Casting Vision for Your Production Team
I’ve made a lot of mistakes when it comes to leading volunteer teams. One of the main things I learned is that I had to bleed vision. I had to consistently and passionately share the the vision behind why we existed as a team, why we were doing things a certain way, why we had certain leadership roles, why serving mattered, and so on.
What is Vision?
4 Things Volunteers ARE NOT compelled by:
, Tony Morgan and Tim Stevens, both pastors at Granger Community Church, wrote about not “asking for help”:
(Interested in this book for your team? You can purchase this book through my affiliate link at the bottom of this post. Some of the proceeds will help further our ministry.)
Think about your church announcement time where Sister Myrtle comes to the podium to beg for more volunteers in the 3rd grade Sunday School class. People literally died with William Wallace. People were guilt tripped into serving with Sister Myrtle. I know these are extreme examples, but you get the picture – lead your team through casting compelling vision.
4 Things Volunteers ARE compelled by:
I would start sharing this vision with potential volunteers that were considering joining our team. I would ask a group of potential volunteers that toured our Production Room, “Who in this group accepted Christ at one of our services? Who in this group has grown in their relationship with Christ by attending a worship service at our church?” – my response after every hand went up was, “That’s what we do in this room. Through God working in us, we create those experiences. We create experiences where life change happens. Where the God of the universe moves and changes hearts and lives. You don’t need to know anything about technology or production to serve on our team. Would you like to join us?”
Notice I didn’t say, “If you are a behind the scenes person, if you’re introverted and don’t like to talk to people, if you’re a nerd that doesn’t like to be seen by people, if you like to wake up at 5am on Sundays and spend 6 hours rehearsing and executing worship services… this is the team for you!”
Cast compelling vision and people will follow you.
Have a vision that is real and tangible. Make it something obtainable and measurable. For instance, with my vision for our team: “Our team exists to create experiences where people meet Jesus and take their next step with Him”, I could literally take volunteers to our care room on Sunday and have them watch people who responded to our invitation.
I could show them people having conversations with our staff and care team volunteers. We would stand at the door or in the back of the room and I would tell them, “This is the result of you serving. You running ProPresenter is so much bigger than pushing a button, your role is a part of creating an experience where this life change happens. People in this room are accepting Jesus, their marriage is being restored, they are being set free. People are meeting Jesus. People lives are being changed by how you are serving.”
We would also celebrate numbers. We celebrated how many salvations we saw ever Sunday. We celebrated the number of care conversations our campus saw. We celebrated the number of baptisms, the number of people that signed up for counseling, financial freedom classes, and more. Why? Because we believed that every number had a name, every name had a story, and every story mattered to God.
Our team vision was real and tangible. We could measure it and celebrate the results that God, in His kindness, allowed us to witness.
Less is more. Let your vision be simple and brief. Don’t use big words or elegant language. Simple. Also, don’t be rigid on people memorizing a Vision Statement. I didn’t care if people had the sentence burned in their memory with the exact words in the right place.I wanted our team to be able to tell others that our team was all about people meeting Jesus and taking next steps with Him. That’s it. That’s what we wanted to see- salvation and spiritual growth. As long as someone on our team could convey that idea to someone else with passion, I was happy. Be simple and concise.
How have you casted vision to your team that’s made a significant impact?
Share your experience in the comments below.
