Trust equity is perhaps the most difficult thing to earn from people. It can take years to build this equity up and it can take mere moments to wipe it all away. Though I’m not living in condemnation, I have been reminded of times when I’ve dropped the ball and failed to follow through. These painful moments are stark reminders of the importance consistently earning trust. They’re also times when it’s so encouraging to have friends that will love you in spite of what you do, not because of what you do.

The kind of friends that will go to the mattresses with you (Godfather reference) are those that will be there with you when you’re wrong – and tell you so without leaving your side. I count these friends – covenant friendships - as invaluable. We all go up and down, we all make mistakes and we all grow from those mistakes. These are the same friends that will also be with you on the highest points of your life to celebrate with you.

Jesus said it best in John chapter 15, verses 12-13:
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

If you’re one of my friends that I’ve dropped the ball with, or someone I’ve lost trust equity with at some place or time, then I want to tell you that I’m sorry. And I want to ask for your forgiveness.

I don’t want to go through life with someone having anything to hold against me. I desire to have the humility to admit when I’m wrong, the character to do what is right and the relationship to be a friend through thick and thin.

As we all do life together and share in the world of ministry, it’s imperative that we work harder on our relationships than we do on our skills.

I want to repair the breach.

If I’ve done something that needs correction in your life, please let me know.

If you know someone who has wronged you, offer them forgiveness.

I’m thankful for God giving me a holy discontent and gently urging me to rebuilt trust equity and repair the breach. But for the grace of God, go I.

More services. More venues. More campuses. It all leads to an obvious conclusion: more volunteers. What may not be as obvious is the increased importance of creating scalable systems with a focus on the people and not the technology. When tech supersedes people, burnout happens.

Let me start with a disclaimer: “Hi, I’m Anthony Coppedge, and I’m a recovering church staff burnout person. Not only have I personally experienced burnout, but I have been a leading contributor of burnout to volunteers while I served at one of the three churches where I was on staff.”

Dictionary.com defines burnout like this:

“Physical or emotional exhaustion, especially as a result of long-term stress or dissipation.”

I’d add to that spiritual exhaustion, because I think that it’s the main reason that media personnel experience burnout. We expect a lot out of volunteers, but we in Tech Arts often fail to spend time pouring time and spiritual life into them outside of services.

Spiritual Exhaustion
Technical arts ministries are often a behind-the-scenes place where people who don’t want to attend a small group or Bible study. Many of these folks would rather click a mouse, spin a knob or push a button than talk with people about personal and spiritual matters. “Hey, no one asks me to quote Bible verses when I’m mixing sound,” say people I’ve talked to before.

The technical ministry is perhaps the one ministry area where it’s easy to hide from spiritual discussions. Yet this is robbing them of personal growth, a closer relationship with the God who loves them and a stronger sense of mission and purpose for the tech team. We can no longer afford to ask our volunteers to serve unless we serve them with spiritual food, too! Any tech leader reading this should memorize it, print it out and post it:

The technical ministry is not about the tech. It’s about the people behind the tech.

Emotional Exhaustion
Volunteers are unwittingly set up to when we don’t provide adequate and consistent training. This puts a real toll on tech arts staff and volunteers who feel the pressure to make everything work flawlessly week in and week out but who do not have the proper training, planning or practice to produce effective results.

The stress of having to perform without the right training and the right amount of preparation wipe out volunteers who are often under-appreciated and not shown the love they need.

Physical Exhaustion
If you’re serving more than twice a month in a volunteer capacity, I think you’re probably serving too often. We need a break. We need to experience corporate worship. We need to unplug from the matrix of tech volunteering and focus on the message, not the medium.

“But we don’t have enough technical volunteers, so I have to be here,” some try to explain. I say this in love: You have not because you ask not. Every person in your church has a sphere of influence. That is your starting point: asking those who you know are not serving regularly (or at all). And I’m not just talking about pew-sitters, either. We all have unchurched friends who share some of our same interests. We can invite them to come and observe the tech operations and see if it piques their interest. In addition to growing your ranks, you also get people involved in church, as attendance outside of volunteering should be required for every member of the tech team.

“I can worship while I’m serving in tech.” I’m sure you can, to some extent. But that worship isn’t the same as being out of the sight line of the tech gear! When you can totally focus on worshiping God, then – and only then – will you be able to recharge, refresh and – here’s the bonus – force the church leadership to replicate you!

