“Pastor, as far as I know, you’ve made only five hospital calls during the three years we’ve been members of this congregation,” Dennis declared as he rode home from the hospital with the pastor of First Church, who had offered the ride upon discovering Dennis was about to be released.
“What do you mean?” protested the minister. “I make at least two hundred hospital calls every year!”
“Maybe so,” replied Dennis, “but as far as I know, the only hospital calls you’ve made during our time here have been the three on my wife a year ago and two during my stay. We appreciate your visits, but you never say anything about hospital calls to the congregation, and your annual reports never mention it either. All I’m suggesting is that you stop keeping it a secret.”
Yes, it’s true. Much of what a pastor does has low visibility. Preaching, teaching, and attending meetings have comparatively high visibility, but hospital visitation, calling in homes, counseling, and sermon preparation are at the other end of the visibility scale. Some ministers try to balance things by including a series of statistics in their annual reports: number of hospital calls and home visits, number of weddings and funerals, number of sermons, and so on.
But there are many ways a minister might organize that annual report to inform the members and reflect pastoral activities, and this is only one alternative. It may be useful to look at four different possibilities.
The Minister’s Perspective
Perhaps the most widely used organizing principle in preparing the minister’s report is to focus on the activities of the pastor during the past twelve months. In part this is a natural response to the fact this is “The Pastor’s Report.” In part it is a response to the question of “What do you do?” In part it’s an attempt to give equal visibility to all of the many functions of pastoral ministry.
Some ministers provide a statistical report, as mentioned earlier.
Others report the approximate number of hours spent in sermon preparation, in leading worship, in calling on members, in attending meetings, in counseling, in administration, in conducting special services such as funerals or weddings, and in the time spent as a community leader. Some ministers do this on the basis of a “typical week” while others report for the entire year.
Instead of activities, some ministers use the report to help explain their role more clearly. In one small congregation, for example, the minister built her entire annual report around the theme of her role as an enabler. One inner-city pastor used the report to lift up his role as a community leader. Another pastor used the annual report to focus on “My role as an initiating leader.” Another lifted up her role as a counselor. Another emphasized proclamation of the Word and administration of the sacraments as the outline for his annual report.
The Congregation’s Activities
A distinctly different approach is to build the report around congregational activities. Such a report often includes a statistical summary of worship services, Sunday school attendance, the number of special services and the increase, or decrease, in the membership. It also usually includes special programs such as a vacation Bible school, Lenten services, special classes and response to them, the introduction of a new curriculum series, the organization of a new adult class, the attendance at a revival or similar evangelistic crusade, and any inter-congregational cooperative ventures. It may also mention financial support given to missions, the program of the women’s organization, and youth fellowship, improvements to the building, and the financial status of the congregation.
This approach shifts attention from the minister to the congregation. While there are hundreds of exceptions to this generalization, the larger the congregation, the more likely the pastor’s report will focus on the congregation’s activities. In small-membership churches, the tendency is to focus on the activities of the pastor.
The Congregation’s Goals
A third approach is to focus on the special goals of the congregation for the past twelve months. This can include both special corporate goals and the minister’s understanding of his responsibilities in helping to implement them.
An example might be to identify three or four major aims of the past year. Underneath each of these categories would be a statement describing what had been done to move toward those general objectives. For instance:
A. Enrich Spiritual Journeys
This could describe the programs and experiences designed to implement these goals. It might include references to regular weekly worship experiences, special services, the attendance of members at the denominational camp, a marriage enrichment retreat, creation of a Tuesday evening Bible study group, the new curriculum in the church school, an officers’ retreat, a work camp trip for high school youth, the weekday nursery school for three- and four-year-olds, the local response to the denominational challenge to study the Word and witness for Christ, and a new group for the recently divorced.
B. Expand Outreach
Under this could be reported the effort to relieve world hunger, the work of the evangelism committee, the direct mail effort to invite nonmembers to attend the Christmas Eve service, the assistance given to launch a new congregation in another country, the ministry of the women who call on lonely persons in the nearby nursing home, the October mission festival, the outreach of the youth choir in other churches, and various social welfare programs.
C. Enlarge the Leadership Circle
Comments could be offered here about the efforts of the stewardship committee in identifying potential leaders, the training experiences offered to help individuals improve their leadership skills, the changes made to encourage younger members to work with and learn from older leaders, the changes made in the nominating process to broaden the leadership base, the new emphasis on leadership development in the youth fellowship (this is especially important if the local high school enrolls more than 350 students), and the role of the women’s organization in leadership development.
Instead of the three categories used here, it might be preferable to use a four-part outline of (1) worship, (2) nurture, (3) outreach, and (4) fellowship or some other classification system.
Among the advantages to such an outline are:
¥ It shifts the focus from the pastor to ministry.
¥ It lifts up goals rather than events and activities.
o It reinforces a sense of direction and movement.
¥ It reduces the chances that institutional survival goals will dominate the thinking and the discussion.
¥ It reinforces the goal-orientation.
¥ It offers a chance to publicly affirm the efforts of many members.
A Systemic Approach
The fourth of these approaches is the most complicated and the most difficult-and it also may be the most rewarding.
The persons responsible for preparing reports to the annual meeting come together and develop an outline that can be used by all of them in organizing their reports. For example, they might agree on a three-point outline consisting of (a) care of the members, (b) outreach beyond the membership and (c) new ventures in ministry. The obvious bias in this particular outline is it lifts up and encourages creativity and innovation, and it also encourages a sense of internal coherence. (Every outline has a built-in bias. What is the bias in the outline you are using now? Is that bias consistent with your values and goals?)
This approach encourages the minister and every other leader to use the same perspective in reporting on the past year. This repetition reinforces a sense of cohesiveness, unity, and movement. It emphasizes ministry rather than institutional maintenance. It also provides a consistent perspective for reflection on new goals for a new year.
Which of these four approaches appears to be most appropriate for your congregation? What is the system you use for outlining and selecting the material to be included in annual reports? Can you develop a better one?
-Lyle E. Schaller
Copyright © 1983 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
