Almost nothing has a higher impact on team culture, health, and effectiveness as much as who you recruit to the team. A good team member will be a joy to the team and the leader, and be a strong contributor to the ministry. An unhealthy, underprepared, or poorly fit team member can cause conflict, distraction, and even result in a team fracturing or leaving the field.

But how do you determine who you should invite to the team?

Our first post on recruiting was about broadly networking and casting vision to invite a pool of potential recruits to the process of evaluation. The second post was about the filtering process of gathering information and discerning the team fit of potential teammates. In that process, we recommend that you host them on a vision trip to allow them to hear from the Lord on location as well as you and the team getting to know them in person.

After you’ve done all the work of networking, casting vision, evaluating, and hosting them on a vision trip, you need to discern whether to give them an invitation to join the team or not. In our experience of recruiting and evaluating 30+ units for our teams in Thailand, we’ve had very few obvious green-light people to invite, and only some very clear red-light rejections. Most potential recruits fall into some kind of a yellow-light area. 

In this post, we’ll provide a recruiting evaluation grid that helps you measure a potential new recruit’s health and role fit versus the impact on your team and your degree of investment as a leader.

Difficult Decisions

Before we launched to Thailand, we went through our first season of recruiting teammates (including the ones from the soup terrine story). At the time, I was leading a missional community with other people that had a similar vision of wanting to serve overseas. We also took a vision trip to Thailand together a couple years before we launched.

I always highly valued loyalty, and just assumed that those in our group that had the vision to go overseas would eventually serve on the same team together. We did life together, prayed together, did ministry together, dreamed about the future together.

About a year out from our projected launch date, it was time to quit our jobs and go through the formal process of applying to an organization, going through evaluations, and officially forming the team. I knew each person would have development areas, but it didn’t even cross my mind that someone would not be considered qualified to go.

As I debriefed the evaluation process for my teammates with my supervisor, he mentioned that there were some red flags that came up with one teammate. He recommended that we at least give them a yellow-light and have them go through a 6-12 month season of development before having them re-apply.

I was surprised and distressed. This news would be devastating for this person.

Sure, there were some instances of difficulty that we had encountered. And yes, I wasn’t totally sure if that person would be willing to follow my leadership. And yes, we kind of knew they had some family of origin challenges that were unresolved. But telling them not to join the team? They had oriented everything in their lives towards this. What would the team think? What would happen to our relationship with this person?

But thankfully, my supervisor in his wisdom projected out how those things would play out on the field. If those things were a 3 out of 10 in concern and intensity in the States, they would quickly become 9 out of 10s and have the potential to fracture our team.

After prayer, discussion, and discernment, we made the decision to give this person a yellow light. Someone suggested that one of the evaluators from the organization give the bad news. But my mentor, also in his wisdom, said that I needed to be the one to take the responsibility for this decision and deliver the news, out of respect to this person and for my own development.

In a very difficult 2+ hour conversation, we told this person that there were some concerns and that they would need to go through a 6-12 month development process before re-applying.

It did not go well.

Eventually, this person broke off all contact with our team and levied accusations against me to other mutual friends.

We tried to pursue some conflict resolution through a counselor but that still didn’t go well. Ultimately, their response confirmed that this was the right decision, even though it was one of the most challenging team and leadership situations I had gone through to that point.

Our first year on the field was filled with conflicts, culture-shock, and challenges to the max with the team we did lead overseas, and I’m not sure we would’ve survived if we had added this person and their challenges. Even though it was painful and burdensome at the time, I’m thankful for wise mentors that helped a new team leader make a hard decision that I otherwise would not have had the courage to make.

Over the next decade on the field of evaluating and inviting several units to our teams, we’ve learned some of the key lessons in deciding who to invite and who to say “no” or “not yet” to. The stakes for teams and ministry among the unreached are incredibly high, and team leaders need to be thorough, wise, discerning, and prayerful in their evaluation and selection of potential teammates.

Recruiting Evaluation Grid

Hopefully your sending organization or church is assisting with recruiting, assessing, and developing potential new candidates for your team. There is a minimum baseline in the first category of the recruit’s character, health, and spiritual maturity that most agencies will be able to assess and either move them to the next step, put them on a development plan to later re-apply, or tell the applicant they’re not ready. Those baselines will vary for each agency, but some standards include freedom from addictions, health in singleness or marriage, consistent pattern of growing relationship with Jesus, and basic levels of physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. 

What they aren’t taking into account, and you as a team leader must measure, is you and your team’s own readiness to receive that specific person in this season of your ministry and team. The final decision needs to be made by the team leader, not the sending entity, as the TL will be the one taking responsibility for that teammate. 

Keep in mind that you won’t know everything perfectly unless you’ve had significant life-on-life experience with them, so a lot of this is doing your best to assess well and solicit feedback from people that do know these candidates. Also, you’re evaluating the readiness of this teammate to join your team at this point in time. For example, a more challenging candidate might not be good to add to a newly forming team, but in 6-12 months, with more team stability and more personal development, they might be a great fit! 

Remember, your goal is to recruit teammates that will eventually thrive and be able to contribute well to your team and ministry. Every new person transitioning to the field will likely have their cross-cultural stressors and struggles, but if the teammate’s foundations and the team’s environment are solid, they will be able to overcome those difficulties and become strong team members.

We would assess the potential recruit in these 5 areas – character/health/maturity, calling to missions, gifting and role in ministry, impact on team, and leader investment in development. Evaluate the potential candidate on this scale from 1 to 10 to help you have more of an objective grid for whether or not you should approve this teammate at this time.

