Pastor, when someone asks, “How are things going at the church?” you almost always answer, “Good!” “Fine.” Or “Great!” Don’t you? But how do you know? How do you actually gauge how things are going? Let me give you nine questions to ask yourself regularly that will help you know how it’s really going, and how to make it go better
What is going better than expected? (And how can we produce more of it?)
What could be going better? (And how will we make it better?)
What’s the 20 percent we’re doing that’s producing 80 percent of our results?
What’s the 20 percent we’re doing that is producing no results? (Can we drop this, or is it so important that we need to redouble our efforts?)
What are our goals for the year?
What are our goals for this quarter that will enable us to accomplish our goals for the year?
What key initiatives do we need to start or give more energy to this quarter?
Where do we need help?
What help can I offer to others?
Writing out your answers will increase your clarity. Once you’ve started answering these questions, you’ll feel motivated to answer them all within the next few days. So take five minutes right now to answer Question 1—or you’ll probably get busy and never get back to it.
This post is an excerpt from Hal’s latest ebook: Evaluating Your Church to Make It Better. You can access it and other practical tools at www.pastormentor.com. Hal is praying that 10,000 churches will join him in holding an I Love Sundays Campaign this fall or winter. You can find out more about it at http://www.pastormentor.com/i-love-sundays/.
