Podcast Episode #258
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Reflecting on a post by Sam Rainer, we discuss the parameters of when office hours are needed—and not needed—for church staff.
Some highlights from today’s episode include:
- Does your staff have a good work ethic? Do you trust them? Are they accountable?
- At least a modest number of office hours is a good thing for church staff.
- The world of ministry is not an 8-5 job.
- Ministry does not happen on a set schedule.
- Many pastors never feel like they are “off duty.”
- A church staff is there to do ministry, not just to serve the pastor.
- If I don’t trust someone on my leadership team, I don’t want them on my team.
- Most church revitalizations come from churches who love their community enough to be in their community more and more.
The seven reasons for not requiring office hours that we discuss are:
- The church bubble is often the church building.
- Ministry does not happen on a set schedule.
- The pastor is selfish.
- People are more accessible because of technology.
- Trust.
- Fewer walk-ins.
- Creating a culture of going.
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Feedback
If you have a question you would like answered on the show, fill out the form on the podcast page here at ThomRainer.com. If we use your question, you’ll receive a free copy of Who Moved My Pulpit?
Maybe you covered this, but how do you keep people accountable? Do you have them submit a time sheet? I agree that hours work is a terrible metric for productiveness, so do your rely on goals and objectives met?
Just curious.
Pastor:
I agree with you regarding not requiring, in general, office hours for staff. However, whose responsibility is it to physically open and close the doors for Sunday Service? The Pastors? Maintenance? Deacons? Elders? I’m curious if you have ever found this to be an issue. Thank you for your words and service.
Thanks, David. It varies by church, particularly by size of church. Larger churches (200+ in worship attendance) usually have custodians.
Regarding who opens the church building for Sunday Services……
Our church is a church of roughly 220 and all the ministry heads and others that have service responsibilities to the church have keys to the building. For example: those that prepare communion, service the baptistery, maintain the building, work in the kitchen, youth leaders, as well as the staff, etc, etc, etc.
Usually, there are many people at the church building early in the morning who prepare our Sunday morning continental breakfast, hours before Sunday School and the church worship service. The pastors and staff and their families are usually the ones to show up just shortly before breakfast begins, or sometimes just in time for Sunday School. I don’t believe I have ever seen the pastor or other staff members be the first to open the doors on Sunday Morning.
Regarding office hours:
COMPLETE elimination of office hours for the pastor of a church I would have to take issue with, especially for inexperienced young, just out of Bible College pastors.
I have been in the work force for many years and with an almost non-existent work ethic among many of todays young people, this would be like giving the keys to a candy store to a baby. Some would be more than willing to take advantage of their complete unaccounted freedom and think they literally died and went to heaven.
I believe in the flexibility of office hours since, as you say, pastors are on call 24/7, but to eliminate hours all together……no way.
I grew up under two senior ministers who were at the church building in suit and tie at 7:30 or 8:00 AM Monday through Friday. They would have a daily prayer time and meetings with staff to discuss plans and activities for the day and then they would be off to activities outside the church if necessary. If they spent half the night at the hospital with a family, they would still show up for the daily staff meeting and then go home to family for the rest of the day and get some much needed rest.
Their office time was very flexible, but not completely ignored. Their philosophy was that a sense of daily routine and order was important to maintain accountability in a flexible work environment.
Clergy ( I’ll use United Methodist because that’s the denomination I am associated with) work under a covenant, not a contract. An example of of covenanting would be “I am a full time pastor and I will work full time”. If a church doesn’t trust a statement like that, then there are unaddressed issues in the church that need to be attended to (like trust). And the bottom line is that some people will never be happy unless they see the pastor everywhere doing everything. Having annual goals are an excellent idea with quarterly evaluations to seeing if goals are on the way to being met
Good word, Jim.
You made some excellent points in regards to Sam’s original blog post a few weeks back and I agree with 99% of them and I thank you and Sam for highlighting this paradigm shift. However, one point where I would offer a bit of disagreement is that I believe more than just the complainers or troublemakers would have a problem not having staff accessible to them during traditional office hours or more specifically, having staff not keeping more traditional office hours in general. Understanding this is coming from a traditional church mind set but not a small country church but rather a large suburban congregation. Your thoughts? Thanks so much!
Rich –
You will probably do best by having some see office hours (such as 8 to noon two days a week). Some churches just need to know when the pastor and staff are in the office.
Thanks, Dr. Rainer!
