After working a full weekend, I take every Monday off; but even after the pastor has said "Amen" and everyone's left the building, I can't close the books on the services. We started planning six weeks before, implemented our ideas over the weekend, and now it's time to critique our work.
I have written about critiquing services before , but wanted to go much more in-depth with this series. In order to have an effective planning meeting and weekend service, you first have to have an idea of what works and what doesn't for your church. Every church is different. What works for one may not go over well at another church down the street. That's where critiquing what you do each week is so important.
So where do you begin?
Being critical is the easy part, there never seems to be a shortage of opinions when going into these review meetings. The object, though, is to examine the weekend in a productive way, not just bash the service (or each other).
The important takeaway is whether or not all your planning and efforts paid off. Did you deliver a “product” that changed lives?
The first day of my workweek is always a busy one. I have a “production critique” meeting with my team, where we playback segments of the service while discussing what worked and what we need to change. This meeting is strictly to address technical issues. There is no discussion of how we thought elements worked into the "bigger picture,” or anything beyond execution of our roles. (This will be the focus of part 2 of this article series)
A full critique comes later in the day with a large conglomerate of staff members. Who joins this meeting is incredibly important. For us, it involves everyone who had a hand in creating and executing the services: the entire production team, worship leaders, communications director, graphics designer, and select pastors who were in attendance. Diversity is crucial with this group. Your service isn't filled with one type of personality, so your critique meeting shouldn't be either. A creative will have a much different take away from the service than say a more analytical thinker.
Because this group is so large, it's important to have rules in place ahead of time. This way your meeting doesn't become a "free for all" that last 3 hours. We have established a 45-minute time limit on the meeting, which helps keep everyone focused.
Before the meeting, each person in attendance is charged with answering three questions. These must be sorted through before the group gets together so as not to waste valuable time.
1. What is one thing that worked well this weekend and why? This can be anything from the vocalist's interaction/energy or how effective the video story was. These answers usually end up being more of a general feeling the service produced, or a how a new song went over with the congregation. Sometimes, the “good” could be the extra work a certain member put in to make the service special. These things can help you get to the DNA of your church and what (besides Jesus) keeps people coming back for more.
Evaluations have to be done in love... I'm not going to sugar coat it … I struggle with this every meeting.
2. What is one thing that didn't work and why? The why here is essential. You can't just say, "I didn't like it," and leave it at that. At my church, the announcement portion of our service seemed to be a constant negative in our weekly meetings. Seeing this trend, we formed a sub-committee who worked over the course of many weeks to find an effective way for us to conduct the announcements. We found that live announcements allowed for rambling and “scope creep” – those last-minute ministries vying for their ten-second plug. The committee helped implement a timed two-minute announcement video. This opened up another complaint that the service was becoming too video heavy, especially for the satellite campuses who watch a 35-minute message via video each week.
Sometimes the negative is about someone, or the work they did. This can make for a difficult or awkward situation. It is helpful if from the beginning, it is established that in order to achieve effective services, the critiquing meeting has to be an honest environment. Evaluations have to be done in love and with an attitude of progress: we're all on the same team and helping each other improve is important. I'm not going to sugar coat it … I struggle with this every meeting. I don't want to say that I thought the negative was the video that my co-worker spent all week working on; but if it missed the mark, we need to discuss it. Some weeks, the critiques will be for me, and I have to sit there with an open heart and trust that the person talking to me is doing it in love – not judgment.
3. Did we accomplish our “goal?” Goal might not be the best word. By it I mean – did the overall point you were trying to make with the service get across to the congregation? For instance: if you were teaching on Easter, did your service tell people about God's unconditional love for us and his plan to redeem us, or was it a bunch of disconnected and random elements that left the audience confused? I like to ask myself if we gave our congregation "whip lash" from jumping around.
In the end, the important takeaway is whether or not all your planning and efforts paid off. Did you deliver a “product” that changed lives?
