A good leader can build a solid team over time and the team will function well week after week under the leader’s direction.  However, someday, the inevitable will happen, the leader will not be there. What happens now? We can’t just close up shop, the team must go on but the outcome may vary tremendously depending on how the team has been led.

At it’s most basic form, a leader is a leader because someone is following, but a leader that brings excellence works constantly to turn those followers into leaders. It is easy to lead followers. Not to minimize this issue but it’s easy for me to lead my dog. Anywhere I go, my dog is right behind me. In fact, if I stop too quickly, she plows into me because she follows that closely sometimes. If I let her lead, she will look back at me and find her place back behind me.  She is not a leader, she’s a follower and a very good follower, at that.  One of the best.

• Know their Strengths and weaknesses - Talk to your team members one on one, know who they are and what’s important to them, know their goals and desires.
• Ownership - Provide opportunities to your team members to own the process, big or small.
• Be the cheerleader - As a leader, you are the biggest cheerleader of your team. That in itself will do more to encourage your team members and build them up than anything else.

It’s one thing to lead someone when you have some form of power over them, such as a paycheck or other tangible benefit but what does it take to lead those that owe you nothing?  The skill in this type of leadership has everything to do with your ability to meet the need that they need fulfilled.

Honestly, there’s no real reason that a volunteer needs to come back, they only come back because it is their choice.   The primary reason the volunteer will choose to come back is because of you and the way you are leading. Sure, there are plenty of other reasons to continue a volunteer role but honestly, I have seen people give up something that they are passionate about strictly because the leader was not leading well.

That’s sad!

Know your people. They are looking to you to lead. They want you to lead. Your job is to be their biggest cheerleader, both indvidually as well as cheering on the entire team on.

Believe in your team!

Believe in your people!

They will do so much more because you believe in them.

The teams I currently lead and ones I have led in the past are pretty amazing. I am able to show up and every once in awhile, point the direction we should be going.  But, my primary role is to stand back and let the team rock it, as I serve right along side them.

I’m Tim Golden aka Golden ~Eye~ around the net..

I am the Technology Director at RMC Research in Portsmouth, NH.

I am also the Tech Team leader at Durham Evangelical Church (dec) where God has given me the chance to work with some great people and serve my community, church, and God with the gifts he’s given me.. Let me share with you personally via the video below…or you can read part of my bio on the contributors page

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVO87gOt_04&w=345&h=284]

I was excited to learn that God was working in Jim’s heart to restore Church Tech Matters because as the name states.. church tech REALLY DOES matter.. Then when he invited me to be a contributor I was even more excited though a bit apprehensive too. Although writing does not come naturally to me I do enjoy to talk and being a part of the CTM Team is a great opportunity for me to ‘talk’ about where God has been leading me, building the team and growing all of us within his kingdom.

I’ve been working on growing the dec tech team over the last six months. As I prayed for God’s guidance and wisdom he began to reveal to me his vision for the dec tech team. So I’ve started by sharing that team vision with the dec tech team members and wrote my first CTM post about Growing church tech teams. We have many great committed members that love the lord, and want to use their gifts to help further His Kingdom.

I look forward to sharing our experiences at dec with the rest of the CTM community as well as growing and learning for the rest of the CTM members.

Blessings,
Tim Golden
http://twitter.com/goldeneye
www.timgolden.com

Proverbs 29:18
Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law.

As I begin to develop our team @durhame I thought it was important to share the vision I had for the ministry and to let my team members help develop the vision along with me.

I prayed about the ministry as God worked in my heart; he began to reveal to me three areas of the ministry that he wanted us to focus on:

At our first tech team meeting I shared the areas of the vision with the attendees and some of the ideas that were weighing on my mind. It was amazing how God placed the exact person to fill the roles.  For example, one topic I was thinking about was the PC Workshop that Jim Walton put on and though to myself this was a great idea; countless times I’ve heard from friends, neighbors, colleagues , about the tech challenges they face at home. When I shared this idea with the group immediately Scott (one of our team members) was intrigued and wanted to know more..because that’s where hist heart was at.. what I learned was.. God does provide

Mat:37-38
Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Our team is filled with great members, and they are helping to refine God’s vision for this ministry.  As their leader I continue to seek out opportunities where their gifts can be fulfilled though the ministry.

