The definition of win: “to finish first in a race, contest, or the like.” When you’re running a race, it’s easy to know if you’ve won or lost. If you were the first to cross the finish line, you won. If someone else beat you there, you lost.
The same principle doesn’t as easily apply to Worship Arts Ministry.
The first person the finish the song wins? The person to sing the loudest wins? The first person to arrive to rehearsal wins? The last person to leave rehearsal? These just aren’t legit ways to measure success of a worship arts ministry. (And no, drinking tiger blood isn’t going to help either)
So then how do we know if we’re winning? There are a few tangible things we can measure that can help us gauge our progress. For instance, if there is a constant influx of new people into a ministry, that’s a good sign that we are winning in that area. If we’re constantly struggling to find the necessary people, that would be a sign that we’re not winning.
However, a lot of our measurement has to come from subjective means. It may seem that we could judge the response of the congregation, rate it and compare it to other weeks and begin to gain a sense of whether we’re winning or not. But not everyone worships in the same way, especially when you take into account a vast differentiation between worship styles and generations. But, if a once responsive congregation goes unresponsive, then we can know something from that. If a once unresponsive congregation suddenly responds in an obvious way, we know we’ve done something to connect.
There are some other ways that I measure whether we’re winning or not. These go back to the post I wrote a while ago (Click here to read it), Relationships, Unity & Focus. If we only have the same relationships we’ve always had in the worship arts ministry, then we need to change something. But if we’re building new relationships, then we’re winning. If we are finding a new unity amongst us, then we’re winning. However, if I’m being constantly bombarded with people who are unhappy about this or that, if I’m hearing a bunch of stuff “through the grapevine” then we’re not winning. If our focus is on worshipping God and nothing else, then we’re winning. If our focus is on us, making ourselves look good, seeking only our desires then we’re not winning.
There are other things I use to measure how we’re doing, but I want to hear from you (by the way – also a way I can tell whether we’re winning or not – if people are participating in conversations and I can see people taking ownership, then we’re winning).
What are some ways you think we could measure whether we’re winning or not?