“But I’m paid to be there! It’s my job to run (insert job here)!” Having been on staff at three mega churches, I know all about this one. It is possible that one of your roles is to ensure a job is done well every weekend. We simply translate that to mean “I have to mix/direct/lead.” What would happen if you looked at your job as being one of finding the diamonds-in-the-rough that have an ear for mixing or an eye for directing? Sure, you’ll do the job of mixing or directing many times, but if you’re not actively training and looking for these unique individuals, how will the next “you” come along? At some point, your job is to prepare for the weekend services.

How To Avoid Burnout

Become a Volunteer
How can you ask people with full-time jobs to volunteer their time on the weekends if you’re not willing to do the same? Your level of responsibility and authority is different, but your availability to volunteer is the same as theirs. I do understand that certain positions (pastors in particular) have to be there every (or most) weekends. For these few, taking days off during the week creates a chance for rest and sabbath. For the rest of us, well, I just think it’s possible we’ve allowed ourselves to assume we have to be there most weekends, too. Yet I wonder: is that really the truth? What happens if you get sick? Or get hit by a car? Or die? Would the church service flop without you? Force the issue, talk with your leadership and explain how dangerous it is to rely on just one person.

Don’t Blur the Lines
Work and ministry are two different things. Don’t confuse them. If you will take the time and effort to separate work from ministry, change your scenery, go mobile, work no more than 50 hours a week and volunteer your time on the weekend, you can avoid burnout. If you don’t take those steps, you will experience burnout; it’s just a matter of time.

Recruit Like Your Ministry Depends On It!
A technical team may have one or two “super-techs”, but that only means you have more talent to train new volunteers. It does not mean that this person has to do it all and surround themselves with a “team” of volunteers who merely serve coffee and bow before the super tech at appropriate intervals. Jesus said it best: “…For he who is least among you all – he is the greatest.” (Luke 9:48b). Your top techs must be willing to step out of the way and let others get involved.

Training and Rehearsals are Mandatory
If you’re like most people, you don’t want to be made to look like an idiot. Yet we thrust new volunteers into the hot seats of mixing sound, running lights or running camera without adequate training. And guess what? They fail in front of everyone and want to run away from volunteering! Easing new recruits into ministry is one of the best ways to not put people on the instant-burnout track. Perhaps the best way to accomplish this is to hold monthly mandatory training sessions during band rehearsals. This low-stress environment allows people to experiment, succeed and even fail without serious embarrassment.

For the porta-church guys, rehearsal might have to be earlier in the morning during setup or, if that’s not possible, then a mentor-ship program where new recruits help with setup and shadow experienced techies for a few weeks, share responsibilities for a few weeks and then have the expert standing next to them as their assistant for a couple of weeks is the way to go.

Mistakes Happen. Have a Plan
It’s inevitable: techies make mistakes. It’s going to happen, so part of your training is how to handle the unexpected. That may be a simple checklist for what to do in case of a power loss, how to reboot a computer and launch the right programs, where to go for a spare mic or batteries or even how to troubleshoot a video signal issue. The point is to not let the pressure of the moment get to the volunteers. And, perhaps most important of all, the team leader must take the heat.

Remember this, print it out, laminate it and display it in the tech area: “All success is shared. All perceived failure is the sole responsibility of the team leader.”

Give volunteers a break
Beyond setting up a rotation schedule that allows volunteers to focus on corporate worship, make sure you give your volunteers at least two months a year where they do not touch tech. I don’t care how committed your people are or how much they say “but I like doing it” or “I don’t need that much time off”, do it. Balance is part of life, and I guarantee your volunteers will come back refreshed – eager, even! – to get involved again! Volunteers are your greatest asset, so make time for them to recharge.

Ease Burned-Out Volunteers Back In
Some of your best volunteers may be hiding since the last major blow up. These people gave until they had nothing left and eventually walked away. Again, Jesus gives us the model to follow:

“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost.” (Matthew 18:12-14).

Your first step is to sincerely apologize. Invite them back in on low-rotation basis and let them pick and choose what they want to do. In other words, prove to them that you don’t just want to use and abuse them, but that you value them (even if it wasn’t your personal fault) and want them to plug back in and and help grow the Tech Arts ministry.

Leading with humility, providing consistent training and pouring spiritually into your volunteers will grow your ministry in ways you can’t imagine!

There are no GPS coordinates for the places in our lives that are seemingly insignificant and/or inconsequential. You can’t navigate to the place where you’re lonely, spent, frustrated or disappointed. And just because these oft-visited places are not on a map, they’re still destinations we travel to with some manner of frequency. It is in these places where miracles (yeah the supernatural, you-can’t-explain-that miracles) are most likely to happen.

