If you're here to read about including teens in your tech and media teams, I'm so sorry. I decided to postpone that post one week in order to selfishly seek the help of my small clan of readers. And I need the help, believe me!
In a few weeks, I'll be participating in a panel discussion seminar at the WorshipGod06 Conference called Sound Teams 101. Every time I'm asked to teach a seminar, I have a feeling of desperation for God's help. In many cases, the people I'm teaching could teach the same topic better than me. And even though I'm not really teaching this time, I still have that sense of need because I really do want to serve these folks in spite of my youth and inexperience.
That's where you come in. You get to be a conduit of God's grace to me.
I was asked to submit some notes in outline form on two topics we'll be discussing: On-The-Job Training and Growing Your Team as the Church Grows. Even though I probably don't have time to change the actual outline, I still have time to learn from you on how to help folks.
Here's the outline. I won't write out the explanation of the points. If there's anything that seems really mysterious, that's because it's not clear. So, tell me what seems mysterious, so I can clarify it. And let me know what should be added, deleted, or changed. Thanks so much!
On the Job Training
On-the-job may be the only chance you get to train.
Never do anything alone. Always be training.
On the job training “plan” (stolen from my friend, David Sheets):
- I do it. You watch.
- We do it together.
- You do it. I watch.
- You do it.
Evaluate after each step.
Why can’t we get past “I do it?”
- Time: there isn’t time to train while we’re actually trying to do the work. Remedy: start earlier
- Excellence: I can’t let a trainee do this because we can’t afford to make mistakes. Remedy: search for (or even create) contexts where mistakes are “allowable”
- Selfishness and Pride: I like to do this and I can do it better. Remedy: Repent, by the grace of God
Small Portable Church
Benefits:
- Simplicity
- Understanding for mistakes that comes from “family” mentality
- Set up, tear down everything.
- Budget is limited.
- Manpower is limited.
- Focus on recruiting labor, so that three or four technical “experts” can concentrate on their part.
- Find people who are resourceful and good problem solvers.
- Make sure to learn beyond your current needs, because you’ll use that knowledge soon.
Larger Portable Church
Benefits:
- Larger pool of manpower.
- Budget is bigger.
- Set up, tear down everything.
- Expectations for excellence are increasing.
- Attempting to make your “smaller” system work for a bigger church.
- More musicians.
- Focus on increasing your technical “expert” base, but don’t forget labor.
- Begin to instill the value of flexibility and use procedures that allow for flexibility.
- Begin to specialize by assigning people clear roles.
New Permanent Facility
Benefits:
- Don’t set up and tear down each time.
- Opportunities to train outside of Sundays.
- More events outside of Sundays.
- What do I do with the extra volunteers?
- Expectations for excellence are increasing.
- The permanence fosters creativity.
- Specialize! Make everyone’s job easy but meaningful.
- Begin to create a more specific leadership structure.
- Insist on procedural and personal flexibility.
- Train outside Sundays.
- Train a lot. Then train some more.
Multi-Venue Facility, Multi-Program Church
Benefits:
- Many opportunities to serve.
- Many opportunities to train.
- More people, bigger budget.
- Multiple sound systems to understand.
- Many “openings” to fill.
- Volunteer pool busier.
- Assign leaders to either “season of life” ministry areas, or sound systems.
- Assign leaders for each meeting context.
- Delegate as much as possible to those leaders.
- Encourage people to decide how they will serve, at events they normally attend, or at ones they don’t normally attend.
- Specialize even more.
- Reserve your best people on Sunday mornings.
When should we hire a part-time or full-time sound/technical person?
Wait as long as reasonably possible.
Some possible gauges:
- Building a new facility
- Over 50 volunteers
- More than 2 other ministry areas that require Sunday-level technical support
- When regular creativity becomes a priority for the senior pastor
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