Importance of unpaid team members
The crew of unpaid people is at the heart of an effective ministry. Ministry for the electronic culture is not about what staff to hire to accomplish the tasks at hand. It is about empowering laypersons to utilize their gifts in ways they never thought possible for the purpose of advancing God’s kingdom.
You will discover that as the media ministry develops, it becomes an entry point for people previously not part of the church community. Because of the opportunity to utilize their gifts and talents, individuals will join the team and become regular attendees at the church. Like the movie Field of Dreams, once you build it, people will come. A couple of years ago I asked a film student at a local state college to create a two-minute promotional piece to recruit people to the sound ministry. The student, Dave, got three friends from campus to help him make the spot. None were a part of our church community, but following production of the spot, two of the three became regular attendees!
The temptation, once you have discovered talented, committed people, is to pay them, to ensure that your team will not collapse on some given weekend. But relationships get a bit complicated when a team becomes a mix of paid and unpaid people, for a number of reasons. The addition of money, especially with Christians who are young in their faith, can obscure motives for services given, and interfere with their growth in giving as an expression of faith. As Cordeiro states, the act of serving is not so much about what the servant is doing but rather who they are becoming. Paid persons have a tendency to hoard knowledge as a form of job security. Paying servants can also lead to the game of secret keeping—does director #one, who is paid to direct, know that director #two is not paid? If so, then does director #one suddenly begin having an inflated sense of importance regarding his/her work in the ministry? Or if not, then does director #one make the mistake of telling director #two about the payment? Such knowledge would obviously hurt efforts in building community. Further, paid staff is no hedge against missed deadlines or failed projects.
One of the two young film students who came to our congregation during the production of the spot, was given the opportunity to become part-time staff to handle the increase in demand for media in education. Although he was an excellent unpaid team member, the expectation of being paid staff was too much at that stage of his faith journey. After a year in that capacity we removed him from a job that did not fit him. He returned to his unpaid role, and since has excelled as a director with strong technical skills.
For the first three years of media ministry at Ginghamsburg Church, as the church tripled in size, I was the only paid media staff person among an unpaid team of ninety people. Through that team we accomplished great things and set the stage for our current mix of paid and unpaid team members. It is through unpaid people, pursuing their gifts and talents in ways they never dreamed possible, that a media ministry can transform lives and build the Kingdom.
Establish a goal
For what purpose will your teams be working? Do you wish to coordinate electronic media into the worship context, or education, or both? Will the media you create be a part of your community experience once a month? Every week? These questions must be answered before you can begin.
Answer the following multiple-choice question: I am …
- A media professional bringing this exciting communication tool to the life of my church
- An amateur with tons of creative ideas eager to use this tool in the life of my church
- A print culture geezer who doesn’t see the need for electronic media in the first place.
The challenge of media professionals in church life is to act out of what you have, not out of what you don’t have. Regardless of the quality of the media equipment available at your disposal, it probably will not compare to what a professional studio has. But take heart! The tools for making electronic culture are becoming democratized. The landscape for media is changing drastically as home systems become powerful enough to accomplish digital media creation. (In fact, it is likely that one day a central home appliance will be the production and distribution center for all electronic media applications).
Recently, a twenty-something in California created a satire called Troops (a ten-minute hybrid of Star Wars and the TV show Cops) with a home system that was so effective it received national attention, and the feedback of Star Wars creator George Lucas. I downloaded it from the Internet. The quality of the short film is amazing. The lesson: do not underestimate the creative power of media creation for local church environments, regardless of supposed technological limitations.
The challenge for amateurs, on the other hand, is to not bite off more than you can chew.
Remember that mediocre media is worse than none at all, because it doesn’t communicate.
It distracts. So do what you can, and do it well. Your creativity, and that of your team, will be such that you want to try great things. Risk-taking is part of the makeup of any media guru, and the only way to grow, but always pass those risks through the test of excellence. It’s a difficult balance to maintain.
Create a culture of koinonia
Koinonia is a New Testament word that is variously translated as “fellowship,” “sharing” or “partnership.” It’s the experience of harmony through Christ that can happen when a community of Christians works together for a common goal. You don’t have to make it happen as a leader, either; it is a gift from the Holy Spirit. Your function is to provide the freedom for the expression of this gift, and to encourage team members’ passion when the gift is apparent. One way to energize the team is to constantly cast stories of transformation in the lives of people who attend the church.
Electronic media plays a role in individual transformation, as well. About two years ago at Ginghamsburg Church I produced a worship segment telling the testimony of a young couple coming to faith. The video story, like no other medium, described a couple heartbroken at the loss of their newborn baby, but held up through the love and support of the church community. A few months after that worship experience, I witnessed how media were not only using their story to inspire others, but were actually inspiring them as well. At a later worship service, we closed with video and audio of ultrasound from an unborn baby being carried by the preacher’s wife. The sight and sound of that unborn baby on the big screen were a cathartic experience for the grieving couple. Of course, emotions are complex, and the opposite could have happened; the point being, media resonates, and elicits reactions in viewers. Media is not the communication form of a stagnant church. It will cause change and growth. It will jerk your congregation out of their apathy and indifference.
As your church grows, relay stories of life-changing work to the team, and make sure they understand their role in transforming the community.
Qualities to look for
People who catch your vision. More important than technical mastery is the condition of the person’s spirit. Sometimes a little technical expertise without an understanding of the vision of the ministry can be dangerous, particularly when you are forced to rely on individuals with a greater degree of technical knowledge than you have.
It is very important in a team environment to have technical accountability.
There’s nothing worse than a carefully planned and produced service ruined by an over-tweaked projector or soundboard.
Soft skills and hard skills. It is just as important to have leaders and administrators in the ministry as it is to have technically apt people. I specifically recruit non-technical people and train them because it is easier to teach video skills than it is to teach people skills.
In Doing Church as a Team, Wayne Cordeiro says that when you’re starting a ministry, your first step is to recruit four leaders. Keep those four leaders within your care, no less and no more, for the duration of the ministry, regardless if the community is ten or three hundred people. These four people will be the heart of the ministry and will raise a team strong in number and spirit beyond what you could accomplish single-handedly.
These leaders don’t necessarily have to fit the ministry’s needs by function or role. The job of the ministry director is to take their mix of gifts and apply them in whatever way best fits the team, as the coach adapts his team’s strategy based upon the strengths of the team’s players. As to who these four people shall be, they are the four who exhibit the most passion for the ministry and have the best ability to articulate their passion and lead others.
Technical proficiency. Every church has introverts with great computer and video skills. This ministry is made for them. Although not necessarily your leaders, they are the ones who will be able to step in immediately with the skills necessary to get the ministry running. Many people are visual learners (hence the need for media ministry!), and will only see the power of media in communicating the Gospel by seeing it in action. When these techno-geniuses put on the initial worship experiences, possibilities will become evident and others will come. They can then become your trainers as you bring in other people to grow the team.
—Len Wilson, The Wired Church: Making Media Ministry (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), Pages 74-79. Used by permission.
Footnotes: [1] Wayne Cordeiro, Doing Church as a Team (Ventura: Regal Books, 2005), 154.
