Bad Words in the Church: "Evaluation"

This is the sixth in a series on “Bad Words in the Church.” As a supervisor, how do you practice Ephesians 4:15 and 4:29? (“Speaking the truth in love” and “Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs.”) When it comes to managing staff, I’m afraid that most ministry leaders focus exclusively on “speaking love” and “building others up” with words of encouragement. Don’t get me wrong – encouragement is extremely important. But if this is the only feedback being given, then it’s not very likely that the staff member’s performance will improve. That is why evaluation is so important. The problem is that evaluation involves some level of confrontation, and that makes it a bad word in many ministry settings. In the church, we emphasize compassion and mercy as we should. But we mistakenly think this means that there will always be peace. We equate conflict with sin. Of course, it’s hard to support that belief if you read the gospels or the epistles. The challenge of doing evaluation also highlights the mistakes assumption that negative feedback means someone is a “bad” person. Since “good” people receive positive evaluations, then any suggestions for improvement get blown out of proportion. Shouldn’t it be possible to discuss an area of concern without it being seen as a deep character flaw? (This is also the reason that programs are rarely evaluated.) The issue is compounded because most ministry leaders have little training in how to conduct an evaluation, and they often have inadequate tools for assessing performance. When this happens, the evaluation process rarely accomplishes the desired outcome. A person may be crushed by a negative message or simply clueless because the intended message was delivered in a confusing way. For all these reasons, ministry leaders often try to avoid the dirty word of evaluation. But there is one compelling reason to press into it. God deserves our best, individually and collectively. If we turn our head rather than addressing poor performance, our ministries will never realize their full potential. I’d rather have a hard conversation with someone today than face my Master at the end of my life and try to explain why I didn’t.]]>