Does your worship team and media team work cohesively together to accomplish all the tasks that need fulfilling on Sunday mornings? If not, this can be a big hindrance in your overall worship ministry. From the planning for worship services to actually executing gatherings live on Sundays, worship teams and media teams need to work together as one worship arts community and not separate teams. They need to be united for the same purpose and goal, and they must have mutual love and respect for one another.
Building Relationships
If you need some help bridging the gap between musicians and technicians then you should start with building relationships. It’s very important to acknowledge the fact that the worship band and the church tech team are all a part of one big team. An easy way to do that is to call everything your church does in the tech and music realm Creative Arts, Worship Arts, or something similar. Put all of the teams into the same all-encompassing category for serving in your church worship gatherings and get them together as often as possible to build community amongst all the staff and volunteers serving.
Building these relationships between musicians, sound and lighting engineers, and the staff or volunteers who run your worship media and church presentation software is essential to every task they accomplish together on a Sunday morning. It is important that each person on the team understands what the other team members do for each gathering from start to finish. Conversations about what each position does and how it feels when things go right or wrong will benefit your team greatly. Teach your team to cheer each other on. Teach your band to thank their worship media team or production team and vice versa. Teach them to appreciate what each person does and show them how every position matters, no matter how small or behind the scenes. This is most effectively led by example by the worship pastor and tech director working together to achieve this unity.
Gather Together
It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to gather these teams for a monthly or quarterly community-building event. After all, the first step in improving relations between your media and worship teams is the members actually HAVING relationships. The natural overflow of serving together usually results in conversations before and after services each week, but intentional gatherings for church creatives go even further. Most issues with personality quirks and such will work themselves out with the simple act of building friendships with each other. Then if there is a problem that needs more individual attention, that person may need to meet with leadership to talk about why they are struggling to work as a team on Sundays. This vision for unity and camaraderie among church teams should be continually discussed and displayed by the church leadership team. When comradery is a part of your worship arts culture, you will find that teamwork comes much more naturally.
Invite Each Other
Another way to bridge the gap between worship teams and tech teams is to invite each other into their processes. Worship leaders could ask the production team for new worship songs ideas to do at church, and the tech team could show the band how to put lyrics into a presentation for worship. Teach your team members to show genuine interest in all of the worship and tech positions on Sunday mornings. It will help them see from a different perspective and understand how to communicate with one another more clearly. After all, we all depend on each other. Each position on the team faces unique challenges and stressors, but ultimately they all work together to complete the bigger picture. The worship leader depends on the church presentation tech to display song lyrics to help people engage and participate in worship. The worship band depends on the sound engineer to create the feeling that’s desired for the room with the sound of their instruments. The pastor depends on the slide operator and the church presentation software itself to display notes and scriptures during teaching time. Each piece is important.
For instance, worship media volunteers and church production staff are behind the scenes and yet have such a powerful impact on the worship environment and the congregation. They first set the tone by choosing the best church presentation backgrounds and fonts, along with lighting and stage design. Then they have the job of displaying lyrics for the congregation so they can sing and join in during worship. Sometimes they have to endure a lot of pressure and respond by inserting lyrics on the fly and inserting scriptures on the fly when the Spirit leads the worship leader or pastor on stage to break away from the service flow sheet. Understanding the ins and outs of this job would make any worship leader much more grateful for what tech teams do on a Sunday morning.
Put Yourself In Their Shoes
It’s also important that the church production team understands what the worship leader and worship team are experiencing from the other side of the auditorium on the stage. Waiting on the next line of lyrics on the confidence monitor can be nerve-wracking (Luckily, MediaShout offers many functions like the next line of lyrics on the stage display to help with this). And not being able to hear properly when singing or playing in front of the entire church can feel very vulnerable. It’s truly hard to understand another person’s perspective unless you have stood in their shoes, but it would be a good practice to try to get teams to switch it up as much as possible– even if just on a rehearsal night. Then they can more readily serve one another when actual worship gatherings are taking place. Discovering the challenges in each other’s jobs will foster compassion for one another and quell any competitive or prideful attitudes that destroy relationships.
The key is to build relationships and for pastors and leaders to lead by example. There’s nothing more discouraging than trying to minister to your congregation while having issues on your team. Most of the time it is because people need to be seen and heard. They need to be encouraged and cheered on. If you are a pastor or leader then you know one of your direct ministries is to your teams. They see you in stressful times and they see how you treat those around you. Your team will reflect your leadership. Lead with love and compassion, and take time to build up what you wish to see. It will be worth it!
Do you have your own ideas on team building within the worship and tech community? How about wins or losses that were critical in this area for your church? Share them in the comments below!
