How do you find your service content?

[timayates]

Just curious how everyone finds the service elements that they use each week? Do you brainstorm? Do you have a creative team? Volunteer creative team? Are you a loner when it comes to service planning?

Curious? How do you do it?

Tim

[fmckinnon]

Hi Tim,

We definitely do a lot of brainstorming, have creative team meetings ... but as "classic" as it may sound ... it should all start with a lot of prayer ... if you're involved in contributing to these elements, spend a good bit of time praying and asking the Holy Spirit to give creative wisdom ... then, you can see some great results!

God bless,
Fred

[El Ben]

"Classic" is "classic" for a reason, Freddo. Good call on the prayer thing. Also, I think it's important to give some ownership of your service flow and planning to strategic laypeople in your church. Maxwell always says that a confident leader is a delegating leader.

[timayates]

So is it safe to say that you guys utilize volunteers? Do you brainstorm for ideas? Who leads those meetings?

Tim

[El Ben]

The senior pastor should, I think, ALWAYS be in charge of these meetings. I think that should go without saying. Now, when I say "in charge," what I mean is "moderate." The nature of a creative brainstorming session is that it gets a little crazy. I thought I was gonna go out of my MIND yesterday at staff meeting when we started the initial brainstorming on our upcoming marriage conference, which was a big hit last year in our community.

This year, we wanted to mix things up. The problem with "completely different" is that it requires a "completely different" throught process from last time.

So...anyway, here's how the structure of our meetings usually ends up:

1.) Pastor gets vision and direction 1.1.
2.) Pastor brings it to staff.
3.) Staff and pastor brainstorm and come up with vision and direction 1.2
4.) Pastor and staff take vision and direction 1.2 to church leadership team (strategic laypeople.)
5.) Pastor and staff brainstorm with leadership team and get vision and direction 1.3
6.) Pastor refines vision and direction 1.3 into vision and direction 2.0
7.) Pastor introduces vision and direction 2.0 to congregation at large.

[fmckinnon]

Ben,
This is a great play-by-play ... but I was hoping you'd interject some more specific "Harry does ..." line items ... c'mon, you can't lump Harry into "staff" ... you gotta give him a line of his own.

[El Ben]

1.) Pastor gets vision and direction 1.1.
***Harry pops in to comment on the frequency of early low tides this season.***

2.) Pastor brings it to staff.
***Harry makes random comment about his e-girlfriend in Australia***

3.) Staff and pastor brainstorm and come up with vision and direction 1.2
***Harry falls asleep***

4.) Pastor and staff take vision and direction 1.2 to church leadership team (strategic laypeople.)
***Harry cusses someone out***

5.) Pastor and staff brainstorm with leadership team and get vision and direction 1.3
***Harry bikes to a "SAVE THE TREES" rally, wondering why so many cars are still at the church***

6.) Pastor refines vision and direction 1.3 into vision and direction 2.0
***Harry pops in to ask about comment about his new iPod***

7.) Pastor introduces vision and direction 2.0 to congregation at large.
***Harry and his mom both fall asleep***



Just so you guys know, Harry is our church administrator. He's great at what he does, but has some quirks that make for GREAT conversation peices, like his narcolepsy and his cursing. He's a great guy, though, and we all love him to death.

[fmckinnon]

Great, Ben -

If only everyone here on TWC knew good ole' Harry.

I might add after ***Harry and his mom both fall asleep***
staff dials 911 for fear that Harry's mom is really dead, and not sleeping at all.

[timayates]

Ben,

Because I don't know you, I thought I would ask. Would you say that you are an "arts" guy buy nature? Would you put yourself into that category.

??

Tim

[patdryburgh]

We hold our service programming design (SPD) meetings every Monday night. The make-up of the team is a mix between staff and volunteers. Our pastor is not involved directly with those meetings.

Here is how our creative process looks:

1) Monday morning, our pastor, our Executive Director of Service Programming, and myself get together to have what we call our "bottom line" meeting. This is where our pastor has the opportunity to give myself and our SPD guy a rundown of what the bottom lines for each message are, and what sort of "mood" he's looking for. We'll often talk about what images we're using in the message, some very basic-level SPD ideas, etc. Myself and the SPD also help to really narrow down and fine tune the bottom lines, and really make sure that we know where our pastor is going to go.

