A year ago, I read this book called Fair Play. The book was written for women trying to figure out how to manage the division of labor inside the household. The basic premise is that, in heterosexual couples, women tend to carry the lion’s share of domestic responsibilities, regardless of either partner’s employment status. This is even more true when a couple has children. The book establishes a “game” that makes those implicit responsibilities, and who has them, explicit, in order to provide couples with a framework to make more intentional choices regarding the division of labor. It outlines around 100 “cards,” each representing an area of responsibility in the home, ranging from “kids birthdays” to “weekday lunch” to “taxes.” The goal is not to make sure each partner has exactly 50 cards, but to make clear-eyed choices that make sense for each individual couple.

I’ve been thinking about some of the frameworks in the book, not just for my family, but for church leaders. There’s a core idea in it that I think could be useful to all of us, but particularly those of us who feel like our volunteers, lay leaders, or even staff aren’t carrying enough of the load.

The book posits that one of the biggest barriers to partners taking on additional household responsibilities is the primary parent and homemakers’ unwillingness to allow tasks to be done differently. The book points to examples of women asking their partners to dress the children and then making them get re-dressed because the clothes didn’t match, or asking partners to go grocery shopping and then sending them back to the store to get a different brand of an item.

There is definitely an argument that it’s completely reasonable to expect the partners (husbands in this case), to put together a decent-looking outfit, or to know what brand of yogurt their kids like. That argument is totally fair. Also – is the task being completed in a way that is different from how the first partner would have done it enough of a “failing” to warrant the level of frustration and intervention it causes?

The book posits that if either partner has a card, then the person who has the card gets to decide how the card gets accomplished, and as long as it meets a pre-established “minimum standard of care,” then the person who does not have the card may not intervene or ask them to re-do it.

If the minimum standard of care for the “getting kids dressed” card is “shirt and pants, jacket if under 60 degrees,” then mismatched shirts and pants are fine. If the minimum standard of care for grocery shopping is “bought items on list,” then you don’t get to send them back to the store because you weren’t specific enough on the list. This can feel a bit harsh, but what the book posits is that this framework can actually be pretty liberating.

Because instead of delegating a task and then hovering over your partner’s shoulder waiting to correct it, you can treat your partner like an adult who will keep the commitments that they said they would.

Here’s where I think this matters to church leaders: some of us (myself included) can be hoverers when it comes to the responsibilities we delegate. We tend to want our lay leaders, interns, and volunteers to take over roles only when we are sure they will do them exactly the way we would do them. Whenever they do them differently, we hop in and clean up the writing, adjust the schedule, and script the announcements. We reason that we are the paid professionals, that we know what we’re doing, and that part of our job is to make them do their jobs correctly.

But what if, when we handed over a card, we could truly hand it over? What if, when we asked volunteers to manage events, or children to be ushers, or interns to plan Fall Kick-Off, we could establish a minimum standard of care and then yes-and-amen whatever strategy they used to get there?

How much space could we free up in our minds and work weeks? How much agency could we give our people? What would it look like to have a church community in which people really could play the cards they are dealt, could own their hand with confidence? What if you could focus on what really belongs in your hand, instead of looking over everyone else’s shoulder?

This week, think about the “cards” that exist in your current role, and which ones might better belong in someone else’s hand. Have a conversation with them where you agree on the minimum standards of care, and once you do, let that card truly be theirs. You might very well be surprised at how much more capable your team is than you have let them be (even if they do it all in mismatched outfits).