Sermon development...is it a solo sport or a group effort at your church? Team creativity has revolutionized the message preparation at Fellowship Church. We've heard from many of you who've experienced the same transformation after implementing a team approach. This week and next, we're going to look at creative team planning in depth so you can get a better idea of what your church can gain by giving it a try. Here's the latest issue of the Leadership Uncensored newsletter, which focuses on the whys and hows of team creativity.
During the first several years of Fellowship Church, I spent 30-35 hours a week planning and preparing the weekend message by myself. At that time I experienced considerable anxiety because as soon as I delivered one sermon, another would be waiting for me, like giant waves that kept crashing over my head week after week after week. Finally, stress, anxiety and writer's block forced me to remove myself as a creative bottleneck and adopt a different method—creative team planning.
After all the teachings I'd done on creativity, I asked myself, "Why not tap in to the creative geniuses you have around you?" So, we began bringing in 4-6 staff members each week to add their insights, their passion, and the stories from their lives to help craft the weekend message. The messages are much better now that we use team creativity…why wait until after you speak to get a critique?
Creative team planning will transform your church. By incorporating different perspectives in the room, it will help you avoid the rut of recurring themes and repetitive phrases. It will bring depth, balance and richness to your messages. And a great side benefit of creative team planning is that it serves as a training ground for other speakers—God uses that time to build confidence and familiarity with the process. Here are a few key points to remember about team creativity:
- Plan ahead. Creative team planning goes beyond simple brainstorming. These meetings work best when we have a general idea of what we'll be talking about so we can all bring ideas to the table supporting and examining that idea. I set the direction for the message and determine where we want to go. It's the team's job to help us get there.
- It's not a free-for-all. The weekend speaker has to lead the meeting and call the shots. Frequently I'll guide our discussion by asking questions and we use the answers to craft the message.
- Check your ego at the door. To get effective input, you have to be transparent and allow your team to be honest in critiquing and shaping your ideas. Don't let your ego get in the way of doing this. The spoken word is the most important part of the weekend service and this process will only improve your message.
- Bring the right people to the table. The foundation of our creative team stays the same from week to week, but then we add a few different people to get diverse perspectives. We make sure to include women, singles, and a variety of age ranges in the mix. But whoever participates must be someone we connect with and someone we can trust.
- Choose the right location. Think about how people write for sitcoms—they do it in a relaxed setting. If you want to spur creative interaction, design an inviting environment. Part of my office at the church includes a sort of family room with comfortable chairs, writing tools, food, coffee and bottled water.
- Staff your church accordingly. Don't overburden your foundational team with too many other job duties. They can definitely carry some additional responsibilities, but they have to be freed up to participate in the creative meetings each week.
We're passionate about team creativity because of what it's done for our church and what we've seen it do in other churches. Next week we're going to give you some more in-depth information about creative team planning and how it is used in crafting our weekend messages. To see this process in action, check out our team-driven creative planning video.
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