2) Monday night we have our SPD meeting. The first part of the meeting is evaluating the service. We spend time talking about what worked, what didn't work, what could improve, etc. We try to elicite evalutions from people outside the SPD team as well and bring those evaluations to the table.

3) From there, we talk about the next Sunday to make sure we've got everything nailed down. Any last minute prep is delegated to the team.

4) We then start talking about the creative elements of the next few services. We try to have an entire series planned out two or three weeks before it hits. Sometimes we win in this area, sometimes we don't. I'd personally like to be further ahead than we are.

5) Throughout the rest of the week we're constantly thinking up new ideas and writing them down to bring the following week. We're also making sure that all of the elements of the service coming up are in order, so that there are as few surprises on Sunday morning as possible.

Pat

[El Ben]

Ben,

Because I don't know you, I thought I would ask. Would you say that you are an "arts" guy buy nature? Would you put yourself into that category.

??

Tim


I don't know if I'm an "arts" guy. I'm definitely a "music" guy. You know what...yes, I'm an arts guy. Hear me roar.

I like foreign movies, old books, and I've been known to sneak a listen to the soundtrack from Amadeus.

I've been waiting with bated breath for the movie "Across the Universe" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VTPSL9TcJc), which happens to be a musical. I've also been experimenting with video editing and graphic design.

So...er...yeah. I'm an arts guy.

Just for the record, though, I'm an arts guy that likes girls...just, you know, for the record. :)

[russhutto]

Go arts guys!!

[dtpuga]

Good planning structures in here. I wanted to comment about the "pastor always being in charge/moderating."

Our structure is kind of pulling away from that mode of operation. Our pastor is an excellent communicator but he knows he is not the most organized, creative, musical guy on staff. (That's why he hired others in the first place right?) So he presents his sermon series to a team and they come up with alot from there. They meet on Mondays to review services and plan for the upcoming ones but he does not 'take control.' The interesting thing about it is that his sermons have gotten consistently better and he is not quite as stressed as he once was, now that he is not driving that big ship.

-Travis

[russhutto]

I would second that, Travis.

In our situation we're wrestling through the same exact change.

In one model (where the pastor has a hand in everything), people are underutilized and all the burden lies on one or 2 people to make things happen.

In the other (where the pastor sets things in motion and then lets people run), people are empowered and given permission to be creative. The burden is then spread out and like Travis said, the end result tends to be better.

Problems we're facing: our lead pastor is a church planter. We're 4 years in. For the first 3 years he basically had to do most things himself. Plus, he's a serious DRIVER, a very task oriented, get things done, kinda guy. It's been a challenge for him to let go (although he is definitely willing).

We're beginning to see the exponential results of team led ministry, as opposed to one man shows. Don't get me wrong, though, there needs to be point leaders. But instead of the "pastor" being the only go to guy, we're creating a culture of leaders of leaders.

Back on point, we have a creative team that meets regularly and goes over upcoming message themes. They then brainstorm creative ideas. Those ideas are commuicated to the team leaders, where they are yeaed or nayed. Those that are yeaed, make it into the corporate gathering. The lead pastor can choose to change the final line-up if need be, but usually that occurs with input/insight from more than one team leader.

[solidwalnut]

Just curious how everyone finds the service elements that they use each week? Do you brainstorm? Do you have a creative team? Volunteer creative team? Are you a loner when it comes to service planning?

Curious? How do you do it?

Tim

Hi Tim--

I see you're in Waukee. I was born in Des Moines and graduated from Roosevelt in '76. Are you a native or a transplant! (Funny, we're always asking that of people who live in AZ!)

Anyway, a little input. Right now, I'm a loner in planning. Not really, it's me and the pastor. We're a new church plant. He takes care of the message and we talk together about the creative elements we want to install. But he leaves the music and technical completely up to me.

Right now, Kent's the senior and only pastor. I am the worship leader. When we finally get the critical mass of people involved, we want to move to the model where we have a worship planning team where we break down the previous service and plan for the next and future ones. We are advocates of Simple Church, so we only plan on doing a handful of things well rather than the opposite. The benefit of empowering the correct lay volunteers for each ministry is also in the cards so that as the church grows it is not going to be a top-down ministry, nor will the senior pastor try and sheperd a flock beyond his physical means.

