Today, I thought I'd give you a glimpse into our service planning process...and share some things we're looking at moving forward. For attenders of Calvary, hopefully this encourages you by letting you know that we are intentional and prayerful in our planning of services and are making our best effort to honor God and serve you through the planning process. For other church leaders, my goal is to let you in on our process and to invite you to share what your team does for service planning.
Pre-Brainstorm
Our service planning usually begins a year or so out when our Teaching Team, in partnership with the Senior Leadership Team, determines the topics for the messages for the next year. Six weeks prior to the beginning of the series, the Teaching Team provides the Creative Team with a synopsis of all the messages in the series.
Brainstorm
From there, the Creative Team has a brainstorming meeting and considers all of the options for supporting the services - either by supporting the content of the message (the overall message or a single point in the message), the theme of the service, or a particular element in the service. The team also brainstorms stage design, logos & branding, or any other special support elements.
Post-Brainstorm
After the brainstorm meeting, all the parties involved go and determine which ideas are actually doable or worth doing. After a week or so, the Creative Team meets back together for a follow-up meeting to make the actual plan for the services. Then, a representative from the Creative Team gets together with the Teaching Team to dialogue about the ideas and to hear if there are any concerns, additional thoughts, push-backs, etc. from the Teaching Team. If all is agreed upon, each member of the Creative Team works in their area and/or with their teams of volunteers to do carry out their part of the plan.
Weekly
On a weekly basis, the Creative Team meets to review the previous week's services - to address any problems or discuss things to do better or to avoid in the future. The team also meets weekly to make sure everything is done and everyone is on the same page for the upcoming week.
Project Management
Currently, we use a Word document that we call the "Teaching Schedule" to make sure everyone is on the same page. We link in message transcripts, drama scripts, videos for preview, etc. We also note in the document who is teaching and who is leading worship at each of our venues. The document contains any special elements that might be a part of a particular service (communion, choir, dances, special stage design elements, etc.
We're currently looking for a better solution (preferably something web-based) for team collaboration. Some of the options we're considering are Planning Center Online, Google Sites, 5pm, Basecamp, Teamwork Live, and Sharepoint...just to name a few. If you have any experience with any of these or any other service planning / team collaboration tools - please feel free to comment or shoot me an email.
If you're a church leader, we'd love to hear about your church's service planning process! If you're a Calvary attender, we'd love to hear from you too! Let us know how Calvary's services have impacted you.
