Better Sundays Begin on Monday: 52 Exercises for Evaluating Weekly Worship

Reviewing game film is a discipline that sports teams often incorporate after each game. Teams watch game videos to identify mistakes, make adjustments, consider radical changes, and highlight successes. The goal of this analysis is to facilitate individual and team improvements that will positively affect subsequent games. The fundamental reason why a team needs adjustments is not always evident in the middle of the game. But evaluating important elements after a game gives coaches and players the opportunity to review individual plays and players in a more relaxed setting away from the time constraints and pressures of the game. So why aren't pastors and worship teams incorporating similar evaluative practices? Implementing a collaborative process of analyzing worship services or planning for upcoming services requires a deep level of humility, trust, and shared accountability. It also requires selfless leaders who are willing to sacrifice their own ideas and interests for the greater worshiping good of the congregation. Better Sundays Begin on Mondays offers foundational worship considerations to help leadership teams ask questions evaluatively rather than defensively. These weekly reflections encourage worship leaders and their teams to think beyond style to biblical and theological worship content.


About the Author
Manner, David W.: - Dr. David W. Manner is Associate Executive Director for Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Church Music and Worship and a Doctor of Worship Studies from the Robert E. Webber Institute for Worship Studies. Before joining the convention staff in 2000, David served for twenty years in music/worship ministry with congregations in Kansas, Arkansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. He leads worship and leadership conferences for numerous conventions, churches and educational institutions. He writes for various online and print publications and can be followed on his Worship Evaluation Blog.