How to Keep Your Team Motivated Amidst Ministry Urgency

Ever feel like there’s not enough coffee to get the team energized enough? I like to call it the “Sunday sleepies.”

There are days you can’t seem to rally the troops despite your best efforts to inspire, motivate and pump up for making church broadcast happen.

What does it really take to get ahead of those kinds of days and keep teams inspired and motivated for the long-run? We know that when teams start to lose interest or inspiration, a few things suffer:

1. Quality
2. Retention
3. Communication

Let’s cut to the chase — it’s not about doing more. It’s about doing what’s important.

There’s a famous quote that applies so well to church broadcast directors:

“Your greatest danger is letting the urgent things crowd out the important.” — Charles Hummel, The Tyranny of the Urgent 1967

When you don’t create intentional structure around your time, energy and focus, it introduces chaos that ultimately bleeds into your team dynamics. As a broadcast director, it is so important to carve out intentional time and energy to consistently invest into the health of your team. That is how long-term success is maintained.

Tyrannically-urgent things in your day to day could look like:

1. Last-minute scheduling or requests
2. Fixing things with gaff tape (albeit it does fix almost everything, am I right?)
3. The hustle of making ministry events happen
4. Getting things done on a limited budget as fast as possible

So, how would it look to go from a mentality of urgency to intentionality, even if you have limited time or resources?

Here’s a few tips that could help you put the right things on your to-do list so that you’re taking the steps towards building a team that’s healthy, excited to show up, and inspired.

1: Schedule team meetings that invite team members to provide input, feedback and ideas.

If you create space to hear your team members and create a collaborative atmosphere, they’ll be invested and willing to ultimately follow your humble leadership.

2: Introduce fresh, new things to the playbook for the team to grow with.

For example, you might introduce a new camera position, equipment upgrade, new shot idea(s), or something that will encourage and inspire your team to learn new skills. You might even invite your team to help you with equipment maintenance, providing a learning opportunity to get more hands-on with the gear they use every weekend!

3: Schedule 1:1 time with everyone on a rotating basis.

This can sound incredibly simple, but it could look like having one coffee or lunch meeting per week with one of your team members. I know that for many broadcast directors, this could feel like a stressful mission to take on, but the truth is: it’s a commitment that will absolutely change the way your team works with you if you stick with it. This allows for personal connection, and tells your team that you really do care about them.

4: Kill the gremlins.

Do you have those little persistent issues in your systems or processes that can’t quite seem to fix themselves? Take time as often as possible to solve those seemingly small problems. Why? Whether you believe it or not, small problems are snowballs just waiting to roll down into massive hinderances of your team’s success. Many times, these problems are reduced down to simple fixes or maintenance. Gremlins could simply be:

1. Cables in need of replacement
2. Equipment lacking maintenance
3. Unnecessarily-complex signal pathways
4. No inventory or clear knowledge of what is had/not had
5. Lack of cleanliness or organization in an area

Church broadcasting can feel overwhelming, especially when you wear multiple hats in ministry. The prospect of adding more things to your calendar might feel like it will tip your delicate balance into overload.

My encouragement is this: when you protect the time and energy it takes to create lasting results, it will change the way you view your calendar and how you manage it.

In ministry, it is vital to prioritize the health of teams and pathways to success if you want to see long-lasting impact. You’ll never look back and be glad that you dropped every important thing to help with that “tyrannically urgent” matter that could have been handled with tact and intentionality around those most important priorities.

If you need customized insights into how you, as a broadcast director, can further develop your teams into strong, vibrant, healthy, excited members, do not hesitate to reach out. I would love to get to know you, understand where your limits are, and create solutions that will empower you to lead the marathon race of broadcasting in ministry.