Your church is already paying for a staff position you never hired.
The bulletin, the announcements, the guest follow-up, the volunteer texts. That work doesn't disappear when there's no one to do it. It moves into a pastor's evenings and a volunteer's lunch break. The bulletin isn't late because you don't care; it's late because nobody was ever hired to do it.
Start here: the free Church Staffing Report. Fifteen questions, about four minutes, no card. It tells you how many hours a week your church is absorbing, what that looks like as a real staff position, and what it's worth.
What a typical report looks like
Illustrative figures from a 120-attendance church; yours will differ. That number is already on your books. It's just being paid in volunteer burnout.
What Second Chair is
One assistant you name, plus the roles your church actually needs, working every week. It learns your church from your church: your sermons, your website, your bulletins. Nothing else. Your queue fills at 3am Monday; you approve it over coffee. You don't prompt Second Chair. You hire it.
- It arrives empty. It knows nothing until you teach it, and it never invents. When it lacks something, it asks instead of guessing.
- Everything is cited. Each draft shows the sermon or page it came from.
- It wears your brand. Your logo, your colors, your name for it.
- Nothing sends without you. There is no send button. Drafts only.
What it costs
The hire you can't afford is $45,000 a year. This starts at $4,800.
For comparison, a part-time administrative hire runs $1,500–$2,500/mo. Onboarding is included; additional roles are $99/mo each.
Where this is
Second Chair is in its founding season. A private cohort of churches begins January 2027, with public launch that spring. Founding churches lock the lower rate and help shape what gets built. The Staffing Report is free and useful either way.