Having core values through which you filter everything else is an incredibly valuable tool in decision making for teams and team members.
One of my favorite exercises to do with ministry teams is to help them establish core values. Years ago, at a national worship leaders conference, a gentleman led us through an exercise that I have used in churches and teams ever since. I ask the members of whatever team it is to write down 3-5 items each on individual note cards that for them are non-negotiables for the outcomes of their team to be achieved. For instance, a teaching team might say things like “good illustrations”, “doctrinally sound”, “slides on the screen to engage visual learners”, etc. Once I’ve collected everyone’s note cards, I lay them out on a table and ask them to begin putting cards with other cards that have similar answers. Once they’ve lumped the cards together with other like cards, we label each group with a succinct 1 or 2 word phrase that encapsulates the common idea of that group of cards. From here, we look at what the Bible has to say about the particular outcomes this team is hoping to achieve and measure the categories we’ve come up with based on whether or not God finds those things we labeled as non-negotiable as important to Him. If not, we adjust. If so, we have our core values for that team through which everything else can be filtered.
The practice of pre-decision making has become so valuable to me in the past year or so. Deciding ahead of time what I will do in a given situation makes the decision making process in the moment so much easier for me. This is part of why Core Values are so important to me in any group I am hoping to lead well. It helps decision making go so much better. If what I’m thinking of doing doesn’t line up with the Core Values we have decided on, I don’t do it. If it does line up with the Core Values, I can do it, and most often will do it.
Not every Worship Ministry should or must have the same Core Values. The context one is leading in might lead one to arrive at the necessity of an out loud corporate prayer in their services, and another context might find that entirely out of place. One team may decide a call to worship helps engage their congregation well, and another team may determine using a pre-service video engages their people better. This post isn’t intended to spell out what Core Values your worship ministry should have, but rather to help you think about how helpful Core Values can be and how you can set them up in any ministry team you are involved in.
Another thing to consider is that Worship Gathering Core Values are likely going to be different than Team Dynamic Core Values. I think having both is incredibly valuable. The way we relate to each other and view our roles on our worship team is incredibly important, but that wouldn’t necessarily lead to the same type of values you would need for carrying out a worship service. To expound on that, our team dynamics, or culture as I like to refer to it, is an all week long, all year around, off the platform as much as on the platform thing. Whereas what we deem necessary for a Sunday morning service to achieve our goal of people connecting to God doesn’t speak to much about the team culture off the platform or more than just on a particular Sunday morning.
To give an example of Core Values for a worship team, I’ll share with you where we have landed at the church I currently serve at as it pertains to how we as a worship team relate to each other.
Our Team Dynamic or Cultural Core Values are as follows:
- We Are Servants, Not Stars.
- No one on our team is meant to be the one on display in our worship gatherings. We are there to help put Christ on display and be a clear glass through which they see Jesus rather than a stained glass which focuses on the image in the glass itself. Nothing is beneath us in our ministry, and we want to serve each other, our church, and God humbly and gratefully because He has invited us into His kingdom work and it’s not because of how special we are. We don’t seek out opportunities to exalt ourselves or gain others praise or approval.
- We Are Faithful, Not Flawless.
- Perfection is not attainable, and therefore not the goal. God has not asked us to be perfect, and throughout Scripture is very clear that He knows we can’t be perfect. This doesn’t just pertain to our sin nature, but also our humanity in how we perform tasks. We choose to emphasize the idea faithfulness over perfection or even excellence. Are we called to do things excellently? Absolutely! But excellence is very subjective and has often turned off people in the church and on our teams when the connotation is about “how good we have to be”. However, faithfulness can be very objective and will look different for each team member. One can know if they gave their best in timeliness, preparation, attitude, etc. We don’t expect people to be flawless, because God doesn’t expect us to be flawless. But we do expect people to be faithful with the time and talent they’ve been given so we can collectively bring our best to God.
- We Are Kin, Not Competition.
- I know, my attempt at good ole Baptist alliteration fell a little short with this one, forgive me lol. This core value is one that is especially important to me. In the realm of the arts, comparison is such a difficult obstacle to overcome. I struggle with comparison all the time. I wonder if people think someone is better than me, if people think I’m inadequate, if they view me as in their way or as family. I see time and time again that people wrongly place their identity and value in whether they are given a role that is above someone else or are at least viewed as better than someone else, or what’s even worse, that someone is acknowledged as lesser than them. We should view each person we get to serve with as a family member that we love and cheerlead and want to see flourish in all areas of ministry and life. When we view them as competition, we do them, ourselves, God, the church as a whole a huge disservice. It doesn’t help anyone, it only hurts all involved.
As you see, we kept the list short and sweet, we made it fairly easily memorable, we stated each in the affirmative and we used Scriptural principles as our guide for how God wants us to operate. When these Core Values are consistently applied, it leads to an incredibly healthy culture in our teams. Just like memorization of concepts, phrases, even Scripture allows us to think correctly in our responses to situations and people around us, having these values in our mind can help us to process who we are responding to and serving each other the way God would want us to. If I am kin, not competion with my team member, I don’t have any business playing the comparison game. If I am a servant, not a star, I seek to exalt Christ rather than hoping everyone is looking and listening to me.
In what areas might having Core Values help you or your teams? Do you have Core Values for your team or your life even? Having a filter through which all things can run helps us to remove the “bad” or even the “not best” and pursue that which is most effective for pursuing the mission(s) to which Christ has called us!
Let me know how I can help you and/or your team with this!
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