JamesLaws.com

As the primary communicator with a unique process you need to develop a team that feeds that process. Every communicator has a team. It may be a highly developed team or a rotating team but every communicator has one. Determining the type of team that fits your style is a huge help in presenting the most life changing messages you can offer.

To give you a look at the great divide of team use here are two different approaches. I’ve tried them both. In, The Big Idea, Dave Ferguson and co-authors share the secrets of a highly developed team. They have a schedule and responsibilities. They plan several weeks in advance. They have a detailed process to aid in the presentations of their Bid Idea” each week. It’s a great book…it didn’t work for me. Parts of it did but in LifePoint’s current state it wasn’t a fit for us.

Craig Groeschel, on the other hand, doesn’t use a team in the same way. In fact it doesn’t even appear to be a team. He rotates different people in at times to bounce his thoughts off. Oh, it’s a team but it has a loose application. Although my use of a team is similar it is still different. I’m just not good enough to do it that way.

Here is a hint, the team must fit the process. If you are an eight week out detailed, agenda oriented kind of communicator than a highly developed team might work for you. But if you are a more easy goes it, follow the flow type or an individually focused type then rotating a person in here and there might be perfect for you.

Another point would be that how you use a team might change over time. I have tried using every kind of teaching team you can think of. And how I do it now will probably not be how I do in 5 years. So how do I do it? Good question.

My process is based on how God is speaking to me at the time. This is different at different times of the year or stages in the church life. Because of this I don’t need a highly developed team or even just an occasional person to bounce ideas off of. I need a team that can adapt from week to week. One week they are creative team, the next they are team that I bounce ideas off of. Sometimes they contribute a bunch of message ideas and the other times they help me develop my ideas. This team meets every Monday night and I am grateful for their flexibility. It’s hard being on a team that you don’t know what might happen from one week to the next.

The point…my team fits my process and I couldn’t do it without them. Will it always be this way? Of course not but right now it works.