Leaders, Ministry Leadership
“If I Only Had A Left Brain”
#CreativeWorship
2 min read
MIXED MESSAGES
WHAT WE SEE: JOB OPENING:
Worship leader. Must sing and play guitar well, must know all the coolest songs, have spiky hair and cool trendy clothes.
WHAT WE DON’T SEE: FINE PRINT:
Must also administrate like crazy. Includes: booking musicians and sing- ers, organize and keep a music and lyric library, recruit and manage volunteers, request licenses and report copyrights weekly for all songs and videos, deal with personality conflicts and crises, select songs for themes, create charts, oversee large-scale projects and productions, direct a choir, maintain church musical and sound equipment, report to numerous weekly staff meetings, and much, much more.
Must also administrate like crazy. Includes: booking musicians and sing- ers, organize and keep a music and lyric library, recruit and manage volunteers, request licenses and report copyrights weekly for all songs and videos, deal with personality conflicts and crises, select songs for themes, create charts, oversee large-scale projects and productions, direct a choir, maintain church musical and sound equipment, report to numerous weekly staff meetings, and much, much more.
Must also administrate like crazy. Includes: booking musicians and sing- ers, organize and keep a music and lyric library, recruit and manage volunteers, request licens- es and report copyrights weekly for all songs and videos, deal with personality conflicts and crises, select songs for themes, create charts, oversee large-scale projects and productions, direct a choir, maintain church musical and sound equipment, report to numerous weekly staff meetings, and much, much more.
Learn why a worship leader needs both sides of the brain, and how to balance both the creative and administrative needs of leading a ministry.
TWO SIDES
There is an unfortunate paradigm that exists in the Church and often gets overlooked. In order to present the worship arts to a congregation, a church arts staff must be populated with right-brained, creative, artistic types.However, these people often bring little to no administrative skills to the table, and they are often just hired and thrown to the lions. In smaller churches this can be especially problematic since, when only one or two people can be brought on staff, they are often the right-brained worship leader types with no administration staff at all to help them.
Suddenly, you have a non-administrative person in a position of having to administrate a whole area that they have no training for. Larger staffs may be able to hire administrative help, but then the creative leader is often still expected to manage the administration staff.
SQUARE PEGS
Being a good guitarist, singer, songwriter and worship leader simply does not qualify someone to administrate a worship department, lead a choir, recruit volunteers, organize a music and lyric library, schedule musicians, report copyrights, and a whole bunch of other common tasks associated with church music leadership. (And nothing kills off creative brain cells faster than the average staff meeting.)There is no simple answer to this problem, but any solution must begin with recognizing that it is a problem. The plain fact is, you cannot turn a right-brained creative type into a left-brained administrator, and you’d be foolish to try. But you can help them.
[ctt template=”6″ link=”7Pl1I” via=”no” ] You cannot turn a right-brained creative type into a left-brained administrator, and you’d be foolish to try.[/ctt]
SO PASTORS, HERE ARE A FEW THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW…
- Your creative people need administrative help. Hiring a strong left-brained assistant is the best step to take. Of course, many churches cannot afford to do this, in which case volunteers may be necessary. But often, your creative people lack even the skills to recruit and manage volunteers. They may need help getting help!
- Your creative people need administration training. It is money well spent to send your people off to administration training seminars or to purchase training tools that teach some basic principles of organization and management.
- Your creative people need administration tools. There are plenty of good computer pro- grams that help people do all the tasks listed above. Online planning is quickly becoming the standard for church music ministry or- ganization and is highly effective in helping non-administrative people keep some semblance of order.
- Your creative people need creative outlet. This is crucial. From songwriting opportunities to programming opportunities, keeping your creative employee creatively charged is of the utmost importance. Nothing will burn out a creative-type faster than a lack of creative opportunity. (In fact, I recommend that “creative time” be written into certain job descriptions with a certain amount of work hours designated for writing and other creative outlets.) Part of the problem is compounded by the fact that many creative types tend to also be people-pleasers. They often say yes to more than they should and they won’t necessarily admit feeling overwhelmed by responsibilities and administrative du- ties until it is too late.
SHAPES AND SIZES
God shaped and molded us all differently, and why I can write a song but can’t balance my checkbook is perhaps something I’ll ask Him about later. But what I do know is that He wants all our gifts being used for the kingdom. The issue is really about how we best utilize the many varying gifts on our teams.How do we help this creative person succeed? How do we help this administrative person succeed? It simply isn’t enough to throw everyone in the mix and hope it works out—we see far too much stress on church staffs, and I believe this is one reason why.
Careful consideration for how people are wired, how they may work together, and how their different personality types can compliment each other is crucial and can only bring far greater results.
Tony Guerrero has become established as a composer, producer, author and speaker in the world of Christian Worship Music. He has spoken at various Worship Conferences, most notably the Purpose Driven Church Conference & Festival, The National Worship Leaders Conference, The Gospel Music Association’s Music In The Rockies, SCEA’s InSync. He continues to travel the country as a speaker and consultant with church worship teams.
@BranonDempsey @worshiptt @WorshipTTU
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