Since we're new, we don't have much for ideas for creative elements. What we do right now is video clips. In particular, we like Nooma vid's. Rob Bell is really excellent and in tune with what we like.

[fmckinnon]

Steve,

Hey - just a thought. There are those who teach in leadership that "if you wait" until you have that "critical mass" of people, you'll never achieve that. Steven Furtick (http://www.stevenfurtick.com), the pastor of Elevation in Charlotte NC champions this thought on his blog often. He's a young pastor who planted a church in an already over-churched city, and it's exploding. But from the get-go, he worked it like it was a mega church.

Rather than waiting - is it possible that you already have a small group - maybe 3-4 people, who are creative and passionate about worship? If so, even if they volunteer, you could start with this process. Think of the "ownership" and "belonging" these people would have, and the contribution they could bring to make your church even better!

[solidwalnut]

Steve,

Hey - just a thought. There are those who teach in leadership that "if you wait" until you have that "critical mass" of people, you'll never achieve that. Steven Furtick (http://www.stevenfurtick.com), the pastor of Elevation in Charlotte NC champions this thought on his blog often. He's a young pastor who planted a church in an already over-churched city, and it's exploding. But from the get-go, he worked it like it was a mega church.

Rather than waiting - is it possible that you already have a small group - maybe 3-4 people, who are creative and passionate about worship? If so, even if they volunteer, you could start with this process. Think of the "ownership" and "belonging" these people would have, and the contribution they could bring to make your church even better!

Thanks for the link to Steven Furtick. I'll be sure and check that out.

We're speaking the same language, really. It's just a matter of how I've strung my words and phrases together on this one. I'm with you: it's not that we want to wait until we have a critical mass to begin the ministries and the ownership--we totally want individual ownership to begin early--it's that we literally only have a total of 8-10 committed people doing it all. And we're all volunteers except for the pastor. That number of people include the pastor and me! So we are fixated on the nuts and bolts at this early stage because we have to be.

We just began weekly services (this coming Sunday will be our fourth). What I mean by critical mass in this case is a small number of committed people so we can move forward with the model. We need, and are now gaining, heads so there can be new volunteers to concentrate more on the nuts and bolts.

We are working it so it begins as a type of 'mega church' as well, so it will be interesting to pick up some pointers and points of view from Steven. Where our model most likely differs is that from day one, our goal is to plant a new church in five years; 2012. This is how we got started; this is the model of our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Steve

[timayates]

Hi Tim--

I see you're in Waukee. I was born in Des Moines and graduated from Roosevelt in '76. Are you a native or a transplant! (Funny, we're always asking that of people who live in AZ!)


Steve,
It's funny I'm actually from Phoenix. Never thought I would end up in Iowa, but here I am. :)

So here's my take, I've been serving in the creative arts for going on 18 years now, and I believe you have to make your situation become whatever you want it to become regardless of Church size. I've been part of churches that were 10,000 + and I've worked in a church of 100, and the only thing that really changed was my working budget. The nice thing about being creative is God has given us the ability to do it for FREE. If you are in a small church, I agree, find a few creative people and begin dreaming how to better communicate the gospel. If you are in a large church do the same. As far as the Sr. Pastor in control of everything that goes on, I've been in that situation before also, and I don't think it works very well. I would rather see you trust your staff and empower them to become who God has made them to be. I'm probably speaking tainted from past experience here, so I don't mean to be critical of any Sr. pastor that feels like he needs to hang on to control, but that's been my past experience.

This has been an interesting read if anything??

Tim

[Darryn]

Hello

Our service content comes from three people. The lead worshiper picks from a list of songs, the director of music resources picks the key and version to play, and the worship team administrator creates the flow of the songs.

The director of music has put all the songs that we know in three categories:
A. Music we can play without music and the church knows very well.
B. Music that we know and the church knows.
C. Music that is unknown or that we have not played since Paul made his third trip through the known world.

[trpullen]

We have a creative team that brainstorms series topics and then myself (music), the drama and set person and the pastor pull triggers to make the stuff happen.