Usually, we talk about getting rid of the middle man to reduce price or confusion. But the staff at First Baptist Rogers is using a middle man to reduce confusion. James Harding* is the director of ministry coordination at the four-campus multi-site church in Rogers, Arkansas. He is also president of the Metro Media and Communications Association (MMCA). MMCA is an organization bringing community and encouragement for men and women that serve on the front lines of media, communications, and production ministry. And now he’s adding middle man to his resume.
… having a middle man reduces conflict.
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“My role was an experiment and we tried it because I have a unique skillset,” Harding explains. “I work in between the ministries and production or the ministries and operations, I guess is the better way to say it. I kind of manage the go-between of what the ministries need versus what operations can do and what operations needs in order to complete what it is ministry wants to happen.”
Harding started in production at First Baptist Rogers where he grew into this new role to manage the back and forth. He says a church wouldn’t have to be a multi-site in order for this staff position to be valuable. He communicates up and down the organizational chart.
Leading down
Everybody says, get rid of the middleman and go direct. Well, sometimes that doesn't work and you need to have a different perspective. When Harding moved out of production into more of a leadership position, it gave him a unique perspective of the communication mistakes he was making while working in production.
“I had kind of started learning this before this job changed. But then once the job change happened, it really helped me see it,” he says. “Many of us, we're always trying to protect the team, we're always trying to protect the workload, we're always trying to protect the quality of what we do.”
Don't expect other departments to understand what it takes to do your job.
Typically, the guy in charge of production becomes the guy who says no. They are the guy who has to say they don’t have the staff, the budget or equipment to make something happen. But Harding says being in this new role has helped him see a different perspective with the help of his co-workers.
“It helped me see that there's a different way to approach it whenever people have the ask than just saying no. One of the things I do when I'm leading down is I help encourage those people to see - rather than just jumping out of the gate and saying no - what number one can you do? Number two, if you were going to try to accomplish this, what would it take? And so, one of the things we're just all guilty of in production is just that instant no.”
He says he’s learned to take the time to communicate to leadership what it would take to do what they’re asking. Would it take extra hours, additional budget, new equipment or staff? He explains that often with senior leadership, there's this little component that's usually missing called, “Why?” What is it we're trying to accomplish by doing this thing that is being asked? Why are we trying to do this?
“A lot of times people in the execution role, we don't ever get the full picture and vision of why we're doing something,” Harding explains. “And so, it's really difficult for us to step into that and do something if we don't really understand why we're doing it. We don't understand the purpose or see how it fulfills the mission of the church. And so being able to help communicate that when necessary has been hugely beneficial.”
Leading up
As someone who has worked on a production team for over 16 years, Harding has seen a lot of requests from senior leadership. “To put it candidly, they have all these great ideas, but they're completely clueless as to how to pull it off,” he says. “They see some other church do something and they don't recognize that that church has an army of staff compared to your little piddly village of staff. What's interesting is sometimes when you're in that middle man position, like where I am right now, you have to be the guy that says no, and that way you take the fall for it.”
He says this is where having a middle man reduces conflict. Because Harding doesn’t manage the production team, no one thinks he’s being defensive or protective of his people. “If I come out and say, ‘Hey, this is a really great idea, but this is going to take X, Y, Z.’ It's easier for me to do that where I sit than it is for somebody who's directly leading that production team,” he explains. “People may think, ‘Oh, well, they're just biased. They don't want their team to have to do it.’ So, for me, being able to step in and say, ‘Hey, listen, it would be great if we could accomplish this, but there's the impact that's going to have. It also helps that I can have that conversation where I'm not busy trying to do something else.”
“If we're being honest, we secretly tend to be people pleasers, which is also funny because most of us are introverts. And so those don't really go together.” – James Harding
Harding has the benefit of time in that Sunday’s work isn’t on his plate and having a conversation doesn’t take time away from that. It gives him the freedom to think through options and allows for candid conversations that he can share concerns in a politically correct way so both sides can hear it better.
“It helps me to talk to leadership and say, ‘Okay, how is this going to accomplish what we want to do? How do you see this impacting the vision, the strategy of the organization, the vision of the church?’ And sometimes those conversations lead to, it really doesn't. Okay, should we be doing it? I'm not one of these people that says everything has to accomplish the mission, but within reason, if you're doing more things to fluff up your church than you are trying to reach the lost, there's a misbalance there that you need to work on.”
