EVALUATING YOUR MINISTRY
SERVING THE NEEDS OF LEADERS IN CHRISTIAN EDUCATION AND FORMATION
EVALUATING YOUR MINISTRY
E
valuation. It is a word that sometimes strikes fear in the hearts of those who are asked to examine the things they have planned and carried out. Taking our personal feelings and our attachments to what we have done out of the evaluation process is not always an easy thing to do. But every planning resource, whether it is about planning for the Christian education and formation of participants in church ministries or about planning for the next ad campaign for a business organization, insists that evaluation must be part of the planning process. So it is important for us to know why evaluation is important and to develop some skills that will help us evaluate our education and formation ministry and all of its programs and events.
have accomplished what we set out to do. And it is evaluation that helps us discover ways to give even more value to the events and programs we plan in the future.
IS EVALUATION IMPORTANT?
Evaluation
Planning for evaluation of your entire education and formation ministries program as well as for evaluation of each planned ministry, group, or experience is important. In fact, it is as important as the planning for the specifics of the event. Therefore, a plan for evaluation must be included in the planning process or the planning process is not complete. We are best served when we plan with the end in mind and know how to determine if we met those ends. So, what exactly does evaluation do for us? provides an opportunity for participants to express their opinions and feelings about the program or the event;
You do not have to plan to evaluate; it will happen in one way or another. It happens when the participants talk about what they liked and did not like after the event is over. It happens when one member of the group gets excited about what is going on or frustrated by a process that seems to have no meaning. Evaluation happens when participants make a decision about coming again to a program or event planned by your committee. Their presence or absence can be clear evaluation information. Evaluation that is not planned and followed up, however, does not fulfill the purpose of evaluation in our church ministries.
serves as a measurement for planning future events and program goals; gives planners an opportunity to recognize mistakes and avoid making those mistakes a second time; encourages planners to duplicate the parts of their planning that “worked great!”; provides an opportunity for participants to state what was of value for them, thereby clarifying in their own minds what they learned.
Just what does the word evaluate mean? The root meaning of the word tells us that to evaluate means to determine the value of something. It is important for us to know if the time and effort we have put into a specific program or event has the value that we hoped it would. Evaluation is the key to knowing whether we
So what if your evaluation reveals that you have not done everything just right? No problem. In fact, that is exactly what evaluation is designed to do. Evaluation is the process that will help you do an even better job next time.
1
BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
HOW DO WE EVALUATE?
During the earliest stages of planning you should look ahead to evaluation of your education and nurture ministries or evaluation of a specific event. As you do your initial planning, include a description of the goals you want to accomplish and the measures of success. If the plan is to conduct a Vacation Bible School, for example, what do you want the participants to know, experience, and be able to do when they finish the week? These are the goals. Then, how will you know if you have met those goals? How can you identify or quantify what participants know? In what ways will you be able to know what they have experienced? How will you be able to identify if they can do the new things you had hoped and planned for? These are the measures.
There is no right way or wrong way to evaluate every program or event. Evaluation must grow out of the purposes of the event and the information that will be important for planning for the future. So remember, how you evaluate is not nearly as important as the fact that you do evaluate. But knowing some guidelines for how to evaluate will help you along the way. Here are a few ideas. When you evaluate, you may well begin with an evaluation of the event as a whole. Was it good? Was it bad? Did it make a difference in the lives of those who participated? How do you know? Begin by reviewing the purposes that were named as the reasons for planning the event in the first place. Then ask some general questions:
In addition to knowing your goals and measures, make plans for how the evaluation will occur and who will be responsible for each part of the evaluation process. This early planning will ensure that evaluation will happen in helpful ways, not only after the event is over but also at various steps along the way. (See “Ten Evaluation Possibilities” below. These are essentially evaluative tools.)
Did we accomplish what we wanted to accomplish? What things worked best? What could we do better in the future? Does it matter whether we plan such a program or event again? If so, why? Be careful, though, that you do not fall into the trap of letting such a general evaluation be all that you do. A simple evaluation is helpful to a point, but it does not tell you all that you need to know about what elements made the event successful or what created problems that made the event less than you hoped it would be. Do not worry that the evaluators have a wide variety of opinions about what was good and what was not so good. Their differences will provide plenty of material for discussions that can lead to the most important points that need to be examined.
Identify in your planning what the goals are, how you will measure the completion of those goals, and what tools you will use to collect your evaluation information.
If the evaluation is to include a written questionnaire or a group discussion, decide who will prepare and lead the evaluation when the time comes. Also decide who will compile the results and prepare a summary. (See the “Event Evaluation” form below.) What evaluation technique or tools will be used, who will be responsible for being sure the evaluation is done, and what will be done with the data? Be sure that your evaluation sheet gives a summary of the evaluation, but also be sure that the summary sheet tells where any written evaluations or discussion notes are stored.
