Jesus Might Not Hire Your Church Staff (And Your Church Might Not Hire His Disciples)
Why the fishermen, dropouts, and traitors Jesus chose would get rejected by most modern pastoral search committees, and what that reveals about our system.
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Forward Note #1: Kyle Davison Bair was gracious to suggest that the disciples weren’t “hired” by Jesus until He spent the night praying to the Father and CHOSE them on Mt. Arbel, and by that time they had been TRAINED by Jesus and observed to be faithful. GREAT POINT, and I submit this to you. It simply suggests that leaders were selected through a discipleship process and not brought in from the outside as “professionals.”
Forward Note #2: There is a much larger discussion about whether the professional clergy model we have landed on, in itself, is a Biblical model of church leadership. That is not the point of this article, although we may tackle it in the future. That changes the game on this discussion yet again!
If Jesus were hiring a key leader in your church, the whole process would probably break every modern church hiring guideline ever invented. The search committee would quit on day one. The HR department would need therapy. And half of us would be standing there with our crisp résumés, wondering how in the world a Rabbi with no office, no budget, no building, and no formal ordination somehow keeps choosing the very people that wouldn’t make our cut.
The uncomfortable truth is this: Jesus’ hiring process has always made the experts squirm.
He didn’t recruit the religious elite. He didn’t look for degrees. He didn’t ask for ministry experience. He didn’t search for gifted communicators. He chose people who still smelled like nets and seaweed, people the community gossipped about, people who didn’t have the pedigree to be on anybody’s platform.
🔥 And he changed the world with them. 🔥
So let’s navigate this together (coaching style, heart open, ego off to the side) and get honest about what Jesus actually looked for in a leader.
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Jesus Would Not Hire the Religious Elite
We love the idea of clean, polished leadership. But, Jesus seemed to enjoy blowing it up. 💣💥
When he went looking for the first leaders of the movement that would overturn empires, he didn’t draft the top of the class out of the rabbinical schools. He didn’t put out a memo for the Pharisees, the scribes, or the religious professionals. They had the robes, sure. They had the Scripture memorized, of course. They even had the ability to quote the Torah with flawless precision.
But they didn’t have the ❤️ HEART ❤️ he was looking for.
Jesus walked straight past them and hired fishermen. “Follow me,” he says in Matthew 4, and Andrew and Peter drop their nets.
No background checks.
No doctrinal statement signatures.
No staff meetings or onboarding retreat.
Just a Rabbi looking at ordinary men with calloused hands and saying, “You’ve got what it takes!”
Matthew was literally a tax collector, a collaborator with Rome, and a traitor despised by his own people. Simon the Zealot stood on the opposite political extreme. This is the part where the modern church would schedule a counseling program before letting them serve communion.
But Jesus recruited them into the same team.
Paul later summed up this divine strategy:
“God chose the foolish things… the weak things… the lowly things… the things that are not” (1 Corinthians 1:27–28).
If Jesus were hiring a pastor, the religious elite would be sitting in the lobby, wondering why the unclean guy who handles dead fish every day just got promoted.
Jesus Would Not Look for an M.Div or D.Min
Let’s be clear, education is a gift! But Jesus didn’t launch the kingdom movement with graduates from the rabbinical honor society. The disciples did not complete Hebrew school. By age twelve, if you weren’t chosen to continue Torah training, you went back home to learn the family trade.
Guess where Jesus found his first disciples?
In boats.
In tax booths.
In the middle of a weapon training class.
Acts 4:13 says it plainly: “They saw the courage of Peter and John and realized they were unschooled, ordinary men, and they were astonished.”
It wasn’t their education that stunned the world. It was the power of Jesus in them.
Degrees are helpful. But Jesus’ hiring filter is far simpler:
🧑🎓 Are you willing to learn from me? 🧑🎓
Jesus Would Not Look for 15 Years of Ministry Experience
Half the job postings in churches today would disqualify every single one of the Twelve. Not one disciple had formal ministry experience when Jesus called them. Their résumés would have read:
Fishing
Fishing
More fishing
Tax collecting (but please don’t hold that against me)
Prior experience trying to kill Romans (Zealot division)
When Jesus sent them out in Matthew 10, they were barely starting to figure him out. Their theology was still underdeveloped. Their understanding of the kingdom was incomplete. They didn’t have ministry strategies or leadership pipelines.
But Jesus entrusted them with authority anyway.
The job training was simple:
Follow me. Watch what I do. Then go try it.
🎯 That’s disciple-making. 🎯
Jesus Would Not Require Excellent Speaking Skills
Let’s talk about Peter.
The man who delivered the sermon that launched the church at Pentecost was not a polished communicator. He was a fisherman with a reputation for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. He rebuked Jesus like a man correcting a pre-schooler. He sliced off a guy’s ear in the garden like Mike Tyson in the boxing ring. He denied Jesus three times, then ran away sobbing.
🤯 And Jesus still hired him. 🤯
Paul later wrote that he came preaching “not with eloquence” but with “a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:1–4).
Jesus does not hire talent first. He hires SURRENDER FIRST.
What Jesus Does Look For
Once we sweep away all the things Jesus doesn’t care about, the question becomes simple:
What does he prioritize?
❤️🔥Jesus Hires for Heart ❤️🔥
The disciples had flaws you could see from a mile away, but when they finally grasped who Jesus was, their hearts burned with loyalty and love that carried them through beatings, prisons, exile, and even death.
