It's a new year (again). A time of hope, freshness, new beginnings, and resolutions.
New years typically bring so much promise: a clean slate and a chance to start things over. But while many resolutions typically just focus on the personal side, I believe that this is a perfect season to try hitting the reset buttons on some professional areas as well.
... before things get too busy again, I think all of us in the church tech world should force ourselves to take some time for reflection....
For those of us in ministry, the start of a new year is probably just a quick breath after the Christmas busyness and right before new initiatives kick off. Many churches see attendance boosts in January, and this then becomes a natural time to ramp up programming to keep those visitors engaged.
But before things get too busy again, I think all of us in the church tech world should force ourselves to take some time for reflection before we dive back into our old, familiar processes.
There’s an old cliché that says, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
I believe that many of us want 2019 to be better than 2018, but holding out blind hope isn’t a great strategy. Instead, we must put intentional effort into a few key areas of our role to help set us and our teams up for success in the New Year.
1. Reset your schedule.
Many of us don’t manage our schedule; it manages us. We get dragged along by the constant busyness of maintenance and service prep, and it can sometimes become a struggle to pull our head above water on a consistent basis.
As a result, several things that should be part of our routine often fall by the wayside simply because we can’t find the time to make them happen.
Instead of getting dragged along by our schedules though, I believe that we should make certain things a “big rock” priority that are added to our calendars first, and then other things are allowed to be added in on top of that.
Are you making time to regularly meet with the pastor or manager who leads you on the church staff? Are you regularly connecting with the worship, IT, and performing arts leaders to strengthen those peer relationships?
Even though we see ourselves as technicians first and ministers second (or last, for the non-people-people out there), our roles really should be people-centric. Thus, we need to make it a top priority to be investing in our teams on a consistent basis. Whether it’s taking people to lunch, coordinating team video game parties, or just shooting encouraging text messages to people, we need to place a high emphasis on making time to invest relationally into our teams.
Beyond just investing in those under us, it’s really critical to be investing relationally in 360 degrees. Are you making time to regularly meet with the pastor or manager who leads you on the church staff? Are you regularly connecting with the worship, IT, and performing arts leaders to strengthen those peer relationships? Do you have mentors you reach out to for counsel and advice, and are you engaged with other churches you can learn from?
If these things don’t become a priority item on your calendar, and if you aren’t committed to fiercely guarding them, they’ll just end up getting constantly pushed off and forgotten.
None of us are designed to live life alone, and as stereotypical introverts, tech folks like us must force ourselves to step off our island and into the lives of others.
2. Evaluate your systems.
I believe that all of us are expected to grow in our roles, both personally and professionally. After all, one of the takeaways from the parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-30) is that the master expected to get a return on the investment he made with each of his servants.
However, none of us can reasonably expect our areas to grow and yield fruit if we don’t have a process or a plan in place to actually do that.
It’s critical to regularly have times to evaluate the systems you have in place to ensure that they’re effective. It’s easy to get lulled to sleep doing the same thing over and over again, but what got our team to this particular place may not be good enough to get us through the next season.
Do you have an effective process in place for recruiting and training new volunteers? If not, you have no right to expect your team to grow; you have to cultivate the ground before you can ever expect a seed to be planted.
Are your patterns of team communication and scheduling as efficient and well-planned as they could be, or do you need to be more consistent and do less at the last minute?
Do you have systems of preventative maintenance in place, to ensure that we’re able to regularly clean and maintain your equipment? If not, it’s unreasonable for us to expect our leadership to bless us with the budget for new gear, if we can’t effectively take care of what we already have.
Are your patterns of team communication and scheduling as efficient and well-planned as they could be, or do you need to be more consistent and do less at the last minute? Have you set your own goals and goals for the team, so you have targets to aim for as you grow? Are you invested in researching new equipment and learning the market so you’re educated on more efficient ways to operate?
Systems may be boring, but they are the frame that allow any team and ministry to operate effectively and grow. Without them, everything will collapse under its own weight.
3. Invest in yourself.
Often, thinking of ourselves is probably the last thing we do. We are so focused on our gear, our teams, or even the ministry as a whole that we’re willing to put ourselves on the back burner for fear of being selfish.
But effective ministry only happens when we lead (and serve) out of the overflow, and you can’t give something you don’t already have.
If we’re not healthy spiritually, then we’ll never have the energy, grace, joy, and passion necessary to keep leading and serving week after week....
Leaders have the ability to be a lid for any organization’s growth. As we grow and invest in ourselves, we raise our own lid and that of the ministry. When we’re not growing, we limit the team’s ability to grow; no chain is stronger than its weakest link.
If we’re not healthy spiritually, then we’ll never have the energy, grace, joy, and passion necessary to keep leading and serving week after week, especially with the demands that come with the role of tech leadership. We must prioritize investing in ourselves (and working a service doesn’t count) every day so we can stay healthy enough to lead and pour into our ministry.
Additionally, we absolutely must make sure that we’re challenging ourselves to grow professionally. We should consistently be seeking out models and mentors that we can learn from.
Our knowledge and ability should always be at least a couple of steps ahead of where our church is now. When that happens, as the church grows, they’re taking steps into a world that we’re already familiar with, and our abilities aren’t overmatched.
If we’re not growing, then we’re constantly playing catch-up to the church’s vision.
If we’re not growing, then we’re constantly playing catch-up to the church’s vision. Over time, our lack of growth will become a hindrance to the church, and we may get left on the sidelines as the church continues to grow.
Leaders are learners, and there’s an expectation that we should always be learning. And any good leader will always look introspectively first, under their own initiative.
A New Year is a time for new beginnings, and there’s no better way to start working towards a great 2019 than by taking steps to grow yourself first.
