0:08

It is the pastor's heart and Dominic Steele . And how

0:10

can male senior pastors have

0:13

better relationships with women on

0:15

their ministry teams ? Claire Debs is our

0:17

guest . We are talking today about

0:19

churches , teams and female team

0:21

members , where really everybody

0:23

involved shares complementary convictions

0:26

. And yet in those contexts

0:28

there are stories suggesting that

0:31

relationships between some senior

0:33

pastors and women on the teams have been strained

0:35

and sometimes have broken

0:37

down completely and , as

0:40

a result , there's been a massive cost to the

0:42

individual , the staff team , the churches

0:44

and to gospel work . Claire

0:46

Debs has just completed her

0:48

PhD studying working

0:50

relationships between women

0:52

employed in complementary and

0:55

ministry teams and the senior

0:57

pastor who they work with . Claire serves

0:59

as the assistant minister at Caleroo

1:01

Anglican Church in Perth and

1:04

lectures in church history at Trinity

1:06

Theological College in Perth

1:08

. And a hundred years ago

1:10

she and I were undergraduate . Well , we

1:12

were in an undergraduate Bible study group

1:14

together at university and it is lovely to

1:17

have you with us , claire .

1:18

It's nice to be here . Thanks , dominic .

1:20

Now I'm imagining , claire , that your

1:22

pastor's heart for this whole question

1:25

of women on staff teams

1:27

first arose out

1:29

of a concern for some Christian sisters

1:31

when you heard about relational

1:33

breakdowns and pain . Is that right

1:35

?

1:36

Yeah , that is right . I was

1:38

full time at that point at Trinity Theological

1:40

College and I'd gone there because I wanted

1:42

to train women for gospel

1:44

ministry and over and over again , what

1:46

I was hearing was that it wasn't working and

1:48

they didn't see much point training them

1:50

for a thing that wasn't working and

1:53

the stories that I was hearing were devastating

1:55

. So the PhD was an attempt

1:57

to do something to try and help that

1:59

.

2:02

What did you find out ?

2:04

What did I find ? That's a broad question .

2:06

I mean , is it the case

2:09

that every relationship

2:11

is a disaster , or Not at all ?

2:13

No , I was pleasing to find that a number of women

2:15

had really positive relationships with their

2:17

senior pastors . There are a good number of ministry

2:20

teams that are highly functional

2:22

, encouraging places to work . So

2:25

on the good side it was perhaps more positive

2:27

than I thought it would be , but

2:29

the pain when it goes wrong is

2:31

extraordinary . I think and

2:33

that became clear as I interviewed

2:36

people that

2:38

when it goes wrong women lose

2:40

not just their job but their job

2:43

and their church , family and sometimes their

2:45

house and almost always their confidence

2:47

, all at the same time . And

2:50

so it's devastating for the individual , it's devastating

2:52

for the churches to have that kind of

2:54

thing happen . So there is enormous

2:56

pain but it's not always going

2:59

wrong . So the

3:01

pain now is enough that we don't want it to keep

3:04

going wrong .

3:04

So I guess we've got the good , the

3:07

middle and the bad . Yeah , that's right . What

3:10

percentages are good , what percentages

3:12

are middle and what percentages are bad

3:14

?

3:15

Because it's a qualitative study with a non-scientific

3:17

sample , I

3:19

can't give you percentages that are accurate . I

3:23

mean the people I spoke to . Half

3:29

of them would have been good and the

3:31

other half divided between sort of ambiguous

3:34

and negative relationships

3:36

. But some of the ambiguous ones , the

3:39

thing that didn't work , was such that it still

3:41

ended up in resignation .

3:44

Now , as I read your study

3:46

, a lot seemed to come back

3:48

to me , to the

3:51

heart , the character , the skills

3:53

of the senior pastor . A lot of it is on

3:55

us as senior pastors .

3:57

Yeah , I think that's right . Partly that's because I interviewed

3:59

the women and we do need someone to go and do

4:01

the other half of the study , which is to interview

4:04

the blokes to find out what role the women

4:06

can play in helping the relationship to work . But

4:08

because of the nature of my study , yeah

4:10

, it was the women indicating for

4:12

them what they needed from the senior pastor .

4:15

We've got a lot of senior pastors watching

4:17

, listening to us . Now what's the

4:19

message you want to send on behalf

4:21

of some of those women ?

