Executive Pastor Online

I've expended a lot of my blog energy, over my more than a year as a blogger, on the topic of Infrastructure Development.  I've written about what it is, how to do it, and why it's important.  Developing infrastructure boils down to deciding how to do something, committing it to writing (the Management System), and continuously improving the method through revising policies, procedures, work instructions, forms, etc.  That's it.

But, why is this so critical to church growth and the accomplishment of the mission?  In order to grow, the church must be very good at connecting people to ministry teams that "run the business."  In all areas of the church people must easily get connected and deployed in one service area or another.  If deploying a new volunteer takes a significant amount of effort, either by the staff member or key volunteer leader, the number of volunteers that are connected over time will be fewer.  And, the lack of ability to rapidly grow the volunteer base will ultimately slow the growth of the church overall.

Last Sunday I had a real example of this that I thought I would share.  In our operations area we have several teams that take care of everything from parking cars to changing light bulbs.  One of those teams is responsible for putting directional signs out to help new comers find our site.  Not that our site is hard to find necessarily; we have just found over the years that having signs out raises the awareness of people that we are having services and that new comers are always welcome.

Anyway, the guy scheduled to put the signs out that morning called me to let me know, due to some back trouble, he wouldn't be able to take care of it.  I said, "No problem.  We'll take care of it.  You take care of your back."  I'm thinking this isn't a problem because this is one "task" that has been documented in the form of a Work Instruction.  All I need is to find someone that is willing, give them the procedure and keys to the church truck and off they go.  It didn't turn out to be that simple, though.

The volunteer came back 5 minutes later and asked if he could borrow my cell phone.  I said no problem ... why do you need it?  He said that he needed to stay on the phone (his battery was dead) with the guy scheduled to get the job done that morning because the procedure was "nowhere near accurate."

Nice.

I loaned him my phone which allowed him to be verbally walked through the route and the placement of signs.  I thought to myself, "Nice try man."  How simple it could have been had our "documented procedure" just been accurate.

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We recently hired a new Arts Director, which is a very good thing.  During the more than 6 months it took to make the hiring decision, though, I had the privilege of directly leading the Arts organization including the development of a new Service Design process.

As the Executive Pastor I probably spend more face-to-face time with our Senior Pastor than anyone else on staff.  This helped me to get a new process established, documented, and implemented.  It also taught me a bunch about the constant "tug" between the lead speaker and creative design team.

The design team says, "We have to plan more in advance if we want to really do some good stuff."  While the lead speaker says, "I need the freedom and flexibility to change my message at the last minute."  Or, "I want to come up with the ideas and speak on them within a few weeks of each other when I'm still excited about the topic."

The problem is they are both right, and they are both wrong.  (That reminds me of a line out of a movie.  What movie?)  The creative team does need significant lead time on song selection and many other creative elements.  But if they had it their way, everything would be completely done and on paper for a year and there would be no flexibility to tweak anything as the world changes around the church.  In other words, too much planning ahead can equal lack of flexibility.  That's not good.

The lead speaker, on the other hand, does need to be excited about the topic in order to deliver the message with excellence.  Depending on the person, getting and staying excited about a topic might mean not planning too much in advance.  I've seen it before.  "Six months ago during a brainstorming session I was really excited about this topic, but now (six months later) I wish I had never brought it up!"

The bottom line is that the lead speaker and creative team have to work together to establish the best process possible given the gifts of the people involved and the level of excellence desired.  Depending on the service element, the creative team needs the lead time required to get the job done with excellence.  For example, an all volunteer music ministry (made up of people with full-time jobs) needs more time to learn the music and practice than a paid band needs to perform with the required (and expected) excellence.  If the required lead time is not provided, a lower level of excellence will be the result ... like it or not.  If the creative element is a video or drama, obviously much more lead time is required.

The lead speaker needs to work on planning ahead and sticking to the plan once it's established.  But, sometimes (for whatever reason) needs the flexibility to tweak or even completely change the plan.  The creative team needs enough lead time to produce services that inspire attendees.  But, they can't be so rigid that they can't tweak or even completely change the plan when needed.

So, I say establish a process (on paper) that works and that everyone understands.  And then, work to continuously reduce the amount of lead time required to get the job done.  The lead speaker continuously works to plan more ahead and the creative team works to be more flexible.  As with every other area of the church (and just about any business), once the process is established revision B (an improved process) should never be far behind.

Check out CCV's Service Design process here.

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This looks like a movie worth the trip. Maybe a "staff outing" or something.

Check it out ...

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When we first moved into our new building in July of 2006 we had an immediate problem with trying to run a Hospitality ministry.  Due to budget cuts and having to radically reduce the size of our building to get the project done for the money available, we couldn't build any space to even support Hospitality outside of the building.  The single "kitchen type" sink in the building is located in a children's classroom and is only for use during the week.  It doesn't help much, though, on Sunday morning.

For the first year (spring through fall) we made coffee in a couple of locations around the building (storage rooms, etc.) that were out of site and waited until after our 3 services to clean everything up. We even used a water hose on the curb in front of the building to rinse out coffee pump pots and other utensils. Needless to say, our volunteers weren’t very happy with us. We lost a number of team members during that period.

A way had to be found to provide something for the team to brew coffee and otherwise support a Hospitality area on Sunday mornings. Again, due to lack of space Hospitality has to be outside the building. Thankfully we have a large patio area in front of our building that can be used (weather permitting).

Enter the coffee cart. Terri, the leader of our First Impressions ministry, suggested we find some kind of mobile or portable way to get the job done. Along the way, we found Carts of Colorado. They manufacture carts or kiosks that businesses such as Starbucks use in malls and other public spaces for coffee and snack service.

I’m happy to say that we have had our cart for this entire season and it has been a HUGE success. If you have a similar need, I would suggest you contact them. Check out their website by clicking here.

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I don't know about you, but I can sometimes get too focused on the task at hand and loose my perspective.  You know ... what I'm here to accomplish.  As CCV's Executive Pastor I'm "up to my eyeballs in alligators" all the time, usually focused on slaying one dragon or another.

Don't get me wrong.  I love my job.  And, I'm almost always having a good time doing it.  Every now and then, though, I need to be reminded why I'm here.  I need a little perspective.

A friend of mine sent me this link a few days ago.  Check it out ...

http://www.greatdanepro.com/Blue%20Bueaty/index.htm

God's creation is truly amazing!

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