Planning Weekend Experiences
Does your Pastor use a Creative Team to help craft the weekend experience at your
church? Does your team plan out sermon series, music, videos and events well in
advance?
Chances are, your Pastor is overloaded with studying for the weekend, managing the
staff, meeting with members and handling the day-to-day of today's church. I doubt
that your Pastor has had the time to even consider how to implement a strategy that
would help relieve some of the stress by inviting a group to help plan the weekend
experience.
Of course, how far in advance you plan depends on what you're trying to do, the
manpower you have to do it, the facility issues (owned vs. temporary) and the
budget. All of that comes under "Implementation".
The actual "Planning" of concepts and ideas, in my opinion, needs to be 3 months
out. This gives those who use a lot of interactivity (video, audio, lighting, drama,
props, graphics) in the service the time to keep new ideas fresh, apply concepts to
practical solutions and implement without the pressure cooker of week-to- week
deadlines.
When you get right down to it, the ability to manage the process is key. I've used a
lot of ways to accomplish this, but none has worked as well for me as a simple Gantt
chart. These are used in construction all the time. They show the various trades and
timelines for a project so that the Architect can stay on top of the overall process to
make sure it comes in on-time and on-budget.
I prefer the software Microsoft Project 2003, as it's easy to set
up your teams, their areas of responsibility and the
timelines/deadlines to ensure all of the coordination comes
together.
For smaller churches, a simple Excel spreadsheet can handle this,
as the needs are typically less involved. But for churches really
pushing the envelope creatively, project management is a highly
valuable skill/asset.
Finally, you can only schedule to a point: the Holy Spirit can
move and change at a moment's notice. But in reading the Bible, He consistenly
choses order over chaos. In my experience, I've seen that He's capable of moving 3
months in advance just as well as 3 minutes in advance.
In my opinion, It's much easier to ditch a plan if God moves than it is to
create one if He doesn't.
The most striking example of this was September 11th, 2001. The need to make
changes for the upcoming weekend was obvious, and everyone did the last minute
heroics to pull it off. But again, the plan and team structure was already in place to
allow for that change and helped avoid people burn out and emotional train wrecks.
Share this idea with your Pastor and begin 2004 by planning out your weekend
experiences to be more engaging, interactive and exciting!
Anthony Coppedge provides consulting to Churches for developing a media ministry and
choosing the right equipment, Manufacturers for developing new products and marketing
strategies to reach the church market and Dealers for sales training and systems integration
development for working with churches. He lives in Bedford, Texas with his wife and two
daughters and can be reached at anthony@anthonycoppedge.com
Used by churches all over the world to help teach worship, the Experiencing Worship study can help your worship team too.
Your team will learn why we worship and gain a better understanding of how to worship.
One user said..."Your 5 week study course has made a tremendous impact on my life in the study of worship... I would like to express my thanks for a well written study course that leads into a higher realm of praise and worship."
This is the debut album by EXW friend Paul Langford. Paul is a Chicago based singer, arranger, keyboardist, producer and conductor. Paul has a career that spans 14 years. Paul's work includes arranging for groups like GLAD, Voices of Liberty, VoiceTrek, The Chicago based "Caroling Party" and Day of Discovery Singers. His arranging has appeared on recordings side by side with greats like Gene Puerling and David Maddux, and he has sung with Don Shelton, Bonnie Herman and Bob Bowker, among others.