 | | | |
    working together to teach students
adam mclane
On a staff retreat last summer, a light bulb went on for our team. After reading a series of articles and books about strategic leadership, we came to a simple and profound conclusion: We are going to teach complimentarily and not competitively across ministries in our church from now on. I’d like to walk you through our team’s process so that you can see both how we did it, and how our students have benefited as a result.
First, sit down and visually map out the messages you communicate to your families on Sunday morning. Take 10 minutes to write all the messages communicated from this past Sunday morning worship service on 3x5 individual index cards. What was the Senior Pastor teaching? What about our students in Sunday School? Make any announcements there? What about the parents, younger children, the testimony of the worship leader and even the infamous sermonettes of the children’s message? Include announcements, your bulletin, and the people asking others to sign-up for various ministry opportunities of the church. This will shock you. What you quickly realize is that the church tries to communicate too many competitive messages and people emotionally shut down. There are more messages presented than they are prepared to handle.
The next step is having an honest conversation as a staff. “If we could communicate only one message this Sunday, what would it be?” “Who would decide what that message would be?” This is the roadmap to building a system of teaching that compliments one another and when combined with a relentless dedication to effectively teach that one message, allows your church to communicate God’s Word in a family transformational way.
The third step is a reality check. Are you, as a staff member, willing to help the church communicate effectively to your students? If not, are you willing to examine your motives for presenting a competitive message to your students? Do you think that you are a superior communicator than your pastor? Do you think he is unable to communicate to them? We wanted to maximize the effectiveness of all staff members with various age groups so we set up systems where I would teach adults and children, and our Senior Pastor would teach students and children. The goal of this is that we want all of our staff to consider the whole church their flock, and we want the whole church to look at each staff member as a minister to their family. When the church staff collaborates the message for the common mission of the church, the power of life changing communication takes root.
The last step is actually the easiest and most fun. Start with the single message of a particular Sunday morning. Then, in every area of your church, look at ways to teach that compliments the main theme of the Sunday sermon series. The main Sunday morning message communicates the main principle. In student ministry, I teach in our large group setting by using a similar theme directly relevant to students. Then I prepare our small groups to go deeper on the main theme by asking thought provoking questions from the pastor’s Biblical passage.
As I examine our strategy for communicating complimentary messages across many ministries at our church, I think there are two components which make it a success.
First, there is a genuine willingness by the whole team to make it work. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with some church staffs that have the backing for this strategy from everyone but the senior leadership. If that’s the case, don’t even bother. It will fail. The whole church must work together to effectively teach adults, students, and children.
Second, the entire staff has to be disciplined about planning. We concluded right away that if we were going to make this work, we needed to have a coordinated collaborative process that started early. Practically speaking, we plan out one quarter of the year at a time. This allows us to adapt the plan and begin working on ideas early enough where the creative process is actually enjoyable instead of stressful.
The overall result for any ministry implementing a plan like this is clear: A church that communicates a single Biblical message in multiple venues, multiple styles, and uses multiple methods is going to be more effective at communicating than a pile of index cards bearing messages pointed in many directions.
...
http://www.simplyyouthministry.com/community-articles-from-the-field.html
adam mclane
On a staff retreat last summer, a light bulb went on for our team. After reading a series of articles and books about strategic leadership, we came to a simple and profound conclusion: We are going to teach complimentarily and not competitively across ministries in our church from now on. I’d like to walk you through our team’s process so that you can see both how we did it, and how our students have benefited as a result.
First, sit down and visually map out the messages you communicate to your families on Sunday morning. Take 10 minutes to write all the messages communicated from this past Sunday morning worship service on 3x5 individual index cards. What was the Senior Pastor teaching? What about our students in Sunday School? Make any announcements there? What about the parents, younger children, the testimony of the worship leader and even the infamous sermonettes of the children’s message? Include announcements, your bulletin, and the people asking others to sign-up for various ministry opportunities of the church. This will shock you. What you quickly realize is that the church tries to communicate too many competitive messages and people emotionally shut down. There are more messages presented than they are prepared to handle.
The next step is having an honest conversation as a staff. “If we could communicate only one message this Sunday, what would it be?” “Who would decide what that message would be?” This is the roadmap to building a system of teaching that compliments one another and when combined with a relentless dedication to effectively teach that one message, allows your church to communicate God’s Word in a family transformational way.
The third step is a reality check. Are you, as a staff member, willing to help the church communicate effectively to your students? If not, are you willing to examine your motives for presenting a competitive message to your students? Do you think that you are a superior communicator than your pastor? Do you think he is unable to communicate to them? We wanted to maximize the effectiveness of all staff members with various age groups so we set up systems where I would teach adults and children, and our Senior Pastor would teach students and children. The goal of this is that we want all of our staff to consider the whole church their flock, and we want the whole church to look at each staff member as a minister to their family. When the church staff collaborates the message for the common mission of the church, the power of life changing communication takes root.
The last step is actually the easiest and most fun. Start with the single message of a particular Sunday morning. Then, in every area of your church, look at ways to teach that compliments the main theme of the Sunday sermon series. The main Sunday morning message communicates the main principle. In student ministry, I teach in our large group setting by using a similar theme directly relevant to students. Then I prepare our small groups to go deeper on the main theme by asking thought provoking questions from the pastor’s Biblical passage.
As I examine our strategy for communicating complimentary messages across many ministries at our church, I think there are two components which make it a success.
First, there is a genuine willingness by the whole team to make it work. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with some church staffs that have the backing for this strategy from everyone but the senior leadership. If that’s the case, don’t even bother. It will fail. The whole church must work together to effectively teach adults, students, and children.
Second, the entire staff has to be disciplined about planning. We concluded right away that if we were going to make this work, we needed to have a coordinated collaborative process that started early. Practically speaking, we plan out one quarter of the year at a time. This allows us to adapt the plan and begin working on ideas early enough where the creative process is actually enjoyable instead of stressful.
The overall result for any ministry implementing a plan like this is clear: A church that communicates a single Biblical message in multiple venues, multiple styles, and uses multiple methods is going to be more effective at communicating than a pile of index cards bearing messages pointed in many directions.
... |
|
|
|
