Rosters and Post Traumatic stress
Thursday, June 14, 2007
I love and hate doing our church roster. I hate it because it looms over me as some massive undertaking where I have to line up all the right people with all the right people and fit in everyone and not look biased or self-seeking. It takes a lot of drafts before an ideal roster can be produced.
The love comes from the excitement of trying new things, hearing new combinations, and being reignited to pursue our our goal as a ministry team.
Myself and the music leadership team did a bit of thinking before we put out the latest roster (it's not out yet).
The model we have gone for in the past has been get musos to do as much as they can with each other. We have been aiming to get people to mix with different people all the time so as to create team. With a music team of just under thirty all we have created is a pastoral nightmare! Our new approach is to have three separate bands. These bands will be two weeks on, four weeks off. This allows them to develop ideas together over their two 'on' weeks but also gives them time to arrange their own stuff in the off-weeks. We are hoping this leads to a better sense of 'band' among the smaller groups. Within those groups we are aiming to set up a mentoring system within those smaller bands having older dudes looking out specifically for one or two younger dudes. This may help in keeping up with everyone and having everyone feeling like they belong.
The band model means that rather than being a bunch of christian musos, the cruisos (my affectionate term) can be a band. A single cell.
They can bounce ideas off each other and learn how to serve each other in a smaller context.
As well as all of this we are launching an event called 'Project Sinai' (the first of many 'Projects': watch this space!!!). Project Sinai is an event aimed at keeping our Cruisos passionate about God's word. We are going away together as a team... not really to do too much music stuff, but rather just spending some good time reading God's word and praying to him together. This will help with still feeling like a larger team even though people will be more connected to those in their own band.
How do you do music rostering in your church? What dramas do you see and how do reckon they can be resolved?
P.S - These guys are not from our church band. That would be cool though.
Posted byDan at 6:10 PM
Ah yes, the roster. That has been causing me stress too and has been overwhelming me since I took on the music role at the beginning of this year. (And we have nowhere near 30 musos - wow, how I wish we did!)
My answer - I simply haven't done one! I've been organising it ad hoc on a month by month basis. I've decided to stop feeling guilty about it too.
As I see it, I've got a few "projects" to work on (e.g. introducing new songs, trying to introduce broader range of instruments, getting the sheet music culled and streamlined and enough copies for everyone ...) and I've decided just to take it one step at a time and not try to undertake all projects at once. If I get a roster up and running before the year's out, well good, but I'm not going to stress if I don't. We seem to be coping with current system (or lack thereof).
Sorry, not many helpful tips for you there Dan!
cant wait for the new roster :)