Now before you think I’m talking about walking on water (I’ve done that, but it was just frozen over!), let me be sure to set this up qualitatively: Yes, miracles do happen that are big and supernatural and have zero possibility of scientific explanation, but the miracles that happen with such regularity and miss notice are the ones that you’ve no doubt experienced and just didn’t know it.

Have you ever been in a place where your options were limited (or nil) and yet, somehow things “just happened” out of nowhere that you couldn’t explain but, nonetheless, were glad to have happen? Or things you thought you could explain away through “weird timing”? Most of us call these “happy coincidences”.

Remember that time you were going to be short on cash flow yet, “somehow” that payment you’d long forgotten or the rebate check that you’d submitted months ago suddenly came through? That’s God, in his sovereignty, revealing His character to you through a miracle.

I think the main reason most people would refute those moments as miraculous is because they don’t really believe God is actively in complete control of everything. When hard situations happen that are unjust, painful and tramatic, we’re prone to hold God accountable for NOT showing up as we would see fit. Yet when good things and blessings and miracles happen, we’re equally as quick to keep God from being accountable as our provider.

Luke 18:27 “The things impossible with men are possible with God.”
John 3:27 “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.”
Philippians 1:6 “For I am confident of this very thing, that He Who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
1 Thessalonians 5:24 “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”
Proverbs 16:9 “The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”

If love, “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:7), then God, who is love (see 1 John 4:8), simply showers us with His love through his ability to bring about perfect timing to meet (or even exceed) our needs. In this, we must see “everyday miracles” as the love of God manifesting in simple ways right in the midst of our insignificant, inconsequential places.

This revelation came through understanding Matthew 2:6, which is quoted scripture from Micah 5:2:

“But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah,
though you are small among the clans of Judah,
out of you will come for me
one who will be ruler over Israel,
whose origins are from of old,
from ancient times.”

By the way, the term “Bethlehem Ephrathath” is a noun denoting a spatial position. In this case, the small town of Bethlehem outside of the big city of Jerusalem. (Hat-tip to Pastor Robert Morris, Gateway Church, Southlake, TX for this understanding and the message around Matthew 2).

Giving credit where credit is due is what most people want – especially when the credit is due to them! We need to give God that same credit and thanks for birthing miracles in our own insignificant, inconsequential places and thank Him for our “everyday miracles.”

The more I understand what it means to serve, the better I understand leadership. Having been a part of several churches and organizations, I can testify that the best leaders serve others around them which, in turn, inspires them to follow. The difference between inspiring and directing is significant.

This past week at WFX I spent dozens of hours listening and talking with people from churches of all sizes and denominations who were struggling with either being a leader or following a leader. I, too, know exactly what this is like. That’s why I felt conviction when I heard this from a friend:

We can’t serve well when we have our own agenda.

One of the toughest conversations we can have is when we have to ask forgiveness from our leaders for trying to prop up our own agendas instead of aligning with the vision of the house. This doesn’t mean you hide your passions, give up your identity or never push back against ideas. It simply means finding ways to match the goals of your leadership with the courage of your convictions, gracefully.

Before your team, organization or church can move forward, pause and exhibit the servant-like humility of Jesus through a tough conversation that aligns your heart and mind with the vision of the house. The vision of the house is more important than your personal vision for your area.

Sometimes, I wonder how what I’ve said can be misunderstood until I get a fresh perspective from someone else to re-read what I’ve said. And then it hits me: “Ooooh. What I meant was…”

I’ve learned that email is a poor communication medium for conveying emotion, sarcasm or subtlety. What I’m continuing to learn is that with social media – and the 140 characters of Twitter, in particular – it’s important to re-read what we say before we have it hit the web.

This happened to me tonight, and it took me a while to understand what the hub-bub was all about. Here’s what I tweeted:

“PASTORS: Please use Twitter & Facebook to share your life instead of spamming scripture. We’ve already got YouVersion.com.”

What I Meant Was…

I intended to help pastors understand that while tweeting scripture is OK, you’ve gotta do a lot more than send lots of verses our way if we are to get to know you. So, my intention was to help them think about sharing more personal stuff and less about multiple verses a day making up the bulk of their tweet stream. So, I used some humor (or, attempted to) to say that we’ve got lots of scripture opportunities online already with YouVersion.com (online Bible tool).

What Happened Was…

I had some people read what I wrote as making scripture look unimportant, or, worse, less important than sharing their personal insights. So, as a way to set the record straight, I then sent a second tweet out on the heels of the brewing controversial tweet:

“REVISED 4 clarification: Instead of spamming scripture, share life application & revelation, not recitation. Share the impact of the verse!”

