How to Evaluate Your Church’s Worship Service
On this blog, you will find some tools (listed at the end of this post) to help you evaluate your church’s worship service. It is vitally important for us to evaluate our services so that we can improve. Chuck Lawless recently published a set of questions to help us evaluate what we do each week. Take a look:
Too often, we spend little time evaluating our worship service. We may critique on the basis of attendance, but seldom do we review it with intentionality. This weekend, use these questions to evaluate your church’s worship service:
- Do I want to know God more as a result of attending the service? This question is a fundamental one. It’s possible that a worship service directs our attention to the preacher, the praise team, the building, the church’s activities, etc. – but not truly to God. Genuine worship should lead me to kneel before God in awe and wonder, longing to know Him more while also recognizing His holiness.
- If I know only the lyrics of the songs sung, would I know the gospel? Strong biblical praise can also be a great witness, as long as the lyrics lay out the gospel. Evaluate to see if this weekend’s lyrics talk more about God or about the worshipper.
- How much would I know about Jesus at the end of the service? The story of the early church is centered around Jesus. They talked about Him, preached about Him, and lived for Him. If your service doesn’t direct people to Jesus, something is misdirected.
- Do I know more of the Word of God as a result of attending the service?Sometimes the Word of God is undeniably central to a service. At other times, it’s simply an “evangelical launching pad,” meaning it’s only a perfunctory part of a service because evangelicals know we must at least refer to it. Which description best fits your church?
- Would I know how my life should change after hearing the sermon? This question is the application one. Worship ought to lead to action; that is, the singing and preaching of the Word should clearly show me how to adjust my life to what God wants. If I must on my own figure out the application, I’m less likely to do so.
- Does the church glorify God by expecting excellence in all things? The worship service provides multiple opportunities to display God’s glory through our excellence (e.g., musical performance, sermon preparation, service clarity and direction). The church that settles for second best is saying something about their respect for God.
- Would I likely want to come back to the church because God’s presence is real there? Evaluate your list of guests who have attended in the last six months, and see how many returned for 2nd and 3rd+ times. If no one ever returns, that finding tells you something. I would at least wonder how strongly folks feel like they meet with God when worshiping with your congregation.
What other questions would you add to this list?
Check out these additional posts on evaluating your worship services:
- Worship Service Evaluation Tool
- Worship Service Evaluation
- Evaluating Your Times of Corporate Worship
- The Importance of Evaluation in Your Worship Ministry
Thanks to Chuck Lawless for granting permission for the reprinting of these points. His original blog post can be found here.
I want to attend a worship service that I know I’m going to enjoy. It’s always hard finding one that is right for you. However, I’ve only been to a couple, so I want to know how I should evaluate a good service. I guess it all depends on where you go. Is it a good idea if they sing the majority of the time?
Finding the right worship service isn’t so much about finding one you will “enjoy,” but rather finding a church where you can share life, experience God in worship, and be on mission to make disciples. That may look very different within the DNA of different congregations in the music they use, the instrumentation utilized, the forms of worship, and so much more. Worship is so much more than just music. We should worship out of our unity and choose music out of our mission. Find a service that points to God and helps you encounter His presence at a church that is outward-focussed on reaching the world. Lots of churches can entertain you in worship, but may not truly be the church.
My question for you is,”does the new music that is being used in our worship really helpful to us as we seek to worship our Lord in spirit and in truth?” Or is it just something new that appeals to the leader. What proof is there that this new music truly unifies the Body and helps all worshippers? It seems to be just the latest and greatest theory. Please help me understand this. As a “mature” Christian (62 years and counting), I have tried very hard to worship my Lord using the blended, and mostly modern music. Where is the data? Where is the proof? Where is the documentation? Where are the studies that show that this really works?