Do you wish your team had a better sense of unity and shared purpose? Training sessions can be an excellent opportunity to foster these things. How often do you have your whole team gathered in one place and wholly focused on growth?
Technical skills have their place in the life of a church tech team member, but their place must be found within the purpose and nature of the church. When we work to develop only, or primarily, technical skills -- without developing our sense of purpose in the church -- we undermine the very motivation for their use.
Training sessions provide a unique opportunity to develop the team's sense of purpose, and to set this purpose as the foundation and motivation for developing technical skills. One approach that has been successful for me is to begin a training time with a brief but thorough time of teaching on the purpose and nature of the church and what it means to serve the church in general and in technology, specifically. I often place even the purpose of the church within the big picture story of the scriptures, which also helps us to understand ourselves as sinful humans who have been redeemed by the work of Christ on the Cross. It is amazing how a basic understanding of the church and technology from a biblical worldview builds up church tech volunteers.
I do several of these training sessions per year, and each session often lasts a full day, sometimes two.
Don't stop developing technical skills within our volunteer teams. But let's not neglect the foundation and motivation for their use: the nature and purpose of the church.
Does your church have a training regimen?
Have you found technical training sessions to be helpful? In what ways?
How has technical training helped further your church's ministry goals?
