We are a church led by its laity in partnership with clergy. While it might seem easier to be run by staff, history shows that the church is most effective when disciples of Jesus come together as a team to worship, serve, and teach. This follows the Apostle Paul’s call to “equip the saints.”

Jesus never sent out His disciples one at a time, but rather two or three and up to seventy with clear goals and instructions. There’s valuable discipleship and coaching both before and after an event, sometimes even more than during the event itself. Ministry has served me well as a guide-from-the-side rather than a sage-from-the-stage reminding me that I am always a learner, too, if I submit to the process of community-based discipleship.

Building a design team for an event helps to:

• Involve those who are passionate about the activity.
• Set 2-3 goals to measure the event’s success.
• Share management of resources, schedule, and spaces.
• Define a clear start and end time.
• Encourage people to use their gifts, develop new skills, and make new friends in loving Christian community.
• Identify potential leaders for future opportunities, building trust and practicing humility.
• Observe natural skills and tendencies toward servanthood, such as arriving early to stage staying late to chat and clean up, being responsive, anticipating needs, and collaborating effectively.
• Practice receiving and giving direction with grace and humility.
• Practice living out organizational goals in a small group within a short time frame.
• Learn to collaborate, be flexible, receive direction, and communicate clearly for the good of the organization.

Ministry event design teams can look like a room gathered with jumbo post-it notes on the walls and colored sharpies for a couple of hours. Design teams can also look like phone calls, texts, emails, and hallway or parking lot meetings coordinated among design team members sharing a google doc or other collaborative resource. Design teams can look like weekly zoom call check-ins.

My dearest friends-in-the-Lord have come as a result of serving together on ministry event design teams. It’s a great way to make new friends to celebrate with when the event is over.

It’s a myth that doing everything myself is easier and faster. This approach is not better and certainly not biblical. Working in community is better, and as a staff leader, I have a duty to equip the saints for good works. I’m always ready to make a new friend in the Lord.

What do ministry design teams look like in your context?

“Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed.” Proverbs 15:22