn’t even agree on who was actually on their team. This pointed to a broader lack of clarity and intentionality in team design.
• Bird challenges the myth that advising the senior pastor equates to real team leadership. Instead, churches must foster environments where diverse voices are heard, decisions are made together, and leadership is seen as developmental—not pre-baked.
• Hartwig shares compelling profiles of senior pastors who made humility-driven shifts in their leadership posture—either by stepping back to allow others to lead or stepping in to fill critical gaps.

Onboarding That Sets the Pace for Staff Success [Listen to the full episode]
With Ken McAnulty, Executive Pastor at Arise Church

• McAnulty unpacks Arise Church’s robust onboarding week, a deliberate strategy designed to eliminate the awkward, often disconnected experience new hires typically face.
• Instead of simply orienting staff to logistics, the goal is to shape culture, build community, and prepare new team members to run. Arise focuses on four key areas: Culture, Care, Competency, and Course.
• From pre-arrival office setups to custom music playing on a new hire’s first day, the details matter. Arise also includes intentional relational components like storytelling sessions with existing staff, which accelerate trust and cultural understanding.
• A unique highlight is their “Last Day at Arise” document, where new staff articulate how they want to be remembered. This future-focused exercise helps shape present-day behavior and sets a clear tone for engagement and legacy.

Leading from the Middle: Managing Up, Down, and Inward [Listen to the full episode]
With Diana Rush, Senior Director of Build Community at Eastside Christian Church

• Rush provides practical advice for navigating the complexities of middle management in a large, multisite church. She emphasizes that effective leadership begins with self-awareness and spiritual integrity—what comes out when you’re “squeezed” reflects what’s inside.
• Trust is the currency of influence. Whether managing upward to senior leadership or downward to direct reports, trust is built through consistency, transparency, and a track record of responsible leadership.
• Rush describes her role as a “salesperson” of vision—translating ideas both up and down the chain of command while remaining faithful to the church’s overall mission.
• Her approach includes robust preparation, honest feedback loops, and an openness to negotiation. She advocates for creating shared ownership of ideas by involving others early and often in the planning process.
• Ultimately, Rush calls leaders to be flexible, collaborative, and committed to turning vision into reality by aligning strategy with relational trust.

This episode is a powerful reminder that great teams don’t happen by accident. Whether it’s building collaborative leadership structures, creating intentional onboarding experiences, or navigating the tensions of middle management, strong staff culture is essential for sustained church growth. Each segment provides actionable takeaways and fresh inspiration for executive pastors and church leaders who want to lead better teams and foster healthier staff environments.

Download the free Executive Pastor Magazine Summer 2025 issue at unSeminary.com.

Thank You for Tuning In!

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Yeah, hey friends, happy Thursday. Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super pumped that you are tuned in.

Rich Birch — Listen, today we are celebrating the release of Executive Pastor Magazine’s Summer 2025 edition. It’s completely free. Just drop by unseminary.com and pick up copies of it. This season’s edition is all about staff. It’s all about helping you have a more productive team. We’ve got great articles in there by Paul Alexander, Todd Rhodes, Dan Reiland, Gavin Adams, and Dave Miller. You’re not going to want to miss it. Incredible resource and it’s completely free. Just drop by and pick it up.

Rich Birch — But today on the episode, what we’re doing is we’re pulling out three, what I like to call the heart of the episode, from the vault that deal with this same topic. In this first segment, you’re gonna hear from Ryan Hartwig, Dr. Ryan Hartwig and Dr. Warren Bird. They’re co-authors of a book called Teams That Thrive.

Rich Birch — And 10 years ago, May 2015, we had them on the podcast and they unpack what makes healthy senior leadership teams tick and why shared leadership is both biblical and deeply practical. You’ll also hear some behind the scenes stories, including frankly a candid moment from my own leadership at Liquid Church. If you’re navigating leadership tension or wondering how to build a stronger team culture, this part is gold. Stay tuned for this. This is Ryan Hartwig and Warren Bird from an episode about 10 years ago on Teams That Thrive.

Rich Birch — Stay tuned for this. And we’ve got two more great segments coming up…

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Ryan Hartwig — What do we find? Oh boy, there’s so many things we find. Really, we identified five disciplines of collaborative church leadership.

Ryan Hartwig — And I can kind of get into those five disciplines. But probably before that, probably if we could sum all that up, what we realized is that Teams That Thrive are convinced that shared leadership is a biblical way to lead and is a preferable way to lead. It was kind of the first thing.

Ryan Hartwig — There was a strong conviction, like we’ve got to figure out how to do this thing well. So that was the first piece. Then the second piece was that they were willing to do the fundamental disciplines day in and day out to enable their team to thrive.

