How should a leader evaluate a weekend service?
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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.