Is your church doing annual reviews right, or at all? 

In this episode, Scott Sanders and Jo Gibbs explore how annual reviews can move beyond corporate box-ticking to become a vital tool for encouraging, developing, and stewarding gospel workers well.

We unpack how simple, structured conversations help teams pause, give thanks, reflect honestly, and plan intentionally for the year ahead.

  • Why ongoing feedback alone isn’t enough
  • The biblical foundation for caring for people in ministry
  • Simple frameworks to run effective annual reviews
  • How to handle hard conversations well and avoid surprises
  • Why investing in people builds long-term ministry health

Toolbox:

Credits: 

This episode was brought to you by Lending Hands Mortgage Brokers

The One Thing is brought to you by ⁠⁠Reach Australia⁠⁠

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Transcript:

The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:03:19

Scott Sanders 

So get it. Get out. I’m Scott sanders.

00:00:03:19 – 00:00:04:15

Jo Gibbs 

I’m Joe Gibbs.

00:00:04:16 – 00:00:26:11

Scott Sanders 

Welcome to the one thing a podcast is on to give you one solid practical tip for gospel centered ministry. Every week the one thing is brought to you by rich Australia. We want to see thousands of healthy, evangelistic, multiplying churches across Australia. If your church is thinking about that, hit to our website WW australia.com that I you you can find out a whole bunch of stuff and hopefully we can help you do some of those things.

00:00:26:13 – 00:00:47:07

Scott Sanders 

Today we’re going to be talking about something many churches don’t do very well. And that’s annual reviews. The once a year sit down to reflect, encourage and plan ahead. It can feel corporate, unnecessary or it’s just too hard to prioritize. Comes at the end of the year. There’s so much stuff to do with Christmas and outreach, and that’s really a priority.

00:00:47:09 – 00:01:10:09

Scott Sanders 

We just don’t make time, to do this really important thing that is, for many on your team, one of the most valuable things that you can do today. John, I’m going to be talking about this, but for now, you’ve press play on another episode of The One Thing the case for annual reviews in Ministry that I feel like we need a box of tissues ready to go.

00:01:10:11 – 00:01:17:10

Scott Sanders 

Maybe lots of horror stories from all the conversations that you had. And this is going to be like a a trauma packed session. Yeah. Discussion.

00:01:17:13 – 00:01:23:05

Jo Gibbs 

No, I going to say just for reviews with you, Scott. No one else.

00:01:23:07 – 00:01:30:03

Scott Sanders 

Should. But it is something that, Yeah, churches just don’t get too. Just too busy.

00:01:30:06 – 00:01:47:19

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. So much happening. I mean, this ministry is really hard work, especially towards the end of the year. You’ve got the end of the year stuff, you’re finishing off ministries for the year, and you’re heading towards Christmas and all that kind of stuff. And it’s we often have times where we don’t have someone who’s got, and I just don’t have the.

00:01:47:23 – 00:01:58:23

Scott Sanders 

Chat department with you to make sure you feel like you paid and make sure your outcomes are correct. And you got Smart goals and smart goals and smart ass goals. We lack all those, bits and pieces.

00:01:58:24 – 00:02:15:17

Jo Gibbs 

Or even just someone who’s going to be nudging you and saying, has this happened? And so they can just slip off the agenda? Or it’s a nice idea, but in reality, it just doesn’t happen. But so important, we want our team to be growing. We want our churches to be growing. And annual reviews can be a really helpful part in this.

00:02:15:19 – 00:02:24:21

Scott Sanders 

Now, earlier this year you had a helpful article on annual reviews. You particularly focused on women in ministry, but as a whole, what are you seeing across the network?

00:02:24:23 – 00:02:42:21

Jo Gibbs 

So chatting to different senior pastors, different churches, some churches, a number of churches don’t do annual reviews at all. And I’ve heard senior pastors say, well, I’m giving feedback to my team members all the time, so I just don’t need an annual review, not realizing that an an annual review is actually a different thing.

00:02:42:21 – 00:02:51:23

Scott Sanders 

So I’m going to press into that a little bit later where we talk about the difference. And it’s not ongoing, and ongoing is not enough. This is this has a special a special place.