From my perspective, one of the best benefits of Twitter/Facebook is the ability to gain insight into what you think and how you receive revelation. To me, a tweet that illustrates the application, truth and real-life moments of scripture are – usually – more insightful to me than seeing a litany of verses tweeted ad nauseum. Sure, the Word never returns void, so tweeting scripture is good, but it’s not the only thing you should tweet.

Step out from behind the pulpit and show me your sermon illustrated in how you live life. Help us understand how scripture comes alive in your life, your actions and your thinking!

So, we good? I hope so!

I am not the provider for my family. I am not the provider for my family. I am not the provider for my family. I have to keep repeating that to myself from time to time as a reminder that all – ALL – provision comes from the Lord. It’s a lesson that has taught me to rely on God for my daily bread, regardless of where my income comes from. I can be an instrument of provision, but the provision is the Lord’s alone.

Having said that, I’m asking you to be an instrument of provision for someone – TODAY – who needs our help.

An Urgent Need
This morning, I received an email with a humble but urgent plea from a very Godly husband and father; a man who 28 months ago lost a baby boy to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). They are financially devastated and are asking for help.

Having gone through a financial devastation myself, I know exactly what this man feels like. The difference is that he had the guts to post his need online so that the body of Christ could be a blessing to him and his family.

$10 – We All Have $10
Since our financial whirlwind, we’ve come out on the other side rebuilding and are now faithful to a new budget that represents our diligence to fully recover and honor God with our stewardship of finances. Yet, even with our tight budget and commitment to being debt-free, we can give a little to help this family.

He’s asking for each of us to send whatever we can to SIDSAMERICA.org as a support for them and their ministry. $10 bucks is something everyone I know personally can donate to this family. If you can do more, that’s great, too.

I’m reminded of the story of the widow in 1 Kings, chapter 17, who gave the last of her oil and flour to Elijah. From her obedience and generous spirit, the Lord kept the oil and flour from running out for THREE YEARS! I’m also reminded of the woman in Mark, chapter 12, who gave 2 mites – a very small offering – but who Jesus said gave more than the many who were rich had given.

Will you be an instrument of provision and bless this family today? I’ve never asked for any of you to support anything before, so I believe you will see the opportunity to serve another member of the body in a tangible way.

To donate to this family who has been generous and responsible stewards, please go to SIDSAMERICA.ORG.

I’ve made his entire email plea available so you can read for yourself the integrity and heart of this Godly man who is calling upon the body – the “Big C” Church – to help them in a time of need, if you so desire. Just click the “more” link below.

- Anthony

–
SIDS America
www.sidsamerica.org

Recently I saw a tweet from pastor Randy Cochran that asked: “Who is the mentor that has had the most influence on your life?” A name immediately popped up into my head, but I decided to think about it and weigh the first thought against my many memories of people who have mentored me throughout the years. At the end of my pondering, I realized that my first reaction was not only correct, it was immensely justified.

I can’t explain it any other way: The favor of God has been upon me in unique ways, one of which is in the quality of my network of friends, associates and colleagues. I remember being a 23 year-old kid teaching at my first conference. I had no business being there teaching, but I was someone leading in media ministry at the time and that was seemingly enough. I’ve since taught for 16 years straight at various conferences. Along the way I have had the privilege of meeting some incredible people. A few of them have mentored me and I am grateful for those men who have held that position in my life. Yet it’s only been in the last three years that I’ve been mentored in the most influential and profound way by one man: pastor Marcus Brecheen.

I met Marcus because I wanted and needed someone to help me in my marriage. On that first day, along with my bride, I with him at the Gateway church offices, listening as he spoke kindly and accurately over, about and to us. 90 minutes later, I left there determined to get to know this man of God who had so hammered me with a gentle mallet. Oh, I’ve been to some good counselors and have met many a solid pastor throughout the years, but Marcus was different.

Over the next few weeks and months, Marcus came to know everything about me – everything, including my most significant failures, my biases, my issues and, perhaps most importantly, my heart that desired to be free from the yoke of condemnation. But what started out as marriage counseling parlayed into a series of insightful, tough and riveting questions that have altered the path of my life. So that you know I’m not exaggerating, here are just a few “Marcus-isms” that have rocked my world:

“You can be right and still lose your marriage.”

This one set me back and has continually shaped me as a Christ-follower and husband.

“Jesus died first and exampled that we, too, must die to ourselves.”

I almost don’t like this one! But I’ve had to come back to it again and again (and again).

“Ephesians 5 says to wash your bride with the Word, not to beat her over the head with it when she’s wrong.”

