Leadership, Volunteer Culture

Give Control and Create Leaders

To multiply your ministry and see extreme growth, you must raise up leaders.

And you must serve as the Leader of those leaders.

You must create an environment where your team is thinking for themselves, where you are empowering them to make decisions, where you are delegating authority. Make clear that the expectation is for them to be owners of the experience you are creating together. If you create an atmosphere where your team has ownership instead of always having to come to you for permission to do something, it will totally transform your team. It will allow you to not spend every night of your week at the church. It will allow you to spend more time with your family, more time developing people, more time casting vision, instead of feeling like you have to do everything.

Here are 5 Practical ways you can give control and ownership to your team:

1. Form teams and designate Team Leaders.

Allow yourself to pour into and develop those leaders technically and spiritually. More time with less people yields greater results.

2. Create Opportunities.

Spend 50% of your work week creating opportunities, building structures and systems, creating pathways for your leaders to develop their teams.

You are the Coach, overseeing Team Captains who oversee the players. Write the playbook and let your leaders execute the plays. When you see success, start letting your leaders write some of the playbook.

3. Empower leaders to train others.

Create teams that can train new volunteers and veterans. Plan trainings where with you not there.

4. Empower your volunteers to prepare the content for Sunday.

Let your volunteers prepare ProPresenter computers and equipment during the week.

5. Leave the Control Room on Sundays!

Let them feel the weight of solving problems. Are some things going to not be excellent at first? Yes. But if you never let them fail, they will never grow.

Check out this talk from David Marquet on this very topic, its 10 minutes well worth it:

What are some other practical ways that you give control and ownership to 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.