Welcome back to this week’s unSeminary podcast. Today I’m excited to have David A. Miller with us from Slingshot Group.

Slingshot is focused on staffing and coaching for churches across the country. David has been in ministry for 15 years and was invited to help launch the student ministry division of Slingshot Group 7 years ago. They have been able to help staff over 200 youth pastors in 5 years.

Today David is with us to talk about some of the common challenges executive and lead pastors see when staffing and leading their teams.

* Finding the right team. // Churches are becoming more siloed as they dwell in online spaces; we listen to a podcast, we do a conference online, we try to connect through social media, and networks that existed before which allowed for connections between churches are starting to break down. This is where Slingshot steps in to share their network with churches. Some of the most common statements David hears from pastors are “If I could just find the right worship leader,” or “If I could just find the right executive pastor,” etc. Staffing our teams well is one of the biggest challenges among church leaders and Slingshot is ready to help, but be sure that you are ready to receive help. If after you look around in your network and can’t find who you’re looking for, then turn to Slingshot for help.* Core Competencies. // Slingshot offers coaching for the leaders within churches to help them develop their teams well and get to know their staff on a deeper level. Churches are moving so fast, striving for excellence, that often development is neglected. But in hiring young leaders, or people out of the business world, we have to develop them as they step into this new ministry space. As part their internal development process, Slingshot offers a coaching strategy called IMPROV Leadership that trains you through 5 core competencies. Those are: Story Mining (the art of asking great questions), Precision Praising (course correct by using praise), Metaphor Cementing (harnessing the power of metaphors to influence teams), Lobbing Forward (get staff to lift their head up from the day-to-day grind and think toward the future), and Going North (the art of using indirect influence to redirect a person’s thinking or perspective).* Professional question asker. // Our leaders in departments are so bogged down with the day-to-day that we forget to actually get to know our staff. A staff member wants their manager or pastor to really know who they are, not just that they are on the staff filling a position or doing a task. Story Mining helps people who are leading teams to move from being a good question asker to a professional question asker. It gives them the chance to get to know staff members by drawing more out of them.* Know the staff. //Many churches today see the problems of turnover going down and staff not enjoying their time at the church. Someone could do a job at one church and then quickly leave that church just to do the same job at the church down the road because they didn’t enjoy their time at the first church. Slingshot’s mission is to build remarkable teams and they aim to do that through staffing and coaching. Slingshot works to show that the job description of the leader is to know their staff so that the staff knows that they are cared for by their leader.

You can learn more about Slingshot and their training at slingshotgroup.org. 

Thank You for Tuning In!