The Proper Focus of a Sunday Evaluation

Each Monday we evaluate the Sunday services, asking ourselves four simple questions: 1) What went right? 2) What went wrong? 3) What was missing? 4) What was confusing?

This is a wonderful exercise for us to go through each week, because it helps us to get better. And as we know, when we get better, we get bigger (i.e., God blesses us with increased gospel influence in our region – which is just what we want).

But there’s a very important aspect of this evaluation time that we don’t often talk about, but that I want to talk about today – and that’s who the primary focus of our evaluation should be on – which is you.

This evaluation time is not primarily a time to notice the things that others have done that are wrong, missing or confusing. It’s primarily a time to notice the things that you may have done wrong, to notice things that you may have missed, to notice things that you did that were confusing.

Humans have a penchant for noticing the things others do that are wrong while overlooking their own shortcomings, and this is not the culture that I want us to have at New Day. Now, just to be clear, neither Andrew (who leads the evaluation for Enfield), nor Peter (who leads the evaluation for Agawam) have registered any complaints – so I’m not saying that we have a problem with this. This is just something that’s been on my heart. It’s me trying to be proactive in helping us create the right kind of culture. I think we, as a church, will reach our full redemptive potential when each of us focuses on improving our own area of ministry vs making endless suggestions for how others might improve theirs.

I remember way back when, when I was on the worship team, one of the big issues we had was each person on the team making the mistake of thinking they were responsible for the performance of other people on the team. Now I’m making up the specifics, but in essence we had the guitarist telling the drummer how to drum, the keyboardist telling the singer how to sing, and the singer telling the guitarist how to strum. It was a mess and this is what I don’t want for the Sunday evaluation. I don’t want production telling kids ministry how to run kids ministry or kids ministry telling the emcee how to make announcements or the emcee telling the worship team how to lead worship. I want each of you to focus on what you do here and how you can do it better.

Now supervisors, I need your help. I want you leading the way with this. Yes, you will give feedback to those who report to you – and that’s 100% needed and appropriate. However, your first assignment, before focusing in on them, is to focus in on you. What role did you play on Sunday and how did it go? Did you bring your A game? Did you bring innovation and creativity? Remember, in these meetings, you are the model for those who report to you. If you only focus in on what others did wrong, that’s what those who report to you will focus on as well (what their co-workers did wrong instead of what they themselves did wrong). Conversely, if you focus primarily on what where you need to grow, how you can improve, how you can bring innovation and creativity to the area you lead, then those who report to you will as well. They will follow your lead, either way, so supervisors, make sure you begin each week with where you can grow so that you set a good example for those you lead.

DISCUSSION QUESTION: Why do you think humans have a penchant for focusing on others shortcomings while overlooking their own? Or as Jesus put it, why do we have a tendency for noticing the splinter in someone else’s eye while overlooking the log in our own eye?

NOTES FROM STAFF DISCUSSION

Why do we focus on others vs ourselves? 

1. It’s less work to focus on others. When we focus on our mistakes it represents extra work, which people tend to avoid. 
2. It’s less painful to focus on others. It’s a hit to our pride to admit mistakes. 
3. Human nature (sinful nature) is to highlight our successes, not our mistakes. 
4. It’s easier to blame others than ourselves. Blaming others takes away personal responsibility. 
5. We mistakenly think leaders are supposed to keep up the image of being people who don’t make mistakes.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

1. If you aren’t seeing where you can improve, ask for outside input, starting with your supervisor.
2. I want us to be an expert at what we do, not an expert at critiquing what others do, so keep the focus on yourself.
3. The focus of the celebrate section is others. The focus of the wrong, missing, confusing section is us.