4:23

Yeah , I think and I think not just

4:25

women , I think probably all associates what they're looking

4:28

for is to be in genuine

4:30

gospel partnership with the person that they're working

4:32

with . So they

4:34

want to be , they want to know where

4:36

they're going and be doing something together

4:39

with the senior pastor , which

4:42

, in big terms , boils down to

4:44

being able to make some sort of valuable

4:46

contribution . So a valuable

4:48

contribution both in the sense that it's substantial

4:51

they're not doing token work , there's

4:53

something meaty that

4:55

they can get stuck into and

4:57

in the sense that it's valued . So I

4:59

really , if there's one thing not to do , it's

5:02

to sort of employ a children's

5:04

worker so that you never have to think about

5:07

children's work again and you can just leave

5:09

them alone . You wanna do it in partnership and

5:11

you wanna show that you value that contribution

5:13

. So you want the women wanna be able to make a valued

5:16

contribution . They

5:18

need to have a voice , so the opportunity

5:20

to speak and to be heard when they are speaking

5:23

, so that to be

5:25

in the room when decisions are being

5:27

made , to have the opportunity to be

5:30

part of decision making , and

5:32

then there needs to be some element of personal

5:34

relationship . The biggest part of that

5:36

is actually that the senior pastor shows some

5:38

concern for them as a person . So

5:41

if you've got those three big things , then

5:43

they together add up

5:45

to a gospel partnership and

5:48

if they're functioning then you'll probably be okay

5:50

.

5:53

What you've just said . It sounds

5:55

like what one would say about

5:57

any staff member Yep , and

6:00

what one would say if it was an egalitarian

6:02

team as well as a complementarian

6:05

team .

6:06

Probably .

6:08

Where does it play out differently

6:10

if she's a woman and I'm a man

6:12

and if we're both complementarian

6:15

rather than egalitarian ?

6:16

Yeah , that's a good question . I expected

6:19

that it would be more gendered than it was , and

6:22

it's just not . That's the reality

6:24

. So , as the woman was speaking , gender

6:27

didn't seem to be the biggest thing , and I

6:29

think sometimes we're

6:31

of the impression that there's some secret

6:33

source in a mixed gender team and working

6:36

with women's confusing , and we sort of buy into

6:38

that . Men are from Mars and women are

6:40

from Venus , but actually there's just not

6:42

that much difference . Where

6:45

it plays out differently and where it plays out differently

6:47

that in an egalitarian setting is

6:50

probably in each of those three elements

6:52

. There are particular

6:54

different places that

6:56

they'll rub , if that makes sense . So

6:59

, for example , making a substantial contribution

7:01

what that contribution will be

7:03

will be different because we're complementarian

7:05

and it might be harder

7:07

to work out exactly what

7:10

her contribution is going to be , because it's not gonna

7:12

be as simple as well . You take that congregation

7:14

and go on run with it , so

7:17

it plays out differently , but both

7:19

of them , both men and women , wanna make a substantial

7:21

contribution . I think the other

7:23

place that it's really different is when something

7:26

goes wrong . So

7:28

one of the factors in terms

7:30

of the senior pastors' skill set

7:32

if I'm going to make a valuable

7:36

contribution of some kind

7:38

, then I need to know what it

7:40

is we're trying to do and what you want me

7:42

to do . And so the senior pastor

7:44

needs to have some kind of plan , be

7:47

able to organize our efforts around that

7:49

plan and communicate the plan . If

7:52

he can't do that , like , let's say , we're on

7:54

a staff team and we don't really know where we're going

7:57

. I imagine an

7:59

associate bloke feels a little bit more comfortable

8:01

saying all right , well , I'll

8:03

step into the role for my congregation and I'll

8:05

set a direction or I'll

8:08

sort of help him get us

8:10

working in that direction . Complementary women

8:12

won't ? She's just stuck and

8:15

so it probably affects her more than it affects

8:17

the bloke , even though what they need

8:19

is the same thing .

8:21

That's super helpful . You , right

8:24

towards the end of your PhD

8:26

, had a diagram which we'll put

8:28

up on the screen there , but

8:30

you talk about partnership

8:33

being the big word .

8:35

That's the thing .

8:35

But then around along

8:38

the bottom of the diagram and people watching

8:40

can see it on the screen . There there's

8:42

ministry skills , strategy and organization

8:45

, structures and roles , communication , conflict

8:47

management and relational skills . It

8:49

feels to me like you're speaking into that diagram

8:52

at the moment .

