Ministry Evaluation Form: A Guide to Assess & Improve Church Programs

Struggling to understand why a church program isn’t working? A church ministry evaluation form can help you identify and fix the issues.

Maybe you've started a new youth program, pioneered your church's first soup kitchen, learned how to start a ministry or are thinking about starting a church from scratch. No matter how big or small your project is, church ministry evaluation is a crucial part of church life.

Church project evaluation can be challenging without a structured approach. Where do you start, and how do you ensure a prayerful, effective review? 

If you haven't evaluated your church ministries yet, keep reading. This article explains everything you need to know about the importance of church ministry evaluation. Plus, you'll get copy-and-paste questions and fields to create your own ministry evaluation form. 

Table of Contents

• Church Ministry Evaluation: A Step-by-Step Guide for Leaders
• FREE Church Ministry Evaluation Form
• Church Ministry Evaluation Best Practices
• Every Church Survey Your Church Could Ever Use - FREE
• FAQs

Step-by-Step Guide: How to Conduct a Church Ministry Evaluation

Church attendance has been declining over the years. A Gallup poll reveals just three in ten Americans attend church regularly, marking a significant decrease.  Church leaders must identify the reasons behind the declining numbers and determine how to increase attendance in their community. 

A Faithwire article provides possible insight, revealing that 21% of Christians believe the church has become irrelevant. According to Christian Poll, 20% of Gen Xers and 19% of millennials report feeling excluded by cliques in their church community, an attitude that contributes to their disengagement. Could these issues be affecting attendance in your church? 

A spiritual growth assessment can help you identify the underlying causes of reduced attendance, allowing you to address issues, increase sign-ups, and ensure retention, but it must be conducted after a deep evaluation of your existing systems.

A church program assessment is an ongoing process and has four phases:

1. Planning your ministry.
2. Implementing your ministry plan.
3. Evaluating the ministry outcomes.
4. Making changes to your ministry (re-planning).

We'll dive deeper into each phase before sharing the copy-and-paste questions and fields you need to build your own ministry evaluation form.

Phase 1: Planning Your Church Ministry

When creating your ministry evaluation form, you must ask what you want your ministry to accomplish. What is your ministry's purpose, and how will you measure success? Your ministry effectiveness checklist will be challenging without a strategic plan. 

That's why it's crucial to set goals and objectives before you even launch your ministry. It's important whether you're setting your church's overall strategic plan or simply starting a coffee hour.

When drafting your plan, consider questions like:

• What is the mission of this ministry?
• How will you measure success?
• What outreach marketing strategy will you use?
• What resources and support will you need?
• Who needs to be involved (i.e., volunteers or donors)?
• How does this project align with your church's vision and values?

Set broad goals and add specific objectives that will become your roadmap for church program evaluation. If you know what you want to accomplish, you'll know what questions to ask when evaluating your ministry.

Phase 2: Implementing Your Ministry Plan

Now that you have a solid plan, it's time to launch your ministry and bring your vision to life. As your ministry unfolds, focus on engaging your team, tracking progress, and making adjustments to ensure long-term success.

Part of making your plan involves setting guidelines and checking in frequently to ensure you achieve your goals. Here are some things to consider. 

• Mission and Vision: Each church should define its mission and vision and ensure it aligns with these standards. 
• SMART Goals: Establish specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound evaluation metrics to guide your actions.
• Assemble a Team: Find talent with diverse skills to support your church's success. 
• Create a Budget: Determine the financial resources required for your various projects and needs. 
• Develop a Timeline: A timeline will keep you on track in completing projects and achieving goals. 

Phase 3: Evaluating Your Ministry's Outcomes

In Phase 3, you'll reach the heart of the church ministry evaluation process. Your ready-to-use ministry evaluation form will be useful during the evaluation phase. However, it should go beyond asking church members for their feedback. You must also solicit feedback from your staff and be honest with yourself about your accomplishments and shortcomings. 

For example, you should compare your ministry results to your original plan. Look at where your ministry succeeded and where it fell short. Is there anything you would do differently if you had to do it again?

Various aspects of your project launch can help you make a fair evaluation. Are you reaching your SMART goals in a timely manner while staying on budget? Does your organization align with your mission and vision? Is your program impact where it should be?

You can always make adjustments to your original goals to ensure they are realistic and fit your current mission. For example, re-planning may be necessary.  However, you should not compromise your standards in doing so.

Phase 4: Re-Planning

When you've finished your church ministry evaluation, there is still more to do. In the final phase, you'll go back to your original ministry plan and make the necessary changes. 

You may modify any aspect of the ministry to meet your goals better. For instance, you might:

• Increase or decrease the amount of funding your ministry receives.
• Change your ministry's hours or location.
• Change the content or focus of your ministry.
• Enhance your marketing strategy to attract more attendees.
• Expand the scope of your ministry to reach more people.
• End the ministry if necessary.

After you've created a new plan, it's time to implement changes to your ministry. Then, you'll continue the church ministry evaluation process all over again. 

The evaluation process may seem like a lot of work, and that's because it is. It's also never really finished.

However, it can be the key to getting your church ministries off the ground and promoting spiritual development. It can even take your ministries from good to great. 

Church Ministry Evaluation Form

Below, you'll find a text ministry assessment template of a church evaluation form. Use the free church program evaluation questionnaire and fields to build your own form.

Planning Your Ministry

• Ministry idea:
• Overall goal(s) of this ministry (fewer than three):
• Specific objectives of this ministry (at least five):
• How this ministry expresses your church's mission and values:
• Time period that the ministry will run before evaluation:
• Expected launch date of the ministry:
• Expected end date (if applicable):
• Supplies/equipment needed:
• How will you obtain your supplies?
• Expenses that this ministry will incur (list them all separately):
• Total expected cost of the ministry:
• Sources of funding:
• Employees, staff and volunteers involved in this ministry:
• Who will be in charge of the ministry?
• What decisions will the person in charge make?
• Project stakeholders:
• Expected obstacles or problems in this ministry:
• Plans to overcome these obstacles:

Evaluating Your Ministry Outcomes

• Did your ministry meet its overall goal?
• Did your ministry meet any of its specific objectives?
• What obstacles, if any, prevented your ministry from meeting its goals?
• Was the established timeline sufficient to evaluate your ministry?
• Did enough attendees/clients come to your ministry to make it worth the cost and time?
• If not, how can you make your ministry more available and accessible to them?
• Use a volunteer ministry evaluation to determine which volunteers and staff performed well
• Was there adequate volunteer engagement? Which volunteers and staff did not perform well, and why?
• How do the project stakeholders feel about the ministry's outcome?
• Should the ministry continue to operate, and if so, when will its next evaluation be?
• Do you need to write any policies, instructions or operation manuals to make it easier to continue the ministry?

Evaluating Funding

• How much money did your ministry cost?
• Which expenses exceeded the expected amount?
• Which expenses came in under the expected amount?
• Did any unexpected expenses occur?
• Were any expenses unaccounted for?
• Do you need to reduce expenses to continue the ministry?

Evaluating Potential Ministry Expansion

• Can you expand your church ministry to serve more people?
• Do you have access to sufficient funding (such as interested donors)?
• Conduct a leadership assessment. Do you have enough skilled leaders/facilitators to expand your ministry?
• If not, can you hire more staff or train more volunteers?

Church Ministry Evaluation Best Practices

One of the most important practices in church ministry evaluation is to write down your observations as you bring your project to life.

Keep referring back to your planning points and ministry effectiveness review. Make notes about how the ministry is going to remember what happened. When evaluation time comes, you won't have to rely on your memory to recall details about the ministry project.

Keep Emotions in Check

Let's face it: sometimes ministries don't go as planned. It's natural to be disappointed when your ministry doesn't work out the way you had hoped. At evaluation time, emotions can run high and tempers flare.

It's your responsibility to ensure your emotions don't cause the ministry's evaluation process to be too personal. Never blame or lash out at others for a church ministry's problem.

Yes, you may need to critique someone's performance. However, if you can't contain your anger, it's better to take some time to cool down before digging into the church ministry evaluation process.

Remember to Include Staff Evaluations

Staff evaluations are one of the hardest parts of a church ministry evaluation. That's because everyone comes to ministry with a vulnerable heart ready to serve and receiving feedback and correction is painful.

But that doesn't mean it can't be done. Staff evaluations are a crucial part of evaluating your church's ministries. If a ministry is struggling — or thriving — your staff is a part of the reason, and they deserve feedback on their performance. 

Not sure where to start evaluating your staff? Begin by considering:

• How closely are they fulfilling their job description?
• What is working in the ministry?
• What could be functioning better in the ministry?
• How do their actions and personality contribute to the ministry?
• What challenges have they faced?
• How would the ministry be different with another person in their role?

These questions connect staff evaluations to ministry evaluations. It's best to do both in tandem. That way, you can work with staff to improve their performance as they improve their ministries.

If you're intimidated by the idea of giving your staff challenging feedback, remember that it is a Biblical practice. Throughout the New Testament, the apostles challenged one another on their ministry practices. Paul even had to call Peter out publicly when his misguided approach to ministry was driving people away from Christ (Galatians 2:11-14)!

Although we recommend taking a more gentle approach to your ministry evaluations, rest assured that giving feedback is part of healthy church culture. In fact, it has been shown to improve church culture. 

Setting the Standard: A Church’s Winning Approach to Staff Evaluations

Staff evaluations can be difficult, but they pay off in the long run. Christ's Church of the Valley (CCV) is a successful example. The Phoenix multi-site church has maintained 79% staff engagement and 86% high trust between staff and leaders by soliciting feedback through the Best Christian Workplace Survey. 

Data is collected annually and reviewed to refine vision and training strategies. It has led the team to launch leadership fundamentals, ministry skills courses, a role certification program, and a new learning management system. The church has also developed a culture of accountability, openness, and high staff morale. 

FAQs

Is It Better to Use Paper or Digital Forms? 

Both paper and digital survey forms have their advantages and disadvantages. Digital forms are ideal because they are automatically entered into your system, so they won't get lost. They are also easy to read, and many people may find them easier to fill out. 

However, paper forms can be handed directly to church members. You can place them on their pew seats or distribute them during service. You won't need to remind them to go online to fill out forms. 

How Can We Ensure Members Complete Their Forms Honestly? 

You can ensure members complete their forms honestly by confirming anonymity and emphasizing positive communication and leadership endorsement. Let church members know that you need their honest feedback to improve their church. Make them feel confident that they will remain anonymous. 

Can Small Churches Benefit from an Evaluation Form? 

Yes, small churches can benefit from an evaluation form. The evaluation can help churches identify pain points and improve their services. It can support growth and retention for organizations of all sizes. Consider offering various types of evaluations, including a church event feedback form, to address all aspects of your services. 

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