The most difficult position to play in sports from a leadership and intellectual perspective is a professional football quarterback. Like many leadership positions, particularly pastors, it is very difficult to evaluate. Recently, ESPN had a show called Total QBR (quarterback rating). The purpose of this new evaluation is to properly look at how effective a quarterback/leader really is and make it quantitative.
Watching this show made me think about the evaluation of pastors. As an elder at a church, we give our pastor an annual review. Grading pastors, other than attendance and budget, is largely subjective. Perhaps we can learn from ESPN’s study about how to better evaluate the most difficult position in ministry, the pastor. The goal of the following list is to make pastoral evaluations more quantitative and a better reflection of actual leadership performance.
The quotes and results provide us a grid of 7 key areas to properly evaluate pastoral leadership.Â
- Overall Team Performance – “Statistics don’t measure courage. They don’t measure leadership. They don’t measure poise. Football is the ultimate team game. On every play there’s 11 guys involved and the coaching staff. The quarterback gets way too much credit when things go good and he gets way too much credit when things go bad.” – Jon Gruden *Note – Be careful about putting too much emphasis on just attendance and budget which may not be a true indicator of performance.
- Results – “There is only one statistic that is important and that’s winning.” – Ron Jaworski
What do current NFL quarterbacks value as the most important stat:
“All quarterbacks are measured by whether they win or lose.” – Kansas City Chiefs Matt Cassell
“Winning games is what it’s all about in the NFL.” – Baltimore Ravens Joe Flacco
“Wins and losses…You need to put in a winning performance week in and week out.” – Atlanta Falcons Matt Ryan
- Critical Moments – “In pro football, these games are often decided by 3 points or less. So I’m interested in how a guy performs in the 4th quarter when a guy’s team is tied or behind.” – Gruden
- Decision-Making – “Every time I graded a quarterback I graded his decision-making…Not every decision is the same on every play.” – Gruden
- Risk-Taking – “(The QBR) rewards risk-taking…(The QBR) penalizes critical mistakes.” – Jaworski *Note – I personally love risk-taking as an area of evaluation. Pastors who are creative should be rewarded when they attempt something new whether it works or not. Fostering an environment of creativity and entrepreneurialism will always eventually pay off.
- Losses During Critical Times – “Quarterbacks that lose games in the NFL take too many sacks.” – Gruden *Note – Some losses hurt more than others.
- Signature Moments – “What I love about QBR is when these NFL quarterbacks have these signature moments, when the deck is stacked against them, they overcome the odds and win, they are rewarded.” – Trent DilferÂ
Overall Church Performance (staff, people), Results (excellence and vision fulfillment), Handling Critical Moments (difficult and stressful times), Decision-Making (leadership and intelligence), Risk-Taking (creativity), Critical Losses (key moments), and Signature Moments (overcoming obstacles).  When I have to evaluate a pastor in the future, which frankly I never feel comfortable doing, this will now be the decision grid I use.
Gruden’s final comments included the statement, “You get a great quarterback in the NFL, you survive. If you don’t, you won’t.” How even more true that is concerning churches and pastors.
Beyond subjectivity, how do you evaluate your pastor?
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