Excellence

Team,

So far I've written to you about Love, Timeliness, Preparedness, and Fun. Today I'd like to share a little bit about the final Creative Team core value: Excellence.

You know, some churches get hung up too much on excellence. They spend way too much time, money and energy with little to show for it in return. Sometimes the final product is polished and professional, but lacks authenticity and heart. Frankly, excellence can be a spiritual idol that takes God's place in our hearts and minds.

That doesn't mean, however, that anything goes. Some ministries fly by the seat of their pants and rely on the Holy Spirit to "bless this mess." People think to themselves, "it's just church...if I have time I'll prepare, if not I'll just wing it. If I miss a few notes, or cues, who really cares?"

Neither of these approaches works in the long term if we want to be a prevailing church. The key is to understand and buy in to the vision and mission of Crossroads, and allow that passion to fuel the best quality possible given our team's ability, time, money, and size. We won't obsess about what we can't yet change or do. We'll move forward on what we can improve and go from there. That's why we are asking tech to come in 15 minutes earlier than before. That's why we are putting out the schedule earlier, along with the MP3s and charts. That's why we are converting the lighting to a computer driven console, and developing a video recording studio.

The larger a church grows, the greater it's capacity for excellence. But a well run Creative Arts Team can be on the leading edge of that capacity, creating a welcoming and attractive environment, setting the tone for the whole church.

I know Crossroads has been through a bit of hardship and stagnation in the last few years. So what. I sense a growing excitement about what God can do through our church. The past is the past, but the future is what we make it, with God's help. I am excited about our church and the Creative Arts Team- you are a great group of people! I want to fire you up about our vision: to restore God's design in all people. Life is short and we only get one shot to make a dent in this world, to make a difference. So let's do it together. JIM

Sense of Fun

I feel like this is gonna be the easiest core value blog entry to write. We should have a sense of fun in everything we do, and everything works better when everyone is having fun together.

I'm always excited to get together with a creative arts team, whether it's a Thursday rehearsal, hanging in the video production room on Sunday, or helping put a set together. It's fun for me- I like to be with other people on the team, working for a common goal, and doing really neat activities.

I hope everybody reading this feels the same way!

Here's the thing- the key to having a great time in Creative Arts at Crossroads is to internalize the first three core values. If we have love for one another, if we are on time and doing things at the right time, and if we are always prepared when we serve, fun will follow.

I've seen what happens when one or more of those values is missing. People are snarky. Rehearsals bog down because someone didn't prepare and we have to repeat the songs over and over, or stop all the time to correct errors. Time gets short because people showed up late, and the resulting rush to get it all done kills the joy. Life is short...who wants to waste their valuable free time that way? Nobody!

So let's encourage one another toward fun- Yeehaa!

JIM

Preparedness

Happy New Year! I'm so pumped to be serving with you at Crossroads in 2015...I think it's going to be a great year for our church, and a year where we see numerical and spiritual growth in our church and on our team.

We've been talking about the core values of our team. We started with Love- without love for God and each other, we won't be able to move forward together and we won't be able to speak truth to each other. Then we talked about the value of timeliness, and how being on time honors God and each other- it's actually an extension of love when you really think about it. We also mentioned how communication is an important part of timeliness: accepting/declining serving in a timely manner, connecting with the team leader in advance if you will be late to a rehearsal or need to cancel, etc. Having integrity with each other in these simple but important areas will build trust and quality into our team!

Now let's think about preparedness. Preparedness is a mindset that results from taking our volunteer opportunities seriously and believing that what we do is important for us, for our church and for our guests. When we truly believe something or someone is important, we will always be prepared.

Being prepared for a musician or singer means completely knowing your music and parts ahead of rehearsal. When I come to a rehearsal without full preparation, I can tell right away. I miss entrances. I don't know how long the transitions are between sections of the music. I miss riffs and lyrics because I'm not sure of them. I know that means the team suffers because everyone will have to work around my problem, the whole rehearsal takes longer, and the quality of the music suffers.

So over the years I've made a commitment to myself that when I accept a position on the team, I know I'm committing not only to the actual serving, but to taking the time in advance to be prepared. Even though I'm a professional musician....someone who could "fake" my way through a rehearsal and still be ok...I know that wouldn't be fair to the rest of the team.

Being prepared as a tech person means knowing my equipment, checking it in advance to make sure it's working, looking over my content to make sure it's accurate, and looking over the service order to make sure I know what I'm doing and when I'm doing it.

This is why I'm asking tech volunteers to start coming in at 7:45 on Sundays- so we can be prepared. Unlike the band, we don't really need to spend advance time preparing at home. But we do need to spend some time on Sundays, before the rehearsal, looking/checking/reviewing to make sure we are totally prepared for the dress rehearsal. That 30 minutes of preparation will result in improved quality throughout the day!