Continue your evaluation by asking some specific questions about specific things. You may begin with the things that your general evaluation named as “worked best” or “could do better in the future.” Then add other things to your list that you know need to be evaluated, such as leadership, time limits, involvement of everyone present, relationships that were developed, and so forth. Then follow up with responses such as these examples:
2
is useless. But if you collect data in helpful ways, evaluation can aid the whole congregation as they participate in the church‟s education and formation ministries. Make follow-up plans a part of the evaluation process.
This worked; we should do it again. When we do it again, let‟s remember that it worked because we _______________. It might not work as well if we _______________________. This was okay, but if we do it again we can improve it by ___________________________.
Do Not Fail to Evaluate!
It is easy to skip evaluation. It is easy to say, “We don‟t have time for that” or “Everything went well—no need to do an evaluation.” But please do not make this mistake of skipping the evaluation. Make evaluation fun and interactive. Help people express themselves about the event. Help your committee and your congregation to improve what is already good about your education and formation ministries. Use evaluation to help you more effectively inform, form, and transform people to become disciples of Jesus Christ in the world.
This did not work, but it is worth trying again with these changes: _______________. This did not work at all. We should not try it again because ________________________.
FOLLOW-UP IS ESSENTIAL! Evaluation implies that something will be done as a result. If evaluation does not lead to any change, then it has no value. If you do not intend to act upon your findings, then evaluation
This pamphlet is prepared by the Faith Formation and Discipleship Groups at the General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church and may be reprinted for use in the local church © 2010 GBOD. For more information about the needs and requirements in specific ministry areas, see the leadership series Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation, which includes Christian Education Children‟s Ministries Youth Ministries Adult Ministries Family Ministries Small Group Ministry Go to www.cokesbury.com or call 1-800-672-1789. Please also visit our website www.gbod.org
3
TEN EVALUATION POSSIBILITIES Continuum Scales
Points Count
Expressions of Color
Sentence Prayer
Graffiti Wall
Smiley Faces
Rank the experience, things learned, and the overall event with choices from one extreme to another. These can be done with paper and pencil (“Circle the number on the scale that indicates your feelings, with 5 being high and 1 being low”), by physical movement (“Move to that wall if your response is „Great,‟ to this wall if your response is „Terrible,‟ or someplace in between to indicate your experience”), or by voting (“Hold up fingers to indicate your vote, with 5 being high and 1 being low”).
Make a list of all the parts of the experience. Give each person 50 points. Ask them to distribute the points, in five point increments, among the list as they choose, giving the highest points to the best experiences. When everyone has assigned their points, total the points for each experience. Reflect on what received the most points and what received few or no points. Option: Pretend the points are money. How much would participants pay for each of the experiences, spending all their money?
Place a wide variety of colored sheets of paper in the center of the group. Ask each person to choose the color that best indicates his or her response to the questions you ask. Ask questions about the experiences during the event or meeting. As the participants select a color to hold up, ask one or two to describe why that color was selected.
Ask each person to write one sentence of prayer about the experience. With a beginning sentence and an ending sentence, ask people to contribute their sentences to the body of the prayer, each in turn. Option: Ask people to group themselves and prepare five parts of the prayer: adoration, confession, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving.
Hang a large sheet of paper on the wall. Distribute a variety of large, colored markers. Ask participants to write or draw their reflections on the experience. Encourage them to be creative, with large and colorful symbols, words, or pictures.
Provide each participant with a paper plate on a stick. Ask them to create a smiley face on one side and a frowny face on the other. Then as questions are asked, they can respond by holding up the appropriate face.
Written Responses
Musical Evaluation
Ask participants to write their responses, providing adequate time so that no one feels rushed. Add interest to this method by asking participants to write one comment per adhesive note or by writing a short story telling of their experience.
Divide into groups of three or four. Ask each group to prepare a song that expresses what they gained from and/or their feelings about the experience. This type of evaluation will take some time to complete, but the result will be funny as well as informative.
Three Possible Questions
Open-Ended Sentences
Ask three questions, allowing time for people to respond as you write their answers on newsprint, chalkboard, or dry-erase board. What went well? What did I learn? What needs improvement? Or What do we do differently the next time?
Distribute worksheets of sentence starters. Ask the participants to finish the sentences, telling of their experiences. Occasionally put in a funny sentence starter, such as, “The best thing I ate looked like…” or “The silliest thought/wish I had was about…” and so forth.
© 2010 GBOD. This page may be reproduced for use in the local church.
4
EVENT EVALUATION: ____________________________ DATE: _______________ Element to Be Evaluated
Person Responsible
Evaluation Tool Used
Date of Evaluation
Summary of Evaluation (Include where evaluation results will be stored)
© 2010 GBOD. This page may be reproduced for use in the local church.
