5 Ways to Determine Which Leader Should Get the FIRST Resident
There are several factors that make launching a church residency program difficult. Which area of your church should get the first resident and who should be the boss are some of the first questions we get.
Help! Suddenly everyone on our staff wants a resident…who should get the first one?
It’s great for a staff team to respond to the vision casting of why a leadership residency is essential. After a season of talking about it, it can be common for suddenly everyone to hop on the residency bus! But who should get the first one?
Here are a few guiding principles we’ve learned (sometimes the hard way!) with the hundred+ launches that we’ve done over the last five years:
THE FIRST ONE IS THE HARDEST. Much like launching a campus, the first resident is the toughest because everyone is learning. The first one is also critical for success because those who make decisions about where to allocate critical budget dollars, and time resources, will be more receptive to resident numbers 2,3,4,5 if the first goes well. With that in mind keep in mind:
START WITH YOUR BEST DEVELOPER. A normal thought that we all have is to give a resident to a certain staff member who is struggling to recruit, build teams, and who needs the most help. But instead, we coach leaders to look around at their staff who have shown the most evidence and/or promise of being a developer. Who has built the best volunteer teams, who has helped a volunteer become a leader, or has a volunteer leader become a core member of your church? Give the first resident to your strongest staff leader. Of course, address the weak link on your team, but use a different tool than a residency launch. Remember this is more for the resident than for us at the start.
START WITH A GROWTH-MINDED STAFF LEADER. One of the best ways to grow a leader to the next level is to give them a resident to coach and lead. We hear over and over that the act of weekly one on ones, monthly coaching from Lp, and talking about soft skills actually does as much for the staff leader (the boss) as it does for the resident. Don’t start with a staff leader who has resisted your attempts at leadership development. Do start with the staff leader who is looking for something next-level. Think about the leader who has read all of your books, has attended every conference, drinks in content weekly on leadership development, and has put it into practice. Leading a resident could take their personal leadership development to entirely new levels.
THINK YOUTH. If your resident is a traditional 20 - 25-year-old, you have to give some thought to the age of the boss. While we don’t want to be accused of agism, you do have to at least think about how wide the generational gap will be between the resident and the boss. This is NOT the end-all-deal-breaker and we’ve all known people who transcend their age and generational stereotypes. If you have someone like this on your team then that is awesome; however, these gems are rare.
CONSIDER THE JOB. We learned early to stay away from undefined “pastoral residency” job descriptions for most residents. We want the resident to “feel the weight” of a ministry in the first 90 days. The best way to do this is to have them engaged in some level of volunteer recruitment and team building. Consider those areas of your church where 52 weeks a year someone is responsible for a team to show up. Think about ministries around ministry areas like kids, students, production, worship, and guest services…steer clear of adult ministries, unstructured care ministries, and something called “pastoral ministries.” Hold those residency opportunities for the future when you have proven your church is a teaching church.
PS (this is free and controversial for sure) Most Mdiv Seminary grads need to be embedded in this way. Most have mastered studying and teaching and are at ground zero in actually leading anything.
CONSIDER THE BOSS/RESIDENT RELATIONSHIP. We dive deeply into work history stories and personality tests for residency candidates. Consider these things when you are picking the first boss too. Don’t assume just because they’ve worked well to this point that they’ll be a good fit with a residency candidate. Dig in to enneagram, DiSC, Strengths, Thinking Wavelengths, or whatever tests you use to determine cultural fit between a boss and a down line report.
Do all you can to ensure that the first residency is a success! We are helping churches all over the country launch church leadership residency well, and we would love to help you do this as well. You don’t have to be fully confident and ready…you just have to start.