If your church is anything like mine, I'm sure your weeks are unbelievably busy. And as Easter approaches, it becomes even more so. In the midst of all the tasks I need to complete, I've found I must take a moment and block out all the craziness of the day. By entering into a brief quiet time, which focuses on just praying and worshiping Jesus, I'm allowing the Lord to speak to me. I make it a point, in these hard weeks, to focus on praying for each and every person on the technical team. Many times in these quiet moments, the Holy Spirit has spoken to me about someone. Sometimes He pushes me to engage someone I've never met and invite them to church. Sometimes while I'm at church, He has prompted me to ask someone if they want to get involved in live production. This simple quiet time allows me to focus in on what's important about our technical ministry. It's not the procedures, the gear or the “wow” factor of the service. It's the people we serve with and the people attending.
When He speaks to me, it reminds me that our Lord truly is risen. He lives inside us and wants to make a profound impact in people's lives. If we listen to Him and follow His Biblical guidance to take the Gospel of Jesus to the people living in this world, we are fulfilling the Great Commission spoken of in Matthew 28:18-20 and Mark 16:15.
The Great Commission should be applied to our churches, ministries and our personal lives. For technicians, it's not necessarily a calling to preach to thousands, but can be a calling to witness or engage just one person at a time.
If we are engaging people, leading or are simply a part of a technical ministry, how do we create more leaders inside this ministry? How do we understand our place and step forward as a leader? For me, a big part of that is planting seeds and sowing into people's lives.
2 Corinthians 9:6 (NKJV) says, “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully”.
How do you sow?
1. Take Time.
It's important that you take time to listen to the Holy Spirit. Watch the people around you. Notice their emotions, attitudes and reactions to what is happening around them. Take time to feel the moment and really see the people that work around you.
2. Engage people to enter your ministry.
Help facilitate or setup systems, procedures and policies that allow you and your team to engage people and bring them into your system of ministry.
3. Push people to the next level.
Once people are involved in your ministry, setup a culture and system that will push people to the next level. It's OK to stretch people a little and push them to succeed.
4. Allow space for mistakes and growth.
You will not have a healthy and growing team unless you allow for mistakes to happen. Create training grounds and levels of your ministry that allows team members to make mistakes, learn from the mistakes and grow. This doesn't mean mistakes are acceptable, but it does mean that you have systems that allow for structure, discipline and the ability to learn from mistakes so growth can happen.
It's important that when you have planted a seed, that you watch for it to grow and bloom. If you plant the seed and just walk away, you will miss the fruit that will come. If you don't see the fruit developing, you will never learn lessons that will help you next time you plant a seed.
Don't forget, planting seeds and tending to the seeds' development is how you grow a strong team.
