Latest / The Healthy Church Staff Podcast / Your Kids Sit in the Ministry You Lead

Transcript

Your Kids Sit in the Ministry You Lead · The Healthy Church Staff Podcast

• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: She is the kid's director, but she's also a mom.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the same carpet, the same kid who will not sit down, if she corrects her own child, the other parents hear a mom losing it on her own child.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: But if she lets it go, the volunteers hear a leader playing favorites.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: LaRoon is watching both jobs as at once.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Her being the children's director and her being a mom.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she cannot win the moment, but you put her in it.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about that today, right here on the Healthy Church Staff Podcast.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hi there, my name's Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistry staffing.com.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we just started our 2026 Church Staff Health Assessment.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love for you to take that assessment absolutely free of charge.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you could, after the podcast today, head over to churchstaffassessment.com and take that.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: I would really appreciate it.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about staff members and them having to lead their own children.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The thing is, the child is not just in the room, the child became the lesson in that story that I told you before.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: It became the object lesson, right?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Even the director's kid, have you heard that in a sentence?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've even said that in a sentence.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or the teenager in the youth room is now the example because he's a staff kid, right?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: He's become an example of how staff kids should behave.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And a normal kid, normal kid and I just automatically becomes a referendum on the family.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: A bad attitude becomes a staff story.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: The child didn't apply for that.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just came to church with their parent.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's not that's not ministry to a family.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's using ministry as a prop.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You asked one person to hold two roles, a staff role and a parent role, they fight each other.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot do both jobs at once.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Parenting is one job, leading on staff and in the room is another job.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They use different voices.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in the kids' ministry example, when her kids melts down, the leader in her wants a really calm room.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: The parent in her wants her child.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those instincts are right, but both cannot run in within the same 30 seconds.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: The youth pastor can't be a dad and a program director in the same circle.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: If he is hard, he's a bad dad.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: If he's soft, he's a bad leader.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we call it doing ministry as a family.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: But they can sp but other people are gonna look at that and they're gonna see the split, see the diversion there that they can't just resolve in public.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you thought this was a gift.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: The kids get to be with their mom, the youth pastor's teenager gets to be in the room with dad, and you weren't trying to turn a child into an object lesson.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a decent, decent thing to think, but it's also how a Sunday morning becomes a test that the staffer and the kid both fail.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Love that leaves them in the same room with no plan is not family friendly.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's a conflict of roles that you've never really even named.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So here's what I think could help, right?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Pick one staffer this week that might fit under this, and let's come up with a plan.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: The room already picked a side, volunteers already decided, parents already decided.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: They decided whether she's a mom or the director the first time that her kid acted up.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: The teenager already knows that they're being watched.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can keep calling it normal, but the room is not experiencing normal.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've all been in these situations, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: In youth group, when the youth pastor and the son or the daughter, you know that it's tough to be both the youth pastor and the parent.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: A plan, though, if we can come up with a plan, let's put our heads together here, you and me.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with a plan that's kinder than another just another Sunday of the way that it is.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let's name a plan.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pick one staff member and name a plan.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a co-leader who handles their kid.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or a Sunday where they're also not the parent on duty.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: Tell the staffer first, tell the volunteers so the room is not guessing.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't move the child, move the duty, okay?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Someone else handles that kid.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: The staffer gets to lead the rest.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's not rejection.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's how you let a parent let them be a parent at home and a leader at work.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And if you can't name the plan, you already have one.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: They'll do both.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: They'll try to do both, they'll do the badly, and they'll do it in public in front of everyone.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you might think, Todd, I this really doesn't relate to me, but uh, you know what?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you have been in this situation, you're like, Todd, oh my goodness, I've never heard anybody talk about this before, but this is a real deal.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the bottom line for today.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Your kids' director, your youth pastor, they're also a mom or a dad, and they have to be in the same room.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Staff cannot parent and lead at the same time.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have staff members in that situation, give them some relief.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Come up with a plan, name a plan, or their child may become the next object lesson, and people are gonna be talking.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a church, people are gonna be talking.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: I know this one feels like I'm asking you to split up a family on Sunday morning.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really not asking you to do that at all.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking you to stop asking one person to be two people in the same room.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Also, also know that you actually want staff who can lead without parenting in public.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that's hopefully some of the advice that you were hoping to get today on this podcast.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear your comments.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast at chemistry staffing.com is my email address.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to hear from you.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just email me anytime.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Podcast at chemistry staffing.com.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's it for today.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Head over to Church Staff Assessment Now.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you would take that assessment, I would so much appreciate it.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.