As I said in PART 1 of this series, the relationship between a lead pastor and the creative team has such incredible potential to impact the life of a church.  Sadly, this potential often goes unrealized, and it’s almost always due to conflict.  Pastors and artists are often people with radically different gifts and personalities and needs, and seeing eye-to-eye requires some real spiritual and emotional maturity.  But, a few quick tips never hurt!  Today, it’s time for church artists to go under the magnifying glass.  How can artists learn to win the confidence of their pastor, and build a thriving collaborative relationship? Here are 5 suggestions:

1. Dethrone the Pursuit of Art

Most artists believe that there is something divine and holy about the act of creating.  I can wax poetic about the fact that art possesses a unique power to touch the human heart, and that we are perhaps never more like our Creator than when we ourselves create things of beauty, truth, and meaning.  And while all that is true, it’s also dangerous territory.  It’s easy for me to become more about the joy of creating than I am about joyfully worshiping the Creator.  It’s easy to worship art (as I discuss at greater length here). But here’s the truth.  Art is a tool, PERIOD.  It’s an amazing tool, but still, it is useful only insofar as it moves people towards experiencing God.  If it doesn’t do that, it’s a treacherous distraction.

2. Adopt Ruthless Practicality

In addition to the need to have a healthy perspective on the purpose of art, we must also become unswervingly practical about the purpose of art specifically in a church setting.   There’s no room for pet projects and art-for-art’s sake in the relentless Sunday-driven rhythm of most churches.  So get over it.   This is the realm of art-for-Christ’s sake.  90% of the time, that means channeling your creative energies into the weekend worship experience.  When your pastor doesn’t have to continually reign you in to focus on what happens in the sanctuary, then you’re more likely to eventually see greater freedom to pursue things outside Sunday mornings.

3. Embrace the Box

I can’t count the number of battles I fought with my pastor or worship leader, challenging them to think outside the box.  You know what?  I eventually learned I was dead wrong.  I needed to think inside the box.  I needed to accept the boundaries of the structure of our worship service, the culture of our church, and the personal preferences of our pastor.  No, that didn’t mean give up, or stop pushing myself as an artist.  Precisely the opposite.  I committed to doing the very best work I could do within the boundaries I was given.  The strangest thing happened.  My work got more focused, more results-oriented, and just plain better.  Along the way, I showed my leaders that I was a team player, and learned that structure is the most fertile ground for creativity.

4. Save the Drama for your Momma

Let’s just admit it… many pastors would say that they find their artists to be needy, temperamental, and exhaustingly high-maintenance.  That’s because, for most artists, the act of creation is highly personal.  That’s a good thing, in that it means we are prone to pouring ourselves into what we do.  But it’s a bad thing in that we all too often personalize what we’ve created – so if someone doesn’t like our work, they don’t like us!  We’ve got to see that for what it is – a lie that the enemy feeds us to create division.  You are not your work.   It’s right and good for others to have opinions about your work, and you’re obligated

as an artist to hear them, and learn from them, without interpreting every criticism as a personal attack.

5. Paint a Vision of the Future

On the one hand, you have to be ruthlessly practical about the purpose of art in church, and strive to do the best work possible within the boundaries before you. But once you have built a firm foundation on that ethic, something happens.  You earn the right to be heard, and can use that privilege to cast vision.  As an artist, you have a God-given gift to see alternate realities – to see a version of the future that is better than the present because of the impact of creative action.  Whether it’s adding an element of dance to your worship setting, or bringing in new hardware to run media, or starting a feature film at your church, you have the ability to see what’s possible and share that vision in a way that invites others to become engaged – once you have earned the right to be heard.

As with my last post, my head is buzzing with important points that just didn’t make the top 5… but that doesn’t mean they don’t need to be heard.  So, I turn it over to you.  What have I missed?  Share your ideas and experiences on how

creatives can work well with pastors in the comments below!

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Working with Kyle Idleman, Teaching Minister at Southeast Christian Church, on the set of H2O

When preachers and creative teams play well together, the impact is obvious.  Fluid, cohesive, purposeful weekend services, full of carefully crafted worship moments – an atmosphere thoughtfully designed to prepare the hearts and minds of the congregation for the word and presence of God.

And how often does that happen?  Far too seldom.  The fact is that the relationship between the pastor and the creative team is delicate and fraught with pitfalls – and in many churches, it’s just broken.   So I’m going to spend a couple of posts focusing on what each party can do to foster health, understanding, and productive cooperation.  Today, we start with the man in charge.  Pastors, here are 5 tips you can use to get the most out of your creative team:

1. Give them time to Dream & Deliver.

I once had a church media director ask how he could create great material for worship when he never has more than a week’s notice what the sermon topic will be.  My answer?  You can’t.  Great ideas may come in a flash, but executing them takes time.  No viagra 50mg way around it, you have to have your sermons planned out weeks ahead.