8:53

Yeah , almost everything I have to say is in that diagram

8:55

. If you understand that diagram . You've

8:57

got the whole bottle real Well explain it to me . So

9:00

you'll see , halfway up the diagram

9:02

there's those three big things I just talked about , so

9:04

valuable contribution and having a voice

9:06

, the personal relationship . All

9:08

of those things , though , are not just good intentions

9:11

. The senior pastor needs some skills

9:13

to make that happen . So how

9:15

you , your ability to organize

9:18

the roles in your team so

9:20

that everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing plays

9:23

straight into someone's opportunity

9:25

to make a substantial contribution . If

9:28

I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing , or

9:30

if I keep tripping over somebody else in my job

9:32

, my ability to make that valuable

9:34

contributions massively diminished

9:36

. And it may not be because

9:38

the senior pastor thinks I'm incapable

9:41

of a substantial contribution . It's

9:43

just that he hasn't communicated what it

9:45

is that he wants me to do . Or

9:48

, similarly , if

9:51

you're working on your own in a church and you decide

9:53

on Saturday night to throw out the

9:55

plan for the Sunday service and do something different

9:57

, that's probably okay , but

10:00

if you do that with a team it's really

10:02

frustrating . So those

10:04

organizational skills again

10:08

play into . How do I make a significant

10:10

role if I've been working on something for four

10:12

weeks and then you change your mind about whether we're

10:15

gonna do that or not ?

10:16

And the difficult thing is , I do have my

10:18

best ideas at the last minute . I

10:20

just wish I could have my best ideas earlier

10:22

.

10:23

Yeah , and so I think .

10:25

I think I want to say I'm disappointed myself to throw out that brilliant

10:27

idea .

10:28

It's that one , Like you've had a great idea and

10:31

good on you , but that's sad for

10:33

you and you can't make that someone else's problem . You

10:35

can , sometimes maybe , but if it happens all

10:38

the time , it's just insanely frustrating

10:40

to do that . The

10:42

other one , like with having a voice some

10:44

staff teams are so big that

10:47

you can't have just one staff meeting

10:49

. You've got to have two levels of meeting

10:51

Well , who's in that meeting and how

10:53

you organize that ? So , again

10:55

, your ability to work out your

10:58

strategy , your communication , the

11:01

roles people have in your meeting structures

11:03

plays directly into whether or not women

11:06

on staff have a voice in the

11:08

team . And so all

11:10

those background things

11:12

that are not sort of we don't think of them as the main

11:14

things in ministry are skills

11:17

, probably that a senior pastor over

11:19

a team needs , that a pastor

11:21

on his own doesn't need , needs them to some

11:23

extent because you're always working with church

11:26

members but with staff you

11:28

just you need them even more .

11:29

It all comes under things they never taught

11:31

in New Testament 3 , do you know ?

11:33

No , and I don't think your initial

11:36

theological training is the place to do it . I think

11:38

it needs to be . You do that , you go

11:40

and cut your teeth in ministry , but before you're

11:42

a senior minister we do need a bit

11:44

more training . Yeah , sorry

11:48

, oh , it feels like a free hit , so I'll take

11:50

it . And if you have a

11:52

go at being a senior pastor , you've done well

11:54

as an associate . Someone calls you to and it turns

11:56

out not to be a thing , that's okay

11:58

. Like , do something else

12:01

. It's not a character flaw to not have those

12:03

skills . It's not a godliness issue to not have

12:05

those skills and not everyone's got them

12:07

. You can be absolutely suited for ministry

12:09

and not be suited to being a senior

12:11

pastor .

12:12

Mm-hmm , mm-hmm . Yeah

12:14

, you

12:18

talk about the importance of

12:20

a positive feedback loop .

12:22

The senior pastor makes these decisions

12:24

, he takes certain actions and

12:27

it doesn't matter if it's not in his relationship with her

12:29

. They feed into her experience of the role

12:31

. And if his decisions feed

12:33

positively into her experience of the

12:35

role , then that'll

12:37

be positive , that'll build trust

12:40

, that'll build confidence in

12:42

the senior pastor . Then you've got

12:44

a sense of mutual partnership . The

12:46

relationship's positive and

12:48

it just keeps feeding back on itself . You've got a positive

12:50

relationship , so his decisions are positive

12:53

and it keeps building on itself .

12:55

So you did see people getting into , if you like

12:57

, positive spirals in relationship and

12:59

negative spirals in relationship .

