Five Secrets To Building A Thriving Media Team

When I first started working with media in my church, I was a “one man team” that was ready to take on the world. “Anything is possible,” I thought as I had one hand on a sound board and the other on a mouse running PowerPoint. It wasn’t until a few years later that I truly began to understand that not only would it be a lot less stressful to get others involved, my product would be much better.

Teams are such an important part of ministry. It’s easy to think that we can make it all happen on our own, but I can confidently testify that it’s a path that quickly leads to frustration and burnout. We need others to be involved in the work of ministry with us to accomplish the God-sized vision that He has placed in our hearts.

All these years later, I’m still learning what it means to lead a team well. There are a few tricks that I’ve learned that make it easier, though. These secrets are not just fluff or hypotheticals—they have been the backbone of my leadership. My hope is that they’ll help you as you build your team.

1. Involve Your Team In Decisions

Some of my favorite parts of church media involve making decisions. I know you can relate to this. I love picking out which motion backgrounds I’ll use from the new CMG pack. I enjoy choosing how the lights will look during worship. Don’t even get me started on how much I adore picking out new gear. One of the easiest ways to get others involved and truly enjoying serving is to let them have a voice in these areas. Spread the love and let them have some fun with this stuff, too.

2. Delegate Responsibilities, Not Tasks

It’s never fun to feel like you’re just a means to an end. Rather than assigning individual tasks (roll this cable, click these slides), invite people to be responsible for a particular area (lighting, projection). This transforms their Sunday morning from a to-do list into an opportunity to build something great. I often use the term “point person” for this.

3. Work Together To Improve Every Week

I used to tackle all of the work leading up to Sunday alone. Now, I invite others to join me at the church one night during the week to get prepared for the weekend. Since it now only takes a fraction of the time with the extra hands, we’ve begun using this time to make improvements. This weekly routine keeps all of our team looking for things on Sundays that we can make better in our time together.

4. Share Resources And Inspiration

Throughout the week, I’m constantly discovering new articles and ideas for how to improve our media. Rather than keeping these resources to myself, I use them to inspire my team. I’m quick to share a blog post with them and love that they’ve begun sending posts to me. I’ve also invited them to my favorite Facebook groups to see what other media teams are doing. This has allowed us to dream together and get a lot more creative.

5. Make Relationships A Priority

I used to skip over this section whenever I would see it in books or on other blogs. We’ve all heard that relationships are essential to good teams. The problem for me was that I never really wanted to build relationships—I just wanted people to help me get things done. Now that I’ve experienced what it’s like to do ministry with your best friends, I can tell you that it’s worth taking the time to foster those friendships with your team. Start by simply taking time outside of Sunday to hang out. Eat lunch together after church. Go bowling or golfing. Just have fun! Consider your team a small group of its own. As your team gets closer, the quality of your product will naturally get better.

 

What Do You Think?

Have you tried any of these at your church?
Let us know by leaving a comment below!