2. Ask for their vision…and then trust it!

If you’re used to ordering up a video or drama every weekend in the same way you’d dial Domino’s for a made-to-order pizza, I guarantee that your creative team is miserable.  Try this…give

them the sermon topics and let them create.  And if you’re never at least a bit nervous about what they’re trying to pull off, then you’ve hired the wrong team.

3. Understand what art does best.

I once worked as Drama Minister under a pastor who wanted every skit to present a challenge to Christian living and wrap up neatly by giving the appropriate Biblical solution.  I’d always argue that the role of art in worship is to move emotions, open hearts, and ask hard questions – leaving the preaching for the sermon!  The best video or drama or worship experience is one that leaves the congregation dying to hear what you have to say.

4. Don’t evaluate subjectively.

If I’ve heard this once, I’ve heard it a thousand times:  “The congregation loves what I do, but my pastor just isn’t a video/drama/arts kind of guy”.  And really, you don’t have to be.  That’s why you have a creative team!  But if your evaluation of their work is always critical because creative stuff just isn’t your bag, you’ll suck the life out of them.  Learn to judge their work by the impact it has on the congregation, rather than by your own personal tastes.

5. Expect and accept failure.

Good creative teams are never satisfied with yesterday’s success.  They are always pushing the limits, trying new things…and that means that failure is inevitable.  Be ready…it can be ugly.  Let’s face it, a bad sermon is just boring, but a bad skit can be excruciating!  Because of that, creative failures are all too often laced with drama, leading to declarations of “We’ll never do THAT again!”  As the leader, it’s your responsibility to help your team put failure in the proper perspective – as an essential part of learning and growing.

Of course, each of those five points could be a whole blog post on its own, and my head is already spinning with more tips that should be added.  But what about you?   Where have you seen pastors work well with their teams, and where have you observed dysfunction?   What tops would you add to my list?  Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Here’s the good news: Countless churches across the country have recognized that the power that media and storytelling can bring to the worship experience is worthy of a full-time staff position. The age of the church Media Director has dawned.

Here’s the bad news: There are few people truly qualified for the job.  It’s painfully common for a lay person to cut together a neat little mission trip video, and wake up to discover he’s the new church Media Director.

If you’re a video enthusiast and have suddenly found yourself leading a production ministry, you should be encouraged by the fact that the best training you can get for making great church media is DOING IT – finding, filming and telling visual stories over and over and over. But for many of you serving in the local church, having an opportunity to practice regularly isn’t the issue.  Sunday

comes every week!  But because your practice isn’t supported and informed by a foundation of knowledge, you aren’t growing like you should.

So let’s start building that foundation! Over the years, I’ve read countless books on directing, acting, and filmmaking process.  95% of them are a shameless waste of perfectly good trees – but here are 6 great books guaranteed to jump start your artistic growth:

On Directing:

It can honestly be said that Steven D. Katz wrote the book on directing – TWICE. His books Shot by Shot and Cinematic Motion are quite literally the textbooks on how a director goes about telling a story in a series of images. From the first step of initially visualizing a scene, through the basics of camera coverage, and on to advanced staging and camera techniques, this is a total education. The only downside to these books is the they are a bit dry, and often feel like textbooks. But if you’re really serious about telling visual stories, then get serious and devour these amazing books.

On Creating Memorable Images:

Once you’ve mastered the fundamentals of camera coverage, the fun really begins. A good director knows that a shot can do infinitely more than just provide a frame in which an actor speaks. The movement and angle of the camera, the framing of the shot, and the composition of the image – these things have tremendous power to evoke emotion and impart meaning. The Filmmaker’s Eye, by Gustavo Mercado, begins with image composition 101, and moves on to more complex applications with shots from well-known films. And Christopher Kenworthy’s Master Shots lays out 100 advanced techniques of composition and motion that can be easily recreated on any budget.

On Crafting Your Story:

All of us are experts in experiencing story, of knowing a good one when we hear it. But why

do some stories soar while others fall flat? And how can you fix your story when it’s flat-out broken?  Or a more pressing question for church filmmakers and media directors:  How can I find and tell a compelling story in this missions report video, or this capital campaign promo, or this sermon illustration the pastor wants me to bring to life?  The book on story that has most influenced my work through the years is The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler.  Synthesizing the work of anthropologist and story pioneer Joseph Campbell, Vogler clearly explains how every good story shares a common journey – they are, in fact, the same story.  There’s tremendous theological significance in this, as well as a step-by-step road map to effective storytelling.  But while Vogler’s book often feels like a philosophy textbook, Paul Chitlik’s book Rewrite is a fast, fun read that will show you how to be lovingly ruthless with your work.  With the skills you gain in hacking, slashing, and restructuring your work, you’ll be able to diagnose and cure your ailing story of almost any ill.

But here’s the big question:  what have I missed?  What are the books that have influenced your journey as a visual storyteller?  Don’t Bogart the knowledge!  Share your picks in the comments below.