Taking Charge or Laying Low

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 4 Comments

Most of us techies are task oriented people. We probably are, or have the potential to be, productive managers. This is something that is a great benefit to the churches where we serve. We are known as people who get stuff done. If we took a strength finder test, achievement would be in our top five. This is how many of us are wired (If you’re not wired that way, that’s OK. Maximizing your gifts, and helping others flourish in their’s, is the path to success, after all).

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

Most tech people I know are detailed planners. We want all the details (all!) ASAP. Perhaps even before that. Our goal is to help the ministry be successful and to see people’s lives changed by the power of the Gospel. Our part is to make sure all of the technical ducks are in a row so nothing blocks what God is doing. There are always curve balls. We know and accept that.

By planning all of the details that we can control ahead of time, we give adequate time and space for the curveballs that come up right before or during the service/event/project.

That seems so obvious it shouldn’t be stated. Therein lies the problem. It is not obvious to some of our teammates.

I have often been part of a project that started to go off the rails because of lack of planning and communication (I like to say, “the wheels fell off the bus” as an analogy for failure that leads to more failure).

I see two extremes for handling this potential minefield: we can take charge or lay low.
The answer probably lies somewhere between the two extremes, and depending on the situation, leans one way or the other.

Keep thinking! Continue reading.

Book Review: Untitled by Blaine Hogan

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ Leave a comment

untitledbookcover

The Bottom Line

“Untitled: Thoughts on the Creative Process” is Blaine Hogan’s manifesto to other creative artists in the church. The title comes from that place of dread that anyone who has ever attempted a creative endeavor knows too well: The Blank Page.

What follows is a collection of thoughts derived as I’ve wrestled with my own creative process of filling blank pages, and I now offer them to you.
from the introduction.

That may not sound like a mind-blowingly, powerful beginning, but Blaine delivers. The lessons he has learned are worth your time. The book is great material for reading together with any team at a church or ministry that is creatively telling the Gospel. Blaine’s writing style is approachable and disarming and naturally leads into discussion.

The book is divided into 4 movements:

Movement I: The Work
Movement II: The Inside Out (and other philosophies)
Movement III: Fear, Failure, and Making Mistakes
Movement IV: Worth It

I should note that I read this book on my iPad and, therefore, do not have page numbers for my quotes. The quotes are from each specific movement. Although the book was written in July of 2011, I expect it to be relevant for many years.

Keep thinking! Continue reading.

Lab or Factory or Church

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 8 Comments

TestTubes

My mind has been spinning for the last week on a recent Seth Godin post, “The Lab or the Factory”. I have been contemplating what this distinction could reveal about the way we do church. It has also given me a new paradigm to freshly examine my own experiences.

The lab or the factory.

You work at one, or the other.

At the lab, the pressure is to keep searching for a breakthrough, a new way to do things. And it’s accepted that the cost of this insight is failure, finding out what doesn’t work on your way to figuring out what does. The lab doesn’t worry so much about exploiting all the value of what it produces–they’re too busy working on the next thing.

…

The factory, on the other hand, prizes reliability and productivity. The factory wants no surprises, it wants what it did yesterday, but faster and cheaper.

Seth Godin

Some personalities are more lab technician, others are more factory worker.
Churches are also either labs or factories: partly because of the personality of our leaders and partly because of the philosophy of ministry.

Some leaders prefer an assembly line approach where they are in control of the methods and results. They prize efficiency in the execution of their ideas. For some people, this approach works really well. My wife is one of them. She would say: tell me what to do, show me how you want me to do it, and I will work really hard to improve efficiency and maximize the return.

Other leaders prefer a lab approach where the organized chaos leads to innovation. They prize learning with each individual creating additional value. They are trendsetters in new ministry methods and experiences. Others often come later and improve on the things they’ve pioneered. This is where I come in. I like to question things. If it’s not broken, let’s break it and see if we can make it better. I would say: tell me what you want to accomplish, the problem you want to solve, and I’ll help you figure out how to do it. Then I’ll move to the next problem.

With these very different styles, it would be valuable to understand both the kind of ministry we serve in and our natural bias.

Keep thinking! Continue reading.

A Tale of Two Sacrifices

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ Leave a comment

Recently, I was listening to a podcast, and something the speaker, Dr. Chris Green, said captured me. The point involved Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac within a larger discussion of the sacraments and how we approach the Lord’s Table.*

The kind of work God wants to do in your life is deeper than you can imagine. Think about Isaac and Ishmael. J. H. King** … preached this sermon about Isaac and Ishmael. You remember the story from Abraham. Abraham cannot have a child. Finally, Sarah convinces him to have child with Hagar, the servant girl. This boy, Ishmael, is born. And then later God miraculously gives them Isaac. If you’ve been around Pentecostal churches at all, you’ve heard this sermon about Isaac and Ishmael.

J. H. King says this, ‘Ishmael is an example of what it looks like when God takes out of our life what should never have been there. The sin that you brought into your life or that others forced into your life, when God takes that out, that is God ridding you of Ishmael.
But when God calls you to sacrifice Isaac, that’s God calling you to give up something God gave you.’

Lately, I have been very interested in scrutinizing the way we do church. As a technical director, I am “in the flow” of how we communicate the Gospel and very often, the forms of our ministry. Let’s apply the difference between these two sacrifices to how we do the work of the ministry.

And I should add that I really think this is applicable to all Christians. All of us are on assignment even if we do not work at a church. There is a ministry that God has given you. That’s what I’m focusing on.
Keep thinking! Continue reading.

The Anti-Artist

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 1 Comment

MountainLake

I used to think that some people just didn’t get it. I now realize they are actively hostile.

Some of us have a creative impulse, a muse that whispers to our souls, telling us to make, paint, write, build. We spend our lives learning how to get this thing that is burning inside us, out.

Others, like a crab in a boiling pot of water (thwarting any who dare try and escape a slow death), watch to mock, critique and reject.

There is another War of Art than the internal battle that Steven Pressfield so masterfully exposes.
It is a war with the anti-artist.

  • That’s too expensive
  • What a waste of time
  • That extra stuff doesn’t matter
  • No one can tell the difference

Keep thinking! Continue reading.