In Luke 10:2, Jesus tells his disciples that while there is a plentiful harvest, the workers for that harvest are few, and they should pray for more workers.
Probably every church technical artist has prayed that prayer at some point, asking God for more “workers” (staff or volunteers) because there’s more than enough work to do already, even before new vision items from the pastors and department leaders are implemented.
But before they even prayed, the disciples were sent out to look for and develop those workers. There was an action and responsibility they had to carry on their own.
Start with a clear vision
In the same way, there is a practical requirement to growing staff and teams in the church technical world, beyond the spiritual component.
If I don’t know how to invest in one person to help them reach their potential, how can I do that with 10?
If I can’t train 10 volunteers effectively, how can I be expected to do that with 50? If I can’t develop a healthy culture of empowerment for 50 volunteers, how am I going to be able to do that for 100?
Like in many situations, it starts with vision. Where are we trying to go? What are we trying to accomplish? Where are the pain points? What needs to be different a year (or two or five years) from now?
Are there things that I’m currently doing that I can’t sustain?
Once that vision is established, then it’s time to flesh out roles. Where will new people be needed and what should they do? Are there things that I’m currently doing that I can’t sustain? Are there new responsibilities beyond my (or my team’s) scope of abilities that will require someone with a different skill set? Who is responsible and accountable for leading and developing those people and ensuring they’re focused, performing and growing?
Define team member roles
One of the most important parts of growing a team is first having the understanding that I can’t do everything myself. For many church technical artists that may actually end up being the hardest part of the process.
Beth Matlock is the Production Director at Trinity Baptist in Yukon, Oklahoma, and has struggled with that herself.
“We strive to do our best week in and week out, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the ones to do it all. Don’t rob your team members from a blessing.”
—Beth Matlock, Production Director at Trinity Baptist, Yukon, Oklahoma
“Being a Type-A personality it can be difficult to let go,” she admits. “After being in ministry since 1998, I have learned the importance of “letting go” and empowering people to become leaders. I think the way technical people are gifted and wired can contribute to not being able to let go. We strive to do our best week in and week out, but that doesn’t mean we have to be the ones to do it all. Don’t rob your serve team members of a blessing.”
Indeed, being able to let go of certain roles and responsibilities and not hoard them is the first and sometimes most difficult, step. Whether out of doubt, insecurity, and wondering about our own value to the team if we stop doing a particular thing, or simply because we enjoy a particular task so much, it can be difficult to let go of specific duties so that others can take them on.
Letting go can only be successful if I accept the fact that training and developing someone else could potentially be a lengthy and time-consuming process. It’s always easier to just do something myself, but it’s neither scalable nor sustainable.
Tim Miller has served in various staff and contract production roles at Athey Creek Christian Fellowship in metro Portland for the last 18 years and is now the Production Director.
“Part of the culture I want to drive is for the trainee to get good enough to someday be able to be a trainer. Jesus made disciples, then instructed them to go and make disciples.”
—Tim Miller, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship, Portland, Oregon
“If you can do it,” he says of letting go of tasks so others can step into those roles, “then it’s really beneficial. If done well, I think it can help avoid burnout. But you have to be prepared to know that bringing someone into a new role will be more work at first. You’ll start to think that it would just be easier to do it yourself,” he cautions.
“It was harder at first,” he continues, “and has become easier over time. And I’ve found that as I’m ‘letting go’ of a task, it’s usually a gradual transition. If you have the luxury of training someone over a period of time, you can explain the why along with the how.”
Adding team members, whether role-based volunteers, team leaders, or even staff is impossible without some sort of clearly defined onboarding or training process. Having a ton of new team members is great, but someone has to be able to develop their skill set and ensure they have a healthy enough understanding of church and team culture to grasp the “why” behind they “what.”
“I used to only teach the task at hand,” Miller says, “but if I can explain why we do things when explaining how we do things, it goes a long way in being a more well-rounded training. Part of the culture I want to drive is for the trainee to get good enough to someday be able to be a trainer. Jesus made disciples, then instructed them to go and make disciples.
Matthew 28:18-20 | And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
“We have a lot of operators who are amazing at their task, but if they are the only one who can accomplish the task, it becomes a weak link in our operations. If that one person is gone, everything falls apart! So we try to create redundancy and contingencies, not only in equipment and processes but in people as well,” he continues.
When hiring staff roles, an organization has a pivotal decision to make. Do they hire someone with a high level of competence who can step in and contribute immediately, even if they’re not already familiar with the organization, or is it better to hire someone internal and help them grow into the skills necessary for a role?
