Creative work can be extremely rewarding and wildly frustrating at the same time. The creative juices tend to ebb and flow. I am so fascinated by people who churn out content like a Chic-fil-A churns out chicken. That’s why I decided to watch Beth Burn’s workshop on The Creative Process of Life.Church. No one creates as much content as they do without having put a lot of time into evaluating and implementing a creative process that lasts. After listening to Beth I think there are three staples that you can implement with your team today to increase productivity and overall morale.
Have a Structured Process for Projects
Consider mapping out a process for creative projects at your church. Doing this will allow your team the freedom to create without having to stress about bringing all the pieces together for delivery. All the administrative tasks along the way that creatives typically want to avoid become routine, so they can focus on the task at hand.
Collaboration is Your Strength
The leadership of the creative team at Life.Church consists of one central group leader and 7 team leaders. One may think that having that many people working on projects could end up being too many cooks in the kitchen. By creating well-defined roles, identifying people’s strengths, and communicating well you could create a collaborative team that produces higher-quality content on the regular.
The church itself is a collaborative team. It is one body and many parts (1 Cor. 12). The creative team at your church should model this same philosophy. Instead of pitching a vision and then having your team competitively work to get their ideas heard and utilized, use their giftings to your advantage and task them with specific parts of the project and see if the entire process of creating doesn’t become infinitely more rewarding.
Invest Time in Resource Allocation
The dreaded moment in creative ministry is when you are forced to tell someone “no”. Ministry leaders have their specific interests, so it is no wonder that they are not well in tune with what your threshold is for delivering content. The LC creative team analyzes their resource allocation throughout the year. This allows team leads and church leaders to understand how they are using their time, and for leadership to evaluate priorities and redirect resources.
If your team is feeling overwhelmed and you don’t feel they are producing their best work consider doing an audit of your resource allocation. Make a full report and communicate it with your church leadership. By doing this, you are making it easier for ministry leaders to know what kind of ask they are making and whether they are giving you the appropriate amount of time to get it done. Your entire team will thank you for setting clear expectations so they no longer have to operate with unreasonable ones.
Creativity is a practice, and to become more efficient at delivering high-quality content we need to lay some tracks to direct the project from intake to delivery. Collaboratively practicing the same process over and over again will lead to higher levels of productivity for your creative team.
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This article was written by Keith Beck, and edited by JT Boling.
