Expectations

So, I am at a meeting yesterday to talk about the tension between the music ministry and the production ministry in our children's ministry.(that's a lot of ministry) There had been a previous meeting where there was yelling involved and people actually got up and walked out of the room. Needless to say there needed to be follow up and I was asked to come to this meeting to help back up the production person involved.

After listening for about 30 minutes, I had written down 4 things that apply to almost any situation involving two groups that are as different as production and music.

Don't assume people know what matters to you. - It is so easy to get caught thinking everyone knows your world and the things that are important for your ministry. If you have a certain idea of what music should sound like, tell someone. If you have a new volunteer that needs grace on how the mix sounds, tell someone.

Sit down and have a meeting about expectations. - If everyone knows what to expect, then when you get to rehearsal or the service, you'll all be on the same page. If the music needs to sound a certain way for the music director, sit down before all hell is breaking loose and agree on what can be expected. If you and the drama director agree before hand how loud the sound effects should be, there will be lots of understanding during rehearsal when everyone knows what to expect.

How can we stagger rehearsals? - Think about ways to make things a little better, not perfect. We have music rehearsals happening all over the building, all at the same time, so why not stagger them so the people who need to be in the room can be in the room. Just because we are doing things a certain way now doesn't mean we couldn't change that to make our present situation better.

There was one other thing that I have since forgotten.