00:02:51:24 – 00:03:13:21

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. Some people do the mean consistently. So just if they remember to do it, they get excited about it one year. But it’s not a regular rhythm in their calendar. So that can be happening as well. I think there’s also just I hear from some people, they’re just not clear on the purpose. Is it about preventing big problems rather than being developmental and positive?

00:03:13:23 – 00:03:36:06

Jo Gibbs 

They might be nervousness at a team members going to ask for a raise at one of these things. So they might not want to dig into it. And they might be nervous around having hard conversations. Most of us don’t like having tough conversations if there are things that need to be addressed or a lot of us don’t like to hear had conversations back, what if they’re going to say, I’m not a great laid out or so?

00:03:36:06 – 00:03:42:21

Jo Gibbs 

There’s a whole bunch of things that can make people reluctant or just, you know, make not make this a priority.

00:03:42:23 – 00:03:49:09

Scott Sanders 

Well, we want to, think about this a little bit more deeply. What does the Bible have to say about annual reviews?

00:03:49:11 – 00:04:12:00

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. So there’s nothing about. And your reviews in the Bible, we don’t say Jesus sitting down and having annual reviews with his disciples, but we do see him sitting down with them when they go out to do ministry, coming back. And we see so much in the Bible, so much richness around the role of the shepherd pastor, about knowing and caring for their people.

00:04:12:01 – 00:04:33:16

Jo Gibbs 

We look to the good Shepherd. Jesus. John ten, who knows his sheep and his sheep know him. We see the one another passages around, a number of them are around encouraging, caring for each other. Now, this is an all packed into an annual review. And there are lots of different ways we do this in church life, but an annual review can be a place for that.

00:04:33:18 – 00:04:51:06

Scott Sanders 

So I can say, very much so. A key part of why you think about any reviews is that they’re an opportunity to pause, reflect, give thanks, and actually provide that point in time where you get to actually encourage, encourage a person and surface, you know, all the things that happened, not just that at the point in time.

00:04:51:06 – 00:05:04:17

Scott Sanders 

Hey, great sermon. You know, this last week, you know, you led that meeting really well, you know, did this it’s actually an opportunity to kind of pull all those things together and say, you know, here’s where we think you got on well in.

00:05:04:19 – 00:05:25:20

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. And to look across patterns, helpful patterns, ones that might be not so helpful to looking backwards and pausing and giving thanks, but also looking forwards. What are the areas of growth for this person? Where possibly might they say God leading them in ministry? How can we start planning towards that? So it’s not kind of accidental, which.

00:05:25:20 – 00:05:48:14

Scott Sanders 

Is is the role really steward stewarding, you know, in terms of yeah, I don’t like talking about people as resources, but stewarding the gifts, the talent, you know, the resources of your own staff team, your own ministry team, your own people. Yeah. So very much the ball has lots to say about stewardship, stewardship and, and caring for the resources that we have, the paper resources that we have.

00:05:48:15 – 00:06:14:21

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. And those people, really have been entrusted to our care as gospel workers, as pastors. So we want to, entrust that, but we also want to think about, you know, our doctrine, our, theological clarity and their whole bunch of things that we’ve been entrusted with the gospel. Are our ministries heading in the right direction? So we want to be careful and accountable about those things as well.

00:06:14:23 – 00:06:31:14

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. Good, good. Well, a lot of people might be listening and thinking, you’ve just made it even more harder. Not only do I have to be encouraging, but now I’ve got to think about accountability. Yeah, now we’re going to be future forward as well. And I’ve got to have that development conversation, as with, you know, with someone as well.

00:06:31:14 – 00:06:40:04

Scott Sanders 

Surely that’s surely that’s the their responsibility, not my responsibility as the leader. Why is it worth all the effort?

00:06:40:06 – 00:07:03:02

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah, there’s a few things that happen that are really helpful in an annual review. First one, like, we think we’re good encourages, but basically Australian culture, we’re terrible at encouraging. And so we actually need that space to be intentional, to give thanks to God, to celebrate wins. I you know, Australians say something’s really great and you say, oh, it’s pretty good.

