At the first big church that I served at, we had what we thought was a great idea… “Let’s ask our people to review our services,” we said to ourselves. “It’ll help us to know what’s impacting them in a positive way and what’s not working as well.” It looked great on paper. So we actually did put it on paper. We created a two-sided sheet asking folks to rate every element of the service, from the arrival in the parking lot through the child check-in procedure through the worship music through the message. In detail. “Rate each of these 1-5,” we said, and provided plenty of space for extra comments. Then we choose random people each week and handed them out, 10 or so per service.
The problem? We were unintentionally asking people to change from what they were – people engaging with our services – into something far, far less valuable (especially for them) – people judging our services. Instead of thinking “Could this incredible Hope possibly be true?,” they started thinking “Was that delivered well?” Instead of being floored by person after person expressing their love for God through baptism, they started thinking “Was the lighting on the baptism tank good?” That’s a major biff on my part, and the sad thing is, I find myself being tempted to do it (in various ways) again and again….
Like this:
Like Loading...
Related
Published by creativeworshipideas
Hmmm - well, let's see...
I'm a Christian, a husband, a dad, a son, a pastor, a consultant, a musician, a writer, and bits and pieces of a bunch of other things. My work life has followed three main phases - business to teaching to church. I was the Weekend Services Pastor for nine years at Northview Church, an awesome church in the Indianapolis suburbs. I used to work for Willow Creek, another awesome church in the Chicago area. Plus I've written for various magazines and websites, and other freelancy sorts of things... My life mission is to help the church be as excellent as it can be.
Oh yeah - the name's Greg. Greg Wallace. But not the race car driver or the major league pitcher or the British celebrity chef. Just the creative worship guy. Hi.
It's my hope that these ideas, musings, rants, raves, etc... will inspire you. They're just my opinions - but again, I hope that they'll help to inspire you. Because the church really, really needs inspired creative types. If you're a creative type (and most people are, deep-down), ask God for help. Then take any ideas that are useful to you - borrow them, nab them, use them, adapt them - and make them into something greater...
You can head over to my Instagram site for an abundance of shorter posts: creativeworshipideas. If you're looking for consulting - especially on weekend services, team leadership or multi-site strategies - I'd love to help. Just message me here, and I'll be in touch - Greg
View all posts by creativeworshipideas
creativeworshipideas 