13:01

Oh , yeah , I think so . I think one

13:04

of the things that we would want to

13:06

do if a relationship's going wrong , you

13:08

really want to get onto that early and

13:10

work out where is the issue

13:14

, because once you're

13:16

spiraling down , it's pretty hard to

13:18

stop that . I think . Certainly

13:20

once you're in a formal process , it's probably

13:22

all over . Formal processes don't

13:25

usually work . So

13:27

, yeah , you want to start early , before you're feeding

13:29

back negatively .

13:35

What's the word I

13:38

mean ? I know you didn't study this , but

13:40

you must have speculated a little on

13:43

. You've given us the words for senior

13:45

pastors . What's your word

13:47

of advice for the women ?

13:49

Yeah , my word of advice

13:51

for the women and this is why we do need

13:53

a bloke to do the other half of the research

13:56

. But I think for

13:58

the women , what I would hope is , if

14:00

they come across this research , it

14:02

helps them to look and say the

14:05

frustration I'm feeling is this . It's

14:07

this really concrete thing , and

14:10

then you can have a constructive conversation

14:12

about it . Dominic , I'm

14:15

struggling in my job and it's because

14:17

I've got 15 tasks

14:19

but none of them are substantial . Can we do something

14:21

about that ? That's a positive conversation and

14:24

helps the senior pastor to be able to do something

14:26

about it . But

14:28

I think too , it did come out . I mean , all of the women

14:30

, the ones who had very negative relationships

14:32

did say they don't need the senior pastor to be

14:34

perfect . So the women

14:36

do , I think and do need

14:39

to show considerable grace to their senior

14:41

pastors .

14:41

It's a very hard job , but

14:43

where they can articulate what

14:46

it is that they need early on , I think

14:48

that will help enormously In hindsight

14:51

did they think actually , now

14:53

I think back , it was

14:55

probably there in the job interview , the

14:57

warning signs , and I didn't spot them

14:59

.

15:00

Sometimes , and sometimes not . Yeah

15:03

, so there were some things . There are

15:05

job descriptions that on paper are

15:07

ridiculous and

15:09

it's probably best to terminate the process

15:11

at that point or at least to renegotiate the job

15:14

description . But no

15:16

, there are others where they came out of the interview thinking

15:18

, yeah , this will be good , and then that

15:20

just the interview almost

15:23

consisted of the things

15:25

we all know are good to say , but

15:27

in practice it didn't turn out that way . Yeah

15:31

, so no , the red flags aren't all there in the interview

15:33

.

15:34

Hmm , were

15:38

there any differences between the male team

15:40

members' experiences and the female ones

15:42

?

15:42

Well , I didn't interview the blokes so I'm

15:44

guessing that they're pretty similar . What was surprising

15:47

was just how little

15:49

gender came up . So we need to talk

15:51

about complementarianism that came up . We're

15:54

still working out how to implement that . We need positive

15:56

conversations about it . But

15:58

just as I think through those big building blocks

16:00

, it's just hard for me to imagine a

16:02

bloke thinking , oh yeah , I'm happy

16:04

to not make a substantial contribution , never

16:07

be heard and have a senior pastor who hates me . Just

16:11

sounds like they're the things that are going to work for

16:14

everybody .

16:16

Fair enough , let me drill down some

16:18

more on these various points . Then True partnership

16:21

is key the valuable

16:23

contribution , the voice heard and

16:25

the measure of personal relationship with

16:27

the senior pastor . So I mean we

16:31

hear stories of people

16:34

falling out of ministry for getting

16:36

too emotionally close to

16:39

team members of the opposite

16:41

sex and so therefore

16:43

choosing to be potentially

16:46

more distant as

16:48

a safeguard with team members of the

16:51

opposite sex . Where's the sweet

16:53

source ?

