IAC is growing! And like all living things, our structures need to grow to support that increased life. Over the next few weeks, we’re publishing updates from our All-Church Gathering about how our structures are growing in several key areas: Generosity, Facility, Staffing, the Discipleship Pathway, and Conflict Response. We hope these give you insight into how our structures are strengthening: and how you can help!
From Pastor Ken:
The purpose of a staff isn’t to do the work of the church: it’s to equip and empower the whole church to do the ministry they’ve been given to do. That doesn’t mean, of course, that staff simply says “yes” to everything: there is real shepherding, tending, pruning, and aligning that is necessary to make sure we’re doing the work of the church “together.” But staff are, in a very real sense, the greenhouse-builders: they make it possible for others to grow in faith and then to tend to their specific plots of kingdom fruitfulness.
By God's grace, we’ve seen the gospel released at IAC in wider and deeper ways through the labors of this incredible team. And I’m so, so grateful to work alongside them as we do this together!
However, the kind of growth we’ve seen at IAC over the last season makes staffing the church appropriately a pretty hard job.
One challenge is simply hiring the correct number of staff. A healthy church needs an appropriate amount of staff presence to the congregation, avoiding both overstaffing (which is poor stewardship and ends up stifling congregants from using their gifts) and understaffing (which often results in frustration due to lack of availability of staff). Currently, according to most metrics, a church of our attendance should have around 12 FTE of staff to be healthy.
[Translation note: FTE is a bit of organization-speak - our apologies! 1 FTE = 1 Full-time equivalent. This could be one full-time employee, two half-time employees, four quarter-time employees, etc.]
But instead of 12 FTE, we currently have 9 FTE. Even if our current job searches are filled, we will only be at 10.25 FTE.
If those numbers have your head swimming, here’s the take-home: we currently need 2 to 3 more people on staff to have an appropriate amount of staff to be healthily present to the congregation and our ministries.
There are several reasons for this difficulty.
One is that finding people who desire to work for a church is becoming harder: almost all churches report this, across the country. Several of our positions have been open for months: one has even taken a year and still hasn’t been filled!
Another is that it’s simply hard to keep up with the kind of growth we’ve experienced, especially when you’re not just looking for someone to do a task. In these jobs, we’re not just looking to fill holes: we’re looking for leaders and shepherds and caring administrators, and we’re willing to wait for the right fit instead of grasping for something that might not be the best option!
Another reason is financial. As I noted in the Strengthening Generosity post several weeks ago, we don’t currently have the funds to jump to the appropriate levels of staffing. Greater generosity to our General Fund (you can always give here) will be needed to make this possible.
People experience this gap in staffing in a variety of ways. Some are concerned about certain ministries. Others worry about the availability of care if they need it.
One of the great gifts of IAC is the absolute richness of the lay leadership we have among us! The staff is constantly amazed by the giftedness, dedication, and wisdom that IAC congregants have to offer, and we are growing in our ability to equip them to serve the body even in those staffing gaps.
For example, our Care teams have grown significantly over the past year, and we are more equipped than ever to be present if you’re in need of help. Please reach out to connect@springsiac.org for any help you might need: our church is here for you!
In terms of our ministries, most have always been led by lay people and then overseen by staff. Alpha, classes, prayer, spiritual formation, global mission, and local mission are just some of the teams currently led by congregants. As we grow in staffing, we don’t want to lose this culture of lay leadership and responsibility: we simply want to further unleash it!
When others recognize the gap in staffing, they think first of the well-being of the staff. Are they being cared for? Are they getting enough rest?
Caring for staff is about a lot more than money: but money is still very important! IAC has competitive salary rates and extremely generous benefits, as well as staff development funds that can be used for education, counseling, retreats, or anything else a staff member finds helpful for the health of their soul. These funds are even available for our volunteer clergy members, and Church Council is currently re-evaluating these benefits to strengthen them even further.