00:07:03:04 – 00:07:27:04

Jo Gibbs 

I always so tone down. So we need to work hard at this. We need to zoom out and look at that bigger picture. So, patterns that are emerging, positives and negatives, longer term trajectory, but also connections with the rest of the team. How does their part in the ecosystem, how are they contributing to that? It also normalizes professional development.

00:07:27:04 – 00:07:33:13

Scott Sanders 

So what do you what do you mean by normalizes? You know, isn’t there something that is happening just in, you know, churches all over the place.

00:07:33:15 – 00:07:36:10

Jo Gibbs 

You know?

00:07:36:12 – 00:07:41:03

Scott Sanders 

So that was a that was,

00:07:41:05 – 00:08:05:06

Jo Gibbs 

Well, I think we in the busyness of ministry and running ministry, often our direct report meetings are getting stuff done, but not actually thinking what needs to what’s needed to push this, person in their role, in their abilities to the next stage? What is that church need for that? And that can be really hard to ask for outside of something like an annual review.

00:08:05:06 – 00:08:24:18

Jo Gibbs 

But this creates a space for saying, what is the next five, ten years look like? What would that look like? How could we support you in that and makes it part of the culture? The other thing I noticed is that in ministry, roles tend to get role creep. And so we tend to start with our original job description, but it snowballs as we go.

00:08:24:20 – 00:08:42:10

Jo Gibbs 

And this is a time to pause, look at the job description. What’s been added. What’s been dropped off at particularly for part time staff because they have other responsibilities, other roles that they’re doing, family responsibilities. And so we want to be caring for our staff. Well, in.

00:08:42:12 – 00:08:50:17

Scott Sanders 

So again, it’s more than just, a conversation extended to pull out some of the artifacts, the job description that you haven’t potentially looked at and.

00:08:50:19 – 00:08:51:11

Jo Gibbs 

Hopefully have.

00:08:51:13 – 00:08:57:14

Scott Sanders 

Since the job offer. And it’s an opportunity to to pause, you know, pause and reflect together.

00:08:57:16 – 00:09:24:15

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. I think it’s also really helpful. Some roles are very visible, and they’ll get lots of feedback regularly, but some roles are much quieter behind the scenes. One. So this this is a chance to give them feedback, and care about their growth. But I’ve been hearing some really great conversations in the network recently about developing the whole person, being concerned about that, not just the person for the role, not just the tasks for their role.

00:09:24:15 – 00:09:45:01

Scott Sanders 

So someone might be listening, thinking, hey, I’m I’m just working for the church. You’ve you’ve pushed into my spiritual life. Now you’re pushing in my home life and, and my whole person. I feel like I feel like you’re overstepping the mark. So how is how is ministry different to maybe what someone’s experienced in the secular space where it has all just been about an outcome, about getting their job done.

00:09:45:06 – 00:09:50:16

Scott Sanders 

And it hasn’t mattered how I’ve lived my life, or even how I’ve probably got the work done.

00:09:50:21 – 00:10:29:04

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. So it can be pushing into those areas like we come as or people with families attached. We don’t just come and do a job for a number of hours a week. A whole family is part of this community that’s in church. As leaders, biblically, we’re held to a higher standard. So we want to be paying attention to all of that, but also just pushing into things like, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, chatting to people about what they how they develop new grads who come from college with lots of knowledge but need to grow as leaders in how they lead and lead teams, how they lead themselves.

00:10:29:04 – 00:10:35:20

Jo Gibbs 

There’s a whole bunch of areas that we need to push into rather than just, I want to make sure you can do these tasks.

00:10:35:22 – 00:10:49:17

Scott Sanders 

So that we will talk in the toolbox about, giving feedback to experienced leaders and then giving feedback to the new leaders. And people just need a job. There’s a very different kind of way and thinking about that as well. But we’ll put that link in in the show notes.

00:10:49:23 – 00:11:16:16

Jo Gibbs 

And we want to be developing, people in our team for a lifetime of serving Jesus. So this can help to build longevity into their role. Recruitment is such hard work. At the moment I’m hearing the recruitment pool is a little shallow at the moment. You want to keep and invest in the people that you’ve got, but also if there’s an issue now for them, it’s going to be if it’s not addressed now, it’s going to be an issue for them ten years down the track if they’re serving on someone else’s team.

