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As someone who has had only a few written performance evaluations, I am a strong advocate of annual "performance reviews" for pastors. I also am a strong advocate for yearly evaluations for elder boards or church leadership teams.

First, let me state the assumption based on personal observation that most churches do not provide a system for helping the pastor or church leadership become better at what they are directed to do in their roles. The reasons for not doing healthy evaluations or performance reviews are many, but perhaps the most common one is that neither the pastor nor church leader are comfortable with this exercise.

When done, the reviews tend to be based on a job description that has not been regularly evaluated themselves or they are very subjective. Here's a principle for job evaluations: The more subjective they are, the less helpful they will be.

Another reason to be skeptical or even fearful of ministry performance evaluations is they are usually one-sided. That is to say that they feel like arrows that are aimed only at the pastor or ministry leader. Healthy reviews are two-sided. They also point out areas where church boards need to improve as well as the person being evaluated. They should be a friendly and helpful dialogue that result in suggestions for improvement and growth for the one, or team of people being evaluated and the people who do the evaluating.

This leads me to the WHY of yearly performance reviews or ministry evaluations. Consider the following reasons:

1. These yearly evaluations can provide a mutual recognition of areas in one's life and ministry that need help or growth so that you become more effective and fruitful. Or they can point out areas where the current job description needs a healthy change or even deletion.

2. They can also provide encouragement in areas where a pastor or team is doing well. Note that a healthy ministry evaluation looks at both #1 and #2.

3. They can point out where additional training and/or coaching are needed so that the elders or church board can provide or get help for the one(s) being evaluated.

4. They can become a source of encouragement for the pastor or team by pointing out strengths and accomplishments of the one(s) being evaluated.

5. They can provide an objective basis for salary increases and other rewards.

Here are a few suggestions for the HOW of healthy performance reviews:

1. Set up a system where a yearly ministry review is conducted sometime in November, December, or January.

2. Have the pastor or team fill out the review survey based on their own evaluation of themselves before they meet for a discussion of the results.

3. Use the current job or ministry description to help in writing the grid of expectations that will serve as the basis for the review. Also include in the formulation of evaluation questions the established or perceived expectations for the pastor or team by the church.

4. Most of the evaluation questions should use numerical measurements on a Likert Scale of 1 – 5. The aim is to be as objective as possible.

5. If the pastor is the one being evaluated, only one or two elders or people in leadership should meet with the pastor to discuss the results and recommendations.

6. After meeting with the person or people to discuss the evaluation, the pastor should be asked to set realistic SMART goals to be submitted to the elders or church leadership board within a reasonable period of time.¹ Those goals become part of the next evaluation or review process.

7. Progress on goals set by the pastor should be reported to the elders or church leadership team (recommended quarterly).

8. NOTE: Do not wait until the pastor is in danger of termination to conduct a performance review. That would be like beating a plowshare into a sword. Speak the truth in love and with the spirit of encouragement.

What has been your experience with ministry evaluations?

(Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash)