Are you successful?

One of the most difficult things in the realm of worship leading is determining whether or not you are successful. I struggle with this on a weekly basis and I’m sure you do too. The problem is that what we do is subjective and difficult to measure. Outward expressions can be fake, emotions are fleeting and the praise of people is always tainted. So then, how do you know if you are successful?

I encourage you to set up a criteria for success. You can call them goals or vision, but it’s all basically the same. Here are some guidelines for you when setting up the basis to answer the question "are you successful?":

First of all, your criteria for success must be measurable. If it is not measurable you are subjective and will make a decision based on your perception of success or failure and possibly not the reality. This happens to me when I feel like a complete failure and that our worship experience was anything but meaningful and without fail, someone will come up to me afterwards and tell me that it was the best worship service they had ever been in. So, since emotions can be tricky, base your criteria with something measurable.

Secondly, your criteria should be meaningful. Your criteria should have a direct impact on the service or on you. Sometimes we can determine success by something that didn’t really make a difference. Since what we do can be so subjective it is easy to get in this mode where we base success on intangibles that may or may not even make a difference.

Lastly, your criteria should be spiritual and practical. Don’t just limit yourself to the spiritual side of worship leading. There is a huge practical side that makes a HUGE spiritual impact. Setting both spiritual and practical goals will help you stay balanced and effective. If we only have spiritual goals for worship we will miss out on a huge increase in our effectiveness and we will have alienated a great spiritual gift called “administration”. Something simple like having the PowerPoint slides show up at the right time is practical but greatly increases people’s ability to participate.

So make your list. Let me know what it is. How do you know if you are successful or not? Once you figure that out, communicate it with your team so that they clearly understand what your goals are. Attacking those goals as a team will help you greatly as a leader. If you are pursuing these goals all by yourself you will constantly be frustrated and feel like you are fighting your team. It’s possible that they just don’t know what your goals are. Communicate the vision and go for it! God bless.

PN