Hello Brothers and Sisters in the Lord

Most of us look at a job description twice: once when we're applying, and again when we're wondering whether we could be earning more somewhere else. After that, it gets forgotten.

That's a problem, because a well-written job description is one of the most practical tools an organisation has. It brings clarity, sets expectations, and lays a foundation for operations that actually work. Small church or large, the principle is the same. If we're going to build, we may as well build it right.

Jackson

Just.

One word that does a lot of work.

"I'm just the admin." "I'm just the one who does the books." "I'm just the person who looks after the kids' programme." "I'm just helping out where I can." The setting changes. The word does not.

Consider what that word covers. The weekly email to the congregation. The safeguarding register that nobody else knew where to find. The hour spent unblocking a sink before the service.

It is not quite modesty or false humility. That word converts a long, specific body of work into a single expression that ends the conversation before it starts.

The research behind this word is not subtle. In the 2021 National Church Life Survey, 42% of Australian church leaders said administering the work of the local church was one of their main actual roles. Only 16% believed it should be theirs. The survey calls this a role mismatch.

Administration had the largest mismatch of any role measured. Thirty percent of leaders said they were doing it when they did not think they should be. The work those leaders said they were not doing enough of: training people for ministry and mission, developing vision and goals for their church, and teaching.

Administration was not just taking up space. It was taking the place of something else.

The mismatch is not a personality issue or a confidence issue. It is a structural one.

Structural gaps surface at exactly the wrong moment: when the person carrying the role is no longer there to carry it.

Many churches do have something written down. A position description from when the role was advertised, or a clause in the employment contract. It describes the job as it was imagined at the start.

What it does not describe is the job as it is in real life. And somewhere in the fine print, there is usually a line that covers everything the document does not: " and any other tasks as directed."

That six-word clause is not a detail. It is where the real job lives.

A position description written for the hire is not the same as a role description for the job in real life.

The position description is what was advertised. The role description is what the work actually involves now, in your church. The fine print of " and any other tasks as directed" is doing the work that should have been written down.

Without that, the scope of the role lives in one person's head. When they move on, it goes with them. Whoever follows discovers the role by watching what stops happening.

The first administrators in the early church were appointed because the work mattered (Acts 6). The principle has not changed.

The Toolbox resource this issue is the Church Role Description Guide, a practical guide and working templates for writing role descriptions for your church's key operational roles. Grab it below.

Church Role Description Guide

A practical starting point for writing role descriptions in your church

A guide to writing role descriptions for the operational roles your church relies on. Covers what to include, how to think about paid and volunteer roles in the Australian context, and includes working templates to get you started.

The Toolbox resource this issue is the Church Role Description Guide, a practical guide and working templates for writing role descriptions for your church's key operational roles. Grab it below.