Pastor evaluation, anyone?

Does your church do it this way?

If it works for you all, great.

 

I am wondering if these "senior members" would be willing also to let the pastor and the church staff evaluate their performance, their walk, and their commitment to the Lord and His church. I think not.

As long as this church has this approach all they will ever get or deserve are hirelings and not a pastor.

Bro Tony

 

Let me clear the air and say that I atttend one of those churches with a “deacon board”.
Many of the deacons have been there for years, some for decades.
Some of the pastors inadvertently (?) call the deacons “elders” at times.

When we had a single pastor for a time, he recognized that accountability was an essential element for leadership. It minimizes blind spots.
We were asked to evaluate him on a regular basis (the evaluations were not directed one way either).
With additional pastoral staffing, the evaluations have waned a bit.

We are working through the process of developing a new constitution.
Accountability in leadership is a chief focus because we have observed ourselves and other local churches that have had difficulties in this area.

Rob

 

I see no problem with that approach Rob. I fully agree with leadership accountability. I cant agree with busy bodies trying to run the church and those who have no spiritual basis in evaluating anything trying to evaluate the pastor. Their only purpose is control and getting rid of the man.

Bro Tony

 

In most Baptist churches, the "elder" role is what they call "deacon" for whatever reason. It may not have been inadvertent.

 

I thought we were evaluated every day of our lives by the members of the church. If you are put in by the majority vote of all members and not a board. But by a board it would be different I suppose. I have seen times where they dragged members out of the woods to vote on a Pastor.

 

My experience has been that when the congregation is not happy with the pastor, he gets the message and leaves of his own accord.

A pastor evaluation in the form of a survey for the entire congregation would be a bit tacky.

 

How true;
Don't take long for both parties to figure out where they stand I don't think. On the other hand there can be a lot of confusion when left up to the entire congregation for I have seen it happen and what a way to tear up a church in a hurry that takes years to put back together.

 

Welcome, Kelly. You are right and so is Brother Bob.

I happen to be the chairman of our deacons (and we definitely don't consider ourselves a board--we are servants). Our deacons believe that our pastor doesn't work for us. How can we evaluate someone who is not responsible to us?

At my church, our pastor is head of the staff. Two of our paid staff are also deacons. Figure that one out. The pastor has supervisory authority over two deacons. I'm one of them. Unusual, but it works.

I'm also wondering how an evaluation process works in a church with a plurality of elders. Who evaluates whom? Do the elders evaluate each other.

 

pia,

I think most do have the board over the pastor...but in most IFB churches it is as Tom Butler described. Don't know about others....Im not in others.

 

It gets a bit stickey once you add the requirements necessary for incorporation of a church.

If there was a single pastor, then usually in the churchs' constitution, the deacons would be defined as the trustees of the church.

If the deacons are named as trustees by the church constitution, then they hold the authority (and the legal responsibility) in the church (according to the law).
By law the pastor is their employee .

Of course, that's not the way it usually works out, but that is the way the courts see it.

Rob

 

The situation I described in an earlier post, where the pastor has two deacons on the staff, is unique and I wouldn't recommend it. It so happens that both of us were already on the staff when the church elected us deacons. So the congregation went into this with its eyes wide open. To make it more interesting, one of the deacons is also the church clerk, and the other one (me) is chairman of the deacons. And it's been that way through three or four pastors.

Both of us are intensely loyal to our pastor, and work hard to make sure that there is never any cause for him to be concerned about his back.

Now you can understand why it would be almost impossible for us to participate in any evaluation process for the pastor.