Leadership

8 Things to Never Forget When Creating Your Experience (Part One)

What do I mean by an experience in this context?
What I mean when I say “experience” is your worship services, your classes, your events, your Vacation Bible School, your conferences. Anything where you are creating an environment where people are engaging in worship or coming together in a large group setting.

Your gatherings should be more than an ‘event’ – people should be taken on a journey to connect with your message.

Your congregation should have an experience every time they come to your gatherings.

With that in mind, I’d like to offer 8 Things to Never Forget When You are Creating Your Experience.

These principles can apply to church media staff and volunteers.

I’m breaking this content up into two blog posts. Part Two will post to the blog this Thursday.

1. Never forget: Ministry is hard.

It just is. Whether you’re on staff or a volunteer, the spiritual element of leading people is very real.
The Devil hates that you’re creating experiences where life change happens. He is after you.

I am going to give you five ways, that you can stay focused in ministry –

1. Schedule intentional time with Jesus.
Read your Bible, pray, take spiritual next steps in your personal life.

2. Know spiritual attacks are going to come from places you least expect.
They will hit your marriage, your family, or the team member you least expect.

3. Communicate with the people closest to you.
Prepare your spouse and family for spiritual attacks.
Communicate your calendar – When you head into Easter, Christmas, or busy season, communicate well.

4. Be humble.
Don’t always think you have to be on the mountain with God to minister to others. Sometimes people feel cared for more if they know you’ve been there.
People respect and trust humility over arrogance. It’s okay to not have all the answers.

5. Consistently remind yourself that your relationship with God and your family matters more than your ministry.
I’m not saying don’t dedicate yourself to your ministry, but learn to say “no” more when it comes to your personal walk with Jesus and your family.
Know your busy seasons and plan more family time in the slow months.

2. Never Forget: You are creating an experience.

You are not just pushing a button. You’re not just moving a fader, or singing a song. All of you, as one team, are creating experiences where people meet Jesus and take next steps with Him.

That’s why you prep. That’s why you practice and train and execute with excellence.
Because a distraction could take someone out of the mindset of hearing the Gospel. Because God is using you to execute that song element, that video, that experience for people to be drawn to Him.

ProPresenter Operators:
You are providing lyrics for people to sing and praise their Creator.

Audio Guys:
You are the sharing Gospel, allowing music and preaching to be heard in a clear and understandable way. Can we do a service without sound? Yes, but think of how beautiful and clear the message is to more people.

Worship Leaders:
You guys are giving words and expression for thousands of people to know and understand how to worship God.

You’re creating an experience for your people every Sunday, where they are meeting Jesus and growing with Him.

3. Never Forget: You must care more about who your team is becoming than what they do on your team.

This is the secret sauce. This is the #1 priority. You can’t bypass or skip this step.

Pastoring your people first is more important than anything else on your team – over learning songs, over learning gear, over scheduling, over everything. It should be what you’re spending most of your time doing.

You have to care about who your people are becoming more than what they do on your team.

I’ve done two episodes of the podcast on pastoring your people that you can check out for more on this.
In Episodes #3, I talked about how to Pastor First, then consider the technical elements of your experience.
in Episode #4, I talked about how to Win the hearts of your volunteers.

4. Never Forget: To help create a clear and welcoming On-Ramp for New Volunteers.

Make sure you create a clear path and structure for someone to go from “interest in serving on your team” to “consistent servant”.

Here is a possible on ramp or pathway for your new volunteers:
1. Church Ownership or Membership Class.
Are you leveraging your membership class to move people to serving in your church?

2. Opportunities Tours.
These can be small scheduled tours you can take new members of your church around to see and experience what it would be like to serve in a certain ministry area.
Click Here to Learn more about how to provide Opportunities Tours.

3. First Look.
These can be scheduled times where people that are interested in your team can come and observe others serving and learn about the vision of your team, how to be trained, the time commitments, how you do your rotation schedule, and other details of your team.
Click here to learn more about how to provide a Production First Look.

4. Consistent Training Opportunities.
These can be scheduled opportunities for new volunteers to come in and learn your gear with a veteran without the stress of Sunday. I would highly encourage a training during the week or Sunday afternoon – sometime where you can provide a non-stress time to teach new volunteers your gear.
Click here to learn more about how to effectively train your team.

Here are a couple of fundamental shifts for you to think about when welcoming new volunteers to your team –
– Try “inviting” instead of “recruiting”.
– Never used the phrase “we need you to serve”. Honestly, we don’t need you, we can find people if we have to and my God can provide a way for us to execute our worship services. This is a fundamental shift in the language you use. Use terms like “we’ve created opportunities where you can serve in helping us create experiences where people meet Jesus and take their next step with Him”.
– Break through the stereotype that you have to be an introverted nerd to serve in Production.
– You can train people to push a button, you want people dedicated to the vision of your team. Create opportunities that use the gifts and talents of the people on your team.

CARL BARNHILL
Creative Director / Owner
[twelve:thirty]media | Columbia, SC
twelvethirtymedia.com

Carl Barnhill has served on staff at some of the largest churches and organizations in the country. He served as Media Director at Precept Ministries International, directing the television and radio program Precepts for Life with Kay Arthur, broadcasted to over 98 million homes around the world. He served as Video Production Director at Pinelake Church in Brandon, MS, where he produced media content for four campuses, as well as led volunteer teams.

He most recently served as Video Coordinator for Newspring Church in South Carolina. Newspring has 10 campuses across the state with a weekly attendance of over 35,000. At one campus alone, the number of consistent volunteers serving in media production tripled, under his leadership.

He currently serves as Creative Director and Owner of [twelve:thirty]media, a company that serves churches and ministries all over the world through motion graphics content and church media coaching.