Hiring Lessons pt. 3

One of my favorite books that has helped me a ton in ministry is Courageous Leadership by Bill Hybels. In the book Bill talks about hiring staff members based on three qualities: character, chemistry and competency. Before we hire someone at People's Church, we look for the 3 C's. Here's how the 3 C's play out at People's Church.

1. Character: We want to know that they are a person of their word during the interview process. When they say that they will send their resume on a certain day, do they? When they say they will call us at a certain time, do they? We want to know if the little things matter to them. We want to find out if they have good references from their previous employers, co-workers and friends. We find out about their character by listening to them talk about their walk with Christ, family, mistakes, job and their daily life. We try our best to use discernment and intuition.

2. Chemistry: We hire people we like. If we don't like a person, we will not hire them. We put the person and their family in multiple environments to see if there is chemistry with our team. Our team is very fun loving and likes to laugh a lot, so we make sure we don't get a “stuck in the mud” person on our staff.

We also make sure the person shares our DNA as a church. If a person doesn't embrace our vision, core values and philosophy of ministry, we will not hire them. We prefer to hire from within our church because they normally already embrace the direction our church is headed in.

3. Competency: We hire people who are hard workers. Lazy people will not make it on our staff. We hire people who are self-starters. We hire people who are hungry to learn, grow and change with the organization. Where we are today as a church, we have to hire leaders not doers. We try our best to hire a person who can manage leaders and large groups of people and not a person who wants to do everything themselves.