Tradition tells us eleven of the twelve died for the gospel. John survived boiling oil and lived out his final years in exile, writing Revelation with scarred hands.
Jesus doesn’t look for the best résumé.
He looks for the biggest “YES.”
Jesus Hires for Teachability
The disciples were always watching him.
Asking questions.
Copying his actions.
Failing miserably.
Trying again.
When they asked, “Teach us to pray,” he didn’t hand them a syllabus. He gave them a pattern.
When they couldn’t cast out a demon, he didn’t fire them. He coached them.
🚀 Teachability is the jet fuel that thrusts the kingdom forward.
Give Jesus a teachable person, and he’ll radically change nations‼️
Jesus Hires for Obedience
Peter walked on water because he obeyed the voice that said, “Come.” Not because he passed a doctrinal exam on fluid dynamics.
Obedience is the muscle car engine of disciple-making. Obedience is what transforms listening into becoming. Obedience is what turns an ordinary believer into a world-changer.
Jesus doesn’t ask, “Do you understand everything?”
He asks, “Will you trust me enough to obey what you know?”
Jesus Hires for Loyalty
When everything fell apart and Jesus was crucified, when Rome tightened its grip, when public opinion shifted, when hope grew thin, where were the disciples?
🙏 In an upper room, praying.
⏰ Waiting!
🤝 Holding onto a promise.
Acts 1:15 says there were 120 of them. A tiny, trembling community.
And on Pentecost, loyalty became 🔥 wildfire 🔥.
If Jesus Were Hiring a Pastor Today
If Jesus posted the job description online today, it wouldn’t read like the ones we’re used to.
There would be no line that says: “Must possess exceptional leadership skills, strong administrative ability, and three glowing pastoral references.”
It would probably sound more like this:
“Must be willing to leave everything if necessary. Must be willing to disciple ordinary people. Must be willing to obey even when the assignment sounds impossible. Must be comfortable with miracles, misunderstandings, and occasionally feeding crowds without adequate resources.”
⚙️ Jesus isn’t hiring pastors to manage church machinery. ⚙️
He’s calling disciple-makers to carry his mission into neighborhoods, workplaces, and public places.
Job Description of a Disciple
Position: Disciple of Jesus
Hours: Sunrise to sunset, plus whatever happens after sunset
Pay: Peace, joy, suffering, eternal life, and the occasional multiplied lunch
Benefits: A great program to store up treasures in heaven
Work Environment: Unpredictable, Spirit-led, highly relational
Responsibilities:
Stay close to Jesus daily
Obey his teachings immediately
Practice repentance like it’s oxygen
Proclaim the gospel with humility and fire
Make disciples who make disciples
Love the unlovely
Pray until your heart softens
Release offense
Embrace persecution without losing joy
Qualifications:
Must be spiritually needy (Matthew 5:3)
Must be willing to deny yourself
Must prefer Jesus over comfort, applause, or stability
Must be interruptible, flexible, and correctable
Reports to: The Holy Spirit
Résumé of Peter, Son of Jonah
Name: Simon Peter
Nationality: Jewish
Previous Employment: Fisherman
Ministry Role: Apostle, preacher, shepherd, bodyguard
Objective: Follow Jesus with fierce loyalty and strengthen the faith of the brothers.
Education: Hebrew School flunky with Jesus as primary instructor
Experience:
Walked on water (short-term contract)
Delivered the sermon that launched the global church
Oversaw distribution of food during miraculous feeding
Was arrested, flogged, and jailed repeatedly
Healed the man at the Beautiful Gate
Opened the gospel to Gentiles
Authored a portion of the New Testament
Encouraged suffering believers with eternal hope
Strengths:
Boldness
Repentance
Leadership
Passion
Persistence
Ability to recover from major failures
Weaknesses:
Impulsivity
Anger Problems
Habit of talking before thinking
References:
Jesus
John the Beloved
The 3,000 baptized at Pentecost
The formerly lame man who won’t stop dancing
And Here’s the Challenge
Maybe the whole point of imagining Jesus as a hiring manager is to expose how upside-down our expectations have become.
🚫 We’re looking for polished.
✔︎ Jesus is looking for surrendered.
🚫 We’re looking for impressive.
✔︎ Jesus is looking for available.
🚫 We’re looking for professional Christians.
✔︎ Jesus is looking for broken sinners turned obedient disciples.
You don’t need to be extraordinary to be used by Jesus.
You simply need to be willing.
And that’s where the real disciple-making begins, right at the intersection of humility, courage, and obedience, where the kingdom is continually advancing!
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Good article…..my friends and I use to joke that the MDiv is the church version of the MBA. I agree degrees can be helpful. It's all about your motivation and desire in pursuing higher ed.But church culture puts way to much emphasis on this them. It's another example how cooperate business models have inflitrated the church. It's almost like the degree is an idol at times. and I've seen first hand how deceptive it becomes.
Jesus taught the disciples daily and several times in Mark he said to them, "do you still not see or understand? They were seeing things physically and not spiritually and he wanted them to see the spiritual so badly but mortal man seems to always react physically before spiritually and as someone said if we see things in the church through a business lense we want a polished appearance and is there time to train from within and still have a polished look? He uses the foolish to confound the wise but the world and legalities may keep the person seeing things spiritually but with no credentials from being considered to serve.