1. Character, Health, and Spiritual Maturity
   Main question: Is this teammate healthy and spiritually mature enough to thrive on the field?
   (1 – unhealthy and immature; 10 – strong health and maturity)
   1. Freedom from addictions
   2. Strong and growing personal walk with Lord
   3. Self starter and flexible
   4. Good interpersonal skills and communication 
   5. Emotional awareness and health
   6. Health in singleness / marriage / family
      
2. Calling to Missions
   Main question: Is this potential teammate’s calling rooted in solid foundations that can persevere through challenges?
   (1 – weak foundation of calling; 10 – strong foundation of calling)
   1. Scriptural basis
   2. Prayer
   3. Pattern of affirmation
   4. Community 
   5. Personal experiences 
      
3. Gifting and Role in Ministry
   Main question: Are this potential teammate’s gifts, skills, and experience able to contribute to the ministry?
   (1 – gifts and skills are underdeveloped OR don’t align with the primary ministry work; 10 – demonstrated competency in gifts and skills that would contribute well to the ministry)
   1. Awareness, development, and practice of spiritual gifts
   2. Skills and competencies
   3. Ability to do main ministry activities 
   4. General ministry experience
   5. Strong learner and self developer 
   6. Leadership experience and potential to be a leader
      
4. Impact on Team
   Main Question: would receiving this potential teammate generally strengthen or disrupt / burden the team overall
   (1 – would be disruptive/burdening to receive, significant adjustment to help transition; 10 – gifts and personality are strong benefits to team and has strong chemistry with team)
   1. Has gifts that can serve the team (hospitality, shepherding, worship/prayer, etc.)
   2. Generally easy to get along with v. draining/challenging personality
   3. Demographics that match what the team needs (ex: single girl needing another single gal to co-labor with)
   4. Good relational chemistry / team player
   5. Stage of Team Development (forming, storming, norming, performing) – consider how much storming there currently is and if that’s the right time to introduce a teammate 
      
5. Leader Investment in Their Development
   Main Question: What level of personal investment and development by the leader would it take to get them to a point of thriving and contribution to the team and ministry? 
   (1 – high investment of time and energy by leader; difficult to lead; 10 – lower investment by leader, generally easy / joyful to lead)
   1. Submission to your leadership
   2. Fit with your leadership style and giftings
   3. Amount of time and energy investment by leader to help them thrive and become a solid contributor based off your capacity
   4. if teammates can help carry the burden of investment vs. solely on the leaders

If you don’t know the answer to some of these categories, try to get feedback from the candidate, the agency, or those that know them well. Ask for them to be as brutally honest and direct as possible. Many times, references will want to give the best version of feedback since they want to help those they’re connected with. But it’s important for a TL to draw out the realities of a potential teammate since there is such a significant impact on them and on the team.

Making a Decision

After you’ve assigned a 1-10 score to each major category, figure out what the average score is across all 5 categories.

If you have an average of 8+, you should have a pretty solid candidate and situation to invite them to the team.

If you have an average of 4 or below, there likely needs to be some significant development for the candidate or on your own team before you can reconsider, likely after at least 6 months.

If any individual category is at a 2 or below, they are probably not at the standard to pass for that category and you shouldn’t invite them to the team.

The challenging situations are when you have someone in the 5-7 range. Discuss with other team stakeholders (teammates, mentors, supervisors), and weigh the pros/cons of inviting this person to the team. Understand that if you invite someone in the 5-7 range, it will likely take significant investment to help them thrive and begin to contribute to the ministry.

Regardless of how they grade out, it’s essential to bring the decision to the Lord in prayer. It’s always a step of faith to invite someone to your team, and you as a team leader are making a substantial commitment by inviting someone to your team, to love, serve, and shepherd them through the challenges on the field.

Some Cautions and Guidelines

This evaluation grid is trying to help quantify some important categories so that team leaders can make wise decision about inviting team members. But you can be very thorough in the evaluation process and still be surprised how someone reacts to the field. Some great candidates that we invited really struggled on the field when things didn’t go their way. Some riskier candidates ended up thriving and doing really well in field environments. But by doing the work of evaluating and praying, you can have eyes open for each teammate’s potential pitfalls and weaknesses.

A caution for newer team leaders: team leaders at the beginning of launching a team are at the highest urgency to add teammates. If you find yourself convincing yourself that they should be on the team, but you know in your heart that they aren’t a good fit, don’t invite them. The team is at its newest and most fragile at the beginning, and recruiting even one person that is unprepared and challenging can be very costly to the leader and the team.

Take risks for potential leaders. Younger, more immature leaders may rock the boat and be somewhat difficult to lead at the beginning. But if you’re able to win trust and develop them well, they can multiply your impact and be worth the investment.

Understand your own giftings and tendencies as a leader: If you are shepherd-gifted, you may have a higher tolerance / capacity to take the time of investing in someone to get them to the point of thriving and contributing. If you are more of an apostolic/evangelist-type leader, know that when you invite someone to the team you are committing to shepherding them. Also know that you might get impatient or frustrated if someone takes too much of your time and focus because your tendency will be to focus on the external ministry.

Knit to the Soul

We’ve gone through some of the biggest ups and downs of our adult lives with our teammates. We were together making awkward noises in language school, joyful team Christmases away from home, celebrating new churches planted, and experiencing the first new babies born on the field. They’ve been with us through crises, cancer, and burnout.

It’s hard to imagine facing the realities of the field with anyone else.

It’s the generous gift of the Lord to bring significant people around us for the calling and work He has prepared for us. They are simultaneously brothers and sisters, friends, co-workers, confidantes, and caretakers. It’s worth giving time and focus to find people who are the right fit.

And, the Lord already knows who He has chosen to be on our teams. We can have faith that if we are prayerful and discerning, He will bring the right people.

As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

1 Samuel 18:1