Each Sunday sports fans all across the country crowd around television sets to watch one of America?Äôs favorite past times: professional football. Why it?Äôs such an exciting way to spend three hours is unknown. Maybe it?Äôs the food, or the fancy uniforms, or maybe it?Äôs just the thrill of watching a group of men function as a unit.

Whether in last place or first, no team would dream of taking the field without a plan in place. Players don?Äôt wait to decide who?Äôs taking what position when they huddle up for the first time on the field. Each role is defined long before the season starts. They train hard together and when they?Äôve done their work and know their role, on game day when the whistle blows, each player is free to have fun doing what he does best. Knowing what job to do and how to execute it is what makes teams work.

If your worship design team were about to play the big game, would you know what your position is? What about the others on the team? If your team has no game plan, you may find yourselves running in circles, and most likely finishing with a losing record.

Game plans don?Äôt just come together, for football or for worship. They are the result of a group of players, each with defined roles, working out their designs ahead of time. This can be a difficult process. As opposed to the veto power one planner has when creating worship in isolation, working in a group of people is not as easily controlled. Like in every small group, dynamics evolve. Some individuals, more introverted in nature, may stay quiet in the midst of brainstorming and interaction. Others may gravitate toward different functions that suit their giftedness.

Team roles are one of the most important aspects of team development. If you?Äôve never taken the time to define roles, this article is for you. Whether putting together a brand new team, or working with one that?Äôs been in place a while, roles need to be defined in a way that everyone understands.

Why are roles so important?

For one, if everyone has a vital role to play, then everyone feels ownership for the team. Disgruntled football players are often ones who don?Äôt feel their contribution is being acknowledged. They feel they don?Äôt have a vital role to play. When everyone feels ownership, individual agendas become team agendas. When individuals are able to drop their own preferences and focus on what is best for the team, the first step to a functioning team occurs.

Roles also help in the creative process. When roles are clearly defined and understood, teams are freed up to focus on creativity and brainstorming, and not on who is doing what for each meeting. In our experience in worship team planning, once roles are defined, there is often a noticeable sentiment of relief felt within the team regarding how the brainstorming will translate to the service being implemented. In other words, no one is worried that all of the creative stuff is going to get lost or forgotten once the meeting is over because each person knows what he or she is responsible for.

Assigning roles in a team is necessary to ensure avoidance of the dreaded ?Äúpeanut gallery,?Äù where some members of the team implement the ideas generated in a planning meeting, and other members get to shoot holes in their creations at the next gathering. We have seen more than one team suffer because of a dynamic where some people have specific roles and others don?Äôt.

Avoid Gatekeepers

Be cautious, though, about roles becoming a roadblock to creativity. Every role or area of responsibility must be seen as an area of leadership where others are welcome to give input. People who function in these roles should not act as gatekeepers, making decisions in an area of expertise whether an idea is acceptable or not. The group decisions of the team must supercede individual preferences.

As a graphic artist, Jason has designed many more ?Äúteddy bear,?Äù pastel type images for worship than he would have ever preferred, but if the direction of the team moved in that way, it is his job in the role of graphic artist to produce what the team plans, not to make individual value judgments on whether or not it fits his personal styles and preferences.

Each role should be assigned to help guide discussion in a particular area, not shut it down, so there can be no gatekeeper mentalities within the team. Musicians, graphic artists, and pastors alike must learn to share their area of expertise when it comes to creative input if the team is to succeed.

This is difficult to accept for many people to accept?Äîparticularly, for some reason, musicians. It?Äôs been said that the difference between a church music director and a terrorist is that one can negotiate with a terrorist. (Not that we ever said that, of course!)

Veto power only comes in when the team member is unable to create what the team has dreamed together. It is his or her job to honestly assess their ability to create an idea, not whether they want to or not. Regardless of the role, it is the job of every member of the team to represent the team?Äôs decisions to the best of his or her ability.

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