rainy Saturday and the red door...

Every curious about how stage designs get done?
This is part of our Creative Team, who gathered on a rainy Saturday to prepare a stage/set design to support an in house sketch written for Easter Sunday. We had a really great time!


Here is the actual performance from Easter.

And this is what the stage looked like on the morning of Easter.

Last, but not least this is the image that was created for our newspaper ads. Love it!

I spend a LOT of my Saturdays, preparing the various elements for the stage design each week. Trust me they don't just magically appear.

team building: engage and instruct…

My over arching plan for team development is…
These are the stages:
Invite, engage, instruct, empower and edify…
1. Do stage designs
2. Develop a team to implement stage designs
3. Train, grow leaders (duplicate myself)
4. Get styling the stage group up and running
5. Develop contacts of people interested in sewing, construction and 5S
6. Working on data base
7. Rinse and repeat…
After I get to know the person and extended the invite and they have taken that leap of faith to come try us out…
I find out if they have any interest in learning more, what kind of time commitment they are able to offer and then try to work around that.
Instruct…
A year ago, I was feeling so frustrated. I had offered to teach at our creative arts retreat.
I thought it would be neat to have a cool name for our group…
I designed a fuZe logo for a promo for the retreat…
I had thought about having tracks for people to follow to learn about various teams they could serve on…
But, I was the new kid on the block, they didn’t know what I was thinking,
This year they were ready…
Our team actually is using the cool team name, someone else came up with the idea and I got on board….
We are actually using the fuZion logo I designed last year…
It’s up and running on our new website (need to tweak, not enough info)…
This year at our fuZion retreat are doing track learning sessions…
I couldn’t be more excited. I don’t care how things get implemented. I am just happy when they are implemented.
I have a fun creative track designed for the ENHANCE team (new name, used to be pPod)
We are going to be learning about our personality types and how it works when we interact as a team.
Everyone who has expressed interest in the ENHANCE team is going to actually go through the design process up to and including preparing all the experiential and stage design elements at the retreat. We will be creating an experiential Passover Seder for 250-300 people.
The best part…the participants get to implement their element "hands on" that Sunday. I pray that they will feel the excitement of actually seeing the fruits of their labor and want to do more…

team building: the intentional invite (part 2)...

More importantly for me: As I meet people in life who are unchurched or dechurched simply get to know them and their stories. Then I find out if they have any interest in creative ideas (usually people like this are drawn to me). I call it Starbucks evangelism...
Various people I have met at Starbucks:

Woodwork artist (jewelry-furniture): Unchurched gal. Have a thought of a 7 foot tao cross I would like to pay her to create as a stage prop. Just waiting for the money, the right element to introduce the cross.
Metal artist (welding, etc): Dechurched. Same idea. I have some ideas of nice metal sculptures to grace the stage.
Construction: Two guys: one (Dechurched) does commercial housing and retail construction and the second guy (Unchurched) around does home improvement helping others, decks, etc. I have several projects on the burners. Looking to ask them to help in building storage cabinets, stage platform (that piece together like a puzzle and folds flat for easy storage), and stage flats. I am inviting this guy to the fuZion retreat. Either by scholarship or I will pay for him.
Musician (piano): Dechurched Jehovah’s Witness. Prodigy pianist. Plays everything by ear. Waiting for the right elements to include him in.
Animae artist (2): Dechurched. Haven’t figured out how to use them, except maybe designing some graphics for series. Hey, we just got a graffiti artist for our church involved in graphics.
Crafty (needlework): Churched, but very unhappy at her fairly traditional church. Does amazing needle work and really needs people to connect with. If I had had time, I would have asked her to needlework covers for the Seder plates for the Passover element coming up. Still working on getting way more lead time for designing elements. We are only designing 4-6 weeks out currently.
Drama, little theater: Young, dechurched woman I worked with at Starbucks. Loves little theater, particularly stage managing. Still working on getting her involved. Working on creating a volunteer stage manager for behind the scenes. As we do larger productions, there needs to be someone to control what is happening backstage. And someone to direct random volunteers that pop up on stage after church who want to lend a hand.
Costuming: Unchurched. Just haven’t found the right project yet. But, will somehow be involved with dancing and future dramas.
Dance instructor: Dechurched. Working on getting the right elements approved to get her involved.

Have you ever considered looking to invite the unchurched to become part of your team?

how God explodes...

When I started blogging, less than a year ago, I simply needed a place to download all the freaky creative ideas that thrash around in my head.
Then God goes and explodes in my brain...
It is an understatement to say I now spend 20-40 hours a week focusing on research and future visioning along with actual week to week implementation of stage design and experiential elements for our services, working with my team and creating new teams.
The thing about designing worship elements is that they keep showing up regularly, like clock work, every seven days and it’s Sunday again.
As I started to download my ideas, I realized there were three primary areas I thought about.
Styling the stage: stage/set designs
Experiential elements that involved all the senses in the worship experience (5S).
Marketing
So much has changed over the last year. I thought I’d share thoughts today on how this initial little thought about downloading my freaky ideas that were rumbling around in my brain into a blog; has exploded…

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Team Building

I started on our creative team a little over a year ago. With no experience except participation in drama productions in high school and college, and a mind full of strange ideas. Some ideas just happen in my brain. Other ideas, I simply see during my web surfing and extrapolate out how to apply them to what we are doing. I find people who are doing it and then try to teach myself how to do it. I started alone and grew to four people fairly quickly. (Leigh Anne, Me, Genny and Beth)
Team building: the intentional invite (part 1)….
When people approach me at church with comments about liking some element they have just experienced. I immediately stop what I am doing and focus on getting to know them, asking them questions about what they like, gently see if they are interested and invite them to check it out.
People I have invited this way:
Sewing: This lady was drawn in because of the tabernacle experience. Her comment was, “when the curtains opened all I could think was that is a lot of yardage”. LOL. She was ready. She really wanted a way to connect and uses her talent of sewing. She has now completed two projects (a skirt for our on stage screen and a cover for the media cart where our monitors sit on in the lobby).
Sewing banners: This gal created this Judah banner. Want to use it for our upcoming Passover Seder element.
Graffiti artist: Simply been waiting for him to have the time. We finally got a graphic project for him to be involved with. Have several ideas as he has the time.
Experiential: Commented on our dances and the bread element. Just working on the timing.
New empty nester: working on the timing now.
There are several more that I am tracking.
Each of these people is being personally invited to our upcoming fuZion retreat.

I've been tallking to various people through out the year. Keeping track of them and have several new people that appear to be ready to start helping.

I sent them an e-mail inviting them to our big blow out fuZion retreat coming up in March.
I am printing out postcards and attaching a small gift to give to each person this week with a face-to-face invite.

I'm also working on a little thank-you gift for my peeps that have served so faithfully this year.

How do you meet new people for your team? Do you look for them or wait till they show up and ask to be on the team?