Implications for Evaluation

Embracing our sense of call means we are vulnerable to the outrageous claims of faith. It means that we have a keen sense of what is of vital importance; we are connected to our passions and approach our ministry with a sense of urgency. Laid against a profound sense of calling is often an understanding of evaluation that accepts the idea that if it can't be measured it has no value; if it can't be packaged into a neat set of conclusions, then it isn't helpful. If it can't be "scored" to show a numerical result, then our questions go unanswered. We use surveys and we poll the congregation. We are tempted to focus on the "low scores" rather than focusing on issues of spiritual leadership. We work at applying empirical standards of analysis to a call-driven work without ever inquiring about the call itself. If this most vital issue is bypassed, then evaluation is reduced to measurements of relative satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) or a numerical rendering of effectiveness.

It is, of course, important to acknowledge that the clergy's sense of call and the congregation's call and mission must be open to review and challenge, that it must be tested by the faith community as a process of discernment. The clergy leader's and the congregation's sense of call and the congregation's mission can change or evolve over time and can become more faithfully aligned when subjected to careful assessment.

However, it must also be noted that there may be no more "soul-wrenching" an experience for a clergy leader than to have the faith community reject, constrain, or dilute the leader's deeply held sense of call. This experience can be the occasion for soul-searching, conflict, and even depression. ("I have become a laughingstock all day long.") It can also be the experience that precipitates the resignation, dismissal, or reassignment of the clergy leader. Likewise, however, it can be demoralizing and discouraging for a congregation to experience a clergy leader who does not take seriously the congregation's sense of call or vision and who articulates no sense of call or vision of his or her own.

It is assumed that the clergy leader is called to ministry, but rarely does anyone ask the question, "How have you lived out your call during this past year?" or "What would you say have been the constraints on your faithfully living out your call?" or "How can this congregation be more supportive of you as you attempt to live out your call?"

Of equal importance is that the congregation has the opportunity to explore similar questions regarding its own life and ministry. "How would we describe our sense of calling as a congregation?" "How faithful have we been in living out this call during the past year?" "What support do we need to more faithfully live out this call in the future?"

When evaluation is undertaken without consideration of call, self-knowledge, and the prophetic role of the clergy and the congregation, the conversation is usually an exploration of "expectations" and the degree to which these have been met by the clergy leader and the congregation. "So why is this a problem?" you might ask. As Peter Block says in his book Stewardship, "Given the nature of evaluations, we are as likely to be rating and paying people for compliance as we are for performance."⁶ In other words, without the deeper conversations about call, self-knowledge, and the prophetic role, we may default to an evaluation process that seeks to measure the extent to which expectations have been met or the extent to which there has been "compliance" with congregational norms or with the clergy's expectations of the congregation.

Given that congregations are tradition-based organizations and that tradition-based organizations typically do not reward risk taking, a clergy leader's efforts to meet the congregation's expectations can mean conforming to the congregation's comfort level rather than advancing ministry through healthy confrontation and challenge and appropriate risk taking. Additionally, when a clergy leader's need to be liked colludes with the congregation's need for stability, the result can be not only a lack of risk taking but also a lack of faithfulness. Measuring how well expectations have been met may be little more than a measurement of how well or how successfully we have avoided conflict.

Subtle collusion in the cause of congregational peace is a short step away from a sterile and vacant faith or a faith community that lacks energy and vitality. Too often we strive to order our lives in such a way as to minimize the unexpected. We invest heavily in avoiding discomfort and inconvenience. We seek to control and orchestrate our lives, our environment, our relationships, and even our spiritual journey—to choreograph each step we take—only to discover that chaos will not be denied. In discussing the relationship between creativity and chaos, Petersen asserts, "Mess is the precondition of creativity. Creativity is not neat. It is not orderly. When we are being creative we don't know what will happen next. When we are being creative a great deal of what we are doing is wrong. When we are being creative we are not efficient."⁷ Congregations and their leaders who place a high value on neatness, orderliness, efficiency, and predictability are not likely to be exploring new spiritual horizons, nor are they likely to be asking the deeper questions of calling, probing for self-knowledge, or discerning their prophetic role.

It is through the prophetic imagination that we are carried beyond our creeds, urged to storm the gates of convention, and freed for the role of co-conspirator in establishing a vision for a new social reality. It is the prophetic imagination that is the source of our creativity, that propels us to new levels of discernment and insight, and infuses us with a resilient hope for the future.

Evaluation begins at the point of our deepest longing. It is a longing for distinct identity, self-fulfillment, influence, meaning, freedom, and attachment. However, it is often the case that evaluation never touches the places of our deepest longing, never explores the constraining influences we can feel, never probes the interior dimensions of the spiritual journey. Most evaluation presumes a problem or deficiency and responds with a prescription or solution.

6. Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest, (New York, NY: Berrett-Koehler, 1993), 172.


7. Petersen, Under the Unpredictable Plant, 163.