Celebration and Evaluation

“Experience is not the best teacher; evaluated experience is.”-Howard Hendricks

Howard Hendricks is right! This a necessary skill that I learned working at a Nuclear Power Plant. After every major operational test, we gathered back together for a debriefing. We talked about the success or failure of the task, what went right, what went wrong, and lessons learned. I think some type of debriefing is also a great idea to incorporate into our church world. I encourage the same process within my staff at church. After services, outreach events, and other church events we gather for what I call Celebration and Evaluation. It’s a time of debriefing when we celebrate our wins and dream about the ways we can do things even better next time.

Celebration

Celebrating is something we didn’t do very well in Nuclear Power. There wasn’t lot of praise dished out. We just seemed to jump straight to, “What we did wrong. ”Sadly, if we are not careful, the same thing can happen in our church event evaluations too. We forget to stop, reflect, and be thankful.

Even if nothing went wrong, we tend to plow forward with the “What’s Next” and often forget to celebrate what God accomplished in and through us and how successful the event was. Our staff at Believers had to really work at taking some time to celebrate the wins! I was the main culprit here, but I’ve gotten much better.

Evaluation

This evaluation of an event is not harsh criticism and should never be taken that way.

It is not complaining, and it should never be allowed to diminish the excellent accomplishments of the evaluated event. But it is necessary for needed improvements.

I feel like we strive to complete every event we do with excellence and the evaluations help us identify minor adjustments and improvements to make future events even better. Without the evaluations, how would we be even better next time?

Each Event Evaluation should include:

• Praise and celebration with a spirit of thanksgiving to Jesus who makes it all possible.
• A discussion of what went right, including what will we definitely do again next time.
• A discussion of what went wrong. How will we keep this from happening again?
• We should answer the question, “Did we accomplish our pre-defined win?
• A good, savable “Lessons Learned List. ”This list should be saved in an easy to find file to be reviewed before the next event of its type.
• Ideas to implement in future events like the one being evaluated, or simpler events.

I think this Celebration and Evaluation will make all of us more grateful and help us to continue to serve Jesus to the best of our abilities.

Pastor Scott Moore