First, picture a symphony conductor—let’s call her Maestro—waving her arms enthusiastically, conducting beautifully and passionately, yet there’s no sound. You see that she’s standing on a podium in front of an empty orchestra pit. On and on she goes, directing these empty chairs in a silent song. Silly, huh?

Next, picture an NFL quarterback, let’s call him Biff, hiking the ball to himself, dropping back, and throwing a perfect spiral pass, 50 yards in the air and then—it hits the ground…because he’s playing alone and there’s no receiver to catch his amazing pass. Still with me?

Finally, picture an extremely gifted and very popular movie director—let’s call him Steven—giving direction and suggestions from behind the camera. With his trained eye and creative imagination, he knows exactly how he wants this scene to play, but there’s no one to act out his ideas. He’s essentially filming a blank wall. That’s absurd, right?

I could go on with ridiculous examples, but you get the point. Each scenario is bizarre, and each person mentioned is crazy for trying to go at it alone. As foolish as this may be, it’s a common occurrence in churches because, unfortunately, many pastors view sermon and worship preparation as an individual sport. They “get it” when it comes to teamwork in other ministries. They have leadership teams, youth ministry teams, and children’s ministry teams, but when it comes to their messages, it’s “Hands off! I’ve got this one.” I’ve heard about and witnessed this phenomenon over and over. Personally, I’ve been fortunate to work with pastors who enjoy planning worship with a creative team, but that’s not always the case.

Nancy Beach, in An Hour on Sunday (Zondervan), says, “There is a wall in some churches…This wall divides the artists preparing one part of the service from the teacher who will deliver the message…What contributes most to this wall is the overwhelmingly rapid pace of ministry combined with a lack of vision for what services could be if the wall were torn down.” This wall exists for many reasons: lack of vision, lack of communication and planning, pride, inadequate training, or false assumptions. Sometimes a communicator feels as if no one would want to come alongside to offer feedback and support, but it’s usually not hard to find four people in a congregation who are willing to do this. Awareness is a large part of the problem. I believe that most pastors would be in favor of anything that would increase their effectiveness as communicators.

Unfortunately, some communicators think that they alone have the ability and unfettered right to craft the message and worship experience. Brad Johnson, pastor of Calvary Community Church, Westlake Village, California, put things in perspective when he wrote, “Do you believe you are smart enough, creative enough, and insightful enough to prepare your sermons week after week, year after year, with the same level of freshness and energy each time? Honestly, having prepared sermons for more than 20 years, I know the personal limitations of this awesome task. Certainly, we each rely on God, the Holy Spirit, and the power of God’s Word, but can’t our Lord use the input of others to strengthen our personal deficits?”

When I share this at a preaching conference, I experience a variety of reactions. From “Duh, of course we have a creative planning team” to “I’ve been planning on my own for 30 years, and it’s worked fine for me” to “I’ve been planning on my own, and I’ve never really felt like I’ve made a dent. This sounds fascinating.” One experience I’ll never forget was two years ago at the Moody Bible Institute Pastors’ Conference, when a sixtysomething pastor slowly stood up and, with tears in his eyes, told how he’d gone at it alone for years to no avail. He said that in the last few years of his ministry, he’d come to learn about and utilize a creative planning team. He couldn’t say enough about how much it had revolutionized his messages and how he’d seen his church grow spiritually and numerically—more in the last few years than in the previous 20 years combined.

Getting Started
Creative planning teams are done a lot of different ways in churches all around the world. There are, however, several elements that seem to be fairly consistent across the board.

1) Size—Alan Nelson, in his book Creating Messages That Connect (Group Publishing, Inc.), says, “The best team size seems to be four to seven. Things get bogged down with eight or more.” I’ve seen mega-mega churches (5,000 to 20,000) with four to seven people on their creative planning teams, and I’ve seen smaller churches (less than 200) that had 10 to 12 people on their teams. Trust me, big or small, you can get by with the right four to seven people.

2) Makeup—The creative planning team is usually made up of the senior pastor, worship pastor, and the following ministry leaders (if you have them): drama, graphics, video, creative writer, and props. This isn’t a team for everyone on staff or even everyone who’s involved with worship. This is a team that the senior pastor and worship leader should hand-pick, selecting those who have proven track records of making Sunday happen.
Kim Miller, in her book Designing Worship (Group Publishing, Inc.) writes, “Seek out like-minded people who are passionate about designing worship experiences.” She goes on to say, “Stop and dream a little about what kind of person you really want and need…When you’ve dreamed all you can dream, it’s time to look…When you think you may have found someone, then listen. Listen to what God is telling you to do, and obediently act on that direction.”

3) Roles and responsibilities—Once you’ve assembled your team, you need to define each person’s role and responsibility. Pray and be flexible, as these roles may change over time. I’ve learned the hard way, though, that if you don’t assign each person some responsibility, you’ll lead a creative team of people who dream up more work for you to do. You must know what you’re willing to own and be ready to say, “Who will own this?” when someone comes up with an idea.

