AVL Director Joseph Cottle and Worship Pastor Zach Dinsmore say they work really well together at LifeMission Church in Olathe, Kansas. They even go so far to say is they’re actually the best of friends. But since Cottle reports directly to Dinsmore – that makes him his boss. So, how do they do it? How do they keep a close personal friendship intact in a working hierarchical relationship?
"The relationship is worth more than the product." — Joseph Cottle, AVL Director
In this latest edition of the Church Production Podcast, Cottle and Dinsmore talk about what makes their situation work so well and share some of the main principles for Christ-centered relationships that apply to the workspace.
Listen to the Church Production Podcast:
__________________
Church Production Podcast
Dinsmore oversees worship, AVL, and the communications and creative departments at all three campuses for LifeMission Church. All in all, it’s about 10 staffers and he’s been in this role for the last eight years. He started working at the church nine years ago and was literally thrown into his current role in a crisis.
“So, I joined staff at LifeMission in May of 2016, led worship for one of our campuses, and then was just working, cleaning carpets professionally for other sources of income,” Dinsmore explains. “And then about six months in, me and the other worship leaders got sat down in a room and there had been a transition with the current worship pastor. And so, they asked if I would come lead worship at the main campus for that weekend. And then I just never went back to the other campus. I mean, that's literally how it went.”
"I had never led a department; I'd never touched a budget. It was like, ‘Drumsticks, guitar strings and snacks...? I dunno.’" — Zach Dinsmore, Worship Pastor
His role evolved to encompass AVL and communications as well, but Dinsmore says management was a sharp learning curve for him. “I had never led a department; I'd never touched a budget. We literally made the transition and we were in the middle of budget season. It was like, ‘Well, what do you want to budget for next year?’ I was like, ‘Drumsticks, guitar strings and snacks? I dunno.’” [laughs]
Figuring out how to navigate relationships with AVL leaders was tricky as well. He says he’s had working relationships that thrive and others that just kind of limped along. And as a worship pastor, he says the thing that made one relationship harder was a difference in vision.
“He did a great job. It's just not what my preference was. So, I struggled with it,” Dinsmore says. “He was just running with it based on what he had a desire to do. And he was good at pitching vision. And so, for me, I hated how it looked. It just was not my vibe.”
Interestingly, despite the differences, Dinsmore says he was able to maintain a lasting friendship with that AVL leader. “I didn't care enough about how it looked to make it a big deal. I was just like, ‘I'm going to let him run his race. They hired him. They didn't hire me for that.’ And it's easier relationally and just to cross the board for me to just not touch it and just be like, ‘You know what the Lord's going to do, what he's going to do.’ And it worked. We had good relationship.”
Cottle calls it a kingdom principle; The relationship is worth more than the product. And Dinsmore says he and the previous AVL director are friends to this day. “I think genuinely in that relationship, we were able to have a good relationship and he ended up taking a role at a different church that suits him so much better. And even through all of that transition, we remained friends.”
So after that AVL leader left, COVID hit and then lockdowns and Cottle was asked to take over. But even in the midst of a pandemic, when Cottle was hired, the relationship flourished much more naturally, because there was shared vision. “It just worked. You thrived in the role,” Dinsmore says. “We got lucky in a lot of ways. But I feel like on a principle standpoint, what works is that we have the same vision for what we want things to look like. And I think when there's differing vision, it's just difficult.”
"If you’re under submission to the leadership of the worship pastor, the best thing to do is say you’ll serve their vision." — Zach Dinsmore, Worship Pastor
Dinsmore describes their shared vision now as creating an environment that’s simple, beautiful and not distracting, which simplifies decisions. “It's like, are we going to do this or not do this? Well, is it simple? Okay, maybe it is simple. Okay. Is it beautiful? Yeah, it's beautiful. Is it distracting? Yes, it's distracting. Okay, we're probably not going to do it even if it checks two of the three boxes, but I think that's just what works,” he explains.
And while for them now the shared vision is ideal, even when it’s not, talking about and even having robust conversations surrounding a difference of vision between worship pastors and production/AVL directors can be really good. He says at the end of the day, if you want there to be unity, if you’re under submission to the leadership of the worship pastor, the best thing to do is say you’ll serve their vision. And if a worship pastor isn’t called to lead AVL, he should let their vision rule. He calls it healthy submission.
“So in my humble opinion, worship pastors that don't have oversight to the production, you need to leave it alone in the sense that if there's differing vision from you and the AVL director and you're not their oversight, then you in the same spirit need to go, ‘Well, that's not my department and they're the one that we're hired to do this job, and so I'm going to submit to their vision for production because they're sitting in the seat.’ And again, not to gripe about it to your worship team, and there's a place to state your opinion, but it's not to cause any type of division. And so, I think similar vision is really helpful, but then truthfully, it's just submission, which is a word nobody likes to talk about.”
"The kingdom of Jesus is upside-down [from an earthly perspective], with the bottom of the organizational chart submitting up, but also the top submitting down." — Joseph Cottle, AVL Director
Cottle says it goes both ways and all the way to the top. “The kingdom of Jesus is upside-down [from an earthly perspective], with the bottom of the organizational chart submitting up, but it's also the top of the organizational chart submitting down,” he says. “And I think all of our leadership does really well. I can think of many times in service planning meeting or just meetings with [lead pastor] Clint where he has made his opinion known, but he admits that he preaches and that's what he does really well. And so, he'll submit to you and me and say, ‘Hey, you guys are actually experts here, so just whatever works for you guys.’ And that's so refreshing, so helpful, because we're not being micromanaged. And there's not as much pressure as there are in other situations where the lead pastor has to have a certain way.”
To hear the rest of the conversation and more principles for bridging relationships between worship pastors and production, listen to the podcast, as well as all of The Church Production Podcasts <CLICK HERE>
