Healthy Things Grow: Building a Unified and Thriving Staff Team with Chad Bickley

Welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Today we’re talking with Chad Bickley, the executive pastor at Skyline Church in California.

Is your church experiencing growth, but you’re struggling with how to maintain a healthy team culture? Wondering how to create a culture that drives growth while ensuring your staff remains aligned and healthy? In this episode of the unSeminary podcast Chad shares valuable insights on building a staff culture that defines how to achieve the church’s vision while maintaining health.

• Keep your team focused. // Skyline Church has been recognized as one of the fastest-growing churches in the U.S. and has ambitious goals under its 10/10/10 Vision—reaching 10,000 people in 10 years in 10 campuses or church plants. The growth of a church requires more people on the staff, but it’s critical to hire people who are the right fit. Fast growth with an unhealthy staff can be disastrous. Be intentional about clarity and health in your team in order to keep them focused on your church’s mission.
• Six core behaviors. // Churches often create vision statements but they don’t identify the behaviors required to achieve their vision. At Skyline Church there are six core behaviors that they look for in their staff and constantly drill into them. These are: attitude, commitment, work ethic, accountability, trust, and love. Skyline actively reinforces these behaviors through cultural spotlights in weekly staff meetings, hiring processes, and performance reviews.
• Start with the right attitude. // The number one core behavior Skyline’s staff focuses on is level one: attitude. The standards surrounding the right attitude are humility, gratitude, and being a teammate. A person’s attitude is foundational because it affects all of the other core behaviors.
• Your work ethic is like a traffic light. // The level three core behavior is work ethic. It emphasizes working more enthusiastically with grit and with a mindset of how you can be more efficient and better today than yesterday. Think of your work ethic as a traffic light with each color representing your mood. If you’re in the yellow, you’re getting frustrated and need to think about what is going on inside you. In the red? You need to step all the way back to level one and work on your attitude. Skyline emphasizes to start every day in the green.
• Pastor/director meetings to stay healthy. // To keep staff aligned and pulling in the same direction, Skyline Church has a weekly pastor/director meeting with about 20 staff. The meeting includes a cultural section, an awareness section, and a discussion section. The cultural portion involves cultural spotlights where team leaders highlight stories from the past Sunday. They also report “wins” as well as “stucks” which they are trying to work through. The awareness segment highlights what the team is hearing and seeing, and they wrap up with a discussion which covers any other items of note.

To learn more about Skyline Church and connect with Chad, visit www.skylinechurch.org. Plus, to see how Skyline uses its six core behaviors, download their core identity book here.

EXTRA CREDIT // 10-10-10 Vision Planning Retreat Overview

Do you want to inspire your leadership team to dream big and align around a unified church vision? The 10-10-10 Vision Planning Retreat Overview is your step-by-step guide for hosting a two-day retreat that will energize your staff and refine your ministry strategy. With actionable discussions, engaging team exercises, and prayerful worship moments, this resource will help you map out a bold 10-year plan broken into achievable steps over the next 10 quarters and 10 months.

Ready to take your learning to the next level? Access this resource now in unSeminary Extra Credit and bring clarity and focus to your church’s mission. Get it here.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe

Do you feel like your church’s facility could be preventing growth, and are you frustrated or maybe even overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your church building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that your church could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs?

Well, the team over at Risepointe has been there. As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead your church to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Licensed all over North America, their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to help move YOUR mission forward.

Check them out at Risepointe.com/unseminary and while you’re there get their FREE resource “10 Things to Get Right Before You Build”.

Episode Transcript

Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Super excited that you’ve decided to tune in. You know, today I’m really looking forward to today’s conversation because I know this is going to be one of those things that all of us can relate to and it can be really super applicable to our churches. Excited to have Chad Bickley with us. He is the executive pastor at Skyline Church in ah in California. It was founded in 1954 and has a rich history of growth and overcoming obstacles become one of the fastest growing churches in the country.

Rich Birch — Currently, if I’m counting correctly, Skyline has two locations in ah California, one in Arizona, and one in Tennessee, which is a fantastic story, as well as services online. Chad, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here today.

Chad Bickley — Thanks for having me.

Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture there? Kind of tell us a little bit about Skyline. You know, if we were to come this weekend, what we would experience, and and tell us a little bit about your role.

Chad Bickley — Yeah, I think Skyline, like you said, has a very rich history. We’re 70 years this year and only four pastors.

Rich Birch — That’s amazing.

Chad Bickley — And so, um you know, it started with Orville Butcher who launched the church and it and then John Maxwell was after him, who is who has taught us all a lot of leadership skills. And then it went to Jim Garlow and in that transition from um Maxwell to Garlow is when the campus moved to its current place. And that’s a that’s a huge story of of a miracle on the hill, to be honest. But those guys really battled through to to build this place. And then Jeremy um came on about six years ago. And actually, yeah, six years ago and has been the fourth pastor there.

Chad Bickley — And really, you can you can see God’s hand in each each four guys. And and Jeremy has ah as a major heart for the lost and and and so if you’d come on our campus it would it would be very um ah outreach focus…

Rich Birch — Love it.

Chad Bickley — …very he he he tailors his message that reaches a first time person but also people who’ve been there a long time. So he has a he has a great gift of of, you know, whoever you are in that message, you know, you walk away with, you know, being challenged and motivated to be able to, to move forward. We have a, our strategy is called OIKOS. And, uh, that, that strategy is it’s, it’s in the Bible and touch talks about it’s a relational network of 8 to 15 people.

Chad Bickley — So everybody, has a relational network of 8 to 15 people. And we provide cards that write those people down on your on the cards. We want you to pray for them. And that will give you an opportunity you know when it presents yourself that you know we always say an invite can change a life to invite them to church. And that’s our responsibility as Christians, right? And so we really drive that that strategy into our people um to you know to go out to their OIKOS. And it and it’s really taken off and it’s really been um you know put put, you know us as pastors, you know, we’re responsible as well. But it’s it’s it’s also everybody that’s in the church t