LEADERSHIP: Team Building for a Small Staff

WAIT A MINUTE!! Isn't team building for businesses? Isn't team building for those big churches with a lot of staff members? Isn't team building stupid? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding NO!

A little team building experience can be great at bringing staff members together at the beginning of each year. Notice that I didn't say PAID staff members? In a small congregation the staff members include a number of volunteers. A while ago I wrote something for a Lutheran camp who wanted to start providing some team building experiences for professional church workers. I figure it's a good time to share that information with the rest of you.  

The goal of team building is to build a shared vision and/or mission and to give people a chance to bond as a team and plan for the year. 

Keys for building a successful team building experience:

• Begin and end the experience in the Word and pray for each other, the day, and the congregation.
• Let the team help choose the schedule and activities.
• Let the team choose the goals for the experience.
• Include age appropriate activities for building trust and a team attitude (simple physical team building games or if a camp is near and you have the budget to go off-site, try the high ropes and/or challenge course activities).
• Include opportunities throughout the day for "real" work like annual or strategic planning.
• Have the team complete an assessment about whether or not the goals were reached after the experience.
• Don't forget: it never hurts to have a few Bible study goals for a leadership team as well!

EDUCATION: Best Practices in Using Slides

Source: The NIV Quickview Bible

Whether in a Bible study, during a sermon, or throughout worship, slides are more and more commonly used. Everybody has their own opinion about how they should be used from projecting liturgy and song lyrics (personally I like to see the music) during the worship service to outlining a sermon or Bible study. The question on the minds of many church professionals is how should they be used most effectively? Sometimes it's because they haven't asked the first and most important question: What is the purpose of the slides? Using technology just because it's popular is foolish. Using technology because it enhances worship and education is highly beneficial. While this post is primarily for educational purposes, some of these tips will be helpful for sermons and worship as well.

Basic Slide Creation Tips

• Eliminate extraneous slides. Nobody needs to read everything the presenter says or will say. Nobody needs to read everything the pastor says. Obviously, everybody needs to read what they should remember or write down.
• Choose font type, size, and color wisely. The font needs to be legible from a distance so must be large enough for the size of the room and the color should not remotely match the background. Dark backgrounds need a light font color and light backgrounds need a dark font color. 
• Use bullet points or short sentences. You don't need to show your every thought in complete sentences or paragraphs. Don't use too much text!
• A picture is worth a thousand words. People learn or remember more easily if they have an emotional connection so illustrations or photos can be valuable. Diagrams, charts, graphs, maps, videos, etc. help describe complicated information. Be sure you label them!
• Choose simple backgrounds. Complicated or animated backgrounds or backgrounds that change every few slides are distracting no matter how cool they may seem.
• Include major points, highlights, and/or quotes. You're providing an outline of what you're presenting so including major points, highlights or quotes reinforces important details.

Basic Slide Presentation Tips

• Don't read your slides. Everybody there can see them!
• Pause for people to read the slides. People have a tendency to read what they see before they listen to what you say. If you don't pause they will miss what you're saying because they're busy reading.
• Pause for people to write down what they need, especially if you use quotes. Let them know what isn't necessary for them to write down (especially for confirmation). If you don't pause they will miss what you're saying because they're busy writing it down.
• Don't use repeated animation. It will totally distract from what you're saying. If you use photos or illustrations that are momentarily distracting be sure they enhance what you're saying and pause while people react to them.
• Refer to diagrams, charts, graphs, and/or maps. All of these things provide support data.  If you're not going to refer to them then why are they there? If you need a good source for Bible maps try Free Bible maps or for something more interactive try BibleMap. A simple search for Bible maps in Google Images provides some fantastic resources. PreceptAustin has a number of public domain maps. Others seem free to use as long as the use is not online or commercial.
• Videos and/or movie clips should be kept short. Remember that they should enhance your presentation, not take it over or become the presentation. 

Use technology wisely!

CONFIRMATION: What does this mean?

In the wonderful world of education, our main goals are to make sure students (any age) know any new information and have an understanding of it so that they can apply it in some way to gain deeper understanding. How we ask questions is imperative in making the connection from simply eliciting information to understanding and applying it. Unbeknownst to him, Martin Luther asked a pretty profound question in his Small Catechism with regard to education when he asked, "What does this mean?"

The problem is that when we teach out of the catechism we have kids read and memorize the answer without making them think about the question!  So... before you tell students to read and memorize ANY part of the catechism, ask them, "What does this mean?"

Give them a chance to talk to a friend or two about it and respond:

• verbally.
• written on a note card.
• written on a white board.

Then assign the memory work.  That way they know what they're memorizing before they do it!

SERVICE: YouthWorks Mission Trips

They're not just for youth anymore. It's interesting... people of all ages really like servant event or mission trips much better than serving in their own neighborhoods. While we need to remember that service is not an event but an attitude, mission trips provide an opportunity to serve and adjust our perspective and relationship with Christ away from everyday life. Sometimes these kinds of trips can be life changing for people as they have a chance to witness other cultures, talk about their faith, do physical work, develop or strengthen personal relationships, take special time with God, etc. The problem is finding an appropriate place for your particular group.

