How often do you evaluate yourself? When do you usually evaluate your ministry?

It was at the Orange Conference a few years back I had a great reminder of why you should evaluate your ministry.  If you haven’t been, it is a great conference, with something for everyone. The large crowds that attend mean lots of quality breakouts, and the networking opportunities are endless.

Since it is Orange Conference time of year again, I pulled out some of my notes from one of the breakouts I attended. If you aren’t familiar with kids ministry pioneer brother Jim Wideman, you should be sure to check him out. What follows are my notes from one of Jim’s sessions from the Orange conference all about questions we need to ask ourselves as leaders for self or ministry evaluation.

Before you evaluate your ministry, you have to evaluate  yourself

Why are questions so Important?

• Questions make you think

A Stronghold is believing wrong information

• Questions make you evaluate
• Do when you are small what you will be forced to do when you are big
• There is a difference between doubt and questions
• Questions lead to change

There is no such thing as a dumb question, but there are dumb answers

Ask good questions of someone older and wiser is a good thing

• Sometimes knowing what not to do is just as valuable as knowing what to do.
• Experience is a great teacher, and they don’t have to be your experiences
• The voice of wisdom and the voice of God are the same thing

Jesus was the master of right questions

Why should I give you more kids if you can’t keep track of the ones you have?

       Are my priorities out of order?

• We take more time to feed others then we take to feed ourselves
• God made the family before he made the church
• Bro Jim quote: Any time you can get an old guy that looks like Colonel  Sanders to sing Beyoncé it’s a good day.

• Health
• Ministry
• Level of leadership under And over you

       How Do you spend your time?

• Track time management
• Time is the new money
• Planning, preparation, evaluation, delegation

       What type of structure do you have in place?

• Growth structure
• Maintenance structure
• Enlarge structure on a regular basis, when the growth structure changes into
• maintenance structure

          4 Things that affect growth:

• Organization
• Policies and procedures
• Right people in place
• Facilities

All four have to be in growth mode and not maintenance mode

 

           How do you keep score?

We go through the motions, but how do we keep score? What is success?

What is a first down? What is a touch down? A field goal?

Define a win with kids, their parents, with leaders Under you, with leadership above you

 

This list of bullet points has some great questions to help you evaluate your ministry:

• Term- small church
• Do the hard stuff and let others help you
• Doing the job alone doesn’t produce fruit that remains
• Let someone teach who never has- they can’t send everyone to hell in just one week
• Build depth on the right positions by letting other people lead
• Where am I not willing to change?
• Is there a better way to do things?
• What is the one thing we should quit?
• Take something good and make it better
• Same actions bring same results
• Any change that is managed will be put back the way it was
• People resist change that come from other people
• Fear of unknown
• Purpose is unclear
• Fear of failure
• Satisfied with same problems instead of new solutions
• Good ideas can turn into religious habit- cutting off end of the ham
• A sacred cow makes the best burgers
• Someone is counting on you to make changes
• Changes requires additional committment
• What am I not willing to change?
• What am I holding onto that I need to let go of?
• When did it become about you?
• Has there ever been a time when you were more in love with Jesus than you are now?
• The main thing needs to be the main thing

 

These are just my notes from listening to Bro Jim talk about questions you  should ask themselve in order to evaluate your ministry. You can check out and download Jim’s notes  on his website jimwideman.com What do you think of these questions? Are there any you would add? leave a comment to continue the conversation.