...but the Spirit only speaks to me on Saturday night.

[tedanderson]

Now how does a volunteer say that without sounding offensive???

I can say from personal experience that I am the most productive when I am close to my deadline or under a very tight time constraint. And being that pastors are human just like the rest of us, I'm sure that they get the spritual equivilent to what the literary industry describes as "writer's block". So if I would charge the pastor with anything, it would be working towards overcoming that obsticle.

But all in all if a pastor has an 11th hour M.O. then the meetings should be scheduled accordingly.

[avperson]

well after reading all this I consider myself extremly blessed, our senior pastor has his series planned for serveral weeks in a row, and gives me the presentation and his script notes a day or two ahead. He does his own presentation slides. He likes them plain so that's really easy. Music ministers has schedule of services (2 Sunday Morning and 1 Sunday Evening) to me by Wed evening so I can load them into Media shout and have them scripted and ready to go. The only draw back is Special Music People who decide at 0845 for the 900 service that they need the words to their song on the back wall. I've told them it will be there if I can get it there, other wise.... no can do. The funny thing is it is always the same two people who do this, I've asked nicely for them to let me know ahead of time, so that I can be prepared, it's not like they have just found out they need to sing, one of these days its not going to happen. Other than that I'm really blessed. Pam

[Truthbetold]

This isn't as nearly bad as all that.
A month ago I came into the soundroom and, to my horror, the headphones were gone! I'm in a glass room at the back of the sanctuary. I'm deaf without those headphones. Fortunately, the singing leader was willing to show the songs out a little louder than usual.

It was still pretty tricky.

[pdc]

Originally Posted by Keithwah1960

Are we not Christian enough to forgive our Pastors and Music Leaders that procrastinate? Saying they have no business in a Church leadership position may be somewhat extreme. In the professional business world, I would tend to agree. But in the place where forgiveness is paramount to the operation, I think someone is being a bit too harsh.

Perhaps those individuals have plenty of other stregnths that make up for the inconveniences. Perhaps printing a copy of this thread out and leaving it on the offesnding Pastor/Music Leader's desk might be useful as well.

Carry on!

If you think that everyone that is in church leadership should be, you have another thing coming. These people have character flaws and/or insuffiecient training and skills to do their job. It is selfish of them to taint the worship experience for the volunteer staff. It shows the church that the leader is a poor steward of time he was paid for, which is a bad testimony to the volunteer staff. If you want scripture, I have more against a person like this than for forgiving his lack of love for the people he is paid to serve.

Part of leading is praying for God's direction, his will to be done and planning to carry that out.

[petereit]

Originally Posted by Truthbetold

This isn't as nearly bad as all that.
A month ago I came into the soundroom and, to my horror, the headphones were gone! I'm in a glass room at the back of the sanctuary. I'm deaf without those headphones. Fortunately, the singing leader was willing to show the songs out a little louder than usual.

It was still pretty tricky.

I used to be plagued by the "missing headphone" problem until I bought my own pair. Any time I would take them out of my briefcase, I would put my car keys in their case. That way I could be sure that I would never accidentally leave without them.

I have since invested in a very nice pair of custom-molded in-ear monitors. I think it's pretty universal that people are grossed out at the thought of trying to put anything in their ears that used to be in someone else's.

[petereit]

My pastor is VERY last-minute. It's not unusual for him to be sitting in his office at his laptop during praise and worship, putting the finishing touches on his sermon and printing it out. There have even been times when we have had to repeat the last verse and chorus of the last song in our set (or spontaneously flow into another song not even IN the set) because Pastor hadn't come out yet. And our associate pastor is a pro at coming up after praise and worship, giving a very LONG offering teaching and telling the ushers to take their time with the collection. I don't think the congregation ever expects that anything odd is going on.

My media team is trained to expect the unexpected. We do whatever we can, regardless of what's going on, to try to accommodate our pastor (or our guest ministers) and we've pulled some pretty impressive rabbits out of our hats.

Probably the most frustrating thing we deal with is kind of an opposite problem -- we spend a week working on some killer media for a song special, staying at church until after midnight Saturday night getting everything working, only to have Pastor cut the song special and jump right into his message.

It's the reason we made a poster of James 1 and display it prominently in our media suite. It's why we conclude every pre-service prayer with James 1:2-4 and use it again to start every post-service huddle:

My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by petereit

Probably the most frustrating thing we deal with is kind of an opposite problem -- we spend a week working on some killer media for a song special, staying at church until after midnight Saturday night getting everything working, only to have Pastor cut the song special and jump right into his message.