When I first met with him, my intellect was in the right place, but my heart was in another. He never cut me any slack and has been a master carpenter shoring up the foundations of my marriage for the building that God has done since that first meeting.

Marcus: “I didn’t have time for ‘social media’.” Me: “But you’re using it now. What changed?” Marcus: “I love people. I want to meet people wherever they’re at.”

Marcus is not only a great teacher, he’s an excellent student. When I presented to the executive staff at Gateway Church about the need to embrace social media fully, he respected my opinion but saw social media as another distraction. Over time, God revealed to him the truth and passion that you see in that above snippet during a recent conversation I had with him.

We’ve transitioned our relationship over the last three years. He’s gone from counselor to pastor to friend, though he’ll always be a mentor. Recently, we were able to talk about multi-site church and the ramifications it has on the culture of each campus. Through our dialogue, we found common ground in the need for the Word to be delivered seamlessly and for each campus to have a duality of being a part of the same church body, but unique to each community.

Not many people have the ability, position or relationship (let alone all three) to shape a person’s life. Yet I’ve been blessed by a man who has done all three and added in a fourth, essential ingredient: time. In the many, many lunches, meetings, coffees and discussions I’ve had with him, I’ve not only learned about me, I’ve learned about him. He’s a flawed guy who’s living in grace and entering the throne room of God’s presence with a lifestyle of worship with consistency, passion and humility.

I have the privilege to ‘do life’ with this mighty man of God, this friend, this mentor named Marcus Brecheen.

I thought I’d lost my voice. I’d sit in front of my laptop and stare at the blank white page with the blinking cursor. Nothing. After much prayer and many moons without a new blog that got me excited, I asked God to show me why I lacked the inspiration. What He revealed was not what I expected, nor at a place I would have thought could reveal the answer.

I recently attended the Echo conference, which is really a cool, hip conference for designers, creatives and communicators from the church world. My friends Rob Thomas and Jeff Parker have created something special with Echo and it showed with the incredibly talented, and mostly young people speaking and attending the conference. As I write this, I’m 39. That’s not “old” unless it’s in relation to 20-something creatives that saturated the Echo conference. After two days of watching young, passionate, burgeoning leaders teach and share, I realized I was no longer tethered to this kind of conference. Since my own 20-something age (23), I’ve spent the majority of those years teaching at conferences that drew the kinds of crowds that Echo has attracted. Yet God spoke clearly to me at Echo and severed the tether of my desire to be a part of that space as a leader.

What I’ve learned is that God needed me to set aside my past experiences and “career” and start with a fresh, blank page. Instead of blogging about the things that used to consume my work, He’s breathing into me a whole new book, not just a new chapter. Some of the things that I was exploring have matured and are now ready to go to the next level, but the audio/video/lighting techie-focus has been put away.

Replacing the years of consulting and technical writing is a new heart bursting with new ways of thinking about processing change, paradigm-shifting and innovation mapping.

For this new season of life, I’m called to serve an old friend and mentor, Jeff Hook, at Fellowship Technologies. For those unaware of this company, Fellowship Technologies is the company that launched Fellowship One, which is a web-based church management software solution for churches. In my current role as Director of Communications, I’m working with a talented team of people that are redefining the way this fast-growing company is affecting the church marketplace. As anyone who knows me can attest, I’m a guy who lives for communicating vision, telling compelling stories and motivating real, tangible change.

My new writing voice is focused on three things: processing change, paradigm-shifting and innovation mapping. I don’t think those are three real titles, but they do articulate a maturing of the things I’ve been saying for a while in the midst of my tech articles and blog posts. In essence, I desire to be a catalyst and instructor in helping churches rethink and even re-answer the most important question of all: “Why?”

For example, while most churches are trying to get up to speed on social media by jumping head-first into Facebook and maybe Twitter, I’m helping to refocus efforts on first evaluating the “what” churches are doing and asking them to stop and ask the simple question “Why are we doing (insert ministry/activity/thing here)?” Again. And again. Across the board, from weekend services to each department to all of the ministries throughout the church, it’s not safe to assume; it’s time to re-align to the unique God-given vision of each local church.

I feel that my work at Fellowship Technologies as an innovator in a team of thought leaders is a great place for me to exercise this new voice. It’s also allowing me to refine my messaging and blog about things well outside of the company I work for, all while being faithful to that which I know I’m called to do: serve church leaders.

When I sit in front of the blinking cursor today, I no longer see a blank screen – I see a new chapter and a canvas upon which I can creatively share my passion. I have once again found my voice.