In this paper I report my findings under three headings: appraisal, knowing what to do, and finding support.
MDR and Appraisal
The perception of MDR in relationship to other appraisal schemes is made throughout the interviews. Appraisal carries some sort of baggage for some,
‘. . . annual appraisal doesn’t take into account any form of vocation or discernment of gifts and particular skills within the ministry (MN).
And more generally a background of difficulty with the issue:
Moving in that direction, for me, the very word professional has some difficulties, which we’re all aware of, aren’t we (OP)?
But is more positively felt by others, MDR is criticised for not being as robust as appraisal while a recognition is made that it does need to be different from appraisal in an employment context:
‘I think it’s not clear … it’s a little bit too vague. It’s being nice. It’s gentle, it’s … MDR is pastorally caring and sensitive, and of course every appraisal should be pastorally caring and sensitive. We are not employees of the Methodist church . . ’ (CD)
It was too relaxed; it didn’t really make me, challenge me or make me think and because he was not in any way connected with the circuit, there was no reference to the actual people who I was working with and who knew something about what my ministry was about. So, didn’t seem very relevant really (UV).
However, for AB above, MDR is seen as no more than appraisal with its perceived minimizing of complexity and humanity. While not as robustly stated, some would have preferred the review to be even less prescriptive and managerial. In answer to the question, ‘if you didn’t have to do MDR what would you do?’ The response was,
‘What would I do? I think I would rather have maybe a person or a small group that I just meet with maybe a few times a year and just talk things through.’ (ABC)
A recurring theme was the lack of training and consistency for those conducting MDR. Here the experience of the policy that intends not to be a crude form of appraisal is experienced as such because it is done badly.
Indeed the lack of training is noticed by IJ with the emphasis on the quality of the resources provided in lieu. The following quote from an anguished interviewee who had previously experienced appraisal before becoming a minister.
My first time, I looked at my preaching and got people to give me feedback on some of my services, and that was really useful. Last year, which was my second time and so we set up meetings for the churches, really, to say what they wanted me to do, and that wasn’t very useful at all, because they came up with everything on earth, really. . . wanted me to do absolutely everything. And I spent the rest of the year just feeling stressed because I couldn’t get the stuff done. So that didn’t really achieve very much at all. (EF)
The reflection, indicating again a poorly done MDR, was that it was simply an unimaginative engagement:
… my sense in the form that it’s done is that it’s just done to tick some boxes.[….] So, no, I’d rather not be doing something that was ticking boxes. I’d rather be doing something that was about my development. (GH)
The sense of ticking boxes is associated with appraisal outside the Church, but MDR is also seen as distinct from that failing:
Sometimes that (appraisal) could feel like tick-boxing, because they weren’t actually saying how can we develop you? It was just a case of confirming that all the staff had been through a process. . . .(GH)
And in answer to the question about appraisal’s similarity to MDR the answer makes it clear
‘It’s not like MDR because MDR is deliberately supportive. It’s not linked to your next pay rise or your future promotion or whatever categories the annual appraisals fed into (GH).
The history of MDR, its roots in other forms of reflective practice do continue to shape people’s perception of it and its agenda:
Well, I would go back further than MDR really because MDR is the child of the ministerial self-appraisal scheme really,….. it was mooted initially by people who were concerned that there were ministers who were, in common parlance, swinging the lead rather successfully. (KL)
The roots of a policy do shape how people perceive it, even though the policy makers have made efforts to move forwards. The experience of the policy is shaped by the same dilemmas of the holy and the secular, of God and mammon:
I think what happens is we fall between, well, several stools, but we fall between the stools of management and pastoral management model and pastoral model. We want to be professional, we want to be recognised as a genuine profession as opposed to a calling, if you like. (KL)