This post is a part of the “One Thing” series. Often we feel like we have to take drastic steps in our life or church to see significant change, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the small things create the biggest impact. In this series, we’ll focus on “One Thing” you can do that will get you and your church moving in the right direction.
One of the areas that is often overlooked in the busyness of church work is the area of evaluation. Sure, many of us may know what is going right or wrong within a ministry in our church, but few of us actually sit down and write out an accurate evaluation.
Part of this is because we don’t feel like we have the time, and another part of this is because we just don’t like to face reality. Sometimes it’s scary dealing with what’s going on in the different ministries within our churches.
Yet, if we’re going to get better and if we want to see our churches continue to grow, we have to be willing to face these problems head on. This means evaluating the ministries within our church on an ongoing basis.
This doesn’t have to be super time consuming. You just need to answer these three simple questions for each ministry you’re evaluating.
- What’s going well?
It may not always feel like it, but in almost every instance you should be able to find something that is going well within the ministry. Our natural instinct is to look at the negatives, but I’ve found when you focus on the positives first you’ll often find it’s not as bad as it seems.
- What’s going wrong?
In similar fashion, ministries that are doing well are often not doing as good as they seem. In almost every case there’s some minor tweaks that can make the ministry better. Then, for some ministries the list of things that are going wrong may far outnumber the things that are going right. In these cases you may be tempted to do away with the ministry altogether.
- What needs to change?
This is the most important question you need to ask because without changes, the problems don’t go away. It’s great to diagnose the problem, but you have to be willing to take the medicine. Sometimes this can be painful, but it’s necessary to get the ministry well.
Answering these three questions should give you clarity to make your next move. This may mean replacing a leader, having a hard conversation with a volunteer, or doing away with an ineffective ministry.
Evaluation is not always a fun process, but I’ve found it to be a key to growth.
How often are you evaluating your ministries? What changes have you made because of it? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below. Also, make sure to subscribe to the blog to get tips just like this delivered to your inbox each week.