What is your team’s vision..? Have your team members been a part of growing the vision?

I encourage you to seek your members input and allow them to help refine the vision for your team.

I know in my church, in my department there is only one talent I prize above all others, dare I say many churches and perhaps even yours would be very similar.

Arriving (on time or early is preferable).

A video editing extraordinaire once offered his honed skills to me to serve in my church, we were going to do amazing things, yet never turned up. A certain sound engineer had the ears of an angel but was unable to be at anything when required. I’ve met many passionate people in my time serving at SURFCiTY Church but only only some of them have arrived, stayed, served and built the kingdom.

The only talent you can impress me with now after 6 years in the ministry is your ability to arrive (on time or early is preferable). Second to that is your ability to stay until the end, thirdly your ability to do what is asked of you.

Your university degree, or experience at another church and the hours you’ve spent reading manuals and training books means diddly squat when you’re not in a place where God can use it.

That’s my story at church, encouragment is thrown my way quite often, congregants think my videos are stunning, or that sound mix was delictable and my servanthood will surely be earning me treasures in heaven. My reply to them is that I am probably the least skilled, most unable person to be doing my job, but my team and self are the only ones arriving at 7:30am Sunday at the moment. My prayer is that others would arrive around me, replace me and do greater things than me, simply by arriving.

Mary and I had been talking about it and she listened as I shared about what I was feeling.  I have prayed a lot lately about this decision and it has slowly become apparent that the time was near.

As I have been preparing for Catalyst next week, many things are put off until after Catalyst, including this decision.  I thought. On one hand, it had been a long time coming, but man there was a moment last week when I knew I had to do it and I had to do it now!

What was that moment that pushed this decision into gear? It wasn’t my anger, it wasn’t a conversation I had or anything else like that.  It was God.  I think He just got tired of my lack of movement on it and my growing restlessness and He gave me a swift kick.

Everything that I have done lately, everything I have thought and everything that has happened around me seems to point to one thing: it’s time to go.

One thing that validated this thought was watching LifeChurch.tv with my family last Tuesday night.  The main scripture was Genesis 12 where God commands Abram to leave and go to the place where God would show him.  Of course we know that he left and God blessed him tremendously.  That sermon that night seemed to fit right into where I am at lately and filled in all the blanks.

I met with my pastor early Saturday morning to share my decision with him and honestly, I’m glad to have that behind me.  Good or bad, that’s a tough conversation to have.

Anything that I am leading, whether at work or church or anywhere, my goal is to make things better than they were when I started, and also to finish strong.  I think I have succeeded in both of those areas in this case and I hope the church leadership feels the same.

Sometimes we tend to question God and this is a time like that for me.  I have been in the process of rejuvinating the network, the new firewall, switch and APs are in and scheduled to be installed in a couple of weeks.  That upgrade is going to help in so many ways to make the network more stable and secure.  That’s one of those projects that gives a great deal of satisfaction once it’s done and you can see the results.  Now, for me, this is going to be like mowing the lawn and finishing after dark, then moving away.  There is no satisfaction in looking across the lawn and seeing the results of your effort and knowing that it’s making a difference.  This kind of project would be a milestone, marking a turn in the way technology is used.  It’s going to allow the church to have an open, secure wifi network which will allow anyone to come in when the church is open and surf the internet.  That is one of many benefits.

The irony of last week was after turning in my budget for 2009, the main financial person in the church emailed me, questioning why the budget was so large and a couple of specifics on it.  In my mind and heart, I knew I was done there and it would have been easy to blow that off and just agree to let those things be dropped.  But at the same time, I hadn’t made my decision known yet, so for all anyone knew, that was my role.  So, I responded and explained in detail my thought process going into my submission.  We ended up going back and forth via email and I agreed to a slight modification in concept, although inconsequential to the larger picture, and in the end, he said he agreed with all that I have told him and he would move forward with the budget as submitted.

