Clergy Performance Evaluation Pilot Project
Diocesan Press Service. December 6, 1973 [73256]
CHICAGO, Ill. -- "Performance Evaluation for Clergy ", which is the second step of the overall Clergy Deployment Model, got another boost on its way in November when representatives of 13 dioceses met in Chicago to consider a pilot project soon to be launched by the Clergy Deployment Office (CDO). Performance Evaluation was specifically mandated to CDO in Louisville by the General Convention with a very high priority.
The Pilot Project will involve at least six dioceses and hopes to include 10 percent of the active clergy and bishops. It will be based on the same principles and practices that were outlined in the first step at the Performance Evaluation Seminar held in Louisville in February, 1973 by Dr. Felix Lopez, Consultant.
Essentially, the Clergy Deployment Board believes that good performance evaluation must be self-evaluation, that is, it must involve the minister himself at every step of the way. It is his ministry that must be strengthened and improved and only he can make the necessary decisions. He will be guided and helped, however, by a diocesan trained mentor, possibly a layman, chosen by him. Together they will decide what is expected of the minister, what the standards are, what the evaluation is, and what is to be done about it.
The process can afford new ways for ministers, vestries and bishops to share their hopes and perceptions and can also provide an open and disciplined discussion of what in the past has often been hidden and imprecise.
At present CDO is seeking funding for the Pilot Project. It estimates that about half of the overall cost will be borne by CDO and the dioceses, but the remainder must come from outside sources. CDO itself began in 1970 with a grant from the Episcopal Church Foundation. Since 1970, however, it has been financed by the General Convention.