Consider your Sunday mornings. You have a host of volunteers that play different roles which is how church services happen. Networks are how things get done. Now consider if time and geography were no longer limiting factors in your network? How could things get done then?
Virtual Teaming
Virtual teaming has been a hot topic in business circles for the past five years covered by publications from Harvard Business School Press to Wired Magazine. And while most activity in your weekly church world may actually be focused around time and space, there are some who are leveraging virtual teaming to share resources to make their Sunday mornings easier.
The Church Technical Directors Round Table (CTDRT, for short) is a group of over 250 members sharing ideas and providing support. Bill Swaringim of Windsor Crossing Community Church shares, "The ministry that I was called to was causing me to feel isolated. Sure, there were others on staff of in a small group that would encourage and support me, yet I felt like they didn't really 'get' what I was dealing with. I was the lone TD." The group utilizes web apps such as Google Groups for in-depth discussions focused on related areas to their jobs in ministry, volunteers and technology averaging between 400 and 600 messages a month through the Google Groups Discussion forums. The use of Twitter and Tokbox help keep the members connected. Face to face meet ups are now being scheduled throughout the country to help continue to foster those relationships built through the internet.
The Church Technical Artists Network is a resource that is open to anyone serving in any capacity on their local church technical team. The online community is currently in development with member pages to share pictures and ideas from your own ministry, discussion threads, live online and video chat and industry news.
Syn-Aud-Con has been the leader in audio training for the past twenty years. However, this year, they took advantage of the digital world and created the Syn-Aud-Con community to not only connect members to digital training opportunitities and audio resources, but to also connect them to each other.
Technology + People
As useful as virtual teams can be, they are dependent on the engagement and participation of the members. David Wahlstedt of Crosspointe Church explains, " I've found virtual collaborative preaching forums work well for a short period and for a specific purpose. I've been part of three that shared potential resources, mind maps, sermon outlines, video illustrations, music and graphics. The divisions of responsibility went generally along the lines of gifting. The musicians in our group would give suggested musical pieces (even write music in some cases). Graphic artists would submit their concepts. Big idea people would throw out concepts. Readers would contribute book resources etc. Each pastor was then expected to put their own fingerprints on the final product they deliver to their congregation. Each of us would post our ideas to an online site and meet via skype conference call weekly. The challenge is that over time, the contributions to the project wane. People begin to miss conference calls. The site becomes stale..."
While technology can facilitate, the team is created by people; so the things that make virtual teams successful are often the same things that make all teams successful. Clarity of goals, commitment and team identity can make or break a virtual team. It helps when you can help "seed" your team with connectors whose job it is to tell the story of the goals and keep the mission of the team front and center. Sometimes these people will simply rise to the surface and the team will take off, but when lacking those roles, virtual teams can lose focus and fall apart.
Also don't underestimate the value of face-to-face connection. Studies show that people interact with screens the same way they do in person; so video tools like Windows Messenger, TokBox, Oovoo, and Skype can be highly effective. In fact, teams that use desktop video conferencing are much more likely to develop better informal social interactions that become the "glue" of the virtual team.
Possibilities
"I really believe in the concept," continues Wahlstedt, "If churches leverage virtual teams to lessen the creative man-hours it takes for each Sunday, we free up hours we can use to connect with people. And that is the point of Sunday mornings in the first place."
