How should a leader evaluate a weekend service?

Leadership Straight from Bill Hybels How should a leader evaluate a weekend service? We evaluate our weekend service. Every Wednesday when I meet with our programming team, the first 15 minutes of every weekly programming meeting that we have is "what did we learn?" We do not give a 5-star, 4-star or 3-star rating. We simply say, "What did we learn from this past weekend? What did God anoint? What did we learn? What can we do next weekend because we are a little wiser because we learned some things?" The best leaders I know will... It is almost like a tape recording. All the time they are saying, "What did you learn when you did that?" Someone will come in and say, "I put on an event that failed." I do not say, "Shame on you." I say, "Hey, sit down. What did you learn?" "I learned to never do it on the night of the Super Bowl." I say, "Yeah. Did you learn anything else?" It is always about the learning. If you create the environment where it is alright, we do not have to always hit everything right. But let's learn and not repeat mistakes. So in those programming meetings if we are repeating mistakes, I will raise my hand and say, "Hey, I think we are learning this too regularly. I think we have learned this 5 times. Let's not relearn this next weekend. That song does not work in our church. Let's let another church have it and be blessed by it." How much of this is subjective? So, we have our programming meetings on Wednesday. Fortunately or unfortunately I receive more emails than anyone by a factor of 50. I can get 500 emails after a weekend service. People saying, "That was an awesome 'this' or an awesome 'that'." Or "If you do not turn the volume down, I am going to destroy the speakers next week." I get all kinds of feedback. So when I sit down with our programming team, I will say, "How did we feel? Did we feel God anoint that?" That is quite subjective. Some people say, "I think so," and others say, "Not so much." Then at a certain point in time I will say, "Well, I was deluged by people from the congregation who strongly affirmed 'this' or 'that' for what it is worth. It is not a scientific survey and we do not have precise data. But people were moved by it enough that they took the time to email." So I will throw that in the mix. I want to say this carefully. Some worship leaders, some artists, are more concerned about the quality of the art than the movement of God. So I have had this many times where we are evaluating whether or not a song should be done again. We try a new song. And I watch the musicians on stage. The band is going nuts on song. It has the coolest groove. And the musicians are singing this and they love it because the harmonic structure of it is challenging to them as artists. And I look at people in the congregation going "I hope you are enjoying this because I cannot sing it, I cannot understand it, I cannot get on board with it." Then we go in the evaluation meeting, I say, "Hey, how do you think it went?" And the musicians say, "That was an awesome song." Then I have to say, "I am glad you enjoyed it. I had no sense that the congregation engaged in it. I looked the whole time. And there was no sense that the congregation could sing that song. So who is the party for? You or them?" We have those very direct conversations. Is it 'singable'? Is it true? Are the lyrics substantial? We do not do songs. If you want to know, I actually OK the set list for every song that is done at a weekend service. I do. They will say, "This is a new song." Play it for me. Right here, right now. Get it on the computer. I want to know it has lyrical integrity. I want to know it is not happiness all the time, wonderful peace of mind when I found the Lord. That is not true. It is not happiness all of the time. It is not. Let's not have people sing untrue words. They are not true. So great groove, not true. Some songs are beneath the dignity of our congregation. We have a sophisticated, college-educated... many of our people have been through graduate school. We want words to be intellectually rigorous. Not just "We love you, Jesus. Oh, we love you. We really love you, Jesus." I think, "Stop it." Let's use some language that is more rigorous than that. So if you say is my head in the weekend... I OK the songs. Now, I do not get my...I can get my way if I want it. Sometimes my artists will say, "Please, not everyone is like you, Bill. Let us do this song." I will say, "Yeah, OK. But I wish everyone was like me." No, I don't, I don't. But my head is in the game on all of that stuff. And we do not want to know what did the musicians enjoy. We are always asking the question "what best serves the congregation?" That is all we are trying to determine. It is not "did you guys love singing it?" It is "did it serve the congregation?" If it really served and moved the congregation, we like it. If it did not, I do not care who likes it. That is not the question.