Evaluation

Peer Ministry for Campus Ministry Partner Congregations [Part 10 of 11]

How did it go? Is that program working out for you?

Evaluation of a peer ministry program is important. Student peers need to know how they're doing.

Evaluation is facilitated by well-defined goals and objectives. Some examples of measurable goals might be the following: number of Bible studies presented, contacts made with students, social activities offered, and worship experiences facilitated.

Each year presents numerous opportunities for evaluation. Each program offered might have an ongoing evaluative component to be visited every week at the team meetings.

The personnel committee might meet with the student peers a couple of times per term to gain feedback about the program. Annual review of the program can be taken in both oral interviews with peer ministers, supervisor and other students, and in written form. Annual and term goals, set at the beginning of the year, are the basis on which evaluation is to be done. Goals that are not met can be redesigned to be appropriate for the setting. Individual task descriptions can be rewritten to meet the needs of the whole ministry and the abilities of the student peers.

In this evaluation process, the goal should be improvement of the program and the continued development of the vocational understanding of the participants. Constructive criticism of participants in the program needs to be balanced with affirmation of the divine call issued to all people in their baptism. We may fail to meet goals, but that does not necessarily mean that the program is a failure. Since a major part of any campus peer ministry program is the development of faithful people, the program is a failure only if we refuse to learn from our experiences within it. Such learning and improvement are the end of a good evaluation process.