On the other hand, he is also having conversations that illuminate the importance of a request. “And usually, it doesn't take much. It's just a brief couple of sentences that they just have to explain and boom, I'm sold, I'm hooked, and I can then become a cheerleader,” he says.
Harding works in coordination with all departments, kids’ ministry, student ministry, adult ministry, pastors and executive leadership - which really makes his position valuable during big projects. “That's challenging because everybody has their opinion, everybody has the way they want to do things, and I can step in and be that nucleus and make sure everybody's happy. Just being able to understand what they want to do, why they want to do it, and then sometimes have that conversation of, ‘Okay, you realize this is going to overtax, you realize this is going to put a lot of burden on,’ and just helping them understand that maybe we need to lessen what we're doing.”
A middle man can also help church departments define expectations better. Not every ask is a must-have and not every challenge is worth going all out. Harding says he can save departments time and stress by getting to the bottom line of the importance and priority of the project.
“So, leadership comes to us and says, ‘Hey, we want to do this thing.’ And we will sometimes go, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to hurry and do this and do this the best thing ever,’ when leadership's like, ‘Meh, it's just a little tiny thing. Don't worry too much about it.’ And so being able to be in that middle role to say, ‘Hey, they want you to do this, but don't stress over it. Just do it however the best you can. And this doesn't need to be a Christmas production level thing. This needs to be a, ‘Hey, throw this on the hopper and get it done when you can.’”
People pleasers
Which brings us to the nature of the beast of production, media and communications people who can burn out trying to be people pleasers.
“If we're being honest, we secretly tend to be people pleasers, which is also funny because most of us are introverts. And so those don't really go together,” he says. “We want to do everything excellent and doing everything excellent doesn't mean putting a full production in place every time something is asked for. Doing everything excellent and making people happy just means doing what needs to be done.”
The fact that First Baptist Rogers has invested in Harding’s position to make decision making easier is something they don’t take for granted. “We consider ourselves lucky that I'm here to be able to do what I do to take some of that burden off of our production leaders,” Harding admits. “Now, let me just clarify. I don't have every conversation. I just make sure the conversations are being had.”
So, what about the production, media or communications director who is doing his job and all these negotiations themself? Harding has the luxury of looking at everything from the outside – most production leaders do not. They answer to the worship pastor but they also answer to the executive pastor and the facilities director and have to lead both up and down the line, even though middle man (or woman) is not in their title. Harding has a few points of advice.
Be proactive.
It sounds simple but Harding says he feels like there are a lot of people who don’t understand that concept or refuse to be proactive.
“I get so frustrated whenever I hear my peers say that student ministry is coming up on camp and they haven't asked for anything,” he laments. “Okay, did you go ask them what they need? ‘Well, no, that's not my job.’ Actually, it is. Your job is to do that for them. If they understood production, they wouldn't be a student pastor, they would be a media director.”
… being a “no” guy can create an environment where no one wants to deal with you.
Don’t be that guy.
“I get so frustrated whenever my peers are like, ‘I'm just going to sit here and wait until they drop the ball and then I'm going to get really mad at them,’” he admits.
Harding says once you get into that kind of mindset, it’s hard to get out of it. And he says being in that frame of mind doesn’t help anyone accomplish anything. “What good is that going to do? That is just going to frustrate you, that's going to frustrate your team. And how is that teamwork? It's not.”
He says instead watch out for those big boulders like vacation Bible school on your church calendar and get the ball rolling early!
“Don't wait for the ministries to bring stuff to you. Go after it,” Harding advises. “And I know I can see the eye rolls now of everybody saying, ‘Well, I don't have time to do that.’ Okay, imagine if you just took 15-20 minutes a week to help yourself in this way, how light that would make your load? Rather than just being stressed out and constantly having to manage your frustration, their frustration, your team's frustration because you just made a little bit of effort to go the extra mile and go to them and find out what's happening.”
Don't expect other departments to understand what it takes to do your job.
Realize that other departments may not know what they need or what to ask for. Harding says he used to have a production form with a litany of questions for someone to put in a request for an event. But it wasn’t helpful.
“I had all these things, microphones, projection, video, speaker, band, all this stuff and in my mind, I was being helpful by presenting them with what it takes to do an event,” he explains. “It was literally, if I can get more information out of you on the front end, that makes both of us happy.”
