2003 Eldon Jonstyle

Eldon was only here for a short time and I can sum up his entire tenure with one story. The staff decided to wear tan and black signature colors as a simple way for the people to identify us during community services on Sundays. He refused, avoided and argued for weeks. I extended the one month experiment indefinitely until the entire staff could get on board with “tan and black”. Then the staff pushed him and found the same resistance. He finally said, “You guys don’t understand. I don’t have a black shirt and I just don’t have the money to buy a black shirt.” When given a check, he refused the “charity.”

Eldon was a dreamer of big dreams and many of them were really great ideas. He could create a brochure, an advertisement and an overall plan probably better than most people I have met. It was the day to day – and submission to others - that challenged Eldon. He was not a team player. As with many dreamers he was apt to confuse what he wanted to hear with what was said and he never took the time to learn the culture before he attempted to reinvent it.

The beginning of our relationship has happened several times now. It started with “I am so excited to pray about being a part. This church is an excellent church with great character and stability” and ended with “I was brought here to help this ministry grow from small to large, from immature to mature and you won’t let me do it.” He was hired for a specific ministry but spent more time trying to lead other areas. He initiated meeting after meeting to “invest” his wisdom in the staff but many times didn’t do his own ministry tasks.

So what went wrong? I did not take responsibility for Eldon’s failure to perform his duties but I did take responsibility for hiring him and putting him in a no win situation. We moved quickly to hire him despite the questions of a few staff and our inability to get thorough reference checks because it “looked very good” and we were convinced that filling this position was necessary to make the church grow. We did not develop a clear job description. So what did I learn?

• As a leader, I was responsible to listen to my confidante, my gut, and others and in those last days of the hiring process when I had a doubt – I should have stopped it for prayer instead of rolling on with the momentum.
• Hire because you need the position, task or duties performed not because it will grow the church. Jesus adds to the Church through evangelism not any particular program.
• References should always be checked - at least - to ensure that the person will be a good fit in our culture. You might save the organization some trouble but more importantly you might save the new hire some challenge in his life by better understanding who he had been and was as a person.
• In hiring, when a situation seems to be too good to be true, it usually is. You might end up costing not only the organization but the one you hire – which is fair to no one involved.
• When faith turns to hope, it’s over. It is better to fire someone and get it over with once you no longer can maintain a faith that the situation will get better for all concerned.

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