16:54

there . I

16:57

don't know . I'd want to put a formula

16:59

up for that , but I do think

17:01

if you relate to women on team as

17:04

though they are obviously a

17:06

potential source of problem , that's

17:09

not going to be good for a relationship

17:11

. So there's some sort of line

17:13

between wisdom and

17:17

really overreacting against a

17:20

potential danger that may never

17:22

really realize itself . All

17:26

of the women are aware of it as well . I think that's

17:28

an important thing to say . But in terms of

17:30

the personal relationship , one

17:33

of the women who kept a diary

17:35

sort of said I think our relationship

17:37

would be helped if we did a little

17:39

bit more socially , her

17:42

with he and his wife , and what she meant

17:44

was dinner once a year is what

17:46

she said . So we're not talking about a lot . Nor

17:49

are we talking about the really

17:51

close relationship that gets to . That

17:53

, you know . But how are you ? Kind of ? Really we're not

17:56

talking . But how was your weekend ? Yeah

17:58

, you know , I heard

18:00

you say last week that your dad was sick

18:02

. How's he going ? We're not talking about

18:05

really intense , close personal

18:07

relationship , just some

18:09

sort of interest . So the person

18:11

doesn't feel like a tool

18:14

in the senior pastors toolkit that

18:16

they care about as much as you care about your hammer

18:18

right . They're a person and there's

18:20

some sort of care as a person

18:22

. I think before is

18:24

your boss , your senior pastors , your

18:27

brother and your pastor , and

18:29

so there ought to be some element of brother and

18:31

pastor in the relationship . Yeah

18:34

, but it doesn't have to be super intense

18:36

.

18:37

Personality fit .

18:40

Yeah , personality fit was interesting because it's

18:42

neither nothing nor everything . So

18:44

obviously there were some good relationships where people

18:46

had good personality fits there's nothing complicated

18:49

about that . But there

18:51

were some bad relationships where there were good

18:53

personality fits and

18:55

there were some good relationships where there were

18:57

quite difficult personality fits . So it's

19:00

not everything , it's not nothing . The

19:03

relationships that went wrong none

19:05

of those women described a really good personality

19:08

fit , but it's hard to know whether , once

19:10

it's gone wrong , you just

19:12

go off each other , or whether

19:14

they started without a personality fit

19:16

. I don't know . So it

19:18

helps , but could

19:20

you employ someone with whom you

19:22

don't have an easy personality fit ? Yeah

19:25

, you could and make it work , but you just have to work

19:27

at it a little bit . And I think in

19:29

Christ , we

19:31

don't want to just be with people like us , so

19:35

you want that diversity on the team . If you only

19:37

ever employ people like you , that's probably

19:39

a bit of a dud , but

19:41

you'd want to be

19:43

aware if you don't have a personality fit , you'll have to work

19:45

a little bit harder .

19:47

Did you notice any differences in the sizes of

19:49

teams ?

19:50

Look again , probably not enough women to

19:52

answer that question . Particularly

19:55

Once teams were very big

19:57

, there were a unique

20:00

set of problems . So

20:02

once you've got to the point where you

20:05

say very big .

20:06

What do you mean ?

20:08

Any size at which you think you can't have all

20:10

the ministry staff in one meeting . Once

20:12

you need a subset meeting . Then

20:15

you're starting to get . Once you've got sort

20:17

of two tiered line managers or

20:19

things , you've got a unique

20:21

set of problems that

20:23

need addressing . Yeah , Okay

20:26

. At some

20:28

point the senior pastor

20:30

can't develop excellent

20:32

relationships with everybody

20:34

. And at some point you do

20:36

have to have two meetings , like it's a real problem

20:39

that needs an actual solution . But

20:43

everyone on staff still needs to have a voice somehow

20:45

and so working

20:47

those things out , and everyone needs to have a

20:49

sense of partnership . But

20:52

the sort of secular research in

20:55

organizational behavior there's

20:57

indications there that if

20:59

what

21:02

you were to do as a senior pastor was

21:04

to foster a sense of real

21:06

partnership in the gospel between

21:09

team members , that

21:11

can substitute for having

21:13

that sense of partnership with the senior pastor

21:15

, which doesn't mean you never say how

21:17

was your work end ? You can actually

21:20

you can afford to

21:22

let them work in significant partnership

21:24

with somebody else , and that'll probably

21:26

carry it . Now

21:29

it means , when your staff team changes , you

21:31

need to remember that that's what you did and that

21:33

that staff person doesn't have a partner in ministry

21:35

anymore . So you need to keep your eye on that . But

21:39

that seems to be a viable solution for

21:42

the really large staff team , and

21:44

then if people can have their voice , sort

21:47

of through someone with whom they're in significant

21:49

partnership , you might be able to make that work . I

21:52

would say , though , for the senior pastor , who can't

21:54

develop a strong relationship

21:57

with everybody , that that doesn't

21:59

mean that he should just choose the men . I

22:01

think the senior pastor needs to keep hearing

22:03

a woman's voice somewhere

22:06

in that group that he's developing

22:08

stronger relationships .

22:11

Did you notice any kind of denominational

22:13

trends ?

