Evaluating Congregations
I was talking with a friend about the congregations that are applying for membership in the GMC. Some of them are surprised when he tells them that there are going to be real expectations for them to live up to in the new denomination. You can flee the dysfunctions of The UMC, but bringing your own dysfunctions into the GMC is not going to work out.
Evaluation is a critical function for congregational improvement. It gives people a roadmap to success. It also communicates very clearly when repeated failure to measure up requires the denomination to let a congregation go. Good evaluation means there are no surprises, and no way to claim poor treatment. Now the way evaluation has been done in the past – particularly in The UMC – has been to proclaim something like Ken Callahan’s Twelve Keys or some other trendy management tool the standard to which all congregations should measure up. The problem with using these kinds of tools is that the categories are squishy, requiring trained consultants to interpret. Rather than being firm and measurable, the categories are malleable and capable of being massaged to include whatever one is already doing. Ordinary people don’t understand the standards they are being evaluated on and suspect caprice on the part of the evaluators. Denominational slogans like “worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly” suffer from the same disease of squishiness and the need for interpretation by “experts.” Even mission goals like “make disciples of Jesus Christ” can be slippery.
Now, there is a way to avoid this. It’s called criterion-referenced evaluation. And it is practiced in many fields of endeavor. The one I’m most familiar with is the way by which BSA accredits its summer camps. But it’s also the way in which accreditation agencies evaluate academic degree programs. It works like this.
There is a set of standards written out in plain English that tells what sorts of things are necessary or desirable in the program or facility being evaluated. Some of these things cover the physical facilities (facilities are free of hazards; facilities are clean and attractive; there are fire extinguishers where needed . . .). Some cover important administrative processes (money is properly accounted for; leaders of children’s programs are properly screened and trained; records are kept in order . . . ). At last half of the standards cover what is actually happening (attendance is growing, there have been new members this year, communion is celebrated X times a year, there are missions programs, apportionments are paid . . .).
Some of the standards (a third to a half) are MANDATORY standards. Failing a mandatory standard is a big deal. Immediate action is required to bring the program or facility into compliance with the failed standard. As a Camp Accreditation Specialist, I had the authority to order immediate action on mandatory standards; if such correction could not be achieved, I had the authority to close a particular program or facility, even to close the whole camp. (That would be an emergency situation; nobody wants to see that happen.) The rest of the standards are called QUALITY standards. Not all churches would meet all the quality standards, since churches vary greatly in their size and ministries. In any case, one has to meet all the mandatory standards and, say, 75% of the total of all standards, to be fully accredited each year.
The people who visit camps and colleges to accredit programs are not supervisors, but fellow operators visiting on behalf of the parent organization. I would put evaluation of congregations firmly in the hand of LAY VISITORS. It would be up to the District Lay Leader to organize teams of Visitors to meet with all the congregations in the district each spring. A team of visitors (3-4 laypersons from other churches in the district) would arrange to visit a congregation on a Sunday morning. They would experience worship, tour the facilities, and then sit down with the pastor and lay leadership to go over records and plans. At the end of the visit, they would give some sort of recognition item (a certificate, say), indicating that this congregation is fully accredited (or whatever we choose to call it). This should be an affirming experience. And a follow-up letter from the team leader to the pastor describes the visit and what was particularly noted. This evaluation should give the local church’s leadership a sense of what they are doing well, and what they need to improve. And this should be part of the Charge Conference business in the fall.
Should a congregation fail to pass the required number of standards (even if they meet all the mandatory standards, as one would certainly hope they would), then the Presiding Elder should follow up with the church, and a progress report should be called for at that fall’s Charge Conference. If a congregation fails to pass the required number of standards two years in a row, the church should be placed on a watch list and extra efforts made by the District and Conference to help the church improve its performance. In the end, of course, a congregation that cannot or will not meet expectations (even if it meets all the mandatory standards) is subject to being dismissed from the Conference and the GMC as a whole. But the object is to help churches grow and improve, not punish or drum them out of the regiment.
A set of standards plainly set forth with no consultant gobbledygook or malleable sloganeering, a process of review firmly in the hands of friendly and helpful fellow laity, and a follow-up that aims to see improvement and doesn’t just pass people through: this is what an effective and fair system of congregational evaluation looks like. The way you change culture is not to get everyone to use the same buzzwords; the way you change culture is to spell out achievable expectations clearly and then insist on progress toward measuring up to those expectations. Describe what success looks like, and people will surprise you in what they can achieve.