Ryan Hartwig — I mean, quite honestly, a lot of the stuff we talk about in the book, I don’t know that it’s incredibly groundbreaking. It’s like, oh wow, I’ve never even heard that before. I mean, a lot of the things I think, generally, we’ve heard some of these things at least before.

Ryan Hartwig — But really, these teams were the ones that said, okay, we’re gonna actually run our meetings well. We’re gonna actually really think through who’s going to serve on these teams. We’re gonna really make sure that leadership tasks and team are actually shared. And not just kind of have these things as platitudes, but we’re gonna discipline ourselves to do these things all of the time.

Rich Birch — Very cool. Well, we had a surprise guest join us on the podcast. If you’re watching the video, you see Warren Bird jumped in. Warren, the co-author of Teams That Thrive also is joining us today. Warren, welcome to the show.

Warren Bird — Thanks! Ryan, I love what you’re saying. I can’t wait to read that book.

Rich Birch — No, that’s fantastic. So Warren, just to kind of bring you up to speed, we kind of talked a bit about the research process that went on, which you, I’m sure, had a part to do with. And then we’re just kind of getting into a little bit of what are some of those insights, some of those key insights that came out.

Rich Birch — For you, Warren, as you talked with and interviewed so many churches, 140 some odd churches that ended up giving all the information, what were some of those insights that jumped through to you as patterns as you interacted with different churches?

Warren Bird — Well, affirming everything that Ryan said, I just became convinced that everybody wants to do team, but they don’t know how to do it well. And they don’t even know, are we doing it well? They don’t even know.

Warren Bird — We started the book with like these myths that people think, well, I guess a team means that we all advise the pastor and then the pastor makes the decisions and we’re working as a team. No, you’re not! You’re losing huge potential if that’s how you approach the idea of team.

Warren Bird — And in today’s fluidity of who’s on the team, who’s not, we even, in our survey, we were amazed at how many churches the members of a team disagreed with who all was on their team. So it was quite a stretch.

Rich Birch — That’s funny. Now, so playing a little bit of the devil’s advocate here. So team leadership, that sounds like a—I’m playing devil’s advocate here. I don’t actually believe what I’m about to say—But team leadership, that sounds like some sort of Namby Pamby, wow, woohoo deal. Isn’t it, doesn’t God give the vision to a person and then we’re all just supposed to march in behind that person, Ryan? Isn’t that, aren’t that, isn’t that the evidence of like a great thriving church?

Ryan Hartwig — Well, sure. I mean, we see that, yeah, certainly God gives the vision to people, but he doesn’t give all of the vision to only one person. The beauty of a leadership team is that, is recognizing that God speaks to everyone.

Ryan Hartwig — And so why would we just limit ourselves to only hearing God speaking to one individual and not to many? If we believe that the Spirit lives inside of us, right, then he can speak to all of us. And so the beauty, I think, of the team is being able to come together and saying, okay, what is it that God is saying to us?

Ryan Hartwig — How can we use different perspectives, the different expertise, the different experiences that we have, and ultimately be able to make better decisions and implement greater ministry throughout the church by sharing leadership together. So that’s really the idea there. I mean, we’re not suggesting that a leadership team precludes someone from providing strong leadership.

Ryan Hartwig — In fact, a lot of the teams that we see, there is a strong leader. That’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with having a strong leader. But not so strong that that leader precludes others from also being able to fully contribute the things that God has put into them.

Rich Birch — Interesting. Now, Warren, you know, you’ve been studying kind of leadership and looking at leadership over a number of years. Is there anything in this, what you found here, that you feel like is a kind of a shift, either culturally or kind of generationally? Are you seeing any differences on that front?

Warren Bird — Yeah, the whole idea of leadership development, this is just one more piece of it. On your team, you don’t hire pre-trained people who’ve all got it together. It’s a team growing together, getting better together, making better decisions with a better process and building into each other.

Warren Bird — So in a way, this models what you hope the whole rest of the church will be all about, that we’re forever taking people, to use a Willow Creek expression, from total pagan to a dedicated missionary. And that being part of a team is different steps on that journey.

Rich Birch — Interesting. Well, when we had the privilege, I had mentioned this earlier, we had the privilege when you were in the process of writing this book to sit down and spend some time. And it was actually great. I loved the coaching that you both provided to our team.

