How to Pursue Excellence in a Volunteer Culture
This week’s Fertilizer comes from the guy who coined the phrase “Sound Janitor” - meaning the tech who shows up, flips on the switch, and then goes and gets a donut. Ad Lib coach Tony Guyer teaches techs to instead be the “Best Listener in the Room.”
A close friend of mine, who is also a tech supervisor, sent me a picture of a young volunteer mixing the broadcast audio for the live stream at his church. This young unfaithful servant had his feet propped up on the desk and was leaning back in his chair while the music portion of worship was taking place. Now I have mixed broadcast for many different services, in many different environments, and outside of a few free minutes during a lecture or sermon, I have never had the free time to put my feet up. This would be the equivalent of Captain Kirk taking a nap while navigating an asteroid shower or a Klingon attack. Of course, my dear friend, who is far from a task master, presented the question, “What do I do with this?”
On any given Sunday, there are thousands of volunteers at various skill levels serving the church in technical assignments. At the same time, you may have leadership teams with standards of excellence they are trying to reach. They may be eyeing other churches, wondering why they never seem to reach the production values or emotional resonance that others seem to attain.
Consider the significant investment we make in “technology.” How much do we spend compared to, let’s say, children’s ministry? Ministries to widows and orphans? How much money and resources do you have to invest to eliminate the errors or technical glitches that the average church experiences every week? Certainly, there is a level of excellence that can be expected or, at the very least, aimed for. Although it would be fascinating to explore the what and why of our high expectations for excellence in our church cultures, the scope of this discussion revolves around the assumption that we are called to excellence, but we do have limitations, whether it be resources or personnel. Is it possible to expect this level of excellence with volunteers serving? My goal in this discussion is to speak to volunteers who are serving heroically and leaders who are tasked with setting high standards and building cultures that support excellence.
What do we mean by “excellence”?
As we dig deeper into our discussion, let’s first define what we mean by “excellence.” Webster’s definition of excellent is:
Very good of its kind: eminently good: First Class
Superior
In definition 1, we have another fascinating English word, “eminently,” which means: to a high degree. So we are talking about a high degree of good.
As believers, we have as an example of excellence, God creating the heavens and the earth, light, land, sea, and creatures. After each creation, God says it was good. In a reading of Genesis 1, we see clearly that good means superior or excellent, not mostly good or decent. We don’t get a sense that God said, “Well, this is the best I could do with the resources and time I had available. It’s a decent starting point.” Anyone who has truly reflected on a sunrise or sat at the beach listening to the waves crash on the shore has rarely said, “This is decent,” or even, “This is fairly ok.”
In surveying over a dozen worship and tech leaders on the topic of excellence, the common comment I received was that excellence is not the same thing as perfection. We realize that only God is perfect and perfection is difficult to chase objectively. For this conversation, we draw a distinction between perfection and excellence and recognize that we are aiming to set the standard as high as possible to be good stewards of the calling we have from God.
Can Volunteers be Excellent?
It is necessary to recognize that on any given Sunday, churches of varying sizes and resources create worship experiences for their congregants. There are churches with yearly tech budgets ranging from $1,000 to over $10,000. There are churches with paid team members, and there are churches with an entirely volunteer staff. Is it fair for us to set unrealistic expectations for our teams? How can we prepare our team members to be the best they can be?
Our volunteers are in various stages of life and backgrounds. Some come from a technical background, some have a love of music, and some have no prior experience. We are working with teens who love video games to seniors who have retired as electrical engineers, and all points in between. On the platform, we are working with the kid who learned the guitar from YouTube videos to the piano player with their doctorate in musical performance.
In simplest form, there are two essential elements to building a healthy team.
Communicate the goal. What is the standard? Does everyone on your team know what you are aiming for? Are the values you hold clear?
Is your team teachable? Do they want to grow?
If these two items are in place, your team will grow and be healthy.
Bring your team to our training on October 18, where we will discover practical ideas to help you set your team up for a healthier approach to pursuing excellence in this volunteer culture we live in. Register your whole team for only $149 - and that includes everyone’s lunch! https://www.adlibmusic.com/events
-Dave Helmuth
(purchase my book, "Worship Fertilizer: (the first hundred)" HERE)
How to Pursue Excellence in a Volunteer Culture (Nº 448)
