Photo by Austin Distel on Unsplash
In my first church job I worked under a youth pastor that was also chaplin of the local fire department. Every month I was able to hang out with them and have lunch in the firehouse. I learned how these men of duty depend on each other every day. They didn't have the option of acting in such a way that would risk splitting up their team.
Your team is no different. Our position is technical, so it is easy to reduce the role we play to that of a machine --- a utilitarian need in order to make Sunday worship happen. Though we do play a technical (sometimes mechanical…) role, we cannot let ourselves stop there. We must communicate with those around us and form a team unit in order to do the best we can. We are the people that make things happen last minute, that stay late working long into the night, and we rush in to fix problems at the last second. We are the first responders of sorts in making the service seen and heard. It's an important role, and it takes a team to be successful.
For the life of your team to thrive there has to be something exportable. The way you work with and interact with the people on your team will have effects outside of your team. Intentional or not it will export. Good or bad, it will export. We're not islands. No church can have unhealthy work relationships without some effect on the greater body.
I've been a part of church teams that have found themselves in this unhealthy spot. A lack of communication between team members breeds confusion and mistrust. Left unchecked this evolves into a splintering of people and soon the team is divided and Sunday morning is simply a job to do.
But it doesn't have to get this far. It's so easy to stop issues like this in its tracks. My wife and I had an amazing couple that lead us through our premarital counseling. After four months of meetings, the idea that stuck with me is this: conflict is not a bad thing. Up to this point in my life I thought healthy relationships between people meant the absence of conflict. If you approach your relationships like this you will find yourself bending and twisting, hiding feelings and even lying just to avoid conflict.
Conflict can't be avoided, it is a part of life and it is not going away. We must learn to deal with it in a healthy matter. Having a solid communication strategy will anchor your team when conflict occurs. Here are three approaches I recommend for developing health tech team communications:
1. Technical Organization
Seems like a no brainer right? Wrong. I’ve walked into so many churches that do not change anything on the stage week to week. There is nothing wrong with this, but problems can arise when everyone gets comfortable with the “norm” and then they become complacent. The team no longer depends on lighting plots, input lists, sound checks, or even schedules. A good team does not contain a group people who are running around in the dark due to lack of information. A good team also has skill and trust across the group. Some churches only have one person that knows the entirety of the technical system in the church. I’ve been in this situation and when crisis happens it exposes weakness. I was touring with a worship artist this past fall and right before the set was to begin there was a power outage. While I had spent the day at the church with a few people that had had a decent idea of the sound, video, and lighting systems, but there was not a single person who knew where to reset the breakers for the sound system. They had to call the one person that had all of the knowledge before we could get started.
A good team communicates technical information clearly each weekend and democratizes system responsibilities with trust. If you don’t have planning meetings, “day of” schedules, input lists, stage plots, and lighting plots you should start now. Create your own training manuals on your technical systems and teach others how to operate them. Communicating these things both in written and verbal methods will make training new team members simpler and your team will become stronger.
2. Create Feedback loops
In order to create a team that is communicating and thriving, we must have channels setup to keep communication open. Many churches achieve this dialogue with post service meetings. I’ve been at churches where the leaders of each department watch last Sunday’s service and then address issues, discuss what went well, and dream up what to do in the future.
Meetings aren’t the solution to everything, and I’m sure some of you are in more meetings every week then you care to be (even having meetings about meetings). The fact remains that we need to keep an open dialogue between our team that allows for critique, praise, questions, and ideas. If you are a lead, this may be as simple as getting lunch with a different team member each week asking about what they thought of last Sunday.
Regardless of the approach, make sure that your team has a way for every team member to have a voice at the appropriate time. Without this type of open communication, when conflict comes things can quickly become sour. This won’t always be comfortable but it will stretch your entire team in healthy ways.
3.Spiritual & Relational Growth
Yes, Church Production is technical magazine but we have all been called in one way or another to the role that we are in. We cannot deny the spiritual aspect of what we do. We should be developing relationships with our team outside of Sunday mornings, outside of the roles we play. There should be BBQ’s and retreats, hangouts and vacations - time spent with each other outside of the church walls. By connecting with each other outside of our work role we will build deeper relationships. Communicating with each other about our everyday life makes a stronger team. Good teams should be able to relate to each other outside of their work roles. If your team does not have pathways to communicate in a relational and spiritual ways you are missing out.
It’s not hard to create good communication amongst your team but it does take intentionality. It is easy to over-emphasize any of these three over the other but they all have a place. They all are important for the health of your team and each will affect the long term growth. If you see a need in your team, don’t be afraid to speak up, take the lead and be a good teammate.
