Photo by Štefan Štefančík on Unsplash
It’s the day after our biggest day of the week. Hopefully, you had a quality Sunday nap before or after watching your NFL team of preference. Or maybe you’re not a napper, so perhaps you had a great dinner followed by meaningful conversation with people you love. Maybe you took a good long walk as autumn is finally taking hold just about everywhere in the United States and the weather is cooling with the smell of fallen leaves hints of northern air.
How do you spend Monday, though? How should we all spend those first hours of our Monday morning back at the office, coffee in hand, thinking about the weekend?
Here are some questions for weekly reflection and evaluation:
What went wrong?
Maybe not much did; if so, pat yourself on the back. Good job. Quiet weekend services, as far as tech problems are concerned, are the best weekend services. But did you notice anything that could have gone wrong? Is there some part of the system that could be tweaked just a bit to make life easier for your team or even yourself?
If things did get hairy, then what happened? Evaluate. Make adjustments. John Maxwell calls this failing forward—learn from mistakes or oversights and leverage failure to make you a better leader.
What went right?
This is as important as the previous question. Acknowledge what went really well. We’ve made this a common practice here at LifeMission on our worship and production teams: while we take a minute to sort out the messy stuff, we always take time—usually more time than we spend on the mistakes—to build each other up. Write down the good stuff. Celebrate your wins. If you saw people doing well, shoot them a text or an email, maybe even give them a quick call. Tell them, thank you.
What should I communicate?
Given the first two questions here, it might be a good time to write up a solid email with the tweaks you’ve made or system improvements you’d like to implement. This is also a good time to build up culture by reminding people of what makes your team click. Use consistent messaging to massage your culture like good bread dough, because most of your team probably serves just once or twice a month and it’s easy to forget things. What took you just a couple of weeks to make second nature will take them a couple of months, but you can set them up for home runs with gentle reminders.
Who should I meet?
Lunches and coffees are vital. Most of us get just a few passing minutes with our team members on the weekend, and that’s simply not enough time to develop any sort of intimacy. It’s a good idea to set up a rotation of coffees or lunches with your team members so that you can get into their lives, and if you have the social space for it, even having them over to your house for dinner. If you have a large team and meeting with everyone is impractical, then make a short list of your key people and put them in the rotation. For the others, check in with texts and phone calls on a regular basis. People know you’re busy, but the reach makes a huge difference.
How should I pray?
Production leadership is a hopelessly task-oriented, practical job, but it is no less ministry than teaching, preaching, worship leading, counseling, and so on. I am especially guilty of running to my checklist first thing Monday morning to get the week's work started but neglecting the just as, if not more important, primacy of prayer. Your church needs your prayers. Your team needs your prayers. You need your prayers. You are stewarding a ministry of prayer, even though what you do on Sundays might seem like the furthest thing from prayer. Connection to and partnering with God in prayer is the glue that holds ministry together, so if you’ve asked the first three questions and it seems like things are falling apart, get to a quiet place and pray.
How did I love?
Production leaders get a little obsessed with excellence. We want to nail the shot, nail the transition, nail the light cue, nail the mix. Rightly so—it’s our job. But our teams won’t care about how good we were at nailing it; they’ll care about whether or not we cared for them. The last two questions have led us to this final question. Connection is a kind of love. Intercession is a kind of love. Whenever we are with these good people, our very first calling is to embody the reconciling love of Jesus, a love that is full of compassion, mercy, and kindness. We are to love just as he loved us. Love is the essence of his personhood, and the last new commandment he gave to us, to love one another.
Father, may we love well. Thank you for what went well, and even what went wrong, for we can learn from our mistakes. Guide us to the hearts on our team that need connection, to bring your presence, your “withness,” to those that need it most. Let us be your embodied presence in all we do this week, our tasks, our conversations, and our leading. Amen and amen.