00:11:16:20 – 00:11:22:23

Jo Gibbs 

So think about that whole lifetime of ministry and develop the whole person or that lifetime.

00:11:23:00 – 00:11:40:09

Scott Sanders 

Now someone might be listening and thinking, we just don’t have this. And this sounds pretty detailed. You sound like there’s a pretty awesome structure here at Reach Australia that we use. Very complicated, lots of software and every moving parts and everything else. What’s just a simple way to start?

00:11:40:11 – 00:11:45:16

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. So it doesn’t have to be super complicated. Reach Australia, we’ve got, set of questions that we use.

00:11:45:16 – 00:12:04:04

Scott Sanders 

Very simple. There’s. You sound like it’s a big involve prizes. What are you doing? Well, Joe, what could you do better? We ask you to reflect on that. And, every couple of years, we get 360 feedback. So we ask you to give a few names for the people. And then what’s a highlight? So we get you reflect on a highlight that you want to talk about.

00:12:04:04 – 00:12:25:14

Scott Sanders 

And then we’d ask people to give a highlight. Yeah. And then now with the magic of AI we can summarize that. And they identify that. And it comes up in these beautiful, you know, beautiful report. But it’s really that’s really simple. That’s a simple, you know, three questions. And then in the in the process as well, we’ll also ask a question, you know, where do you want to develop, where do you want to grow.

00:12:25:14 – 00:12:40:20

Scott Sanders 

So actually asking that question of all of the person, but then may as a later off and I reflect and go, okay, well, hey, what am I saying? Where are we going as a, as a, as an organization or as a church? This is where I want you to be. You know, I’m pushing into as well.

00:12:41:00 – 00:13:07:09

Jo Gibbs 

And also the two way conversation where that you ask them a question to give feedback about what they’re noticing in the organization, in your church. Because you want that it’s goals. But it starts with just booking a meeting and I would say a 60 to 90 minute meeting. If it’s going to be 60 minutes, just book a buffer around it in case it becomes a longer conversation, lock it into the calendar early so it doesn’t get squeezed out by stuff at the end of the year.

00:13:07:11 – 00:13:24:09

Jo Gibbs 

And in that, make sure you’re on time, make sure it doesn’t feel rushed or squeezed out by competing demands. Don’t start with I know we’ve booked an hour, but I actually need to leave 15 minutes early for this. I give give the team member your full attention because this is a really significant moment for them.

00:13:24:11 – 00:13:43:11

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. And and I think it’s something that, will build over time. So I think, you know, just do it once. Doesn’t have to be amazing. You don’t have to do all those wonderful, amazing things to do with AI. But just keep it. Keep it simple. Having the conversation is, is important and and just starting it so that over time, you’ll, you’ll build that culture.

00:13:43:13 – 00:13:52:01

Scott Sanders 

People will look forward to it. They’ll also be ready to bring, you know, their thoughts about, development opportunities, and in other spaces as well.

00:13:52:02 – 00:14:13:20

Jo Gibbs 

So you can hear in that there’s a real intentionality. So you want to send the questions to your team members beforehand so they can reflect and come really well prepared. But you also want them to be able to return them, say, you’ve got time to write them, so that you can have a think about that. So you all come really well prepared for a great conversation rather than, you know, last minute.

00:14:13:20 – 00:14:15:09

Jo Gibbs 

Really? Yeah. Not a priority.

00:14:15:13 – 00:14:34:21

Scott Sanders 

And one of the accountability pieces I’ve been doing recently is actually summarizing the 2 or 3 things, that have come out of that into, you know, coaching outcomes for the next year or, how we are going to follow up this action. You know, you’re going to go on research X, y, z course. And then we’re going to, you know, get you to do it, for example.

00:14:34:21 – 00:14:38:13

Scott Sanders 

So make sure you build those action points in those accountabilities. Just good, good.

00:14:38:15 – 00:14:57:20

Jo Gibbs 

Not just a nice conversation that goes into nothing. If this is the first year that you’re doing it, you want to be really clear about what the purpose is, because people might bring a whole bunch of not great experiences from this, you know, in secular work, they might be wondering, is this a performance appraisal? Is something going to be dependent on this?

