If I Work Myself Out of My Job I Won’t Have a Job… And 4 Other Lies We Tell Ourselves.
But you don’t understand…
1. If I work myself out of my job, then I won’t have a job.
You see, I feel like if I weren’t here every waking hour the church is open, our ministry would not run. It can’t run without me. I have to be there. I don’t trust the people that are on my team to do the things I know how to do to. And if I teach them, then I’ll be out of a job. I have a Ministry Degree and a Technical Degree, and it takes that to do my job. You need to understand that I’m important. And I like to be needed. I kinda like when people call me at all hours, it makes me feel needed. I could raise up leaders to lead areas of our ministry, but I’d still need to be here all the time. I like to complain about not having any free time for myself or my family, but I’m not willing to put in the time to train up leaders to take my place. Plus, my pastors will think I’m not valuable if I’m not doing all the work.
2. We don’t have the money at our church that the church down the road does.
You don’t get it. I look at what Elevation and Hillsong and Newspring and Northpoint and Church on the Move are doing and we don’t have the money to do what they do. I choose to not really do anything with the resources I do have because there’s really no use. I mean, it must be nice having an unlimited budget to buy whatever you need. I bet they don’t even have to turn in their receipts.
You really don’t get it…
3. We don’t have the talent at our church that other churches have.
It looks like those other churches have such amazing talent. They barely even have to recruit. I bet they don’t even have to invite people to serve with them, it looks like they have people lining up to serve. My church doesn’t really have a culture of volunteering. I mean, I’ve invited two people to serve with us in the last three months and they both said “No”! I even took a volunteer to lunch last year and they told me that they would rather serve in the nursery than on our team. I couldn’t believe it.
And one other thing…
4. We don’t let volunteers run some positions.
You don’t understand, the Audio Tech, the ProPresenter Operator, the Director, the Cameras, the Director, the Lighting Coordinator – these positions are only for ‘Pros’. A volunteer can’t understand the complexities of these positions. They don’t get it. That’s why we have the same team serve every service, every Sunday. We don’t even have to do run-throughs, because these people know what they are doing. I don’t really need to send them emails, run-sheets or anything during the week – I mean, they’ve been doing it for years, they know what they are doing.
I wish you could understand that our church has some problems no other church has, but we’re excellent at what we do.
Lies. All lies.
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.
