Thanks for joining the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Andy Hill, the Executive Pastor at Mobberly Baptist Church in Texas.

How do you keep your church’s staff aligned? The more your church grows, the more challenging it is to keep everyone connected and moving in the same direction. In this episode of the unSeminary Podcast, Andy delves into practical strategies for communication, unity and relationship-building on staff, and encouraging self-care.

Gather staff to stay aligned. // Mobberly Baptist Church, which is located in East Texas on an 140-acre campus, may seem big at first glance. However, the church strives to maintain a smaller, more personal feel, desiring for both attendees and staff to feel seen and connected. While leading a large staff team can be beneficial, there can be practical challenges as well. At Mobberly the staff can’t be housed in one office building and so are scattered throughout the campus. As a result, staff members have to be intentional about time together. Mobberly holds a Ministry Leadership Team meeting once a week where 20-25 leaders gather to discuss key issues, worship, pray and laugh together, and develop their leadership.
Connection and planning. // The weekly Ministry Leadership Team meeting is held on Tuesday mornings for about two hours. The first half is facilitated by the lead pastor and includes prayer, a devotional and other activities that foster personal connection. The second half of the meeting is the tactical part and led by Andy.
Send out an agenda ahead of time. // In addition to personal connection, communication plays a critical role in keeping staff aligned. Every Monday, Andy meets with the lead pastor to talk about what needs to be discussed in the Ministry Leadership Team meeting the next day. They then send out an agenda to the leaders so everyone knows what will be covered.
Have fun and get to know each other. // Andy believes a staff team shouldn’t just do ministry together but get to know each other and build friendships. You don’t always have to see eye to eye and get along, but you should know more about your team and care about them. One of the unique aspects of Mobberly’s Tuesday meeting is the “hot seat” segment, where a staff member is put in the spotlight to answer a series of fun and light-hearted questions. This practice is designed to build a sense of camaraderie among the team members. Questions can range from: “How did you get your first name?” to “What is your favorite movie?” or “What is a quirk you have?”
Communication is key. // You can communicate in a lot of different ways and preferences often vary across generations, with some staff preferring emails while others respond better to texts or phone calls. Be mindful in the way you communicate with your staff team, understanding and catering to the communication preferences of different team members.
Communicate value. // How and when we communicate, or our lack of communication, will then communicate value to someone. If we don’t relay information to our staff in the right order or right way, they can feel frustrated, disempowered, and conclude that they don’t matter in the ministry.
The foundation for effective ministry. // Self-care is critical for all church staff. A healthy relationship with God and personal well-being are foundational for effective ministry. Andy encourages staff to prioritize their spiritual growth by setting aside time for personal devotions and prayer, separate from their responsibilities to prepare for sermons or lead Bible studies. Without caring for the different aspects of their being, church leaders’ capacity for life and ministry will be diminished.

To learn more about Mobberly Baptist Church and connect with Andy Hill, visit mobberly.org.

NEXT STEPS // Looking for a way to keep your church leadership team aligned and effective?

Check out our free Weekly Leadership Team Meeting Template, inspired by insights from Andy Hill’s podcast episode. This template breaks down Andy’s approach to balancing personal growth with tactical planning in a two-hour weekly meeting. It’s packed with practical tips to help your team stay spiritually grounded while navigating the complexities of church leadership. Download it now and start implementing these strategies in your next team meeting!

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Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Man, I am so glad that you have decided to tune in. ah You’ve got lots of things you can do, but the fact that you’re listening for this next half an hour, you’re going to be rewarded. Today’s conversation, I know is going to be the thing, one of those things that we all think about, kind of regardless of our church size, what’s going on, how do we, um it’s one of these problems that we often are all thinking about. And so excited to have Andy Hill with us. He is the executive director at a fantastic church, multi-site church in from Texas, Mobberly Baptist Church. It was founded in 1938. It’s one of the fastest growing churches in the country. And on on top of having, you know, the in-person services and online, they also serve ah the local Hispanic and Vietnamese population. This is a fantastic church. If you’re not tracking with them, you should. Andy, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.

Andy Hill — Thanks for having me, Rich. Excited to be with you this morning.

Rich Birch — Yeah, this is going to be great. Why don’t you tell us a bit more, kind of fill out the picture about the church. If people were to arrive this weekend, what would they experience? Kind of give us the flavor of the church, help us kind of place us there a little bit more.

Andy Hill — Yeah, so ah we sit nestled in the piney woods of East Texas.

Rich Birch — Love it.

Andy Hill — We’re kind of deep into East Texas and ah The church itself is a pretty large campus. We actually have a lot of ah property, a lot of facility. And so we have a lot of people who, when they first see it, they say, man, this is big. But they tell us all the time that once they kind of get in the doors and they step into a service or start interacting, engaging with people, ah that it doesn’t feel big. It feels still like a ah little smaller church.

Andy Hill — And we’re pretty intentional about that. We we definitely try to do things to ah continue to help people feel connected, engaged, seen, right? We want people to feel seen because a lot of people come to ah a larger church to try to disappear, right?

Rich Birch — Right.

Andy Hill — And we we want to help them ah grow in their relationship with Christ. And so and We believe that happens life on life. We believe that happens when when they’re seen, when they’re known, and when they know someone else. And so and when someone steps in the door, they’re going to be greeted by someone. There’s going to be multiple ministers and pastors standing there who are going to talk to them and ah try to connect them to one of our small groups, try to help their kids, if they have them, get connected to whether it’s youth or kids ministry or some of the different things we’ve got going on.

Andy Hill — So um we’re just very intentional about trying to keep a little bit of that ah smaller, more personal feel towards what happens here. And I think it’s making a difference. I think it’s having an impact.

Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. I know in the coaching I do with churches, you know, a lot of churches that are, say, above 1000 trying to push 2000, you know, I’ll often say that are a real quote unquote competition, although we don’t have any competition, but our, you know, that when if people were to leave our church and go somewhere else, oftentimes, if you were to do exit interview type conversations, trying to learn from those experiences, they will typically leave, people wi...