00:14:57:21 – 00:15:07:00

Jo Gibbs 

Is this a chance for me to just debrief, ask for a raise, whatever it is, come clear. Give them information beforehand about what the purpose is so they can come.

00:15:07:00 – 00:15:14:13

Scott Sanders 

And again, just do that at the start. You know, a couple of simple sentences. Hey, wait. Here’s the purpose. Here’s what we’re doing. How do you feel about that?

00:15:14:15 – 00:15:16:23

Jo Gibbs 

But also when you send out the questions beforehand, you.

00:15:16:23 – 00:15:26:23

Scott Sanders 

Can do that also for the people who need to, to look at it, like to have it in writing as well. So when you actually sit down, know what makes a good review?

00:15:27:00 – 00:15:52:08

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. So as I said, come prepared. Come. Having read what they’ve said, what they’ve written, look through they’ve reflections beforehand, a setting that’s unhurried. As I’ve said, private communicates that this conversation matters. Don’t have people wandering in and out. Let them talk first and walk through their, their reflections, without interruption. But really give them that time not jumping ahead to the next thing.

00:15:52:10 – 00:16:02:20

Jo Gibbs 

You might want to ask some follow up questions just to dig a little bit more deeply, draw out a bit more insight. So you’re not just getting surface answers or making assumptions. You know what they’re talking.

00:16:02:22 – 00:16:25:15

Scott Sanders 

Guests on our team does this really well. I’ve watched him. I’ve sat on lots of, annual reviews with him, and he, he prepares super. Well, he really always neatly kind of pulls all this feedback. It always starts with a highlight, you know. So yeah, I want to start and say, hey, these are these are the things that I’ve noticed, you know, and, and highlights, you know, feedback someone’s given does a great job at it.

00:16:25:16 – 00:16:26:03

Jo Gibbs 

Nice.

00:16:26:04 – 00:16:40:09

Scott Sanders 

Now the question though is I’m a senior pastor. I’ve got so many things that I’m already doing. Surely this is something that I would delegate or hand over to someone else. So my time surely slowly. Actually Joe.

00:16:40:11 – 00:16:46:07

Jo Gibbs 

It depends on the size of the say so. In some teams, staff will already be reporting to someone else, and I.

00:16:46:07 – 00:17:05:17

Scott Sanders 

Think about span of care if they’re appointing someone else. It’s not, I think it’s important for a senior minister probably be sitting in on it. But they’re not, they’re not they’re not leading it or driving the conversation. Yeah. They also hopefully have modeled it. And so they are providing feedback to their, to their staff members so they can do it better and, and get better at it.

00:17:05:19 – 00:17:29:19

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. I think you’re totally right. The senior pastor of them sitting in says so much. And especially if the team members, the staff team members are not reporting to them normally, this is a chance to hear that overall thing. And just so important to hear that encouragement and that development conversation that, you know, we’re really valuing really thankful for your ministry.

00:17:29:19 – 00:17:34:20

Jo Gibbs 

And we also want to invest in you to hear that from the senior ministries. This in the past is really important.

00:17:34:20 – 00:17:53:04

Scott Sanders 

And potentially really important for part time staff who don’t necessarily get to every staff meeting, don’t necessarily, get a lot of time, as you say, with the. Yeah. With the senior minister as well. So what about for the small church? You know, the same this has got less of a span of care. Every ministry team member who’s on staff is actually reporting up to them.

00:17:53:04 – 00:18:04:21

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. Again, surely you’re so busy, he, he should be handing this off to a parish council member or, to to the elders, to someone who’s actually got experience.

00:18:04:23 – 00:18:23:06

Jo Gibbs 

This is such a key conversation for team members. I know, you’re kidding me. Trying to stir the pot. This is such a key conversation for team members I know have some team members, where they go to their annual review, and the encouraging comments are printed out, and they keep it and they keep it for those days when ministry is really hard.

00:18:23:08 – 00:18:25:21

Scott Sanders 

So lots of those days of those days.

00:18:25:23 – 00:18:45:16

Jo Gibbs 

But you don’t want to be delegating this. You really like this is such a key conversation and it yeah, it just multiplies in so many ways. But I think in all of that, really important that whoever’s leading the annual review, has clarity about the purpose of it. They thought through it or had some training on it.

