Responsibilities and Assignments

“That’s not my area,” an assistant pastor said to me when I asked him to take a Friday evening assignment. Actually it was not necessarily or directly anyone’s area of responsibility. It was a banquet for the Gideons. At the time, we had many Gideons in our church. They loved the church and wanted one of our pastors to be at a banquet honoring pastors. I could not go—and it was not a basketball game keeping me from it!

My reply to the staff member was, “Well, it’s one of your assignments now.” And he went.

That’s a harsh case, but it illustrates a major need. In my consultation work with churches, one of the major areas for questions is that of job responsibilities. What I’ve learned is that everyone should have a clear job description, including the lead pastor. And the last line on everyone’s job description should be, “And other areas as assigned.”

The job description should include at least these areas: status (whether full- or part-time), name of direct report, salary and benefits (not listed here but location of records should be noted), major areas of responsibility, and specific goals under each of those major areas. There should also be a line for vacation and holidays.

All staff should be listed in one of these four columns:

• program
• worship
• outreach
• administration

It’s healthy for someone in the “program” category—a senior high director, for instance—to be “point person” responsible for a minor area in one of the other columns—“assimilation,” for instance, under “outreach”; or “prayer” under “worship.” This helps to avoid the prevalent staff infection called silos.

Assigning part-time staff to one major responsibility area can be a good move financially. The advantages include no benefits or extra budget items.