Last week we discussed a first step in making long-term goals for music ministry.

The second step is to take the wish list—all those suggestions from the brainstorming session—and winnow them down to one or two attainable goals.

The wish list will break down into some basic categories:

• dreams we’d like to become real (cantata, children’s choir, youth ministry involvement)
• stuff that needs fixing or replacing (“dead” Mass, organ on its last legs, out-of-date hymnals)

Other categories that are specific to your community will arise, too.

You can prioritize these fairly easily. Just email all the people involved in lists of everything in each major category and ask them to rate the categories from one to ten—one being the highest rating. Set a deadline to get these back, then collate all the responses to find the highest-rated ones. (Make sure they hit Respond to Sender, not Reply All. That gets way too messy.)

Then send out another email listing the three highest-rated dreams and the three highest-rated “things that need fixing.” Ask those involved to rate them from one to three, one being the highest. When you collate this second round of responses, you’ll have one subject in each category that is the highest rated. Congratulations: you have successfully identified a pair of goals to work toward for in the coming year.