Rich Birch — And actually, to this day, one of the things that Ryan said, kind of a challenge to us as a lead team, said, you need to not answer all the questions. You need to allow some of the questions to hang. And you need to create space for people to maybe deliberately allow a few things to kind of hang out there, create some space, so that your leaders who are around you will rise up and help and obviously push the mission forward. Which actually that has continued to shape our thinking over the last couple of years. So that’s, and that was just one kind of piece of an overall conversation, which I really appreciated.

Rich Birch — Tell us about some of the other churches that you ended up highlighting throughout the book. Is there any others that stick out for you, Ryan?

Warren Bird — Well, before Ryan answers, let me just brag on you guys at Liquid Church. That was so, you were in the survey and then we kind of picked the top 10% of churches and tried to visit different ones. And that was you.

Warren Bird — And I have to say, I’ve sat in a lot of church senior leadership team meetings and yours was distinctly different in the engagement level, in the buy-in, in the use of different people’s talents, in the humility that you expressed, in the esprit de corps. So I just wanna cheer that that was a great day for us too, to be able to learn from you. And you’re really different from a lot of churches that really struggle.

Warren Bird — And I say all that to say, it can be different. Churches can incrementally come to that kind of thing where team members look forward to interacting with each other and taking another step in their journey of leading God’s church right.

Ryan Hartwig — Yeah, yeah, two quick thoughts there. And I don’t remember if we actually named these churches in the book or not, so I won’t use their names. But two, I think, two kind of senior pastor profiles a little bit in terms of how they have tried to build these teams.

Ryan Hartwig — One of the pastors realized that his predecessor was this very, very organized, organized guy who would have, in any sort of an event, would kind of pull out the color-coded spreadsheets and assign everyone a task and so on. Everyone would just kind of march out those orders. And as he took over the church, he really realized that was preventing, even though the team was able to kind of be cohesive in the sense of marching out orders, it was really preventing all the team members from offering their best to the team.

Ryan Hartwig — And so he realized, okay, I really have to back off a little bit on some of this direction that I’m offering. And so he stepped back.

Ryan Hartwig — I thought that was kind of, that’s a little bit different than a senior pastor at another church, church down in Tennessee. As we listen to that pastor, he’s really realized that his gifts really don’t reside in kind of managing day-to-day. And I think a lot of senior pastors have realized that. They don’t reside there.

Ryan Hartwig — And so he’s really handed that off to other folks, lets his executive pastor really manage the leadership team. But he said, it’s really important for me to stay engaged in the leadership activities.

Ryan Hartwig — And so there was a time when there was kind of a hole in their small groups ministry. This was a very large church, about 5,000 people. And rather, there was a hole there for small groups. He said, okay, I’m going to take on small groups myself for this season of time.

Ryan Hartwig — And so he led the small group ministry as a senior pastor of the church in every facet, where I think it was about six months to a year. I think it’s such a great indication of what healthy teams do, is that leaders say, okay, what is it that the team needs right now? And I’ll go ahead and provide that.

Ryan Hartwig — That senior pastor realized, okay, the best thing for me to do is to give up some of this more visionary kinds of things to others. And let me step into this place and provide leadership to our small group ministry in a way that he was kind of accountable to the other team members for small group ministry during that time.

Ryan Hartwig — I thought those two were just great profiles of, I think, the humility, of the thoughtfulness, of the strategicness, of how do we adjust things that we’re really able to lead collaboratively.

Warren Bird — Let me give one more example, if I could. Journey Church, Newark, Delaware. Ryan and I did separate visits on that. When Ryan was there, he captured the senior pastor, Mark Johnson, saying, you know, I used to lead the church, but now I lead the team as they lead the church.

Warren Bird — And so on my visit, I met some of those team members, and I thought, you know, here’s a 30-year-old woman who’s overseeing kind of the assimilation piece, the welcome, how do we get you connected. And she has been really mentored and given challenges and invited to rise to the challenge, and I thought that just being one case of, okay, Pastor Mark, if that’s the kind of people you’re leading and they’re rising to the challenge, you are just multiplying yourself all over.

Rich Birch — Absolutely.

Ryan Hartwig — Yeah.

Rich Birch — Yeah, one of the things I’ve found in just our little world is, as we take new ground as a church, so I’m a part of that four-part leadership team, senior leadership team, whatever we want to call it. As we take new ground, by definition, we’re moving into areas that it’s not really clear whose responsibility it is, that there are these areas where we’re doing new things, we’re trying to innovate, we’re trying to make something happen, and it kind of requires all of us on that team. We all have to pitch in, we all, you know, Tim from a teaching vision point of view, he’s got to talk about it, Dave from kind of a finance point of view, we’ve got to figure out how are the teams going to plug into this whole thing.

