I am firm believer that one of the signs of a healthy church is the ability to raise up staff and leaders from within your church. When a church has to consistently look to other churches to supply them with quality staff, it shows a lack of health. Let's be honest, discipleship is hard work. Leadership development is hard work and that's why many leaders don't want to do it.  

Developing leaders isn't an area of ministry that's going to scream for your attention… until you hit a leadership crisis. Once you realize you're short on leaders, it's too late. You're behind the curve. So many churches hire from the outside to solve this problem. The problem is, many of them never get back to raising up leaders again. So the cycle of supplementing leaders from other churches is never broken. 

Health comes when a church raises up its own leaders. I'm blessed to be able to say that all of our Pastors at Calvary were trained at Calvary and ordained at Calvary. I believe this builds a better staff and the church is much healthier.  

Here's my bottom line philosophy: if a church isn't able to take people from infancy to maturity in their faith, they may need to rethink if they're really a church.

Are there times when hiring someone from outside your church makes sense? I'm sure there are. I simply believe hiring from outside should never be the default position because we haven't taken the time to disciple and train people.

To pick up a resource that lays out what makes a church healthy, check out our resource, "The Pillars of a Healthy Church" by clicking here. You can save 25% on this resource by using the coupon code pillars at the checkout.