Evaluation is a critical function for congregational improvement. It gives people a roadmap to success. It also communicates very clearly when repeated failure to measure up requires the denomination to let a congregation go. Good evaluation means there are no surprises, and no way to claim poor treatment. Now the way evaluation has been done in the past – particularly in The UMC – has been to proclaim something like Ken Callahan’s Twelve Keys or some other trendy management tool the standard to which all congregations should measure up. The problem with using these kinds of tools is that the categories are squishy, requiring trained consultants to interpret. Rather than being firm and measurable, the categories are malleable and capable of being massaged to include whatever one is already doing. Ordinary people don’t understand the standards they are being evaluated on and suspect caprice on the part of the evaluators. Denominational slogans like “worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly” suffer from the same disease of squishiness and the need for interpretation by “experts.” Even mission goals like “make disciples of Jesus Christ” can be slippery.
Now, there is a way to avoid this. It’s called criterion-referenced evaluation. And it is practiced in many fields of endeavor. The one I’m most familiar with is the way by which BSA accredits its summer camps. But it’s also the way in which accreditation agencies evaluate academic degree programs. It works like this.
There is a set of standards written out in plain English that tells what sorts of things are necessary or desirable in the program or facility being evaluated. Some of these things cover the physical facilities (facilities are free of hazards; facilities are clean and attractive; there are fire extinguishers where needed . . .). Some cover important administrative processes (money is properly accounted for; leaders of children’s programs are properly screened and trained; records are kept in order . . . ). At last half of the standards cover what is actually happening (attendance is growing, there have been new members this year, communion is celebrated X times a year, there are missions programs, apportionments are paid . . .).
Some of the standards (a third to a half) are MANDATORY standards. Failing a mandatory standard is a big deal. Immediate action is required to bring the program or facility into compliance with the failed standard. As a Camp Accreditation Specialist, I had the authority to order immediate action on mandatory standards; if such correction could not be achieved, I had the authority to close a particular program or facility, even to close the whole camp. (That would be an emergency situation; nobody wants to see that happen.) The rest of the standards are called QUALITY standards. Not all churches would meet all the quality standards, since churches vary greatly in their size and ministries. In any case, one has to meet all the mandatory standards and, say, 75% of the total of all standards, to be fully accredited each year.
The people who visit camps and colleges to accredit programs are not supervisors, but fellow operators visiting on behalf of the parent organization. I would put evaluation of congregations firmly in the hand of LAY VISITORS. It would be up to the District Lay Leader to organize teams of Visitors to meet with all the congregations in the district each spring. A team of visitors (3-4 laypersons from other churches in the district) would arrange to visit a congregation on a Sunday morning. They would experience worship, tour the facilities, and then sit down with the pastor and lay leadership to go over records and plans. At the end of the visit, they would give some sort of recognition item (a certificate, say), indicating that this congregation is fully accredited (or whatever we choose to call it). This should be an affirming experience. And a follow-up letter from the team leader to the pastor describes the visit and what was particularly noted. This evaluation should give the local church’s leadership a sense of what they are doing well, and what they need to improve. And this should be part of the Charge Conference business in the fall.
Should a congregation fail to pass the required number of standards (even if they meet all the mandatory standards, as one would certainly hope they would), then the Presiding Elder should follow up with the church, and a progress report should be called for at that fall’s Charge Conference. If a congregation fails to pass the required number of standards two years in a row, the church should be placed on a watch list and extra efforts made by the District and Conference to help the church improve its performance. In the end, of course, a congregation that cannot or will not meet expectations (even if it meets all the mandatory standards) is subject to being dismissed from the Conference and the GMC as a whole. But the object is to help churches grow and improve, not punish or drum them out of the regiment.
A set of standards plainly set forth with no consultant gobbledygook or malleable sloganeering, a process of review firmly in the hands of friendly and helpful fellow laity, and a follow-up that aims to see improvement and doesn’t just pass people through: this is what an effective and fair system of congregational evaluation looks like. The way you change culture is not to get everyone to use the same buzzwords; the way you change culture is to spell out achievable expectations clearly and then insist on progress toward measuring up to those expectations. Describe what success looks like, and people will surprise you in what they can achieve.