Something else to keep in mind is that the team is meeting to discuss how to enhance and support a message or message series that the pastor has already chosen. The focus isn’t on what to preach about, but rather “How do we package and present this in a fresh and attractive way?” A lot of pastors mail or email an outline to the creative planning team before the meeting. This is wise. When you let your people chew on it for a while, instead of putting them on the spot, you’ll find your meetings will be much more productive.

Some churches have one team that meets weekly, biweekly, or monthly. Others have two teams—a very small team (for example, the senior pastor and worship leader) that meets weekly to finalize things and a bigger team that meets monthly to plan for the next month and beyond. If you’re utilizing several volunteers, these meetings occur at night or on a Saturday and are likely to be monthly. If your team is made up of paid staff, the meetings often take place during the day and more frequently.

Developing the Team
What will it take to make this a success? Prayer and planning. Hopefully, all of what we do as leaders is founded in prayer and submitted to Christ’s leading. The planning side of things is just plain hard work. It takes vision, organization, and determination. Maybe you’ve been finishing your sermons on Saturdays for years and can’t imagine knowing what you’re going to preach on weeks or months out. No >>>> doubt, it will be an adjustment, but it’s doable and it’s worth it. Take some time off. Get away with your Bible and a notebook and just dream. Pray and consider what series interest you for the next year. When you begin to teach in series, you’ll see that it’s easy to plan far out. You know that for the next six weeks, you’re teaching on the Sermon on the Mount or the book of Galatians; that’s a starting point. You can at least go ahead and give your creative planning team your titles or main ideas for the upcoming series.

A couple of ground rules: Team members need the freedom to fail. Risk should be encouraged, and each team member should have permission to share any idea, no matter how crazy or out there it may seem. Make brainstorming fun. Take out a dry erase board and just start writing words and ideas all over it. At Ginghamsburg Church, Tipp City, Ohio, the pastor shares the week’s Scripture passage and the “desired outcome.” The team members ask questions for clarification and then suggest ideas. They decide on the “hook” (theme) and also on the metaphor (look), and then roll with it. It will take time to build chemistry. Your team will eventually gel, but you’ve got to have a number of services and series under your belt. Then your challenge will be to avoid ruts and to intentionally stretch yourself.

Going to the Next Level
Hold an annual team retreat. Once a year go on a retreat and dream together. Build in plenty of time for fun and games, but also have some good heart-to-heart conversations. Share your struggles and life challenges. Maybe others are going through something similar. If so and you hit a nerve—there’s a future series.

Bring in various perspectives. When I was in high school, my worship leader would invite me to the planning team meetings from time to time. They wanted a young person’s perspective on what they were discussing. I was given valuable experience and an appreciation for what goes on behind the scenes. Bring in one of your senior adults occasionally. Want to really shake things up? Invite a non-Christian to one of your planning meetings. They’ll put things in perspective real fast.

Team up with other pastors. I’ve heard of senior pastors who meet anywhere from once to four times a year with other pastors to discuss message planning and series ideas. They’ll get together to pray, worship, and fellowship with one another. Then they’ll take a topic or series idea and delve into it together. These pastors return home with series ideas and starting places for key themes and creative ideas.

Encourage and minister to the team. Let them know that you value their feedback and involvement. Look for opportunities to challenge them, while at the same time strive to let this team be a blessing and not a burden. Remind each of them (and yourself) that you’re servants, not “celebrities.” Concepts such as teamwork, sacrifice, and flexibility should be modeled and taught so a common language is created. Ask team members to pray for you and cultivate a “we’re in this together” atmosphere.

Work on your own “game.” Finally, remember that this team can brand, promote, set up, support, and enhance your message, but they can’t deliver it for you. With all the creativity, innovation, and artistic edge that your worship gatherings will now have, you may find that you have to step up your game. We can always grow and improve in our given areas of talent and skill. You should be a better communicator next year than you are now. Get feedback from various places. Give your creative planning team permission to share their perceptions and impressions of your messages. Ask your spouse and a few friends how you’re doing as a communicator. Have them tell you two things to stop doing and two things to continue doing. Videotape your messages and watch them to see what needs changing.

Worship planning can feel awfully lonely, especially in times of stress and conflict. It’s easy to withdraw and “just do it myself” when team building and teamwork don’t seem worth the effort. Stay the course! Resist the natural urge to be a rugged individualist like the Lone Ranger. You’ll be happy you removed the “mask” of doing all the worship planning. And your ministry will benefit with the creativity and efforts entrusted to the worship planning team. Let the Lone Ranger in you ride into the sunset—God has better plans for you.

GREG ATKINSON is the director of Worship House Media and founder of MultisensoryWorship.com (greg@worshiphousemedia.com).