Lead Where You Are - August 6-7, 2009

Ever been to the Leadership Summit, a conference sponsored by the Willow Creek Association? It's amazing. For two days leaders are challenged by some of the most articulate and visionary leaders in the church and marketplace. Sessions focus on leadership, of course, but are surrounded by soulful worship and personal application. If you haven't been, I challenge you to prayfully consider going. It's worth your time. Hosted by churches nationwide.

(And if you can get your arts leader and teaching pastors to go together, you'll have a ton to discuss afterwards about the use of worship and creativity. It's worth the trip just for that.)

willowcreek.com/summit

The Big Idea - Please, Have One!

For goodness sake, really for the sake of Christ and the gospel, if you are a pastor or teacher, please have a point to your message!

Every Sunday morning (or Saturday night), hopefully hundreds if not thousands of people come to church. They come to your church. They have stopped what they're doing, gotten dressed for church (or have come just like they are), piled the family in the car (sometimes with joy, but often with a few tears or distress), found a parking spot, checked the kids into their programs and found a seat. They are waiting, almost daring, those on the platform to move their hearts toward God.

So, for the sake of Heaven, please, please, please...if you're a pastor or teacher, have a point! And better yet, share it with your arts team well in advance (at least three weeks is ideal). When people walk out of the church service, what do you want them to:

• know?
• feel?
• do?

People want to be moved! They want to be challenged with ONE BIG IDEA that they can take home.

Think about it. When you go to Starbucks, you want to get a coffee. When you go to church, you want to experience and respond to God. If teachers and artists aren't working together to make this happen, our efforts are misplaced.

So, please, if you're a teacher, work hard on your big idea. Don't serve them hot water when they're looking for great coffee.

How do I make brainstorming work?

If you're looking for the easy way to build a life-changing service, skip this post.

Brainstorming is one of the hardest jobs arts teams have in the church. It's hard because we rely on the teaching pastor for information, because filling the blank page is difficult when you have to do it every week, and because it's a spiritual process.

So, how do arts teams make brainstorming work? Here are a few tips to point you in the right direction:

Build a great team
Make sure you have innovative people on the team! Each person
should be able to come up with original ideas every time you meet. The make sure the people can get along. While you don't want completely like minded people (or your brainstorming will flatline), you need people who are optimistic about the
vision they're contributing to. And keep the group closed for seasons, so that
trust is developed.

Treat brainstorming like a spiritual process
I've always been a little irked by the question: Is God present in the planning of worship services or the leadership of the moments during worship services? Can I say...duh, it's both! God is not absent from our planning room, only to suddenly arrive in the heart of the worship leader when he's onstage. God is active in both settings. When planning worship services we need to commit ourselves to the same yieldness to God we might have when leading a congregation in worship. Both are necessary.

Get information first
If you're the leader of a brainstorming team, walk into the meeting with as much information as you can about the teaching you'll be supporting. Clarity is your friend. While you don't want to limit creativity, you do want to give your team some probable boundaries. Without a clear direction, the team will wind up frustrated.

Create a healthy idea culture
All great "brainstorming rules" suggest that while the team is brainstorming or sharing ideas, there ought to be very little commenting (positive or negative) on the ideas proposed. Later you'll need to evaluate the ideas and see which ones rise to the top, but while you're putting them on the table, don't react. Overly positive reactions tend to stop the brainstorming, since everyone thinks the accepted idea is the best one...so far. Negative reactions tend to create an unsafe culture, and participants stop sharing ideas.

Save decisions until the very end
When all the ideas are collected, you can make it clear to your team that you're heading into idea evaluation mode. You can still brainstorm, by combining ideas or making the ones you choose the best they can be, but decide!

Where do great ideas come from and how do you put the together...more on those later.

Expectations for Artists?

How much can we really expect in church from "those artsy types?"

Should we ask them to be on time, for example? How about asking artists to be fully present in business meetings? Should we call arts to lead spiritually? Or should we expect just a teeny, tiny bit less because they are artsy and must be allowed to fully experience the world to be able to create their art?

I've been an artist and a leader for a good while, and there's one thing I know for sure. Human beings, artists or non-artists, will rise to the level you call them to. We all enjoy a challenge, and we love being told we can hit the mark. My take on this question is to expect amazing innovation and art from artists, while calling them to build a character that sustains every area of their lives.

Call artists to the same level you call everyone else. Just make sure you don't set the bar for everyone too low! God has high hopes for us. Why not have high hopes of each other.

Leader or Manager: The Debate is On

So, if you're a worship arts director are you a leader or a manager?

There are a thousand ways authors have defined the differences between leaders and managers, but let's boil it down to this:

Leader = one who goes first and guides
Manager = one who handles or directs resources

Now which one are you, really? Hmmm....both? Probably. Hopefully.

No wonder you feel like you must be all things to all people. We haven't even touched on the sticky issue of church politics. Oh, and we haven't talked about the differences between right and left brain thinkers, either.

But, if we need to be both a leader and a manager, first we must admit it. (And, I challenge you to effectively argue any other position, because we need both leadership and management to run a healthy arts ministry.)

What I wonder is if you're doing just one of these right now, where are the artists being cheated? Are you cheating them out of leading toward a vision they can give their lives to? Or are you cheating them out great people and resource management that loves on them as artists, so their gifts and talents have a safe place to flourish?

When we do both well, it leads to healthy artistic ministry.

Disconnect

Ever feel a disconnect between church leadership and church artists?

If you haven't, I want to know what planet you live on and how to join you there!

We could debate why this distance exists. We could chat about the differences between church leaders and church artists. We could rant about the culture that accepts leaders and rejects artists or accepts artists and rejects leaders. We could talk about it...and over the course of this blog, I'm sure we will.

But for now, let's consider that a disconnect is simply a connection waiting to happen. Sound too optimistic? I personally think not. Church leaders and church artists may be wired up completely differently, but they have much in common.

I hope you'll visit the blog regularly to catch up on how church leaders and church artists can work together.