The Profile

Success is in the details and the Worship Profile Kit will document over twenty details of worship that reveal whether a church is actually giving quality time to the things it deems important. For instance...(click here to read the rest of the Worship Profile Kit introduction)

Genesis of the Profile Kit

In 2005, while finishing the Prayer Guide book, I felt led to study worship in several denominations. I divided worship into twenty-three categories and developed a way to determine how much time was given to each.

As the database grew, I began to see trends and comparisons. For instance, the mainline Protestant churches I profiled used 21% of their worship time for the sermon while the Baptists gave 40% to this category. That's 13 minutes, 23 seconds on average for the Protestant sermons and 32 minutes, 41 seconds for the Baptists.

More importantly, I saw that the profile revealed weaknesses in the worship services that usually go unnoticed. I realized that the process could be very helpful to any church that wanted an informed method to improve their services. With that in mind, I developed the Worship Profile Kit that guides a staff member or worship committee through the process of doing a profile, evaluating it, and making recommendations. It contains:

detailed instructions for everyone involved,
a planner for scheduling the whole process,
all the needed work sheets including samples,
a computer spreadsheet to do the calculations,
meeting agendas for doing the evaluation,
and suggestions for communicating the recommendations to church leadership.

Want to try it on your own? Let me get you started with some free advice.

To profile a service, recruit a detail oriented person to sit in an out of the way part of the sanctuary and make a note of every transition in your worship service. (there are free samples of the worksheet below) Have them write down the exact time (hour:minute:second) it begins and ends. {An alternative is to video the service and do the profile from the video. You'll need an unedited video and the ability to have the time showing on the screen as you play it back.}

Impress on them that you want as much detail as possible. I've profiled as many as seventy transitions in one service. Forty is more common, but be sure they understand that you want much more than the elements listed in the bulletin. Here's an example:

11:23:06 pastor ends morning prayer

11:23:15 assistant pastor begins welcoming the guests

11:24:13 everyone stands and begins shaking hands

11:25:01 worship leader announces hymn #548

11:25:11 organ introduction of hymn begins

11:25:23 singing begins

Do you get the idea. It's not easy to do, but if you don't get this kind of detail, you won't be able to identify some of the little things that can make a big difference in how your congregation experiences worship.

Using the categories listed in the sample church profile report below, calculate exactly how much time is given to each. If you're not computer savvy, you'll probably want to get someone to do this for you with a computer spreadsheet.

Then, using that information, determine whether you're giving the appropriate amounts of time to the things that are truly important to your church. Here are some questions to ask:

Do your services habitually start late?
Is 'dead time' taking the life out of your services?
Is corporate prayer at the heart of worship or only being used as a bookend for lesser things?
Are the basic elements of worship receiving appropriate time?
Is the balance of music styles appropriate for your congregation?

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Introduction to the Worship Profile Kit

Often, the church and staff have a ‘sense’ that their worship services are not up to expectations, but can’t put their finger on what needs to be changed. That’s where the Worship Profile Kit comes in. It actually guides church leaders through...

Sample Worship profile worksheet

This sample worksheet may help you understand the profile concept. The heart on the sample signifies prayer at the heart of worship. In other words, this prayer is preceded and followed by worship.

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Sample profile report

This is a sample of the report created by the spreadsheet that comes with the Profile Kit.

It's an actual report from a very large protestant church with great pastor and music program. However, notice how their service is chopped up by six needless 'dead times' ranging from five to nineteen seconds.

Blank Worship profile worksheet

This is a worksheet for doing a profile of your worship service. It usually takes several pages to do one profile so make copies. This is not copyright material.

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This is a picture of the sample spreadsheet included with the Profile Kit. This sheet is from the same profile as the report above. Notice how each segment of the service is categorized. The actual spreadsheet automatically takes data from this sheet and produces the report on a separate sheet ready to be printed.

The spreadsheet is copyright protected, but you're welcome to use this picture as a template and try to make your own spreadsheet for personal use. It took me hundreds of hours, so unless you're really good with spreadsheets, I don't recomend it.

Table of Contents for each section - PDF file

Table of Contents for each section - Word file

This file contains the contents page from each section of the Worship Profile Kit. Each section contains materials for a different member of the evaluation team.

First page of the Profile Planner

This planner is printed in section 1 for the facilitator to use in planning and carrying out the whole evaluation process. It's also provided as an Excel spreadsheet file on the CD so the facilitator can use it on a computer to set target dates and keep up with progress.

Lowell Snow Ministries

A Biblical, factual, non-confrontational evaluation of your worship service starts here.

The Profile