One Question You Need to Ask Before you Plan an Event

Leading my first VBS

If you’ve worked in ministry for any length of time, you know that ministry and events go hand in hand.

Most people just volunteer for them. Then, you move up the ranks and start planning or leading different elements. Then before you know it, you’re in charge of the whole thing, and you’re not sure where to begin.

This was my story.

I had led things before and interned with a children’s pastor over the summer. I knew how much work went into putting on a great event, or at least, I thought I did.

A year later, I accepted my first job as a children’s pastor. The senior pastor really wanted to bring back VBS and wanted me to be the one to do it. I had 12 weeks. Also, I was getting married in 13 weeks and starting a brand-new college a few weeks after that. It was a little stressful.

I can’t say that that VBS was a disaster. I look back on it with fondness and a great learning experience for me. Over a hundred kids came, and many accepted Christ as their savior. But if it wasn’t for the rest of the pastoral staff rallying around me at the last minute and some miracles from the Lord, the thing would have been a train wreck.

Bible College is great for learning about the Bible, Theology, and God. I wish there was also a class on project management. I regularly use that a lot more than understanding the 5(7?) different types of Psalms.

I could talk about how to run a great event all day, but before you put an event on the calendar you need to answer this one important question.

Why?

Why are you doing the event? What is its purpose? What do you want to accomplish? Does it line up with the mission and vision of your ministry? What about the mission and vision of the church?

There are a million reasons to do an event and most of them are good reasons. They just need to make sense for your context.

Answering these clarifying questions needs to be the first step when starting to plan event. Whether it’s the first time you’re doing it, or your church has been doing it for 50 years, you need to know why.

Before you plan out your calendar for the next year, look at the events you did the year before and the ones you’d like to do next year, and for each event ask, “Why are we doing this?” Once you find clarity, it will be a lot easier to get other people behind your event and you can measure its effectiveness.

If you never ask why, you’ll find yourself just going through the motions, doing the same thing you did last year hoping for better results, and that is never helpful to you, your ministry, your church, and the Gospel.

So, ask why, and don’t stop asking until you have the answer. You’ll be glad you did.

Bonus:

You never want your answer to the “why” question to be “because we’ve always done it.” That’s an awful answer, and not a good reason to do anything. However, as I’ve learned over the years, the answer “because we’ve always done it” is not an automatic shutdown of the event. The event probably does serve a purpose or can be morphed to better suit your mission and vision. Just asking why can bring clarity to the problem.