Rich Birch — And so you do end up having, and in fact, I just had one this week with Dave, where there’s this like, okay, so what part of this is yours and what part of it is mine? Like, and, because we don’t want to step on each other’s toes, we’re not trying to like, you know, offend each other, but we have to kind of be cognizant of talking through the actual process of how we’re going to lead, not just go ahead and lead. Like, how do we actually, you know, how are we going to make this thing happen?

Rich Birch — Because there’s enough potential there to rub each other the wrong way, which is, for me, is exciting, because I’m like, hey, we must be trying to do things that, you know, that aren’t just natural, don’t just happen, you know, independently, so, which is kind of cool, so.

Ryan Hartwig — I love the fact, Rich, that you’re having to have those conversations. One of the other things we found is that, is that churches that tend to have these stronger leadership teams are also facing challenges related to growth.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ryan Hartwig — And I think that it’s tempting to kind of explain that, well, we have a good team, and so, of course, we’re growing. I would explain it the other way. I think it’s that we’re growing, which is forcing us to have a good team.

Ryan Hartwig — Like, in your case, right, because you’re growing, there’s this unknown stuff that’s out there causing you and Dave to sit down and have conversations that you would otherwise not have to have.

Rich Birch — Yeah.

Ryan Hartwig — Now, because you and Dave are working through these things and making decisions together, and you’re making decisions that are benefiting from both of your perspectives, right, you’re growing in your capacity as a team, which is then, of course, fueling the church’s ability to grow and so on.

Ryan Hartwig — So I love the fact that you’re pursuing this new territory, and you realize the only way we can actually do this well is if we do this together as a team, which is one of the things we found, is that the best teams tend to make decisions together rather than to have individuals who make these really key strategic decisions, but instead they do it together as a team.

Rich Birch — Yeah, there was this moment a few years ago where, there was a distinct conversation where Tim, our lead pastor, who is our lead pastor, there isn’t, although we lead together with the four of us at the end of the day, he’s our lead pastor, he’s the founder of the church, and there was a real active conversation where there was some consideration of maybe we should hire or identify one of the four of us as kind of the second in command person, and that, from his perspective, and at the end of the day, he’s the only one that can make that decision. That is one of those things where it’s like, we can give our input, but at the end of the day, you’ve gotta figure out what you’re the most comfortable with, and we’re gonna talk it through, and there was this decision point where he said, no, I actually, and we obviously affirmed it in the end, we were like, no, I like the creative tension that it causes that we work together as a group rather than let’s make really super clear lines on everything.

Rich Birch — Now, functionally, what that means is we end up talking a lot. You end up having a lot of conversations about things, but I think the Lord honors that, and I think it’s a positive way to move forward as we try to grow and develop and try new things. Because the reality of it is, if you’re a growing church, a lot of times, you’re in the largest church you’ve ever been in, let alone worked in the largest church you’ve ever been in, and so it’s all unknown territory for most of the people around the room.

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Rich Birch — All right, fantastic stuff there from Ryan. You really should pick up that book. His and Warren’s book is a must read. And that’s really the secret of this episode. What we’re doing is pointing back to content that is so, we think, foundational. We think it’s super important for you. In fact, they’re things that we come back to time and again, and this next segment is one of those.

Rich Birch — We’re doing this to celebrate Executive Pastor. Just drop by unseminary.com. Pick up this season’s copy. It’s all about staff issues.

Rich Birch — In this next segment, you’ll hear from Ken McAnulty. He is the executive pastor at Arise Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And listen, Ken unpacks what they call their onboarding week: a super intentional, high impact way that sets new hires up to thrive.

Rich Birch — It’s not just about orientation. Lots of us have orientation. Tell people where the bathroom is. It’s about shaping culture from day one.

Rich Birch — If you’ve ever wondered, really, how do we start our staff? Well, this is going to be super helpful for you. This clip gives you some practical inspiration with a strong dose of vision. Let’s tune in.

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Rich Birch — Onboarding staff. You know, I think as we hire staff, I think oftentimes, at least I know I do, and I think there’s a lot of friends who would be in a similar boat.

Rich Birch — We identify a problem area that we’re looking for someone to solve, and so we’re like, okay, we really need to, maybe the area’s grown, or like there’s a part of our church that just is not going well, and so we’re like, we really need to get some more time associated with this, and so we hire some staff. And we spend all this time, effort, and energy, money, to get them, and then they arrive, and we just want them to start solving problems. But getting those first couple days, weeks, months can be really tough to kind of, what do we do, how do we onboard people? What does that look like for you?

Ken McAnulty — That’s a great question.

