Recently, I was asked to describe briefly what staff development looked like at our church. After taking a few minutes to sketch out a response it seemed like something that might benefit others so I took a little more time to do this well. I don’t believe this is perfect. I’m sure that there is more that I could and should be doing, or things that I could be doing more effectively, but here is what it looks like in general right now. I’m 100% sure it will change. Here is a year in the life of staff development for me at Mosaic Church . . .

Big Group Level

Yearly Basis:

Staff Retreat

Each year, the staff team takes a retreat. The goals of this time are:

• Encourage the team with great teaching and worship that they don’t have to do anything to make happen. Each weekend our team works tirelessly to make church happen for others. And even though we require everyone to actually attend one gathering, sometimes it can be hard to turn your mind off in the middle of the craziness. So at our staff retreat, I bring in an outside speaker and an outside worship band. I even hire a guy from another church to run Media and Sound so that our tech team does not have to.
• Have fun as a team through shared meals, games and simple relaxation in between a morning and evening session. As our team grows, this concentrated time away becomes super important in relationship building and keeping.
• Re-Orient the team through re-casting vision and helping everyone understand what we are all trying to accomplish for the gospel.
• Thank the team with time away from work and even a small gift. (Last time it was a custom metal SIGG water bottle with the Mosaic Logo on it and handmade metal luggage tags for travel.)

Christmas Party

Each December, Our LP and his wife host a killer Christmas Party for all the staff and spouses at their home (I’m in charge of the drinks.) There is little, to no agenda. It’s just a fun time to be together. We usually do some sort of game driven gift exchange. Each director level person takes time to publicly praise individuals on his or her team and gives them a gift. (We leverage AMEX points to buy Christmas gifts for the staff.)

Conferences For The Whole Team

Because Orlando has such extensive conference facilities and tourism, many national church leader conferences choose to have their big events here. Sometimes we participate in one as a team for a couple of days. This cuts out all the extra costs of a conference such as airfare, car rentals, and extra meals.

Fun Days

Once or twice a year, we take the team out for a day of agenda-free fun. We try to plug this into a time when we think the team will be in need of some connection and a break. Our last Fun Day was at the Kennedy Space Center last year. It tied in nicely to our story as a church that was about to “launch” into a whole new phase of life in our new building. Our next Fun Day will be in the middle of the busy Fall season.

Seminary Cost Offset

All of our staff and residents are offered the opportunity to go to Reformed Theological Seminary and only pay 1/3 of the cost. RTS has a program where, if the church pays a third and the student pays a third, then RTS will scholarship the last third. Currently, we have about 5 staff taking advantage of this opportunity.

Reading Week

Once a year in either January or February, the staff has what is called “Reading Week”. The idea here is that we cancel all normally scheduled meetings for departments or directors etc., and we keep our schedule as free as possible creating an extra 10-20 hours to do some reading on something that will grow us as a team. We don’t tell them what to read. We just tell them, “read those books you’ve been wanting to read to make you a better worship leader, kids ministry leader, etc.”  In addition to the developmental nature of the week, it sends a clear message to the team that we care about them and we trust them to figure out the best way to spend that time. It has become an important part of our yearly schedule.

Read the original article on Backstage Pastors HERE.