Cultural Relevance

Understanding the culture is helpful for a Christian to reach those without Christ. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 9:22 “To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.”

Jesus was the master at communicating God’s truth in a way that people understood. Unfortunately, as committed Christians, we can love Christ without being as effective at showing Him to those who don’t know Him.

Here are some questions we use in our interviews to help us understand how a candidate might relate to people outside the Church.

• What five or six adjectives best describe you?
• What words best describe your ministry style?
• What are the last three books you’ve read?
• What is the last movie you watched?
• How many unbelievers do you have regular contact with?
• Tell us about the last person you personally led to Christ.

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Flexibility

We have a saying: “Change is good, all the time, and all the time change is good.” For the organization to remain agile, we need team members that are agile. We seek team members that accept and assimilate change quickly.

Here are some questions we might ask:

• During your ministry role, what was the most difficult adjustment you’ve had to make? What was the situation? Why was it a difficult adjustment? What did you do? What happened as a result of your actions?
• Tell me about the last time you were responsible for implementing a change in a previous work context. What was the change? What steps did you take to implement the change?  How many were affected by the change?  What mistakes did you make along the way?  What was the outcome?

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Sense of Humor

Bill Hybels wrote about the 3 “C’s” in Courageous Leadership. He said you should hire someone with character, competency, and chemistry. Many people overlook the “chemistry” part in hiring.

If we don’t enjoy each other, we won’t likely do a good job together. That’s why we ask questions to see if a person has a good sense of humor.

• Tell us one of your most embarrassing moments.
• What is one of your favorite jokes?
• What is one of the funniest things that you’ve seen in the church world?

These questions can be a little tough on the spot. Even if a person is nervous and can’t immediately come up with a funny joke, in an hour interview, he or she will certainly show signs of having a sense of humor or not.

At the end of the interview, if you don’t enjoy the person at all, you might look elsewhere.

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Humility

Humility is a challenging value to ask questions about. (Hasn’t the person who claims humility immediately lost it?)

Since humility is—in many ways—the opposite of pride, we listen for pride in every question and interaction with a candidate. For us, pride is a deal-breaker.

Here are a couple of questions you can ask that should help:

• Tell us about a time your boss corrected you? Did you deserve it? What did you learn?
• Are you the best person for this job? (This one is tough and can tell you a lot about a person.)

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Resilient

Before making a hire, we want to know if a person is resilient.  We understand that Life Church is not an easy place to work, (mostly for the right reasons) and it is important to find team members that thrive on the pace and challenge. When we took a closer look at our staff, we recognized that while most were thriving, some were being crushed.  We found that resilience was one of the key success factors for those who were thriving.

Here are some questions we’ll ask:

• Tell me about the most challenging work week you can remember.  What made it so challenging?  What was the outcome?
• Tell me about the last time you failed to keep a commitment?
• Tell me about the most significant work-related conflict you can remember? What were the circumstances?  What was the outcome?
• What has been you biggest personal disappointment? Why?

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Interviewing for Work Ethic

Many people have tremendous talent, but lack drive. While probing to discern someone’s work ethic is slightly challenging, it is not impossible.

Here is a combination of a few questions we might ask:

• Describe your typical work week.
• Tell me about your most significant work accomplishment.
• Tell me about a time you went above the call of duty to get something done.
• Describe your approach to work.

It is important to ask the right questions and then listen carefully to the strength of the answer.   For example on question three above, was the answer working 10 extra hours in one week, or was the answer many hours over an extended period of time to accomplish a significant objective?  Both will sound okay in an interview unless you know what you are looking for.

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Interviewing For Values

Some ask, “How do you infuse LifeChurch DNA into your new staff members?”  The answer is we don’t.

DNA is fundamental; it is the “operating system” that drives who we are. If a person doesn’t already have your DNA in them, it is unlikely you can put it there, no more than you can change a person’s eye color.

When we interview prospective staff members, we first make sure the person has the capacity to do the job, spiritual maturity, and devotion to Christ’s church.  Once the fundamentals have been established, we use a set of values to guide us through the process.

We ask questions to discern:

• Is this person teachable?
• Does this person have a strong work ethic?
• Is this person resilient?
• Do they exhibit the value of humility?
• Do they have a good sense of humor?
• Is this person flexible?
• Is this person relevant to the culture?

This week, we’ll walk through how we interview toward these values. (I’ll post a couple of times on some days to cover all the material this week.) How do we determine if a person’s values match the values of the organization? Let’s start with teach-ability.

No matter how talented or spiritually mature a person is, if they aren’t teach-able, they will not likely succeed in our environment.

We might ask one or more of these questions:

• What is something you’ve learned recently?
• What is something related to this ministry opportunity that you’re currently working on (or developing)?
• Who is currently mentoring you? (If they name someone, we’ll ask them to elaborate on what they’re learning. If they don’t name someone their answer tells us a lot.)
• When is the last time you failed and what did you learn?

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Idea Persistence

I’ve really been enjoying the conversation in your recent Swerve comments. A recent one from Bruce in response to the Theories vs. Ideas post brought up a great point…what I struggle with is making the idea “stick” with those who have the power to implement it. The problem is that I don’t think they really get it. It’s not their own and it is either difficult for them to see the relevance, the importance or the creativity of it. How do I convey my ideas to the powers that be so that they “get it?” I hate using the phrase but how do I “cast the vision” so to speak?

My experience is that leaders who don’t understand something will buy in to the person more than the idea. Buy-in becomes less about persuasion and more about trust.

My advice would be to work to build trust, which I think is best accomplished in many small steps by being faithful with the responsibilities you have. If you can show results based on these smaller tasks, little by little you’ll gain the confidence of your leaders and you’ll be trusted to do the larger ideas. But it likely won’t be on the merits of the idea…but on their trust in you.

It’s easy to get discouraged with a sense of rejection when your ideas aren’t adopted, but trust in the wisdom of your leaders and keep proposing new ones. You never know which one is going to be the breakthrough idea! What advice can you offer to Bruce about how to “lead up” with ideas your leaders don’t fully understand?

Tags: Ideas

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