One more quick thought- sometimes I'm at a Broadway show or watching a live production on screen and I think, "wow, that is so polished and excellent. How do they get to that level?" Well, millions of dollars probably helps! But since I have a few friends in professional level production, I happen to know that this value of preparedness, taken to it's maximum level, is one of the ways they achieve such high levels of quality. The neat thing about that is that anyone can be prepared. It's not something only the pros can do. Anyone can be consistently prepared. So we have within our reach one of the secrets of success, whether we consider ourselves pros or not.

So thanks for being prepared. Thanks for taking our work seriously. It's making a difference to 100s of people each week! And it will strength our team as we honor each other by consistently being prepared.

Timeliness

When I visited the Ivory Coast in West Africa during my college years, I had what I guess is a fairly typical lesson in cultural norms regarding time. I stayed with a missionary family and they took me all around the city of Abidjan. First we went to the bank to exchange some of my travelers checks. The official time for the bank to open was 9AM, but we didn't arrive until 10. There was a long line, and the bank wasn't yet open. I recall it opened about 10:30, but we didn't get up to the front of the line until 11:30. We walked out with my Ivorian Francs around noon.

It went pretty much like that the whole trip. Scheduled times and actual start times were different...usually off by 1-2 hours. At first, it made me really nervous. I kept feeling like I was late to everything. But I was in the country for 6 weeks...by the third week I had absorbed the Ivorian culture norm of lateness. Frankly, it was a big relief to just relax and not worry about being right on time to everything, especially since nobody around me cared about it.

But when I returned to the US, I was able to compare and contrast the two views of timeliness. I saw that timeliness represents more than being somewhere on time. And so ever since that trip, I've included timeliness as one of my personal core values, and I'd like to make it a Crossroads Creative Team value as well.

In our culture, being on time is important. Kids have to get to school on time. Adults have to get to work on time. We make dentist appointments and dinner reservations. Being late for a movie means missing the beginning of it (or at least the trailers!).

So why should we be a team that values being on time? First, when we show up to a rehearsal or performance on time, we are making a value statement. We are demonstrating with our actions that the rehearsal or the performance is of value to us. Since we are engaged in the process of "restoring God's design in all people" (Crossroad's vision statement) I think we can agree that what we are doing is important. Secondly, being on time honors everyone else on the team. It's like saying to everyone, "I know your time is just a valuable as mine, so I won't waste it." Actually, I think starting and ending on time builds trust and faithfulness, and strengthens a team.

I can hear the questions popping into my head as I write this- are you saying we have a problem with time? Are you going to somehow punish latecomers? What about when I have to work late, or my alarm doesn't go off?

Just relax- we need to have enough Ivorian sensibility to give grace to each other. Life happens. Schedules are full.

In these first postings I'm not trying to address problems, I'm trying to establish a team culture. I think we should have a culture of timeliness. Let's honor each other by being on time to rehearsals and performances. It will only increase our excellence and our fun! If we are going to be more than 5 minutes late for whatever reason, let your team leader know with a quick text or phone call. And when we forget...when the boss makes us work late...when the alarm fails...lets not freak out. I know I won't be.

So glad to be on this journey with you all. Your friend in time, JIM

(wish I had one of these, don't you?!)

Questions for discussion:

-specifically how will being on time increase our overall excellence and fun?

-have you ever been to another country and experienced a different cultural norm regarding time?

BTW- if you want to know who to text if you are running late, I added a handy note in planning center online for each service plan. It's below the schedule on the left column in the web version, or tap "notes" under "times" in the mobile app version. Just make sure you check to see which one of us is your team leader that particular week! (thanks Greg Lane for bringing this to my attention!).

Love

Last week at our meeting I mentioned some Core Values for our team. I think the WAY we serve is just as important as WHAT we do. Here is a list of the values I'd like to emphasize:

Love
Timeliness
Preparedness
Sense of Fun
Excellence

Today I want to write a bit about Love. Our love for each other as friends, ministry partners, and Christians is an essential bond for the health of our team. Nothing can stop us if we have love as a core value.

Check out these words from 1 Corinthians 13:

Love is patient- we are patient with each others rough spots and growing pains 
love is kind.- we treat each other with gentleness and respect 
It does not envy,- we recognize there are different levels of talent, but we celebrate that
it does not boast, it is not proud.- we don't have an attitude
It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,- when the team wins, we win 
it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.- we forgive and forget 
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.- we all have blindsides and areas of improvement. Instead of pretending nothing is wrong, we will tell the truth in love, and help.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.- we will expect the best from each other, we won't grow weary in doing great work

Only by loving each other as brothers and sisters can we speak essential truth to each other and improve our craft. People will be attracted to our team when they see that we have love for each other.

Let's continue to practice the art of love on our team! 

JIM

Q&A...
What are some of the other practical ways we can have a team that loves each other? 
How do you think great team dynamics and the love described in Corinthians relate?