It's the reason we made a poster of James 1 and display it prominently in our media suite. It's why we conclude every pre-service prayer with James 1:2-4 and use it again to start every post-service huddle:

Love it.

I've been trying to remember that I'm the tail and I shouldn't be wagging the dog.

But I have had very similar "humility learning opportunities"

[pdc]

The important thing is to use scripture in it's context. If we quote James (written to the Jews at a time of persecution), then we must ask ourselves, should the church have trials, temptations and persecuted inflicted by the leadership? No.

We should only apply those scriptures addressing church operations when addressing church operations. The best one is a command from Paul. "Do everything in decency and order." Now, being unprepared causes fear in the hearts and minds of volunteers. "God did not give us the spirit of fear." When there is a lack of preparation and planning, there is confusion. "God is not the author of confusion."

Face it. It's all about being lazy. Laziness is slacking, the fruit of the sloth. It is a sin commited by a sinful person. Last minute changes cutting preplanned programming are another issue. If the people are not into the music or video that day, and it will be a hiunderence, then it should be cut. Your work will not be counted loss. The important thing is that people DID plan and DID work and with a perfect heart desired to make an offering of their talents to God. I am sure it was the same thing as performing it in front of the people. After all, it is not about the show.

[dburke]

@peterit
Yeah I agree that the pulling the plug on a special media piece that the crew/staff has heavily invested in, would cause MUCH consternation. A pastor that repeatedly does this is killing the spirit of those he is working with... I always go in with an attitude to change and modify and go with the flow. It's when you pre-invest large doses of time and effort that it becomes extremely discouraging.
Maybe the pastor does this on a regular basis with his sermons? But would he do this with a special sermon for at a big convention for his peers or something of value to him??? Less likely no doubt...??? not impossible, just less likely. It's all about what they think is the most important thing. Sometimes of God, sometimes not...
Hold on lightly and serve unto God, but somebody(the pastor) has to realize that sooner or later it's gonna' come back to haunt you... If you reap that with your staff/volunteers you'll sew it down the line eventually. There's lots of room for forgiveness, but is the pastor willing to grow too?
My pastor is learning... he is a loving guy, just a "wing-it" kinda person. I've found that the church culture and values are often at the bottom of it and how they(it) respond to change, love and growth ...or not...
Jesus never bails on us personally like that, despite church and ministry He is always good towards us & understanding in love too!
Fight(design) the good fight(design), hold on loosely and hang in there all!

[Keithwah1960]

Wow! Those are some pretty strong feelings from several of you. Sorry to stick a burr up anyone's rear on this topic. I guess I am just too simple in my thinking for most. But I really personally and truthfully feel it is the role of a true Christian to forgive, but I didn't say to necessarily forget.

I have worked with over 500 different churches as a professional a/v contractor and each one is certainly full of quirks and left turns. But just as I know not all of my fellow employees have every end of the trade down to an art, I have to work with the strengths of my underlings. And to get the best result, sometimes it is only me that can truly handle the situation. Job security? Well, I don't need anywhere near as much as I've got, trust me on that.

I realize this is a forum, but what was it Jesus said...something about throwing rocks....oh well it can't be that important if it means I've put alot mountains of time into something.

Sorry that you are inconvenienced by your Pastor. I would find another Church that plays ball the way you want to play ball. Otherwise you will continue to wallow in a pool of negative energy that could be better spent in a positive environment. But do be truthful to your fellow parishoners as to why you are moving on to another Church. Sometimes, change is a good thing. And again I urge you to print this thread off, sign it and leave it on your Pastor's desk. If he does not have the time to invest in making your Church's services more "dynamic" then it doesn't sound as if there is any reason for anyone else to do so.

Wow, worshiping the Lord doesn't need to be so taxing. Of course, if you believe that God sends us little tests, you may be smack dab in the middle of one of your greatest tests.

[dubya]

I'm in complete agreement with the belief that lack of training/consecration on the part of leadership is a huge detriment to ministry. That said, arriving at completion in those areas can't happen overnight, and more often than not, even people in a leadership position need help in the process of improvement.

I'm currently a stand in media minister at my church, relieving the main media minister during the midweek service. During our other two weekly services, I'm part of the platform ministry, so I've become familiar with both sides of the process.

I feel the pain of the media guy who gets stuff at the last minute. Our pastor ponders his subject all week and the day of the service, sits down and puts it on paper. The media team receives his outline 30 minutes before service--no sooner, no later. Our "worship service" has no set format, so the media team doesn't have a clue what songs will be sung or in what order. It's up to us to use our fast fingers and get it up during the short intro. And unless we happen to have a sufficient background that correlates with the song, we're forced to display whatever we think is best. During our 30 minutes of preparation, part of our responsibility is to get whatever references and/or definitions the pastor is using from his outline into Songshow onto the program. So on and so forth. But to quote from Fiddler on the Roof, "On the other hand...."

