I was talking with a church leader about managing church staff and he said something that revolutionized my thinking: “Nobody knows what anybody does.”  Then he told me that he finished each workday by sending a short email to his boss briefly describing what he had accomplished that day. Then he added, “I want to make sure that my boss knows exactly what I do.”

The main purpose of PSR is NOT to expose laziness or to spotlight bad ministry. No. PSR’s main purpose is to reveal and celebrate the good work that your staff is doing.

Another way to say this is that accountability for good staff people is not a threat, it is protection. 

Imagine that a church member, who has kids in the youth ministry, comes up to you and says, “Do you know what the Youth Pastor is doing?”

You could calmly reply, “Yes, I receive a weekly report detailing his work.”

“Have you noticed that the Youth Group is getting smaller?”

“Yes. We’ve talked about that at staff meetings. So far this year, 3 families with youth group kids have moved away from this area. If you subtract those kids, youth group attendance is actually up a little.”

“Hmmm. Well, my kids seem  bored. They mentioned they might want to try other groups.”

“I understand. It’s hard to keep teenagers engaged. I do know that our Youth Pastor spends time every week searching for new ideas. He’s told me about some of them and they sound great.”

“I see. What else does he do? The youth group is small.”

“He does much more than just the youth group. Last week, he visited two kids at a school event who visited our youth group last month. He leads a weekly small group of kids for discipleship. He plans and leads a monthly outreach event. I particularly like that he has recruited and trained 3 people to help with the youth group and Sunday School.”

“Really? I didn’t know that.” 

Remember: “Nobody knows what anybody is doing”. PSR can change that.

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While it is true that the main purposes of PSRare to reveal and celebrate good ministry as well as to protect good ministers, sometimes there are problems. Sometimes PSR reveals bad ministry.. In this case, the sooner you know and address it, the better. For everyone, including the staff member.

For you to say: “I didn’t know this was happening”, is not a good explanation for bad staff members.