5
EVALUATING YOUR MINISTRY
E
valuation. It is a word that sometimes strikes fear in the hearts of those who are asked to examine the things they have planned and carried out. Taking our personal feelings and our attachments to what we have done out of the evaluation process is not always an easy thing to do. But every planning resource, whether it is about planning for the Christian education and formation of participants in church ministries or about planning for the next ad campaign for a business organization, insists that evaluation must be part of the planning process. So it is important for us to know why evaluation is important and to develop some skills that will help us evaluate our education and formation ministry and all of its programs and events.
have accomplished what we set out to do. And it is evaluation that helps us discover ways to give even more value to the events and programs we plan in the future.
IS EVALUATION IMPORTANT?
Evaluation
Planning for evaluation of your entire education and formation ministries program as well as for evaluation of each planned ministry, group, or experience is important. In fact, it is as important as the planning for the specifics of the event. Therefore, a plan for evaluation must be included in the planning process or the planning process is not complete. We are best served when we plan with the end in mind and know how to determine if we met those ends. So, what exactly does evaluation do for us? provides an opportunity for participants to express their opinions and feelings about the program or the event;
You do not have to plan to evaluate; it will happen in one way or another. It happens when the participants talk about what they liked and did not like after the event is over. It happens when one member of the group gets excited about what is going on or frustrated by a process that seems to have no meaning. Evaluation happens when participants make a decision about coming again to a program or event planned by your committee. Their presence or absence can be clear evaluation information. Evaluation that is not planned and followed up, however, does not fulfill the purpose of evaluation in our church ministries.
serves as a measurement for planning future events and program goals; gives planners an opportunity to recognize mistakes and avoid making those mistakes a second time; encourages planners to duplicate the parts of their planning that “worked great!”; provides an opportunity for participants to state what was of value for them, thereby clarifying in their own minds what they learned.
Just what does the word evaluate mean? The root meaning of the word tells us that to evaluate means to determine the value of something. It is important for us to know if the time and effort we have put into a specific program or event has the value that we hoped it would. Evaluation is the key to knowing whether we
So what if your evaluation reveals that you have not done everything just right? No problem. In fact, that is exactly what evaluation is designed to do. Evaluation is the process that will help you do an even better job next time.
1
BEGIN AT THE BEGINNING
HOW DO WE EVALUATE?
During the earliest stages of planning you should look ahead to evaluation of your education and nurture ministries or evaluation of a specific event. As you do your initial planning, include a description of the goals you want to accomplish and the measures of success. If the plan is to conduct a Vacation Bible School, for example, what do you want the participants to know, experience, and be able to do when they finish the week? These are the goals. Then, how will you know if you have met those goals? How can you identify or quantify what participants know? In what ways will you be able to know what they have experienced? How will you be able to identify if they can do the new things you had hoped and planned for? These are the measures.
There is no right way or wrong way to evaluate every program or event. Evaluation must grow out of the purposes of the event and the information that will be important for planning for the future. So remember, how you evaluate is not nearly as important as the fact that you do evaluate. But knowing some guidelines for how to evaluate will help you along the way. Here are a few ideas. When you evaluate, you may well begin with an evaluation of the event as a whole. Was it good? Was it bad? Did it make a difference in the lives of those who participated? How do you know? Begin by reviewing the purposes that were named as the reasons for planning the event in the first place. Then ask some general questions:
In addition to knowing your goals and measures, make plans for how the evaluation will occur and who will be responsible for each part of the evaluation process. This early planning will ensure that evaluation will happen in helpful ways, not only after the event is over but also at various steps along the way. (See “Ten Evaluation Possibilities” below. These are essentially evaluative tools.)
Did we accomplish what we wanted to accomplish? What things worked best? What could we do better in the future? Does it matter whether we plan such a program or event again? If so, why? Be careful, though, that you do not fall into the trap of letting such a general evaluation be all that you do. A simple evaluation is helpful to a point, but it does not tell you all that you need to know about what elements made the event successful or what created problems that made the event less than you hoped it would be. Do not worry that the evaluators have a wide variety of opinions about what was good and what was not so good. Their differences will provide plenty of material for discussions that can lead to the most important points that need to be examined.
Identify in your planning what the goals are, how you will measure the completion of those goals, and what tools you will use to collect your evaluation information.
If the evaluation is to include a written questionnaire or a group discussion, decide who will prepare and lead the evaluation when the time comes. Also decide who will compile the results and prepare a summary. (See the “Event Evaluation” form below.) What evaluation technique or tools will be used, who will be responsible for being sure the evaluation is done, and what will be done with the data? Be sure that your evaluation sheet gives a summary of the evaluation, but also be sure that the summary sheet tells where any written evaluations or discussion notes are stored.