Rich Birch — How have, you know, what would be some of the, or why is that such a tension? Maybe we’ll start with the tension piece. Why is that such a tough time? Why is that such a tough place when we first have new staff arriving?

Ken McAnulty — Well, Rich, I know that many of your listeners have been through that transition point, and I’ve been through that transition point, and man, it can be such an awkward time. This moment where, you know, like you said, all this time, and energy, and effort, and money even is spent on bringing this person in, and then so often, those folks are just released to the wild and expected to do ministry without an understanding of really what’s going on. And really, we discovered that it creates this awkwardness, this weirdness.

Ken McAnulty — You know, one of my staff told me this. One of the weirdest feelings is to be brought into a place with an unspoken culture, an unspoken taboo, and unspoken jokes, and have no idea what things you’re gonna step on. And we really felt that tension. We really felt that problem.

Ken McAnulty — And so our lead pastor, Pastor Brent, looked at me, and one of my counterparts, my co-workers, Tina Blunt, and said, I would like for you guys to really kind of develop an onboarding. I don’t know what that looks like, and so we just began to dream, and we said, you know, well, what would it look like if we got to come onto, you know, a great team? What would we want that to look like? What do we want people to understand? What do we want their first week experience to look like?

Ken McAnulty — And so we really just began to tailor this one-week experience that we call our onboarding week that really helps resolve those problems, and sets the pace for our staff. Because what we really wanna do is we want to, we wanna set a healthy pattern and pace so that when they get done with that one week, they feel like they can run, and there are less hindrances for them.

Ken McAnulty — One of the things that we’ve just kind of discovered is the pace that you set the first week is the pace that they’re gonna live by for the first year.

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good.

Ken McAnulty — And too often, there are churches who don’t set a pace, and so then they wonder why their staff are not doing what they want them to do. Well, I think it’s our fault. We’ve gotta take that responsibility.

Rich Birch — That’s so good, I love that. What a great word, hey, this pace that we said at the beginning really is how they run, how they’ll, you know, how they’ll be a part of it. So let’s pull that apart a little bit.

Rich Birch — When you think about, I don’t know, well, the best way to do this, the first day, maybe even pre-first day, how are you setting that pace well? How are we kind of setting up this conversation in the earliest moments? What’s that look like?

Ken McAnulty — No, it’s a great question. You know, some of the first things that we wanna do is we wanna make sure that before they get there their first day, that we have things set up for them. We don’t wait for them to arrive to begin to set things up.

Ken McAnulty — So we wanna make sure that we have a dedicated space. We wanna make sure we communicate with them about office furniture. You know, we have a budget set aside for them to get office furniture, and we talk to them about pieces that we may have already that could be adopted into their office.

Ken McAnulty — And so we set up a basic office setup for them. We make sure that we order their computers. So that means we have to communicate. Hey, do you want a Mac, a PC? What do you want on it? And then we put together a communication binder that’s ready for them on their desk.

Ken McAnulty — And one of the cool things that we do, and this has been communicated to us by the staff that just kind of came organically, is we kind of do some research on them. And so we find maybe their favorite song or favorite type of music, and we make sure that’s playing on their computer the day that they come in their first day of work, which is kind of one of those really cool things. We try not to be too stalkerish with it, but, you know, we wanna make sure that…

Rich Birch — How are you finding out their favorite song? What do you, are you, do you like a form ahead of time or like, what’s that look like?

Ken McAnulty — So it really depends on the person. Sometimes we’ll reach out to the spouse who is, and we, you know, we kind of dig into that because their spouse oftentimes loves to have, you know, they want, they’re invested in their spouse being, having a great first day experience. And so we include them in on that.

Ken McAnulty — Sometimes we’ll do a little research on social media, a little social media stalking we can find out there because some of that stuff is listed on Facebook and other social apps.

Rich Birch — I love it. That’s so good. A little bit of research goes a long way. That’s a great thing.

Ken McAnulty — It really does.

Rich Birch — It’s amazing how the, we were joking earlier, we knew we were gonna head in this direction. I was talking with some friends recently about their first day experience. And I was like, hey, what was your worst first day experience? It’s amazing how quickly those conversations come up and simple stuff, even just the computer having, you know, so many people in that circle were saying, wow, like I showed up and there was like no computer there. Or like they found a computer under a back desk somewhere and like threw it on my table. You know, it’s like some terrible thing. It’s amazing how that’s, that’s incredible.

Rich Birch — Well, how do we go maybe beyond? So I love the physical setup stuff. I think that’s fantastic. What are we doing to kind of drive maybe a little bit deeper into what they can expect to be as a part of the team, as a part of, you know, what it means to be a part of the team.

