Recruit, Resource & Reward Creatives
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Whatever church you are at and whatever your communication strategy is you will need creative people to pull it off. That’s why I wanted to talk about recruiting, resourcing & rewarding creatives. Generic leadership principles work great when you want to lead people generically. But if you want to lead specific people in a specific way - and let’s all admit that creatives are a unique and beautiful breed of people - then you need to tweak your leadership. And that’s some of what we’ll cover.
RECRUIT
1) Recruit For Weekend And Week - Recruit creatives that work in front of people (weekend) and creatives that work behind a screen (week). Most churches focus on one but not both. Focus on the weekend includes musicians, actors and presenters. Focus on the week includes webmasters, video editors and graphic designers. Identify where you are weak and work on that. Cause you need the full range of creatives to communicate and because most creatives are either wired to work in front of people or behind a screen, usually not both.
2) Belong Before Behave - I once had a worship team member describe his salvation on the application form as, “this Jesus guy has taken my hand and is leading me down an uncharted path adventure and beauty”. Leadership wanted to know if he was saved. I’m wasn’t sure but it was clear God was doing something in His life. And because of that I was comfortable with him join the team. Leadership needs to be a a little more gracious and expansive with the rules because creatives might not be able to artiuclate this faith in a linear and systmatic way. Their expression will usually be more abstract
3) Look Outside The Church - You might not have the money. Uou might not have the budget for full time graphic designer - then outsource to a design agency. Because the market is so global you can outsource to someone halfway around the world at a quarter of the price. But only do this for monthly projects. Weekly ones can be difficult because of they are sleeping while you are working and there is a communication delay.
RESOURCE
1) Realistic Resources - If you want a current artistic aesthetic in your church then you need to provide current artistic tools. If you want dope looking graphics you need to provide them with adobe creative cloud. Stated negatively, your videos look dated because you are under resourcing your video department #FourByThreeFormat
2) Birth Your Ideas With Plenty Of Time - Crockpot Not A Microwave - The creative process is similar to serving up a delicious dish. Slow cooking your ideas brings out the fullest flavors. Yes, you could microwave your concepts, but that just gets them warm and rubbery. So instead crockpot them by giving your meeting enough time to circle back and unpack concepts as you go.
3) Schedule Training - A lot of churches will resource different departments for training. family employees go to The Orange Conference Leadership attend the Global Leadership Summit. I’m not sure what the admin staff do, but I’ll sure they do something. But creatives are often let to use their own resources to receive training. It can sometimes be assumed that will do it on the weekends to keep up. And they are one of the most important departments to receive training, because their area of oversights shifts the fastest. They want to work on their craft. They will naturally do this on their own with tutorial videos, workshops and conferences. Schedule training communicates that you as their leader want to see them professionally succeed. They to grow. That is why the seek out personal training.
4) Give Opportunities To Fail - Every employee looks for a small degree of room to fail in their workplace. Creatives look for a large degree of room to fail in their workplace. They look for this because they need this. Their best creative work will only come through trial and error. They need space to experiment with the opportunity to mess up. They need to know they can fall and scrape their knees and that you So give them opportunities to fail. And let them know where those opportunities are and aren’t. Just because a creative needs opportunities to fail doesn’t negate the need for them to succeed. So make sure to demarcate when they need to hit a homerun and when they can swing and miss.
REWARD
1) Give Particular Praise - I’ve lead creatives for over a decade. What I’ve learned during this time is that creative people crave praise. We communication for a reaction. We need to know if it worked or not. It is usually the most potent way in which they feel rewarded, because it is most often their main love language.
2) Develop Show And Tell - you remember in kindergarten how much you used to anticipate bringing in your favorites toy. You remember being awed by what the other kids brought. How it expanded your perception of the world ‘I never know you could have a chinchilla as a pet. I didn’t even know what a chinchilla was.’
3) Pastor Their Artistic Heart - Creatives want to proclaim christ just as much as leaders do. just in a different way. sometimes the leader is seen as extra spiritual or closer to christ because they have pastor in their title. But just because they are the leader doesn’t make them more spiritual, or any less. The whole reason creatives are using their talents within the church, either as a volunteer or staff member, is because they love Jesus. talented creative folks with experience have a unique skill set, and could often be earning double working outside of the church. But they want to make that sacrifice because of their love for Christ. So remember that creatives love Jesus too.