Again, it can ultimately hinge on how much time and energy is available to invest in someone one way or another. For some ministries, it’s a question that’s easy to answer.
“I think I put more stake in the character and chemistry of a candidate than their competency,” says Tyler Kaneshiro, the Production Director at Colorado megachurch Flatirons Community Church. “If I know someone has a strong character that is humble and teachable and is someone I actually would want to hang out with outside of work, then I only need to know they have a decent level of competency in their skill set. Teaching someone how to mix is a lot easier than teaching them how to have more integrity.”
Luke 10:2 | And He was saying to them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
In many cases, hiring staff members is seen as a “quick fix” to solve a problem. But an on-ramp to invest in current volunteers and help grow their skill set may pay off more in the long run. Yes, it takes time to develop someone’s abilities to a certain level, but it can remove variables about culture and buy-in that an outside hire could bring, it might be more sustainable for limited budgets, and it provides the extra benefit of helping empower and develop someone who may have never realized where their full potential lay.
On the flip side, sometimes there are scenarios where it may not be feasible for a volunteer to serve in a particular, perhaps due to scheduling requirements, performance consistency or something similar.
“One thing I have found when it comes to staffing versus volunteer-empowered roles is that everything has a cost,” Kaneshiro points out. “The reality is volunteers and contractors only have a limited amount of investment they can have into what we are doing. When you are deciding if a role on the team should move from being a volunteer to paid [staff] it is important that the costs are properly weighed.
“Some questions I like to ask are: What is the problem we are trying to solve? Is this an issue of scope, skill, ability, etc., or is this a leadership issue in myself? What is this going to cost us if we don’t pay someone to be accountable for this task or role? If we aren’t able to pay someone to do this task or role, what other things is our team going to have to say no to in order to bring consistency and excellence in this area?”
There is also an occasional mantra that says a ministry should hire for leadership and develop for skill. Essentially, if we’re going to continue growing, we need people who can scale with the growth and have the potential to lead, manage and develop others. We can help them get better at tasks, but their inherent people skills and leadership ability are what carry the greatest organizational value.
And while that may be a great strategy for some, the reality is that many churches still may not have the budget flexibility for those hires. That’s where investing in existing volunteer team members comes into play.
By utilizing personality profiles and spiritual gifts assessments, team leaders can get a better feel for the inner workings of their members to know their strengths and weaknesses and where their untapped potential may lie. Additionally, by maintaining personal relationships with those team members, it becomes easier to get a sense of their preferences, dreams and abilities.
Combine that level of personal interaction with the previously mentioned importance of vision and roles and more ideas become possible. We know where we’re going as a ministry and what sort of roles are required, and now that I know more about what my team members enjoy and are good at, maybe they can help us get there.
“Volunteers are so important to any size staff, but particularly valuable in small churches with limited staff,” says Trinity’s Matlock. “The hired staff should never be the ones to do all of the work. I have found that many people are just waiting to be asked to serve.”
She has put this into practice by developing volunteers who lead one of the services crews into which the overall Production team is broken. Those leaders not only assist with scheduling but also help with service prep and setup and mentoring/coaching their team during the week, giving Matlock the space to focus on other things.
Miller has benefited from a similar flow on his Athey Creek team.
“We have a volunteer lead who took our scheduling matrix, and using his knowledge of Excel formulas he created some amazing insight into team metrics. We’ve had a volunteer who is certified in high levels of soldering, and he’s been instrumental in clutch repairs. Currently, we have a volunteer camera op who works as a technical writer and is helping us assemble a Production Team newsletter. We’ve had volunteers lead visits to the hospital to visit team members,” he notes.
“Having this bench strength allows our staff to focus on other areas. We can forecast and ask what needs to be done today, and what’s coming down the road tomorrow,” he adds.
And it all comes full-circle. Staffing and leadership development both start with a clear view of the future. What vision is driving us and where are we going?
What skills will it take to achieve that vision? If I’m asked to do more as a leader, are there others around who I can empower with tasks I had handled, or do we need to develop someone to do that?
If we need to hire someone, what do we look for and prioritize? How can we help that person develop even further once they’re here?
As our volunteer and staff teams grow, how are we investing in them as individuals to ensure that they also are growing as Christians and technicians? Do we have the right relational structure in place to ensure we know them well enough so they can reach their full potential? If not, we may be missing out on great opportunities right under our noses, and Kaneshiro agrees.
“When it comes to future leaders or staff hires, everyone should know and be known by someone else on the team,” he says. “That makes both looking for, deciding on, and developing future leaders much more feasible.”
All of it is critical in developing workers for the harvest.