Ken McAnulty — Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, it’s funny, this conversation that you and I’ve had have helped what we call put clothes on the baby that we birthed.

Rich Birch — Sure.

Ken McAnulty — And so we really have been able to kind of narrow down some things that we really wanna give to people in that first week that we really wanna impart to our staff. And so we discovered four things that we really wanna impart. And since I’m a preacher by nature, I did four C’s, you know, cause that’s how we work.

Ken McAnulty — It wasn’t three, so I didn’t get the whole preacher thing in there. So we really want people to walk away from that first week with a sense of culture, a sense of what am I walking into? What’s OK? What’s taboo?

Ken McAnulty — We want them to walk away with a sense of care, that they’re more, about more than what they do. We want them to walk away with a sense of competency, of an understanding of how they can be successful and a sense of course, which way do they go?

Ken McAnulty — So ideally after that first week, they’re gonna feel like they can run. Now we’re not gonna solve everything that first week, but those four big areas are the things that we’re trying to solve. And we did things intentionally, unknowing beforehand, because we were just creating the baby, but really intentionally to kind of resolve these four issues.

Rich Birch — Love it. So let’s, I love, so first of all, preacher at heart, love that. Let’s walk through those. Let’s talk about maybe each one of those. Culture first. Man, this is such an important piece of the puzzle.

Rich Birch — I love that you’re saying like, hey, what’s okay, what’s taboo? That’s an interesting way to think about it. What are you doing to ensure that people are kind of onboarding with the culture?

Ken McAnulty — No, it’s a great question. First of all, we think that culture is way more important than competency. In fact, if you look at great organizations like Chick-fil-A and we’re associated with a great supermarket down here in Florida called Publix, they do a great job with this type of stuff.

Ken McAnulty — Those kinds of organizations say that culture trumps competency just every day of the week. And so we wanna make sure that we communicate that well. And so we give our pastor two hours to take that staff member to lunch and to walk them through the history and the story of our church, to walk them through the future vision.

Ken McAnulty — One of the really cool things that he does, and I don’t wanna spoil this for any future employees, but one of the cool things that he does is he takes them out to a local highway right by and really begins to talk about the percentage of people driving by that are not saved, that don’t know Jesus. And that’s the mission of the church, just to really kind of get their eyes in the right place. And then we take 30 minutes at a time and we set them down in front of the staff that they’re gonna work with and allow them to hear the stories of those staff members, which is really cool.

Ken McAnulty — In fact, the staff that we’ve onboarded have said that that is the most impactful thing that we do this week, is to set them down in front of those people. One of our staff members said it like this. He said, it humanizes the staff and creates open doors for deep conversations later.

Ken McAnulty — Another staff, I’m giving you quotes because I did my research. Another staff said: the intentional getting to know each other faster rather than hoping it occurs over time. And so it’s this intentionality of saying, hey, listen, we’re gonna plug you into relationships because those relationships will communicate culture.

Ken McAnulty — And as part of those 30 minute stories, what we tell our staff is, tell them why you love working at Arise. Because oftentimes the why somebody loves working at Arise surrounds the culture and it surrounds the mission success. That’s why people love working at.

Ken McAnulty — So when we allow our staff to communicate that, it just, man, it increases the impact of our culture. And then we do simple things like reviewing core values and proverbs and things like that. And then we do a couple of really cool things. We do, and this is gonna sound a little funny, but we do a truth or dare lunch with our staff.

Rich Birch — Truth or dare lunch? Things get spicy right off the top.

Ken McAnulty — They do, they do. We do that the last day of that week, but we really do that to allow some authenticity there and to really open up the door.

Ken McAnulty — What we’ve done at the beginning of the week is our staff has been authentic with this new staff person. And then at the end of the week, it’s really their opportunity to be authentic back. And man, when they walk out of that moment, they walk out of that moment, not feeling like they’re an outsider, but now all of a sudden they’re an insider because now they’re inside jokes that we all have together.

Ken McAnulty — And so it’s not just about, well, I’m trying to find my way to fit into this team. Now I fit because I have the inside jokes with them. And then the last thing in this culture component that we do is we have a document that’s called our Last Day at Arise document, where we ask them to fill that out.

Ken McAnulty — And then their last day of that week, they check in with their direct up and they go through that document. And what that document does is it really helps them to intentionally think about how they will be known at Arise, what they’re gonna be known for, who they’re gonna be. Because when we start at the end and we build a culture looking at the end, we can be intentional about that.

Ken McAnulty — So if I say, I wanna be somebody who’s kind, who that when I leave the staff say, I was always listening to them, that empowers me to now be a listener.