22:17

Again , probably not a big enough sample to do

22:19

it , but there are , and

22:22

maybe not denomination . There

22:25

are problems that are specific

22:28

, I think , to the denomination

22:31

that has elders

22:33

, as opposed to your sort of Anglican

22:36

senior minister model . So I think parish

22:38

council is quite different to elders

22:40

, at least it is in Australia . So

22:45

if you're in a model , where

22:47

you've got a plurality of all male

22:50

elders , and you've got the all male elders

22:52

meeting well , you've got that

22:54

same problem of the two tiers really the two

22:56

tiers . Yeah , that's right . So

23:00

if decisions get made in the all male elders meeting

23:02

, then I think you've got a problem . That

23:04

made the solution .

23:07

Any suggestion .

23:09

Oh , my suggestion would be to not have an all male elders

23:11

meeting . So I think

23:13

I look at the Bible and think , yeah , it looks to me like

23:16

eldership is male , but I can't

23:18

see the elders meeting in the New Testament . We

23:21

can have women in the room , let

23:23

them have a voice , have influence , without them having

23:26

authority . Right , the

23:28

truth is we do most of our complementarianism relationally

23:32

not structurally . And

23:35

I think we can

23:37

trust complementarian women to be in

23:39

the room and know when

23:41

to speak and when to back down and submit

23:43

to the blokes and still be there . So

23:46

I think if I could waver

23:48

wand I'd get rid of the all

23:50

male elders meeting . But I

23:52

understand there'll be theological convictions and

23:54

hundreds of years of history to work against

23:56

for some people in that . But

23:59

if you don't do that , well then you do

24:01

need to find another solution .

24:02

For hearing her voice .

24:06

For hearing women's voices and for letting

24:08

female staff on team feel

24:11

like they're hurt as well . You

24:15

need to hear it and they need to feel hurt . Both

24:17

of those things need to happen .

24:22

Where to now with all this research and you

24:25

.

24:25

Right here , dominic , helping

24:28

people to hear what I've found

24:30

so far and

24:33

encouraging people to work

24:36

through it and make some changes . That's

24:39

where to .

24:42

Having done this work , I'm presuming

24:44

people have come to you

24:46

and said I've got a problem . Have

24:48

you got wisdom ? Is that

24:50

the case ?

24:52

Some yeah .

24:54

Have you gone at helping them

24:56

?

24:58

Not as much as I'd like to . In truth

25:00

, by the time people tell me they've

25:02

got a problem , we're usually in the death spiral

25:04

, so

25:06

getting this right is best done

25:08

preventatively . I

25:10

think this

25:13

would be good sorts of things for teams

25:17

and senior pastors to think about when they don't

25:19

have a problem , so that they don't have

25:21

a problem , as

25:24

you say , if we put that diagram back up again

25:26

.

25:27

I want to do ministry skills , I want to do strategy

25:29

organisation , I want to do structures and

25:31

roles . I want to do communication , conflict management

25:33

and relational skills and

25:36

I want them to play into

25:38

valuable contribution of the team members , a voice

25:40

that's heard and personal relationships

25:42

. That really is

25:44

the basic building block for any staff team .

25:47

Yeah , this is a PhD

25:49

sort of hilarious right . There's nothing massively

25:52

complicated about it . The

25:54

first one to write it down gets a PhD . What

25:57

it does , though , is it just

25:59

turns it into really easy

26:02

to understand digestible chunks

26:04

. Here's the checklist . If we do

26:06

these things , it will probably go okay . I'd

26:09

be encouraging people

26:12

. Maybe you get that diagram out every year

26:16

and say is that true for all my staff members ?

26:17

Is it the case that I am making sure that my staff members

26:20

I think through them all they're

26:22

making valuable contributions and they know they

26:24

are , and they know they are ? Are

26:26

they having a voice that is heard , and

26:29

am I in personal relationship

26:31

with them ? Well ?

26:32

Yeah , and if you're not , because

26:35

this staff team is too big , have you

26:37

established someone that they're working with , where

26:39

they have those things ?

26:41

Yeah , Claire , thanks very much for coming in . Thanks , dominic , and

26:44

thank you for doing this research for all of us . Great Claire

26:47

Dives has been our guest and she is on

26:49

the team at Kallaroo Anglican Church

26:51

in Perth , Western Australia , and

26:54

a lecturer in church history at

26:56

Trinity Theological College . We've

26:59

been with us on the Pastors Heart and we will look

27:01

forward to your company next Tuesday

27:03

afternoon . There

27:07

you go . That wasn't too painful , wasn't it ? No

27:10

, that was alright .

27:11

That was alright . I think the important

27:13

thing was getting to those big .