5 Questions to Evaluate Your Events

Events and ministry go hand in hand. It comes from when the church was the center of town. Everyone’s social calendar was filled with church activities because the church was the community. Now things have drastically changed, but we still do events.

Now you may be in one of those churches that have fully embraced the Attractional Model and all you have to worry about is the weekend. As my southern friends say, “Bless your heart”.

For the rest of us, it’s a juggling act. The pressure of Sunday is always coming, but you also have movie nights, pajama parties, picnics in the park, VBS, kids camp, back to school outreaches, Holy Ghost Weeny Roasts, the list goes on and on.

I could talk about why you’re doing all these things and even question if doing all of them is even the right thing to do, but that’s a different post.

The question I want to ask today is “Does the event work?” Many churches simply do things out of habit. “This is what we did last year, so we’re going to do it next year.” This reason is fine if it’s not your only one. When making your plan for the year, look at all the things you did last year and ask yourself the question, “Does this work?” In other words, is it accomplishing what I want it to accomplish?

5 Questions to Evaluate your Events

1. Did you accomplish your goals, objectively?

About 3 years into children’s ministry, my pastor asked me what my goals were for VBS. I had an attendance goal, but that was about it. I hadn’t thought about salvations, families coming back, mission’s money, or any of the other thousand things you can track. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking about an event and trusting your feelings, good or bad. What I mean is, you can think the event was great, but your numbers were down, you couldn’t recruit for it, and you went over budget. But it was great, right? On the other hand, you can think the event was awful, but in reality, everyone else loved it and all your metrics are up and to the right.

You can’t trust your feelings. Pick some metrics and track them. Set some measurable goals and see if you met them. If you’re consistently not hitting your goals time after time, maybe it’s time to try something new. 

2. Are people asking you to do it again?

There will always be raving fans of your ministry. They’re going to show up to everything you do and think you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Whenever I need a “pick me up”, having a chat with them can make me feel great. However, I can’t always listen to them when evaluating an event. I have to look at the larger group. There are some things you’re doing that you or some people love, but for the most part, people could take it or leave it. At one of my churches we were having some success with our Halloween outreach. People were coming, but we weren’t telling them about Jesus or seeing them come on a weekend. My staff and I began to think it might be a good idea to try something different, but we were afraid that our people wouldn’t like the change.

So, a few months later, I held a parent focus group and asked them what they thought about it. Much to our surprise, many didn’t care about it and were open to doing something else. There will always be people who want you to do it again, but ask yourself, “Is it a lot?” Or better yet, get some parents in the room and ask them. You may be surprised by what you hear. 

3. Do you have a another reason to do it again outside of we did it last year?

As I said earlier, many times events are repeated because they were done last year. The reason for starting it has long been lost and the people participating are just going through the motions. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for repeating events year after year. It’s how you build momentum and excitement. But sometimes an event can become stale, and no one is excited about it.

When I started at my current church, my predecessor did a snow slide in January. I’m in Florida so a snow slide is a big deal. For multiple years, hundreds of people came out. It was a money maker because they charged admission for food as well as took donations. When I took over, I looked at the attendance numbers and noticed they had been waning for a few years. In addition, I didn’t have the relationships to raise the money or find the volunteers. In addition, several other churches were doing bigger and better snow slides for free, many on the same weekend. I agreed to run the event my first January, just to see how it went. Naturally, it didn’t do as well as before, so I decided to shut it down and replace it with something else. I didn’t hear any complaints, and I was able to accomplish other goals that fit better with the overall strategy of the ministry. 

4. Is this event preventing me from doing something better?

As in my story before, by shutting down the snow slide I was able to do something different that better aligned with my goals. Andy Stanley teaches that sometimes good can be the enemy of great. The snow slide was good, but it was taking time and resources away from something that could be great. There are times when your schedule can become so full of meetings, services, and events, that you don’t have the margin to dream and try something new. You may need to do fewer good things to do great things. In your event evaluation, ask yourself, “Can this be great? Are there other things that are making it difficult to make this event great?” Shutting down something that is successful can be difficult, but you may have a much better ministry for it. 

5. Am I having to create energy to make this event happen?

There are some events where parents are just waiting for the invite to sign up. All you need to do is say the word and they’re there. However, there are some events where it’s like pulling teeth to get anyone to show up. At my last church, I decided to provide an event for parents and kids to learn what it means to follow Jesus. I would give the parents the tools they needed to talk to their kids about Jesus and begin to follow him. I had heard of great success at other churches and some KidMin bloggers we’re writing that such a class was essential. So, I made it happen. I bought the curriculum, marketed the event, and met with a few parents and kids. I knew this was important, so I scheduled it for once a quarter. As time went on, fewer and fewer people showed up to the point that the final two didn’t have anyone. There are a lot of reasons why I think this happened that I won’t get into here. Suffice it to say, I was trying to generate energy for this thing I believed in, but my parents voted with their feet. They didn’t want it.

Every event has a shelf-life. You can’t do it the same way every time for all eternity. You have to change things up every now and then, and sometimes it’s time to move on to something else. Remember hymns? There were great for literally hundreds of years and many churches still sing them, but I would say the vast majority of churches have put them aside for praise music and worship choruses. If you’re having to create energy around an event and still no one but your most dedicated fans are showing up, maybe it’s time to take it down for a while and rework it or shut it down all together.

You can’t get away from events in church world. It’s the way Christians have practiced their faith for millennia. However, if you have an event that’s not working anymore, you don’t have to keep doing it. You can shut it down. It may take time and energy and relational capital, but it’s worth it.

Bonus:

I have had events that I wanted to shut down before, that I couldn’t. All my evaluations said it was time to shut it down, but my leadership said no; they wanted to keep it going. I argued for years behind closed doors, but when the decision was made to keep it going, I got behind that decision and made it the best that I could. I like the idea Andy Stanley teaches, “Be critical behind closed doors and a raving fan in public.” God and your leadership will honor you for your faithfulness.