Rich Birch — Oh gosh – this is so good.

Ken McAnulty — And so we wanna be really intentional about allowing those folks to really kind of create their own path in our organization and really build those strengths.

Rich Birch — Oh, I love this. Now you gave me a sneak peek at this document. Would it be okay with you if we included this in the show notes for people?

Ken McAnulty — Absolutely.

Rich Birch — I think this, to be honest, friends, this is one of those things, you should just rip this thing off. It’s a word doc and you should put your church name into it. If that’s okay, Ken.

Ken McAnulty — Absolutely.

Rich Birch — This would be a great thing for even to kick off the new year as a staff team and say, let’s actually think about this and then let’s build it into our onboarding. I just love that.

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Rich Birch — All right, fantastic. Love that. We also have got that in the show notes. You’re gonna wanna pick that up.

Rich Birch — Okay, so the first, the last segment, not the first segment, the last segment, I wanna remind you, drop by unseminary.com, pick up this month’s edition, this season’s edition of Executive Pastor. You’re gonna love it. It’s free there. Just give us your email. We’ll email it over to you.

Rich Birch — And this last clip from just this last spring, it’s been an instant classic. Diana Rush from Eastside Church unpacks the unique challenges and challenges and opportunities of middle level management in a large multi-site church. This really was a fantastic episode, super practical. She provides you some great wisdom on how to manage both upward to senior leadership and downward to direct reports while trusting both sides.

Rich Birch — It’s really a fantastic clip. So listen to that, drop by unSeminary. Hope today’s episode has been inspiring to you. We’ll just end with this clip. I won’t be coming back at the end of this, but thanks so much. Thanks for being on this journey. Take care, friends.

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Rich Birch — And one of these things that we’re gonna really dig into today is this whole idea of mid-level management in large churches. And this brings some really unique complexities. And we wanna unpack those for folks today.

Rich Birch — Talk to me about the tension between managing both upwards, so like executive pastor, senior pastor, but then also downward, direct reports, campus teams. Why are there, and again, I’m sure you never have any struggles at Eastside, but why do other churches struggle with that? Why is that? Why is this a common thing that we see? It’s a struggle. t’s hard to do that, to manage those tensions.

Diana Rush — I think some of the tension, it first starts with self. Like I always say, you have to start with the source material, your own person. And before you can lead others, you have to really understand yourself and be able to lead yourself well.

Diana Rush — And so it’s really getting to know who you are, who you’re made of. I love the illustration of, you have like an orange. And if an orange is squeezed from the top and bottom, it’s eventually going to burst. And what’s gonna come out is orange juice. It’s the same on the outside as the inside.

Diana Rush — And oftentimes in management roles, we are gonna be squeezed from the top. We’ve got the top coming down on us. Like we’ve got goals. We’ve got things to achieve. We’ve got expectations, but then we’ve got the expectations of those beneath us.

Diana Rush — People that maybe they’re struggling in their own journey or whatever it is, everyone’s wanting something from you. You’re gonna get squeezed in management. And if you are presenting this, like I am perfectly okay on the outside, that I’m not letting God form me on the inside, what’s gonna come out is gonna be really obvious.

Diana Rush — So if you’re struggling with anger, it’s gonna come out when you get squeezed. If you’re struggling with a multitude of issues, those will all reveal themselves. And so it starts really with like being good about making sure that you’re pursuing Christlikeness in your own life, that you’re actually asking, hey, Jesus, I wanna lead like you led others and I wanna shepherd my teams.

Diana Rush — So I think that’s where it starts. And then secondly, I would say it’s about building trust, both with those above you and those below you. If you are known for success, people will expect success. But if you are constantly making mistakes or going outside the lines, going rogue, then you’re never gonna build that trust and you’re not going to be handed things to further your path, or even you’re just gonna feel that upward tension of being micromanaged, right? No one likes to be micromanaged, but how do you get out of being micromanaged? You build trust.

Diana Rush — And then you have honest conversations with those above you. And so that, it’s a little bit of boldness as well. You have to not be afraid to ask hard questions. But again, when you have a trust in a relationship, I know for myself, I can talk to my executive pastor who I report to about nearly anything because we have this trust that we’ve built. Even before I started in this role reporting to him, I had already had an existing relationship with him where I felt like I could go to him if I had questions, concerns. So I had been building that trust even before I stepped into this role.

Diana Rush — And then the same thing with the staff below you. My team trusts that I’m gonna advocate for them, that I’m not going to overstep them, that I’m gonna let them lead and them shine. And so we can work together to make something great, make their plans into realities because I’m gonna sell it.

