How to Make Your Team WORK BY TIM ADAMS

The relationship between church leadership and the technical ministry can be a tenuous one at best, and a downright toxic one at worst. I have seen pastors who completely stomp all over their techs, while others are best friends with them.

Pastors and techs have difficult jobs; both juggle a multitude of responsibilities and duties, and both have a huge influence in how well a church service functions; ensuring that the relationship between these two parties is healthy and vibrant, then, is hugely important.

The most important step in working towards this goal, in my opinion, is for both parties to be on the same page about what the mission and vision of the church is. Techs need to know where the pastor wants to take the church so they can do their part in helping achieve that goal. The pastor needs to make sure this vision is clearly communicated and top of mind for both ministries and the greater church community at large.

First and foremost, this is accomplished through open and honest

communication, and this communication is also two-sided. Pastors should

share stories of how lives are positively impacted through the technical

ministry and tech leaders should share anything that can help make the

worship service better, such as flow, blocking (where and how people move

through a space such as the stage), transitions, cues, etc. Regular meetings

between tech leadership and pastoral leadership can also help create a

strong sense of community and relationship. Techs love to get a heads up

on changes to the normal flow of service – and more than a couple minutes

would be great.

Establishing a “cue-to-cue” before the program where all participants

meet together, including worship team, tech, pastor, and anyone else

coming up on the stage, to discuss program flow, including what will

happen at each cue, any questions that need to be answered, etc. When

my former church implemented this practice, it revolutionized the service

and virtually eliminated miscues and program interruptions because

everyone knew what the plan was. I strongly recommend this practice for

all churches, regardless of worship style or denomination.

The second step, which builds on the first one, is to regularly evaluate

how tech can better support the mission and vision. Sometimes this means

upgrading equipment, sometimes it’s implementing new techniques or

processes, and sometimes it’s training that needs to be developed and

introduced. There is always room to improve, but we must be careful not to

cross the line from excellence to perfection. We aim for excellence because

it allows space for mistakes, growth, and personal motivation. Perfection is

impossible and trying to achieve it often leaves people feeling like failures

and defeated. Excellence allows people the grace to fail, and the culture to

honestly identify the error and learn from it without the guilt.

While we’re on this topic, let’s discuss the importance of having a

debrief after every service. This might seem redundant for a church with

a traditional worship style, but you still have cues that need to be hit and

aiming for excellence means having honest and open feedback to identify

areas of improvement, even if it is a quick two-minute meeting. When

you first implement the debrief, it will take longer, and a lot of people will

contribute their thoughts. However, as each issue gets resolved over time,

this will become much more efficient; both through the lack of issues that

occur and through the steady practice of debriefing. The debrief might be

as simple as congratulating each other on a good program and moving

on – it does happen – or it could be a bit lengthier if and something has

happened during the service. Identifying an issue is not, and should not be

exhibited as, a personal attack. It’s the honest observation of something that

has gone wrong, coupled with a discussion on how to correct it. Sometimes

egos and pride can get in the way of having an honest discussion and these

situations can quickly devolve into finger pointing and the blame game.

There is no room in church for ego, and certainly not in tech. If there is

someone who simply cannot grow and mature to the point of having honest

discussions about mistakes they have made, then it may be time to remove

them from that position. Sometimes this is a grizzly veteran of tech that has

done it for 20 years; sometime this is the pastor.

Yes, I said it. Sometimes the pastor is the toxic element in this

relationship. What do you do about it? That’s a very difficult question to

answer and one that is likely going to be very specific to your particular

situation. If you’re a denominational church, you can sometimes go

through the Church Board, which can then take the issue to the next level

of administration in the hierarchy. If you’re a non-denominational church,

you have two choices: you can step down from the ministry or you can find

another church. Of course, I’m assuming that you, as a tech department

worker, has tried to work with this pastor over a significant amount of time

before you make this level of decision.

Toxic people, regardless of the position they hold in the church, are

often people with broken hearts and deep wounds. Sometimes they have

deeper psychological issues; understand that we live in a broken world and

anytime there is a relationship between two people, you will see brokenness

breed more brokenness. It’s a sad by-product of the world we live in.

Healing is available through various means, but we must understand

brokenness before we can make headway in these situations. Most anger

is based in fear. If you can understand what that person is afraid of, you

might be able to work with them better. By no means do I condone abuse

or anyone becoming a doormat where you are taken advantage of; I’ve been

in that situation as a tech and it’s not fun.

Having healthy boundaries is ok and anyone that says otherwise I have

issues with. Techs are often the first to get taken advantage of and walked

all over, and not just by the pastor. The pastor should be the one defending

volunteers, regardless of the ministry they serve in; often they are the worst

offenders.

In the end, we are all broken and at various stages of our walk with God

and we are going to need to give grace and receive grace, now more than

ever. With our world so divided and an ever-widening chasm growing

between different ideologies and viewpoints, our churches should be the

example of what working together and finding ways to bridge the gaps

between our differences under the banner and name of God looks like.