“An employer who hires any fool that comes along is only hurting everyone concerned.”

Prov. 26:10(Good News Bible)

A recurring theme of the last few weeks for me has been the idea of creating healthy cultures by careful selection in building ministry/leadership teams.  In the above passage, the Hebrew word picture is that of an archer wounding indiscriminately and I found that to be a profound Biblical foundation for what I heard elsewhere.  I read the verse as saying, “by protecting the vision and callings of ministries from ill-fitting staff and volunteers one is actually protecting a much larger number of people.”  Saying “no” in this way must not be paternal or fear driven, but has to overflow from an honest understanding that if someone don’t fit the vision and value structure of the ministry it will hurt EVERYONE.  Deeper than that, the responsibility for the outcome of staffing falls on the leader.  This raises the bar for discernment in ministry staffing to a humbling level.  If a poor staffing situation leads to spiritual and emotional injury, at some level its the leader’s fault.

At the Catalyst One Day leadership conference they worded it in terms of mercifully releasing staff who were in conflict with organizational values to flourish elsewhere.  This level of leadership discernment scares me because I see it as true but it is definitely not my natural tendency.  However, if those of us who are leaders fail to discern the right person for the right place we may inadvertently bring instability into our ministries which will injure those we seek to minister to, those seeking to do the ministry, and even our very selves.

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