Diana Rush — I look at myself, middle management, I’m a salesperson. I’m gonna take their ideas and then I’m gonna sell it upwards and I’m gonna craft it into something so that I can convince everybody else that this is a great idea and we should try it out. So.

Rich Birch — Let’s double click on that idea of the salesperson because you captured their a tension that I’ve seen, I’ve been in, I have felt as a leader in this kind of middle management is like my senior pastor, the person that’s leading the organization, they’re getting filtered information and it’s frankly, it’s being filtered by me. I’m telling them this is what we see happening. Here’s what’s going on.

Rich Birch — Now, vice versa, the people who report to me, I’m filtering what my senior pastor would like them to do. And I’m helping kind of translate the vision of the church. I’m leading at the vision, at the intersection of vision and execution. So like, I’m trying to translate that.

Rich Birch — If I’m just selling, there’s an opportunity there to break trust because it could be like, I’m gonna just send, it’s all rainbows going up, rainbows and unicorns. Everything’s amazing. Everything’s going great. I tell my senior leader that and then vice versa. I can just report all good news to my direct reports.

Rich Birch — How do I avoid that tension and make sure that the true information, that good feedback’s building, that we’re building trust and that it’s built on, yeah, actually care for each other and reality, not just kind of what everybody wants to hear, which I think is a tension in these middle, mid-level roles.

Diana Rush — Yeah, so I’m just gonna say unpopular opinion, but we’re all in sales, and that’s just the reality. We’re all selling something, whether you’re selling an idea or yourself. But I think A, you have to be 100% sold out for the vision.

Rich Birch — That’s good.

Diana Rush — So we’ve got the best product on earth, right? We are, you know, we’re representing Jesus. We’re representing eternal life and transformation and the hope that you can only find in Christ. And so right there, as long as your heart is connected to the vision of your senior pastor, it’s like, that’s not that difficult.

Diana Rush — Now, when you are presenting ideas, whether it’s a vision that your senior pastor is saying, hey, I have this idea of something I wanna do. You have to first wrap your mind around it. You have to get in with the vision, but it’s okay, in my opinion, no matter which way you’re going, to plant a naysayer. You have to think through all the complaints that might come or all the people will, but what about this? And so you have to be willing to prepare.

Diana Rush — And so honestly, I prepare for any presentation or any conversation, probably a little too much. One of my top strength finder is communication. And so for me, it’s just a natural thing that I talk my way through any scenario and any conversation. But it does allow me to walk into any situation prepared to explain.

Diana Rush — So whether it’s, Gene Appel, my senior pastor, has an idea for an all churchwide initiative that we’re going to be doing. We’re actually doing it right now. And I’m gonna be leading teams for this. I have to think, okay, well, what are all the pitfalls? What are the things that are going to cost us time? What are the negotiating tactics I need to have?

Diana Rush — So if I need my entire staff to now show up on a Wednesday night, what am I going to have to give them in return? And where can I give them space in their schedule so that they’re excited to be here and they don’t feel like it’s a burden. And so it’s that way I’m selling it.

Diana Rush — But then maybe Greg Curtis has an idea. He wants to get rid of our four week next steps program and move to one week first step.

Rich Birch — Yes, yes.

Diana Rush — And so he’s gonna change our entire assimilation program. Well, I mean, for something like that, you have to really get prepared because I know I’m about to take a group of people on a journey who aren’t there with us already. I’m going to have to help some people who have long held sacred cows. Well, we always done it this way and release it.

Rich Birch — Yes.

Diana Rush — And so, honestly, it’s in your prep work, but it’s in your constant communication. You have to, again, you have to be sold out and believe in what the person wants and have those questions. I mean, Greg and I, we would sit in my office and talk over and over and over again about what changes he was gonna make because I have to be prepared for any questions from an executive pastor, senior pastor, even our director of finance, all these roles, I have to be able to go in and say, that’s a really good question and let’s process that together.

Diana Rush — And it’s never, as a salesperson or just anyone in leadership, you never wanna have a hard no and you never wanna be unbending. You wanna be flexible…

Rich Birch — Oh that’s good. That’s good.

Diana Rush — …and be able to receive the feedback and then say, okay, that’s a really good thought. And you wanna make the person feel heard at all times because that’s part of the process. It’s never a hard line. It’s never, you have to do this. Let’s talk about this. Let’s make it a conversation.

Diana Rush — Because I want senior leadership, but I also want those reporting to me to have ownership over any idea and any direction that we go, which means I have to let them speak into the plan and speak into the idea so that they do feel that sense of like, okay, I can be a part of this. I can do this. And I think this is gonna be a success.