Thom,
Great podcast! I have been a Staff member for 32+ years (including three years as a head pastor). During that time I have faced many, if not all, of the challenges you commented on. Another aspect of this is that there are times throughout the year when a Staff member or pastor works many extra hours into the evening in meetings and preparation for or participation in church events or activities. The average church member is unaware of this. I can recall a number of times when I worked 15 or 16 hour days in preparation for a program or event and still was “expected” to be in the office at 8 AM the next morning.
I have also noticed that those who pride themselves in being to work early every morning nearly always leave promptly at the same time every afternoon. Ministry is not like that. It is fluid and subject to change. It should also be noted that when the weekend roles around, a church member can choose not to attend church for any reason…even if they are a church leader…and not lose their “job”. A Staff member or pastor does not have that luxury unless it is a vacation Sunday, a legitimate illness, or a tragedy in the family.
–Roger
Thanks, Roger. Good points.
Roger, it would be good to remember that pastors and staff are not the only ones working the weekends, Firemen, nurses, correctional officers, even factory workers in places are required to work weekends, many nurses work normal 12 hour shifts, state troopers work a normal 10 hour day, 5 days a week. Then when you figure many volunteer their free time after or before work to worthy causes, there is not a lot of difference between your situation and productive members of the congregation. Some churches allow their pastors work time to be involved in the community, lay people do that after working their regular job or jobs, some take vacation time to volunteer or do short term missions.
Remember you have a call on your life from God, he will supply your needs, as He does with those in the congregation.
Alas, your analogy breaks down. Do people expect firemen to be at the fire station when they’re supposed to be out fighting fires? Do people expect police officers to patrol the streets without ever leaving the station? Alas, people do put these kind of unrealistic demands on pastors. Furthermore, people in the professions you mentioned are not in danger of losing their jobs if they make certain people unhappy. That’s not true of many pastors.
Really enjoyed the podcast and love the idea of “out of office hours”. I would like to know how a pastor could best use these out of office office hours to the best advantage when he is in, for instance, a coffee shop.
Is his presence there good enough? Should he be working on sermons plus trying to actively engage those around him? (all questions are serious)
Have any of you pastors done something close to this?
As a pastor of a small town church, I try to keep some office hours, but I will tell you, it is not easy. This week, I ministered both on the holiday and on my day off for an unexpected surgery that turned into a ten hour day, and also put in a 400 mile round-trip. All days took away needed study and preparation time. As a pastor, I just have no clue on my next week schedule (even though I have a plan).
Thanks, Glenn
As a pew sitter, the Pastor should have some specific time during the week when people can drop in and talk. Making an appointment with your pastor two weeks out can cause opportunities to be missed or issues to fester. Many issues can be disarmed by a simple face to face meeting. Also the Pastor needs to look like he’s approachable by the congregants. If his meetings are by appointment only, he will find that he becomes ever more isolated and sooner or later he will be surprised by something that an approachable pastor would have been on top of.
After listening to both this podcast and the previous one on Tools of the Trade, I would respectfully ask that you consult someone who is well-versed in both tax law and the new overtime ruling going into effect this December 1. For example, I understood you to make a statement in the previous podcast about turning in auto expense reports at year-end and settling up, but I believe the IRS requires that expenses be reimbursed within a certain time frame (maybe 60 days?) in order to not become taxable income to the employee. I believe California has even more specific legislation on this.
Also, the new Department of Labor overtime ruling is going to require much stricter accounting of time for employees making less than $47,476 for 2016. This will hit a LOT of churches, and they need to be preparing now, both from an implementation and budgeting point of view. A podcast that addresses this ruling would be very beneficial for many church leaders. Your friends at Vanderboemen.com have an article up on this topic.
I checked with a CPA. He is not familiar with the specified time frame for reimbursement. Can you point us to the IRS provision on this matter? It is important for our audience to get accurate information from us and our commenters.
“Reasonable period of time” for reimbursement of expenses is discussed in the following IRS publication. It states:
“Reasonable period of time.
“The definition of reasonable period of time depends on the facts and circumstances of your situation. However, regardless of the facts and circumstances of your situation, actions that take place within the times specified in the following list will be treated as taking place within a reasonable period of time.
You receive an advance within 30 days of the time you have an expense.
“You adequately account for your expenses within 60 days after they were paid or incurred.
“You return any excess reimbursement within 120 days after the expense was paid or incurred.
“You are given a periodic statement (at least quarterly) that asks you to either return or adequately account for outstanding advances and you comply within 120 days of the statement.”
https://www.irs.gov/publications/p463/ch06.html