I feel the pain of being on the ministry team and seeing the same boring abstract background being displayed throughout a service, one which has nothing to do with the song lyrics, scripture references, or sermon points. When the background manages to get switched, it is to an equally boring and eye-twitching abstract mess. I know the pain of getting a song "sprung" on the praise team which we aren't completely familiar with, and see the confusion of the congregation as the media guy searches in vain, displaying several wrong songs before giving up and either leaving the wall blank, or displaying said boring abstract background as a space filler. I'm acquainted with the awkwardness of waiting for the media guy to get up a slide that I have labored on to help promote a sermon point, so on and so forth....

One solution is to kick everybody out of their position of leadership and find qualified people to fill those roles...in an ideal world. Unfortunately in reality, and especially where media ministry is concerned, those who are willing are usually not the most qualified, and those who are qualified aren't very willing. Finding an individual with both characteristics is a jewel. Our church format has been in place for 20+ years now and is not likely to change until the leadership rolls over. Here are some things that I have tried to do to help our situtation:

1. As a graphic designer, I have tried to replace awkward and innefective announcement slides, videos, etc that did not serve their purpose. I volunteered my services even before I became a fill in for the media team. One thing that worked in my favor is that my father in law is the main media guy, and lives in a permanent state of disgruntlement; therefore, he was open to any suggestions for improvement that I offered.

2. After joining the media team, I have slowly weeded out those backgrounds that hurt your eyes or that the congregation just finds confusing.

3. I have tried to add to our collection a wide variety of multi-purpose backgrounds that can be applied to the songs we use during our worship service and certain scripture applications. Songshow has an on the fly Improv feature that allows you to change the display background with a single click--that feature has become my best friend.

4. In the 30 minutes that I have before service starts (and sometimes I scramble to finish during worship service), I try to summarize the pastor's intent from his sermon outline (often akin to reading his mind, lol) and put together some sort of cohesive media that fits. This usually includes a title slide, scripture background, variation of the scripture background used for the closing song, and a background for definitions and any main points that I can discern from his outline if neccesary. It's very difficult to produce excellent media in 30 minutes, but I feel that it's better to try than to use something that doesn't relate to the subject in any way whatsoever.

I realize that our system will never be completely improved until the leadership changes, but I have endeavored to make what little improvements I can, by becoming involved and working from the inside of the situation. I finally realized that sitting on the outside and offering my dissenting opinion would never bring about positive changes, so I first changed my attitude, then I changed my actions. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

The results of my labors? I haven't received a huge amount of feedback, no laurels of commendation, or even a promotion within my congregation, lol. In fact, last week was the first time the pastor even NOTICED that I had begun putting up title slides to his sermon, lol. I think most of our congregation is relieved to see the background change to suit the content, and I couple of times, I've managed to hit the jackpot and have received feedback that the media I created really helped push the point across. The main reward I have received from this process is in knowing that I'm not sitting back and doing nothing, but am giving an honest effort to make things better, even if they seem to go unnoticed. And funnily enough, since starting my campaign, I've noticed the other media guys start trying to implement the same changes that I have made.

All in all, if I can help eliminate any confusion from our services, I think the congregation will be better for it, and that should be our main goal...to help create an atmosphere of liberty so people can hear what God is saying to them.

God bless!
RW

[tedanderson]

Originally Posted by Keithwah1960

I really personally and truthfully feel it is the role of a true Christian to forgive, but I didn't say to necessarily forget.I realize this is a forum, but what was it Jesus said...something about throwing rocks....oh well it can't be that important if it means I've put alot mountains of time into something.

One thing that happens, unfortunately, is that some pastors are not very forgiving when things don't go well as a result of the 11th hour preparation. I think that most of us can handle a situation where we might have spent hours preparing something that we end up not using, however, it becomes a challenge when we are said to be unprepared and blamed for everything that goes wrong when we are the ones bending over backwards to make it work.

And also understand that some of the "strong" statements that were made were not necessarily for the purpose of griping and complaining as much as it was said because we like to get things right as much as our pastors do.

So it becomes a challenge whenever the people who are making demands of us are also preventing us from meeting those demands. We can handle changes as they come because we know that it's part of the job. But last minute preparation should not be the norm Sunday after Sunday when the media department is expected to perform optimally.