Also important are the rhythms of rest we encourage. From day one, every IAC staff member receives four weeks of paid vacation, in addition to various holidays throughout the year. Full-time staff are also eligible for a three-month sabbatical every 5–7 years of ministry. Pastor Daniel is taking his first sabbatical this summer, and we’re thrilled he gets this time of refreshment. We also strongly emphasize getting at least one day of rest each week, and give staff flexibility to find the day that works for them and their schedules.
However, even if we do the best we can to care for the staff, the fact remains that we simply need more staff to share the load and increase our presence with the people God is drawing. We are thrilled at how some of our newest hires are helping us do that.
Carissa Niemyer graciously joined our team as our half-time Liturgical Ministries Coordinator earlier this spring. Carissa brings lots of relevant experience from her co-ownership of Story Coffee and her years of serving moms as a doula. She has been such a gift in helping us “set the table” each and every week for IAC to feast on the goodness of Christ.
Joy Nelson stepped out of an interim role into our permanent Kid & Student Ministry Coordinator position. Her graciousness and kindness are a tremendous gift in the midst of our blooming Kid & Student populations!
Long-time IAC’er Josh Butrin has also joined our team, stepping in as our second Care Pastor (alongside Dn. Amanda Gerber). Josh is currently in IAC’s ordination process, and we’re excited about the unique gifts and history with IAC that he brings to the role. He will be available for Pastoral Care meetings about 10 hrs/week, which we know will be a gift to many.
We still have several key roles that we are actively working to fill.
One of these is a Holistic Safety Coordinator, who will help us strengthen and refine our policies and procedures related to abuse prevention, misconduct reporting, and response. This role will also provide pastoral guidance to individuals as they navigate the reporting process. We are currently revising this job description in light of recent developments within our Diocese (our broader family of Anglican churches) and plan to re-release it soon.
The most significant open position remains our Student Pastor. This role is essential for increasing consistent presence among our growing student community (7th–12th grade), while also creating the capacity for Pastor Aaron to more fully step into his unique role as Executive Pastor of Ministries. You can find out more about the role at springsiac.org/jobs: please forward it on to those you know who might be interested!
We’ve had lots of interest in the Student Pastor position, but over the last 10 months we haven’t found quite the right fit. This is not unusual, as the Student Pastor role is widely recognized as the hardest to fill on a church staff team. Many church staffing search firms don’t even try to fill these roles anymore because they are so difficult to find! However, we have a dynamite team of staff, adult leaders, and students engaging in this work of interviewing candidates and discerning whether someone is a fit. Pray for great applicants and clear discernment for the hiring team!
However, even once these roles are hired, we still need to continue bolstering our team. As noted above, even if the above roles were hired tomorrow, we’d still be 1.5 FTE behind in our staffing.
As noted in our Strengthening Generosity blog, we’re not yet financially ready to hire the full number of hours needed (give here), but we are actively planning what comes next.
For one, we need more presence to the ministries across the Discipleship Pathway. Groups Pastor Kylie Alsin has done an incredible job with Life Groups and Befriending, but we need more presence to our Call Ministries (including Alpha), our other Form ministries beyond Life Groups, and the ways we are Sent together (both within the church and into the community).
We are also rapidly outgrowing the number of hours devoted to Administration and Communication. Shawna is our fantastic full-time Administrator, but we have more than a full-time role can do! And the breadth of work to communicate everything happening to those within IAC, all while telling our story to the broader community, requires more than the half-time hours we are currently able to offer Jacoby.
Pray for generosity to continue welling up so these kinds of additions can happen sooner rather than later. And as you feel led, take a “next step” in your own giving to help make these new hires a reality. As we talked about in the Strengthening Generosity blog, to truly thrive we need new givers to become recurring givers, recurring givers to increase their giving 1% of their income, and for benefactors to sacrificially invest in our kingdom work.
Next time you interact with a staff person, give them a hearty thank you and ask for ways that you can encourage them in their work. Often, understanding their limits and giving grace for the inevitable “misses” are some of the greatest gifts you can offer!
May God give us what we need, when we need it. May we see more staff raised up to “equip God’s people for works of service” (Eph. 4:12), so that “speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Eph. 4:15-16).
What a gift it is to grow up into Christ - together!
In expectancy for the fullness,
Pastor Ken