Pastors are evaluated by their parishioners all the time! Consider the conversation of a typical American family driving home from church on Sunday morning. After pulling onto a two-lane country road, Mom initiates a discussion by asking, “What did you all think of Pastor Joe’s sermon today?” After a long awkward pause, Dad finally shrugs his shoulders and says, “It was fine, I guess.” All the while, he is secretly hoping that she doesn’t ask any follow-up questions as he wonders to himself, “Was the sermon from Ephesians or Philippians?”
Picking up on Mom’s displeasure from Dad’s answer, their twelve-year-old son quickly bellows from the back seat, “I thought the sermon was good, but I didn’t understand most of it.” Annoyed by her brother’s assessment, his teenage sister rolls her eyes and chimes, “That sermon wasn’t complicated; it was just boring! All of Pastor Joe’s sermons are boring.”
Frustrated by these family responses, Mom glares at Dad’s muted face and mutters, “Well, I thought the sermon was excellent! I especially liked when he said that husbands ought to love their wives like Christ loves the church and that children should obey their parents in the Lord.” Mom’s exasperated tone causes everyone else to clam up and ride along in uncomfortable silence. Mom turns her body away and stares out the passenger window, and muses to herself, “Pastor Joe seems like a very loving husband…and his kids are so respectful!”
As I mentioned, pastors are evaluated by their parishioners all the time. Whether it’s a family assessing the sermon on the way home from church, a men’s prayer group protesting the pastor’s petition to pave the church parking lot, or a women’s fellowship group gossiping about how the pastor could let his wife wear such a low-cut blouse to the Ladies Fellowship Luncheon, pastors are the subject (and object) of a wide variety of critiques. But for better or worse, the pastor is usually unaware of these appraisals.
When pastors do receive direct feedback, it often comes through unhelpful and potentially harmful channels—a cryptic text, an accusatory e-mail, an uncouth comment, or the infamous “anonymous” letter from a “concerned" congregant. Offhanded jabs like these can shatter a pastor’s confidence and even wound a pastor’s soul. Too many of these unsolicited and unexpected critiques may lead to pastoral discouragement, depression, or even resignation from the ministry. There must be a better system for pastoral evaluation.
Unlike other professions that mandate an annual performance evaluation, pastors seldom receive systematic or formative feedback about their ministry performance. Some larger suburban churches may have formal mechanisms of evaluating their pastoral staff, but it is extremely rare in the small-town church. Since most small-town churches are relationally driven, they often feel like pastoral performance evaluations are unnecessary or unhealthy. And many small-town pastors often feel insecure or even threatened by the prospect of criticism. After all, aren’t Christians supposed to be kind to one another?
But kindness does not necessarily conflict with constructive criticism. If a pastoral evaluation is conducted and communicated in the right way, it can be a tremendous tool for pastoral growth. Proverbs 27:17 incites, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” The purpose of grinding an iron tool or weapon against another piece of iron is not to destroy it but to make it more effective. Likewise, the purpose of a formal pastoral evaluation is not to damage the pastor’s psyche but to provide honest feedback about the pastor’s strengths and weaknesses and to determine areas where the pastor may need to grow or receive assistance. A good pastoral evaluation will simultaneously shave off some ego and encourage the soul.
So, how can a small-town church conduct a positive pastoral evaluation? It can be as simple as the church’s governing board establishing an annual pastoral performance review. The evaluation may take place with the pastor present or the results could be communicated to the pastor afterward. Some basic evaluation questions include: What does the pastor do well? Where does the pastor struggle? How can the pastor improve in this area? What resources are necessary to facilitate pastoral growth in these areas?
The pastor or church leadership could also solicit a focus group from the congregation to provide feedback about the pastor’s overall performance or a specific ministry area. The focus group should constitute a broad spectrum from the church membership. During the COVID-19 quarantine, I took the opportunity to form two focus groups to help me improve my preaching. I asked three men and three women from various age groups to watch two different sermons (one delivered with a manuscript and one delivered with no notes) and provide honest feedback about the delivery styles. I also solicited a group of ten pastoral colleagues to do the same thing. Both focus groups provided interesting and helpful insights. As a result of these critiques, I am now preaching slightly shorter and more extemporaneous sermons!
And for the truly daring small-town church, it may want to conduct a 360-degree pastoral evaluation, which is a method employed by the business community to provide performance feedback from multiple constituencies. In a church context, the pastor would be evaluated by the governing board (above), other pastoral staff or ministry colleagues (beside), church members (below), and a self-evaluation (inside). Each constituency uses the same evaluation tool, which normally asks quantitative and qualitative questions about the various aspects of the pastor’s ministry (i.e. theology, leadership, preaching, teaching, pastoral care, counseling, administration, community involvement, etc.).
Once all of the evaluations are collected and tabulated, the pastor and governing church board analyze the results and identify common trends. It is always fascinating to compare and contrast the responses within and against the different constituencies. The pastor and board may even consider sharing the final results with the entire congregation.
The 360-degree evaluation gives the pastor valuable feedback from a broad range of perspectives. It helps the pastor assess their strengths and weaknesses and identifies practices that may need to change. It also provides the congregation with a formal and systematic process to encourage and critique their pastor in helpful rather than harmful ways.
Since pastors are constantly evaluated by their parishioners anyway, the pastor may as well know what they are thinking! The process of iron sharpening iron implies a bit of pain, but sharp tools (and pastors) are worth it in the long run!
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Jason McConnell
Jason McConnell has served as the senior pastor of the Franklin United Church and East Franklin Union Church in Franklin, Vermont since 2004. He teaches courses on small-town ministry with the Rural Home Missionary Association and serves as the co-director of the Ockenga Fellows Program and a mentor in the Doctor of Ministry program at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. When he is not preaching or teaching, he can usually be found in the Vermont outdoors skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, cycling, fishing, or kayaking.