But he says it never worked. And then one day the light bulb flashed and Harding realized, “Hey, idiot, they don't understand this! They didn't know what they needed. Whenever you have that conversation with someone, you can actually dialogue and say, what are you doing? What is it you need? They're going, ‘Well, I don't know. I guess I need you to come and run sound, and I need you to do this, and I need you to do that.’ And then you're like, “Actually, if we just turn the soundboard on for you, you'll be fine.’ So now our request form says do you need us to support you - yes or no?”
Don't play ministry leaders against each other.
“Don't say, ‘Mom said, dad said.’ Don't play that game. That's never good,” he warns. “What you can't do is go play the worship pastor against the executive pastor or the facility pastor against the worship pastor. That's never going to be beneficial because I don't know if you know it, but those guys talk too. And so, you could play this little game and get yourself in a lot of hot water.”
Harding recommends that in situations where there’s disagreement and brewing conflict the best thing you can do is get everyone together and have a conversation
“We don't want meetings. We don't want to clutter our schedule, but that's one of those times where the right people need to have the conversation and you don't need to be stuck in the middle of it - especially if there's drama in the conversation,” he says. But you might need to get them in the room and start the conversation for them – because a lot of times no one wants to address the conflict.
“I can't tell you how many times I've started off a conversation in a meeting like that where I'm like, ‘All right, so Joseph has this issue and James has this issue. You guys are not seeing eye to eye. Let's figure out how we can get that to work.’ And so that kind of instantly disarms the, ‘Well, I'm not going to talk first. I'm not going to be the one to say it.’
He says this is also where the knee-jerk “no” response is not helpful. Try to find the yes or a win. One of the things that we can do whenever these things come up is pause and approach it from a series of questions.
“Just think, alright, is this a one-time thing? Is this a short-term thing? Is this a long-term thing? Is this a forever thing? And start having those conversations and say, ‘Okay, if this is a one-time thing, can we navigate our schedules in order to pull it off?’ Don't worry about setting a precedent. I was the worst about saying, ‘Well, this is going to set a precedent if we do this, we have to do this every time.’ No, make it clear that, ‘Alright, this is a one-time thing, so we can accommodate this one time and it's going to be fine.’ Just make sure you're clear. I also am one of those people that believes in having an email chain. That way, whenever something comes back up, boom, you have an email chain.”
Evaluate time management
If it’s a long-term request it may push the focus back on your own team. How much time are they actually working versus how much time are they actually wasting or spending doing things that probably shouldn't take that much time? A lot of leaders believe in time tracking. Harding thinks that's really wise because he says once you start realizing how much time you do have, you realize how much more you can accomplish.
“Your role as the director, especially if you have a team, is to monitor that and manage that. You don't want your environment to be rigid and not friendly, not fun, but you also don't want it to be just a time of everybody loosey-goosey, hanging out, having a good time, and never getting their work done,” he says.
Is there an opportunity to grow your ministry?
New long-term requests can be intimidating, but Harding says look at them as an opportunity to grow your ministry. “Over the years here, we have purchased gear, we have had resources, we've added staff because of these things we were asked to do, and we simply said, ‘Great, we can pull that off. Here's what it's going to take. Do you still want to do it?’ Especially when it's coming from the highest point of your leadership, from your pastor down. And if he says, we're going to do it, you just now have an opportunity to do something to advance your ministry.”
Harding concludes that being a “no” guy can create an environment where no one wants to deal with you. While saying a knee-jerk “no” is often the temptation as a department leader, Harding says he’s learned in his middle man role that taking a deep breath, asking a lot of questions, having conversations, finding the “why” of a request and honestly evaluating your team and equipment capabilities will result in better understanding up and down the chain of command.
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*Editor's Note: At the recent Capture Summit 2024 we were honored to have James Harding present a special breakout session on: "How to Speak Pastorese—Bridging the Communication Divide Between Technical and Creative Staff and Non-Technical Leadership," as part of Capture's Leadership & Ministry track. The 8th annual two-day event included dozens of workshops, breakout sessions, technology tours and product demos created exclusively for church techs, creatives and church leaders.
Get to know the Capture Summit 2024 partners who helped make this annual summit possible. Learn more about the Capture partners and their products and services for churches at: https://capturesummit.com/#partners