Continue your evaluation by asking some specific questions about specific things. You may begin with the things that your general evaluation named as “worked best” or “could do better in the future.” Then add other things to your list that you know need to be evaluated, such as leadership, time limits, involvement of everyone present, relationships that were developed, and so forth. Then follow up with responses such as these examples:
2
is useless. But if you collect data in helpful ways, evaluation can aid the whole congregation as they participate in the church‟s education and formation ministries. Make follow-up plans a part of the evaluation process.
This worked; we should do it again. When we do it again, let‟s remember that it worked because we _______________. It might not work as well if we _______________________. This was okay, but if we do it again we can improve it by ___________________________.
Do Not Fail to Evaluate!
It is easy to skip evaluation. It is easy to say, “We don‟t have time for that” or “Everything went well—no need to do an evaluation.” But please do not make this mistake of skipping the evaluation. Make evaluation fun and interactive. Help people express themselves about the event. Help your committee and your congregation to improve what is already good about your education and formation ministries. Use evaluation to help you more effectively inform, form, and transform people to become disciples of Jesus Christ in the world.
This did not work, but it is worth trying again with these changes: _______________. This did not work at all. We should not try it again because ________________________.
FOLLOW-UP IS ESSENTIAL! Evaluation implies that something will be done as a result. If evaluation does not lead to any change, then it has no value. If you do not intend to act upon your findings, then evaluation
This pamphlet is prepared by the Faith Formation and Discipleship Groups at the General Board of Discipleship of The United Methodist Church and may be reprinted for use in the local church © 2010 GBOD. For more information about the needs and requirements in specific ministry areas, see the leadership series Guidelines for Leading Your Congregation, which includes Christian Education Children‟s Ministries Youth Ministries Adult Ministries Family Ministries Small Group Ministry Go to www.cokesbury.com or call 1-800-672-1789. Please also visit our website www.gbod.org
3
TEN EVALUATION POSSIBILITIES Continuum Scales
Points Count
Expressions of Color
Sentence Prayer
Graffiti Wall
Smiley Faces
Rank the experience, things learned, and the overall event with choices from one extreme to another. These can be done with paper and pencil (“Circle the number on the scale that indicates your feelings, with 5 being high and 1 being low”), by physical movement (“Move to that wall if your response is „Great,‟ to this wall if your response is „Terrible,‟ or someplace in between to indicate your experience”), or by voting (“Hold up fingers to indicate your vote, with 5 being high and 1 being low”).
Make a list of all the parts of the experience. Give each person 50 points. Ask them to distribute the points, in five point increments, among the list as they choose, giving the highest points to the best experiences. When everyone has assigned their points, total the points for each experience. Reflect on what received the most points and what received few or no points. Option: Pretend the points are money. How much would participants pay for each of the experiences, spending all their money?
Place a wide variety of colored sheets of paper in the center of the group. Ask each person to choose the color that best indicates his or her response to the questions you ask. Ask questions about the experiences during the event or meeting. As the participants select a color to hold up, ask one or two to describe why that color was selected.
Ask each person to write one sentence of prayer about the experience. With a beginning sentence and an ending sentence, ask people to contribute their sentences to the body of the prayer, each in turn. Option: Ask people to group themselves and prepare five parts of the prayer: adoration, confession, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving.
Hang a large sheet of paper on the wall. Distribute a variety of large, colored markers. Ask participants to write or draw their reflections on the experience. Encourage them to be creative, with large and colorful symbols, words, or pictures.
Provide each participant with a paper plate on a stick. Ask them to create a smiley face on one side and a frowny face on the other. Then as questions are asked, they can respond by holding up the appropriate face.
Written Responses
Musical Evaluation
Ask participants to write their responses, providing adequate time so that no one feels rushed. Add interest to this method by asking participants to write one comment per adhesive note or by writing a short story telling of their experience.
Divide into groups of three or four. Ask each group to prepare a song that expresses what they gained from and/or their feelings about the experience. This type of evaluation will take some time to complete, but the result will be funny as well as informative.
Three Possible Questions
Open-Ended Sentences
Ask three questions, allowing time for people to respond as you write their answers on newsprint, chalkboard, or dry-erase board. What went well? What did I learn? What needs improvement? Or What do we do differently the next time?
Distribute worksheets of sentence starters. Ask the participants to finish the sentences, telling of their experiences. Occasionally put in a funny sentence starter, such as, “The best thing I ate looked like…” or “The silliest thought/wish I had was about…” and so forth.
© 2010 GBOD. This page may be reproduced for use in the local church.
4
EVENT EVALUATION: ____________________________ DATE: _______________ Element to Be Evaluated
Person Responsible
Evaluation Tool Used
Date of Evaluation
Summary of Evaluation (Include where evaluation results will be stored)
© 2010 GBOD. This page may be reproduced for use in the local church.
5
