Blog Archives
10 Practical Ways to Lead Better
This is specifically written for pastors. However, everyone can use these principles for leading any organization.
- Write 5-10 hand written notes of encouragement every week. Pick a random group of people that either stand out with serving, are in need of prayer, new to the church, or been faithful since beginning. Pick kids, teens, and adults. When you send a note to a kid, you send a powerful message to their parents as well. Write 4-5 sentences that personally connect you to them.
- Invite someone to lunch or coffee every week. Find someone in the church that you know has potential. Reach out and get to know them over a quick lunch or coffee time.
- Preach better. Spend time in prayer and study. Do not only study the Bible, but also study other speakers. Watch videos of yourself. Ask for people’s feedback on your speaking. Be strategic about what you want people to know, feel, and do after your message.
- Make sure the morale is strong with volunteers. Spend time before service going around different areas of ministry and personally connect with people. This doesn’t mean that you talk for a long time. This means that you talk to them about their role and ask something personal. Remember details about them and ask about them the next time you see them. Find out if there is anything that can be done to make their job easier.
- Work hand in hand with the Worship and Tech teams. Make sure those teams know every transition detail. Over communicate cues and changes that need to be made.
- Analyze each service on Monday. What went wrong? How can we remedy it? What went right? How can we repeat it? Ask team members for their feedback on how their area went. Listen to what people are saying and respond.
- Promote clearly. Make sure the congregation knows when you are doing things. Don’t overwhelm them with too many announcements, but give them clear and accurate details for all events coming up.
- Study Rick Warren’s 5 Church purposes. Pastor Rick teaches a powerful lesson on worship, evangelism, ministry, fellowship, discipleship. Are you balanced with events, sermons, wording, website, small groups, etc that are reaching the community, crowd, congregation, committed, and core?
- Invest in things that build momentum. When we build the kingdom of God, we will spend money. The options on what to spend money on are limitless. Have a good budgeting system of people/committees. Find things that produce for your local culture. Social events? Guest Speakers? Gifts? Outreach projects? Staff? Don’t be afraid to spend money on the right things.
- Invest quality time into 10-12 people that are your core leaders. Go above and beyond for your “disciples”. It would be ideal for everyone in your church to also have 10-12 disciples in their life. Model this like Jesus did for us. Spend quality time with them. Invite them into your life. Challenge them when necessary.
5 Steps to Making a Difference in the Tech Booth
In a church like mine, the tech booth is bustling with people every Sunday morning. They move sound board faders, check batteries, design slides, move lights, run cameras, stream online services, and many other jobs that many of us will never know about. They get there early (all amped up on caffeine) and stay long after everyone else has left the building. We love them all!
What does it take to move an ordinary tech volunteer into a SUPER tech volunteer?
Here are 5 Steps to Making a difference in the Tech Booth?
- A heart to learn and not act like a “know it all” – A lot of people that are interested in serving in the tech ministry are very knowledgeable before they ever enter the tech booth. Many have experience in computers, networking, other churches, work experience, etc. It is extremely easy for them to bring an ego into the ministry. We don’t need more smart people in the tech people. We need more people with a heart to serve. Having a pliable heart that is eager serve and learn will take an ordinary tech person and move them to a super tech volunteer!
- A knowledge of what the end product should look, sound, and feel like – It is crucial that the people responsible for creating a visible and audible atmosphere to have a good understanding of what the end goal is. There are tons of different methods and atmospheres of worship in the modern church. Are they trying to make it like a concert they attended last week? Are they trying to make it like the church they grew up in last week? If good communication hasn’t happened between the leadership and the volunteers, then there will probably always be tension and corrections made. Take them to a conference, another church, show them youtube videos. Get on the same page.
- The ability to prepare as much as possible – Thoroughly going over the service schedule before rehearsal is crucial. Details make ALL the difference. Examples: Know when there is a guitar solo. Know when the video element needs to start. What kind of mood do we want the lighting to convey on song 4? What should overall band volume be when minister comes to stage? The list goes on and on…
- Anticipate change – Be ready to go with the flow when changes happen. In our environment, we sometimes need to make a change because we made a mistake in planning or mishaps/breakages/outages necessitate a change. Hardware breaks. Singers lose their voice. Lightening storm blows up a circuit. It has all happened, and the service must go on.
- Be alert, focus, and give it all you have got! Sometimes, it can be monotonous in the tech booth. A long song with no changes, a long sermon, during the offering… It is tempting to get on your phone and check Facebook or Instagram. You might even want to take a pic or send a text. Heck, you might want to catch up on your sleep by taking a catnap. RESIST the temptation. We need you on your toes and ready for action. You never know when you are needed to make an adjustment.
Robin Steele 