00:18:45:18 – 00:19:07:03

Jo Gibbs 

There’s some accountability. So it doesn’t drift or disappear. But so, like, such a great part of Christian community to actually build a system that speaks encouragement before someone has to ask for it, because a lot of people won’t ask for feedback and you’ll think that they’re fine, but they’ll it sounds needy or it sounds self-centered, and so they just won’t ask for it.

00:19:07:05 – 00:19:15:01

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. Good. If you’re a church leader out there as well, can I encourage you? There’s there’s often people in your congregation who are doing this for a, a full time job as well.

00:19:15:01 – 00:19:16:12

Jo Gibbs 

So, yeah.

00:19:16:14 – 00:19:36:11

Scott Sanders 

I can remember when, Derek and I implemented this, probably five, six years ago, we actually got, a Christian H.R. Person to come in and and sitting on a couple of days, give us some feedback. And that was, you know, just coaches, yeah. Don’t hear me saying I’ve got it right. I and I do an amazing job, but I’ll definitely do it better than I would without that.

00:19:36:11 – 00:19:41:04

Scott Sanders 

So, I think as well, this is a real opportunity for people to use their gifts and skills in church life as well.

00:19:41:06 – 00:20:02:06

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, can I? Also, we’ve been very positive up until now. We haven’t pushed into negative areas at all and they can come up. It might be like, I think it’s really helpful to push into where the pain points, where the blockages, those sorts of things can be so helpful to cover. But what about the hard conversation that lots of people don’t want to have either?

00:20:02:07 – 00:20:13:05

Jo Gibbs 

Something about the team member that seems that’s coming up, or for the team member to have that leading up conversation with their team leader. They say, any pastor, any thoughts on that? Scott?

00:20:13:05 – 00:20:34:09

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. Well, I think, on the leading up conversation, you you want to build that into a culture in terms of he’s an opportunity for you to say, hey, I’m, you know, I’m keen to get feedback on, on anything you’re saying, as you say, at the organ, you know, at the organizational level, but also, invite that, invite that feedback, you know, personal feedback on yourself.

00:20:34:11 – 00:20:45:10

Scott Sanders 

You as a senior leader will hopefully, because you’re driving it, it’s not going to be unexpected. You know, in the sense of you, you’re asking for it. The feedback might be unexpected because you might go, oh, okay, I wasn’t aware.

00:20:45:10 – 00:20:52:10

Jo Gibbs 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it doesn’t have to be like open slather. It could be. What’s one thing I could do differently that could support you more or.

00:20:52:14 – 00:21:11:20

Scott Sanders 

Exactly. Yes. I’d say be really direct in what and what you’re asking for. I think if you’ve got a hard conversation with a staff member, then you want to give them, you want to give them some notice beforehand? So again, often what we, you know, we’ve done is, we’ve handed people the, you know, the feedback, the feedback.

00:21:11:20 – 00:21:31:03

Scott Sanders 

And we always ask the question, what key, what could you do better? You know, so often in that they’ll be played back on how people lead meetings. It’ll be, feedback on, them not being prepared. You know, so whatever it is in some sense is they’re getting an opportunity to see that, and review that.

00:21:31:05 – 00:21:47:21

Scott Sanders 

And so in your preparing, you know, we’re going to be talking about some of the highlights, some of the great things you’ve been doing as well. But if you’ve noticed something that you want to particularly address, you know, I’d say I do want to talk about, you know, x, y, z, you know, let’s be ready to, discuss that.

00:21:47:23 – 00:22:16:15

Scott Sanders 

I think as well that, this is not, there’s not the big sort of, you know, what, you know, necessarily wanting, you know, you’re going to be putting, you know, putting in a warning letter, you know, necessarily that’s the case. It probably it probably needs to happen outside of this because as, as you’ve discussed through most of the podcast as well, the idea of this is, it shouldn’t have too many surprises, because what we’re trying to do here is hopefully have a culture of regular feedback.

00:22:16:17 – 00:22:32:10

Scott Sanders 

You know, where that’s probably been raised. And so hope for the discussion is I noticed you’ve been working on lighting in meetings. I’ve seen this improvement. But you can see here some people are still saying, you know, they would want clear agendas, you know, following up at some points, you know, again, all these things, it’s not you.

