Workshop: Creating Ministries of Excellence
Developing Helpful Feedback and Spaces for Insight
Creating Ministries of Excellence:
Developing Helpful Feedback and Spaces for Insight
Congregations are often encouraged to conduct pastoral performance appraisals and to establish a group—commonly called a Pastor–Congregation Relations Committee (PCRC) or Personnel Committee—to support this work. This lay ministry can be deeply rewarding, yet it can also feel like navigating a delicate dance through a minefield.
On this Saturday morning, we will explore how to create helpful and effective PCRCs and evaluation processes. When thoughtfully designed, these practices can encourage ministers to continue growing in their vocation—enhancing skills, clarifying core needs, and focusing attention on the congregation’s highest priorities.
This workshop will consider how evaluation and feedback can move beyond obligation or anxiety and become life-giving tools that foster insight, accountability, and shared purpose.
Al Rempel, Associate Executive Minister for Mennonite Church Canada, brings more than 15 years of experience working with congregations as they navigate human-resource and ministry-related challenges. Most recently, Al played a key role in developing two denominational policies for Mennonite Church Canada: Guiding Ministerial Leadership in Mennonite Church Canada (GMLC) and the People and Culture Policy.
Al comes to this workshop grounded in the following perspective:
We are thankful for the gifts, talents, and abilities that each person offers for the benefit of the whole, as described in 1 Corinthians 12. The relationship between an employer and employee, or an institution and volunteer, is more than a transaction. We mutually strive for the development and aspirations of individuals and attend to their physical needs through fair compensation and benefit arrangements. Each person is seen as a gift to the church and an essential component of the work we do to build up the church and advance God’s kingdom, both within Mennonite Church Canada and in the world that God so loves. (People and Culture Policy – Mennonite Church Canada, p. 5)
I look forward to spending time with you as, together, we discern how God is calling us to grow into faithful and excellent ministry in this season.