Now that we'd created our first draft of 4-6 services (maybe; we may have only finished 2-3), it was time to revisit and refine our design. And it was time to finish planning if it was a longer series.
These meetings also involved more team building exercises and big-picture goal setting.
We would review the services we'd planned, make sure everything still sounded right, and make sure assignments were clear. (This was really important and when I started the team I didn't do it well.)
There were several ways we sought to evaluate the worship gatherings, and this meeting sometimes included those conversations. Other times that took place before brainstorming in session one. We would evaluate ourselves, of course. But we also created a questionnaire that we'd ask a church member to fill out once a month or so. We also tried to listen well in the hallways and corners so we could be aware of what was helping connect the hearts of our congregation with the heart of God. And what wasn't.
One more word about refining. Our team had to be really, really honest. If something didn't work, or, more dangerously, if someONE didn't work, we had to be able to say it. Not to disparage. Not to discount. But to discern. A great deal of our meetings was spent developing ourselves spiritually so we could handle having hard conversations and still cherishing one another and every person who would sit in the worship center every Sunday.
Of course this 4-step process was fluid over the course of 5 years. Sometimes we'd shorten to 3 meetings. Often we did some of what I've described with email conversations. There were times it was hard to get together as much as we wanted to (May, July, December) so flexibility was key.
I mentioned team-building and big-picture. I'm going to start wrapping up this series next time with one of my favorite ideas ever, and one that helped our team immensely. The ROAD TRIP!
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