If you're looking for a great company to work with for a servant event trip check out YouthWorks. I have a friend who has worked with the company and has only good things to say about it. Groups may go to small or large urban communities, small towns, American Indian reservations, or international sites in Canada or Puerto Rico. Servant events are not just for kids either. Think about sending:

• A multi-generational group - gives people a chance to interact with people outside their peer group and hear stories of faith and life from people who aren't their family and friends.
• A group of men - men need to take some time to be with other men and do hard physical work. Men bond doing work together and like to help people. It would give them a wonderful opportunity to get away and think about their life, their faith and their place in the world.
• A group of women - women are naturally service oriented and enjoy hanging out together and talking while helping. Many may not enjoy hard physical work like the men but they can choose to work with people in other less physical areas.
• A group of young adults - try one for kids home from college so relationships can be rebuilt or strengthened. It doesn't have to be long or far away to be meaningful and re-focus them back on God, their year, and where their faith is after a year at school as well as to strengthen them for the coming year away from their church home.
• A group of married couples - what a great opportunity to bring couples together and strengthen marital relationships than through shared service and time to talk about their faith. 

There are options in all parts of the country with different types of people and different types of service. Check out the list of communities that can be served!

EDUCATION: Retelling Bible Story Techniques

Teachers use retelling techniques to help children with comprehension when reading. It helps them sequence the events and remember important details. The same technique will help them with Bible stories as well and will be instrumental in helping them understand law and gospel in each story. Remember that young kids don't need to be able to label what is law and gospel (they won't understand that concept anyway), they just need to be exposed to it. The teacher needs to understand it in each story and be able to let the kids know what Jesus does for us and why which is, in its simplest sense, law and gospel.

When helping kids learn about a Bible story have them read the story or tell it to them first. Then go through it again trying a different technique and having the kids help retell it.

• Use puppets, props, masks, etc. and let the kids use them to help retell the story.
• Retell the story leaving sections out for the kids to fill in verbally. 
• Use "follow the yellow brick road" to help them tell the story step by step. Put pieces of yellow paper on the floor and have the kids tell the story while "walking" down the road.
• Add body actions to the story so when kids retell, the actions will help them remember.
• Pause while retelling to ask appropriate questions to reiterate important details and law/gospel.  
• Let kids draw a picture while you tell the story and then use their picture to retell it.
• Use a series of pictures to tell the story and let the kids retell it putting them in order. 

Remember, especially for young kids, a picture really is worth a thousand words!

EDUCATION: Brain Rules on Memory

In graduate school I read the book Brain Rules by John Medina and in it he talks about the two types of memory:  short-term and long-term. It always amazes me that (just like the photo) I can remember the lyrics to songs from when I was in high school and the liturgy of The Lutheran Hymnal even after not saying it for years. Why is that? And why does everybody know John 3:16 so much better than any other Bible verse? It's because we hear it and say it more than any other verse.

In order to put something in our short-term memory we listen to it or say it 10 times in 10 minutes or just long enough for it to become a part of our short-term memory but in high school we listen to the same songs every day over the span of years which firmly sets them in our long-term memories. We said or hear the liturgy only once a week but it's part of our long-term memory because we've said it once a week for 15 years or so. I've heard people complain that it's terrible that kids learn the same Bible stories in Sunday School year after year but that's how they become fixed in our memories. The stories with which we aren't familiar are the ones we only heard once in a while; short-term memory.

According to Brain Rules, that's how memory works. So... in confirmation, Sunday School, or even worship, what's the best way to get scripture into long-term memory? It's repetition over time. The key being over time. That doesn't mean it should be repeated 25 times in 10 minutes.  It should be repeated 25 times over 10 days, 10 months, or 10 years. The longer it is repeated, the longer it will stay in long-term memory. We may think it's boring for kids but the brain works the way the brain works. There's no arguing with that.

ADULT EDUCATION: It's not what you teach - it's HOW you teach.

In doing research for smaller congregations I often have pastors ask for resources for adults. People aren't coming to adult Bible study. My answer is this:  It's not WHAT you teach - it's HOW you teach that keeps them away. Every book of the Bible is full of compelling topics and God's truth. The problem is that most church workers are not taught how to teach, how to ask significant questions, and how to facilitate a good discussion that leads to deeper understanding. Most church workers believe (without admitting it) that they need to bring profound teaching to the people or that they need to unravel the mysteries of the Bible. THIS IS NOT TRUE! The Bible was not written in code.

Unfortunately I can't teach people how to be better teachers in a blog.  I can only give tips. The first key to educating well is knowing your students. Check out this post on teaching adults.

The next thing is how you package what you're teaching. Pastors say we're studying the book of Romans. Can you make it any less interesting? It's a letter to people who are struggling with being human and sinful. In the first 10 (or so) chapters we talk about:

• Righteousness & Unrighteousness - Which are you? If it's simple why the huge discussion?
• Obeying God's Law - Do you? Don't you? What are the consequences? What does it say about who you are?
• Faith and Peace - Really? There doesn't seem to be much around here.
• Obedience - Nobody likes this one...
• Dead to Sin/Alive to God - Look at your life. What does this really mean today?  
• The Purpose of the Law - Once you see your sin, what do you do about it? 
• Life in the Spirit - Why are you not happy?
• Message of Salvation - Why then are we not sharing this information? 

I'm so tired of LCMS Adult Bible studies that act like adults are stupid so they give the answers right in the questions. I'm so tired of pastors who lecture and give handouts that don't require anybody to think for themselves. Let the adults use their minds. Let them struggle with what God is telling them to do because we all know the answer - it's right in front of us in black and white - we just don't live by it. Let them struggle with why not together. Challenge them. Challenge yourself. It's no longer about what you should do about it. It's about what you do about it.