Eric Bailey's

Well Yesterday was the (annual?) performance review for me. The elders went over the forms that people filled out and gave me a print out of the results to look at while we talked. The results were entirely anonymous, so that people could be straight forward without feeling like they would hurt my feelings, or anything like that. It was interesting and depending on how you read the scale it is either okay, or just barely bad.

All the numbers from the questions were averaged for their question, and the whole was averaged for an over-all rating. People had one question that asked them to give an overall rating (that averaged to 2.7 on a scale of 1-excellent, 2-good, 3-adequate, 4-poor) and the average of all the questions (except that one) worked out to 2.65 which means that people were consistent. I'm not sure exactly what else it means, but at least the congregation is consistent.

Interestingly one of hte areas on the survey was preaching. There was an amazing range of answers on this one. I can understand some range but I wonder about the extent of the range and what that can mean to me as I seek to improve. Is it just style and expectation for some people that caused such a low rating, or is there something specific that I would want to know about that would help me improve? I hope to start taping my sermon (a temporary step till I am able to record them either onto cd or straight onto computer). By taping, I'll be able to hear what everyone else is hearing when I speak and I will be able to work on some things that I notice.

I don't feel as down as I usually do at this point after a performance review, and I am not sure why. Either the method really worked for me, or else I am still not dealing with the results. Oh well, I guess as time goes on I will find out.