Potential Within: Recruiting, Hiring and Training Lay People for Church Staff Positions

This dissertation attempts to challenge growing churches to consider the potential within their own congregations when beginning the search for new staff members. Seminaries, denominational resources, and personal referrals have all been accepted in the past as potential ways to secure full-time program staff. However, many times churches overlook competent, gifted and even trained leaders within their own churches in lieu of the more traditional models of hiring church staff.

The concept presented in this dissertation challenges the church leadership to be constantly aware of potential leaders growing in their church, provide ongoing training to allow those leaders to rise to the top, and then develop a system by which those lay people develop the potential to fill the need for further staffing within a church as it grows. Recent trends in church growth and staffing are included in the study enumerating the importance of such a consideration.

Biblical principles, strengths and weaknesses of the model and examples of churches successfully hiring their own lay people are included in the dissertation. Further training and educational opportunities for developing staff are highlighted, as well as steps any growing church can take to ensure that they do not overlook the potential that is already present in their congregation.