A number of years ago, I had a board member who worked in a profession where he billed his clients by the hour. This is the framework through which he saw life, and he got it in his mind that I, and the staff, should track of our hours like he did. To his way of thinking, we weren’t working unless we were in the Church Office. I guess he wanted us to log hours so he could have the assurance we had an acceptable work ethic and weren’t being lazy.
I tried to explain to him a couple of things that makes ministry different. “First—suppose I’m at the oil change place and somebody from church walks in. If I spend twenty minutes in conversation with them while we’re sitting there waiting for our cars, am I supposed to record that time? After all, I’m technically working—I’m using that time to build up a relationship with a congregant, which is one of my major job responsibilities.”
I also went on to explain that because ministry is a people profession, we need to be available to interact with people when they’re available—evenings and weekends. I can’t have board meetings during the day because board members aren’t available then. The worship pastor can’t have rehearsals during the day because the bulk of his instrumentalists and vocalists have jobs. The youth minister can’t have planning meetings with his key lay leaders during the day because they’re typically tied up. Our jobs require we be available at off hours. “So,” I asked, “When do we have the time to engage in pursuits and interests outside of work—those kinds of things that bring balance to our lives and help us stay emotionally healthy? Many times, that can only happen during the traditional workday. But if we’re logging office hours and you think we’re slackers if we’re not putting in a certain number of hours every day, you run the risk of burning us out. You could end up killing the goose trying to get the golden egg.”
That’s why I’ve never required office hours for my staff. I asked them to structure their week so they’d be in at certain times (like staff meeting), and I asked them to notify me and/or the secretary when they weren’t going to be in (as I felt like it never sent a positive message when someone called the Church Office and the response they got was, “They’re not in right now, and I’m not sure when to expect them.”) I always told my staff, “I can’t have your back if I don’t know what’s going on.” From an accountability standpoint, red flags fly when a staff member isn’t in the office and no one knows where he/she is, when he/she will be back, and how he/she can be reached.
The main reason I didn’t require office hours is because I believed the gauge of whether they were doing their job was the results of their ministry efforts—not whether or not they logged a certain number of hours. When someone asked me how many hours I expected a staff member to put in, my answer typically was, “Whatever it takes to get the job done. And the nature of ministry is such that it will vary. Some weeks will demand more than others.”
While I believe some time in the office is essential, I never required my staff log office hours. Here are some reasons why:
· People are more accessible because of technology. The advent of laptops and smart phones have enabled us to work in various locations—a very bad thing if we spend our evenings in front of a screen replying to one more email rather than interacting with the people we love. But the upside of technology is that we’re more readily accessible to where “out of the office” doesn’t mean “isolated from contact.” In many ways, I don’t need you to be immediately at hand if I’m able to get in touch with you so I can get a question answered or a situation clarified when the need presents itself.
· Fewer walk-ins. When my grandfather retired, he and my grandmother lived directly across the street from their church. One of the ladies who used to work in the Church Office told me it wasn’t uncommon for him to walk across the street and pop in two or three times a week. But those days are long gone; fewer people are doing that these days.
· The church can become a bubble. Having a church building is a wonderful tool for discipleship, but it can also become a bubble if we’re not careful. The walls can become a barrier—in fact, with our society becoming increasingly secular and organized religion being increasingly pushed to the sidelines, this notion is becoming more and more entrenched. In some ways, requiring office hours can incentivize staff members to create a bubble around the building. I’ve heard of some pastors who, in an effort to combat this tendency, actually require their staff members to limit their office hours.
· Ministry doesn’t happen on a set schedule. As I mentioned to my former board member, ministry is people business, and stuff in people’s lives typically can’t be planned or programmed. While you can know when so-and-so is going in for a surgery, you can’t plan or anticipate when that accident is going to happen and that dreaded phone call is going to come. Requiring office hours can create a mindset where staff don’t feel obligated to respond to that middle of the night phone call.
· Trust. If I, as a Lead Pastor, need to have my staff members in the office all the time, either I’m a control freak or I don’t trust them … which is an entirely different, and much more problematic, issue. Now—are there a few people who might be lazy and need to be encouraged to spend more time on their ministry responsibilities? Absolutely! But again—that’s a different issue.
· Cultural implications. There’s a sense in which having office hours sends a “ministry must come to me” message. At the same time, Jesus calls us to “Go!”—i.e., we’re to create ministry, not wait on it to happen. While some tasks can best be accomplished in an office setting, the business of equipping the saints isn’t one of them.
As it relates to my former board member who wanted us to log office hours, we did it for about two weeks—until an unexpected crisis came up where we had to step up for a brief season to cover all the bases. While logging hours may work for a consultant … or a field technician of some sort … or an interior designer … or a civil engineer … or an architect, it doesn’t work for the man/woman in full-time Kingdom service. For in many ways, the call to ministry isn’t the call to a profession or career. It’s the call to a lifestyle that cannot be compartmentalized or roped off into sections of “now I’m on the clock” and “now I’m not.”