00:22:32:10 – 00:22:36:09

Scott Sanders 

I’m looking for feedback on Jackie. Excellent meeting agendas and good action.

00:22:36:09 – 00:22:59:13

Jo Gibbs 

Points now, but I think what you say is right. There shouldn’t be any surprises. It should have been a conversation that’s already been started earlier, but I think I’ve noted what I’ve noticed with, having those hard conversations. There’s usually two touch points. So it’s either you tell them, you give them that information beforehand so that they can come prepared to the annual review, or you share that at the annual review, and you need to have a touch point afterwards.

00:22:59:16 – 00:23:00:00

Scott Sanders 

A lot.

00:23:00:02 – 00:23:06:02

Jo Gibbs 

How how are they how are they going digesting that? What are they learning about themselves. That kind of thing. Yeah.

00:23:06:04 – 00:23:24:20

Scott Sanders 

And I think my reflection point from this, you know, last year France, we did them all a bit too late, you know, so even, you know, we kind of waiting, waiting for that time if you can be doing them in, you know, October. November. Yeah. Not December, because it is just a busy time. And you do one at a time.

00:23:24:20 – 00:23:45:24

Scott Sanders 

Yeah. So trying to get on to them, earlier. So they’re out of that space and again, that need to be annual. You can do them annually in August. You know, they don’t have to annually happen in, you know, in December. Yeah. If that makes sense as well. Now, this is the one thing, Joe. So, what’s the one thing you want to say about annual reviews.

00:23:46:01 – 00:24:02:15

Jo Gibbs 

Yet pausing on an annual basis for that intentional growth conversation with your team members is absolutely worth it. It will not only encourage and support them and help them grow, but also provide helpful feedback that will benefit the whole church. So it’s really worth doing.

00:24:02:17 – 00:24:25:03

Scott Sanders 

Excellent. Well, Joe, really helpful to, present and have this conversation. Just want to encourage church leaders to start thinking about this now. So it’s not a surprise in December, and start talking about it with your team as well now, so that they’re prepared for it as well. And as I said, a very simple framework, which we’re going to put in the toolbox.

00:24:25:05 – 00:24:46:16

Scott Sanders 

Three questions. What’s a highlight? What what are you doing? Well, what could you do better getting someone to reflect on that and then you as a leader, reflecting on that as well, if you’ve got a wider team and more people, great to involve them. But in this first instance, probably just, you and staff having having a reflection point on those two questions, it’s it can be as simple as that.

00:24:46:18 – 00:25:06:23

Scott Sanders 

A couple of other resources. I mentioned Joe’s article at the top of the episode. We’ll put a link in the show notes, to that wiki. Lynch has also, written a post on the Gospel Coalition website on Ministry Leader annual reviews. And I said we just refer to a couple of episodes again, the episodes on giving regular feedback.

00:25:06:23 – 00:25:31:05

Scott Sanders 

So using the SBI framework really helpful, but also the episode where, I think we Peter, Peter and I put not just guests thinking about the experience later and then you later having a different approach, that you need to take as well. Because in some senses, with that new layout, you just want to be encouraging, encouraging, encouraging with the experience later, there, you’re actually wanting the, the tougher feedback.

00:25:31:07 – 00:25:36:03

Scott Sanders 

And there I would, I would have it but he both the new and the experience need to.

00:25:36:03 – 00:25:37:09

Jo Gibbs 

Hear it.

00:25:37:11 – 00:25:58:02

Scott Sanders 

Carries it. Sorry, I just I didn’t I just didn’t hear it in the, in the, in the rest of the episode chat. But, the importance of encouragement and, and celebration. Well, if you found this conversation helpful, allow me to share it with, a team member, and talk about it, with your staff. And, and this might be a really, helpful way just to kind of start brightening this conversation.

00:25:58:02 – 00:26:03:09

Scott Sanders 

If it hasn’t been part of your ministry practice. I’m Scott Sanders.

00:26:03:09 – 00:26:04:05

Jo Gibbs 

I’m Joe Gibbs.

00:26:04:05 – 00:26:04:20

Scott Sanders 

Chatting.