Before You Go - Evaluating Expectations and Realities

This episode focuses on the critical importance of aligning expectations with reality when transitioning to a new church role. By addressing job responsibilities, performance metrics, and support resources, the discussion highlights how clear communication can prevent burnout and enhance job satisfaction throughout church staff transitions.

• Aligning expectations as a foundation for healthy transitions 
• Understanding job responsibilities and aligning them with reality 
• Importance of discussing performance metrics and church goals 
• Clarifying workload and work-life balance expectations 
• Outlining necessary support and resources for success 
• Identifying red flags in mismatched expectations during interviews 
• Emphasizing direct communication to prevent misunderstandings 

**If you'd like a copy of Wade Hodges' book, just email Podcast at chemistrystaffing.com.**

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, welcome to the Healthy Church Staff Podcast. I'm Todd Rhodes, one of the co-founders over at chemistrystaffingcom. Today we're going to continue our series on Before you Go. It's based on a book by Wade Hodges talking about before you leave your current church, before you go to your next church. What are some of the things you should dig into with your prospective church, the church you're considering going to. What are some questions you should be asking? And today we're going to be talking about how to align your expectations with the reality of a new role. Are the church's expectations for you clear and realistic and do they match really what you're expecting? We talked about this a little bit earlier when we introduced this whole culture, part of looking at things.

Speaker 1: 0:47

But one of the biggest challenges in any transition and it starts actually during the interview process, even before you accept a position one of the biggest challenges is managing expectations. I hear we work with churches all the time and sometimes we'll hear from churches that, hey, we're interviewing this candidate, we really like him, but then we followed up with him afterwards. It's been three days. He's not replied to our email. That's an expectation that the church has Candidates. At the same time, when we're talking to them. They have expectations and they're like man. I really like this church, but they didn't do this. The church missed an expectation. Part of the dance of discovering whether or not this church is going to be a good church for you and whether you're going to be a good fit for this church is managing these expectations, and Wade in his emphasizes and reminds us that mismatched expectations can really lead to frustration. They lead to disappointment and, over the long haul, lead to burnout. Those couple of examples I just gave you they led to frustration. Frustration can come really quick. Disappointment can happen overnight. Burnout happens over time. Okay, but it's all because of not having the same expectations or having mismatched expectations, okay. So understanding what's expected of you and communicating what you expect, man, it's just absolutely crucial for a good transition. It's absolutely crucial for a healthy transition.

Speaker 1: 2:31

So what are some key areas when it comes to expectations? What are some key areas that you should evaluate the evaluation right? First one is job responsibilities. Are the expectations for your role clearly defined? Does the job description align with what's being communicated? And you got to watch job descriptions are tricky. You got to watch it.

Speaker 1: 2:53

You may be handed a job description from a person that was there 20 years ago and they just haven't updated the job description. The job description may or may not be accurate, so you're going to want to dig in and ask some questions about okay, says this here. Is this really explain that to me? Figure out the expectations that are written and the expectations that are unwritten. So, job responsibilities that's the first thing you're going to want to dig into and ask some questions about. And most of these questions, honestly, are going to come. Probably not. They're not going to come on the first interview, probably not going to come on the second interview. They're probably going to come on either your first or your second site visit, when you're actually meeting with the leadership team at this church. You're going to ask really some these are some nitty gritty things you need to dig into when it's you know you're dating, you're serious, you're about to get engaged, right. So you're doing these checks and balances here.

Speaker 1: 3:50

So the first is make sure your expectations and that they all match when it comes to job responsibilities, but also make sure that they match when it comes to the metrics that they're going to measure you on. How are they going to, how are you going to know and how are they going to know that six months a year, 18 months, five years, in that you're doing a good job? How does the church measure success in your role? Those are some questions you need to ask. Are these metrics realistic If they're a church of 100 and they say we want to be a church of 1,000 in 18 months? Is that realistic? Is that achievable? Make Understand the metrics and that the expectations for both you and the church align. And then, what are the expectations of the people in the church, the congregation? What does the congregation and the leadership expect for you, even in terms of preaching and leadership, community involvement and all those tasks? What expectations do you have? What expectations did they bring to the table? Do you match up Workload and schedule? Is the workload manageable? Are you understaffed? Does the church support a healthy work-life balance? Are there unspoken expectations for long hours? Are you on call 24-7? Those are all expectations.

Speaker 1: 5:10

If the church has expectations that you think are unreasonable, this is the time to figure that out and have that conversation. You don't want to have that conversation six months in. It will not end well for you, it just won't. And then, finally, support and resources. Will you have the staff? Will you have the support? Will you have the budget? Will you have the tools that you really need to succeed in your role? And again, your expectation might be way up here. Their expectation might be down here. You might say I might need an assistant and a worship and a youth guy and gal. And they might say, no, we don't have budget for that. You've got Mildred. Who will help screen your phone calls? Those are mismatched expectations. You need to make sure that you are all on the same page. So here's the bottom line for today Clear, realistic expectations. They're the foundation of a healthy start in your new role.

Speaker 1: 6:13

If you don't have clear and healthy and realistic expectations, it may be a rough haul for you and the red flag. If you come out of that first interview and there are some areas where you don't see eye to eye on some of these expectations, there should be red flags being thrown all over the place. How do you get there? You ask direct questions during your interviews, you pray about it, make sure that God gives you a peace and you discuss all of those things that we just talked about and make sure that you feel comfortable with any of those. If there's any yellow flags there.

Speaker 1: 6:49

This is the time I can't stress this enough Before you accept the job is the time to work out any kind of perceived mismatched expectations. It's imperative on you and it's imperative on the church to be upfront about what you need to succeed and how well you're going to match up and how good of a match this is going to be moving forward. Any questions, you can reach me anytime. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. I'd love to hear from you and if you'd like a copy of Wade Hodge's book it's called Before you Go Questions, every Pastor Should Ask Before Taking on a New Role just pop me an email.

Speaker 1: 7:25

Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. It's a fantastic book. It's absolutely free. It's a gift to us from us to you here, from Chemistry Staffing. If there's any way I can help you or your church anytime, just reach out. Podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. All right? Thanks so much for spending some time with me today. It means so much that you take eight minutes out of your day every day to listen to what I have to say. Hopefully it's helpful to you and hopefully you will subscribe and be back here again tomorrow. Thanks so much.