Major victory for the tech ministry and for all the lives that will potentially be touched by the added use of technology over the next year.  One of the things in question was a new server.  Essentially, all that needs to be said is that it is 8+ years old and that should be sufficient, to a techie at least.  We discussed this at great length and I shared how a year in the life of a server is like 12.3 human years, so do the math.  Not really, but I shared many details of the risks of relying on a server that old.

So, I pushed to the very end, then abruptly brought my role in all of this to a halt.  I agreed to finish out the firewall install in a couple of weeks but that’s probably more selfishness on my part.  I want to see the end result of this baby that I worked hard to make the sale to the church leadership and get it approved.  So, that’s my last hurrah, then I’m out.

Now what?

No clue.  I have been enjoying worshipping in some different places with my family but beyond that, only God knows where this is leading.  I have to believe that God has a plan for my life and this is just another step in that direction.

At this point, it’s better for my family and I to worship someplace else and we’ll see where that leads.  We haven’t officially left our church but we are enjoying some new scenery.

As things unfold and become less fresh, I’ll share more.  I expect to have more time to write because I have less responsibility.  I’ll probably share more about where my passions lie and what kind of role I see myself playing in all of that in my future.

I do have an opinion of a tech volunteer role vs. a tech non-volunteer role and I’ll be sharing about that in the near future as well.

For now, I am free of some responsibilities and pumped about getting to Atlanta for Catalyst.  Anyone else going to be there? Let me know. Let’s connect somehow while we’re there.  Mary and I are meeting up with about 10 other church leaders from around the country and all of us are staying with some very generous friends.

It should be an incredible week.  I know I need that right about now.  Maybe God’s timing is good after all.

This is my third attempt to write this post.  It’s been a challenge to write, which reassures me that it must be the right thing to do at the right time.  Versions 1 and 2 went something like this:

• V.1 is MIA, maybe I never even started it.
• V.2 is more like the story of my life and much too long.  It’s one I probably need to fill in more details and publish as my testimony or something but that is not my goal today.

Third time is a charm

I have worked in many different roles in the corporate I.T. world over the past 12 and a half years.  Over the past several years, I feel like God has been leading me to something new and something way beyond myself and that appears to be something in the church I.T. world.

I have spent 3 years in a ministry leadership role in my own church, and over the past year, I have built a team of about 10 volunteers who are willing to serve and are truly gifted in the roles they serve in.  I am intentional about raising up leaders and challenging everyone to take ownership of their area and make it better.

As I mentioned in my last post, they really are the Dream Team, most of the time, I just point the direction and get out of the way.  I lead a very diverse and talented team and together we are doing so much within the church.  Leadership is a definite strength which I bring to the table, as well as managing a growing team of volunteers.

Obviously, I don’t know where God is leading and He could honestly be leading me to be fulltime at Fairview, but since I don’t know, I am being pro-active.  God will open the door to the right opportunity and close all other doors.

Do I really know how to do this?

Since I’m new to the idea of trying to seriously market myself to a church, I really don’t know the right way to do it.  I’m going about this in my own way and letting God take care of the rest.

First off, I took my corporate oriented resume and modified it to focus on my church work, as well as my I.T. job experience because it all applies in the roles I am considering now.  However, once that was done, it occurred to me that my resume still did not give an accurate impression of who I am, what I have done and what I am currently doing.  My resume especially did not express my heart for tech in the church and my passion for this type of ministry.

Honestly, this blog gives you a good picture of who I am and what’s important to me, but I’m not going to expect someone who hasn’t kept up for the last few years to sort through all of this.

Does he really need another website?

So, I created a new website that is basically an online resume and specifically, a site about me.  I think it gives a better impression of who I am and what I’m about and the ways that I see God using me even more in the church.  My traditional resume can also be downloaded from this site.

Titles are really irrelevant, but the type of position I am interested in might be considered I.T. Director, Technical Arts Director or Systems Administrator. I’m not limiting myself to these, but I thought it might help if you happen to see an open position with a church.  I’m also realizing that I could easily fit into a Communications Director role, a person that is responsible for all communication within the church, both internal and with our community.  This might include branding sermon series and overseeing website content, and many other things.  I see far too many spelling errors and grammatical errors come from churches in e-mail, newsletters, websites or otherwise and that’s not good.  Sometimes, we need to pay attention to the little details.  Of course, where I end up may be a combination of any or all of the above roles.

Now Go!

Check it out! Go to my site, get to know me and my strengths and accomplishments.  Download my resume, in Word format or as a pdf and who knows, you might even find an easter egg on the site.  Let me know if do.

If you need someone like me at your church, give me a call at 417.483.5901.  I’m ready to talk about it.

John, our worship pastor came back and mentioned that it looks like the dream team and I said something about that’s why I wasn’t up there. He went on to say even more reason to call it the dream team then. I said thank you, jokingly, but as I have thought that through, I mean it. Thank you, John!

The way I figure it, if I can build a dream team that functions as well or better without me, then I’m doing something right. God has blessed this church with many willing, talented servants in the tech ministry .

For the record, from left to right is Daniel, the nuts and bolts guy of the team, if it needs to get done, Daniel is on it, Rachel (sitting down), she is the owner of the lights and she takes lighting very seriously, Jim (the other Jim), the newest member of the team, already proving his value and Nina, a true servant, the one that does far more for the smooth operation of the tech ministry on Sunday morning than she realizes and I appreciate that so much.

Here is the lean and mean second service dream team, Steven running sound, I think he started running sound about a day after birth, and Mary, the master of EasyWorship and the most attractive person on the team, in my humble opinion. We are missing Chris, who usually runs lights but I told him last week he could take some time off and Jim (the other Jim) was still around running the camera, though not when I took the pic. Of course, I can’t forget Mike, he floats in and out of the sound booth on Sunday morning, mostly to be social. There’s nothing wrong with that because I know he’s not a soundbooth kind of guy.

I appreciate all of these people a great deal and they are all vital to the smooth operation of this ministry. This is a very eclectic group of people that has come together to function like a well oiled machine.

One thing that I am excited about is that Daniel is going to be stepping up and taking on more of a leadership role and some time in the near future, he and I will alternate Sunday’s, so on his Sunday, he will take the lead in both services as well as run sound. On my Sunday, I will do the same, except Steven will be in the house to cover second service sound.

We all love hiding in the back and prefer to go unnoticed, except for Donna. She would rather be on stage singing, but she is still a vital part of the Dream Team. Beyond A/V/L, we also support all I.T. functions in the church and that’s a large part of Donna’s role.  Plus, she has given us a perspective of what it’s like to be on stage, as we deal with lighting, monitor placement and other things like that.

So, things are taking shape. I need to get a solid backup for Mary in place so we can have the same alternating Sunday’s off, that’s a definite need. All in all, I’m very happy with where we are at this point.

Thank you, Dream Team!

Honestly, I love my church and I love where we are going and what we are starting.  I have always been a builder, starting with nothing and creating something big.  So, in that regard, I love being here and it will be exciting to grow with the church and see God turn it into something more than what it is now.

On the other hand, there is so much opportunity out there and churches doing big things and I would love to jump in the middle of that somewhere to do the things that God is calling me to do.

He was supportive as I told him I am beginning to pursue some possible opportunities, but at this point there is nothing definite at all.  My point in this was to re-start the conversation of bringing me on full-time, even though I am sure it’s not an option at this point, due to money.

We did talk about some creative ways that we could come together that would allow me to be more available for the church and allow me to reach out to other churches, as well, and do that full-time.  That is really where my heart is, reaching many churches.

I’ve got some ideas and I’ve been working toward something like this for a long time but now I’ve got some work to do to make it real.  We’ll see where things go over the next couple of months and where God leads.  I have really gotten away from the the vision that God originally gave to me for my role in the church and I need to come back around to that.

There’s no point to this post, just me sorting through some thoughts and documenting them.

Praying for God’s will to be clear in my life as I move forward.