Discover how to truly value and support the creatives within your church in this latest episode of our podcast. We delve into tangible ways to empower these gifted individuals, fostering an environment where their talents can flourish and benefit the spiritual community.
go to TrevorChin.com to find out more about the reimagining worship conference happening in October (2023)
Discover how to truly value and support the creatives within your church in this latest episode of our podcast. We delve into tangible ways to empower these gifted individuals, fostering an environment where their talents can flourish and benefit the spiritual community.
go to TrevorChin.com to find out more about the reimagining worship conference happening in October (2023)
Welcome for the first time. If you're coming back. Welcome back. My name is Trevor Chin. Welcome to the reimagining worship podcast. We are in the midst of this new season. If you want more context about, I don't want to give a long intro. Just check my last episode out, but we are in the midst of season three, look to your neighbor and say season three.
I'm just joking. But, but I'm not share, like, subscribe all that kind of good stuff. But when the mids of season three and it's called battling burnout season three, battling burnout. Last week, I just, I kind of just gave a background about me who I am. my background in, in, in this worshiping creative arts field, especially over the last 20 years and how that's been difficult to navigate and fun to navigate and all that kind of great stuff.
That last week we talked about understanding creatives and the what, what inspires them, what perspectives they bring to the table. What, what, what, what burdens them. all those kind of things. And this week we are continuing, we're continuing. This is episode two of season three. And before I jump in, I just want to give up just a brief background.
a few things just really how I want to encourage you to engage with this content, depending on who you are. Like, I don't want to cast just like this wide, this big umbrella, but I do want to just communicate like if you're a pastor, if you're a lead pastor or executive pastor or someone that is on that, that, that high executive team, I want to encourage you.
Like first off, don't feel attacked, you know what I mean? I want you to hear this with an open heart with open mind understanding that in most cases, hear this, in most cases, organizational leaders and creatives think in two different ways, completely different ways, creatives and organization leaders think in two different ways. And this podcast seeks to help bridge that gap and create clarity in conversation, create clarity in relationship and in different
engagements and all that kind of good stuff. So if you're a pastor, that's the case with that. If you're a worship team leader or a worship pastor or a creative director, creative, whatever the case may be, I want to encourage you to create some of these systems or environments that we're talking through, especially today, create them for your team, create like healthy and robust conversations with your team, transparent environments, like just spaces for your team to be able
to heal thrive and grow. And then lastly, if you're just a member or a, a worship team member or just a regular listener, just please, I would encourage you like, you know, share with your friends, share with your family, loved ones, church leaders, because my desire is to help bridge the gap between churches and creatives create healthy environments for growth and max creative potential.
That's a big thing. And strengthen the relationships with the creators and the churches and vice versa. So, listen, at the end of the day, all that means is I want to see creatives healthy thriving in their local churches, deeper relationship with Jesus, a deeper, a stronger relationship with their over with their oversee or with their pastor, whoever is over them.
Like that's, that's really my heart. So last thing I'll say before we really jump into this today's session. I'll start like, yo, I please, you know, hey, like, share and subscribe all that good. Like I really, I'm asking you if you wouldn't mind doing that. But I also have a retreat that's coming October 21st this year. I'm super, super, super excited about this.
I was looking for a sound effect but I couldn't find one but October 21st of this year in Baltimore. I'm doing or me and my wife are actually doing our very first one day conference, reimagining worship conference. So I wanna encourage you if you more information on that and what's going to be in the conference. Go over to Trevor chin dot com.
Treborchin dot com. And maybe you'd say, you know, I'm not a, I'm not a conference person because it's too general or yeah, I mean, this, this is, is it's too aloof, whatever. Well, I have a digital cohort starting October 25th. It's called the Healthy Leaders cohort Healthy Leader cohort. And I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's called the Healthy Creative cohort, the Healthy Creative cohort.
where we're gonna have conversations, create systems for your church. Creative teams encourage health, encourage growth a place for us to share ideas and and it's intentionally pocketed from October 25th through like December 22nd, I think is the last one somewhere around there. But I know it's a busy season for church creatives and for churches in general.
I mean, it's a growth season. You have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas you're preparing for. There's all these new initiatives usually happen around this time. And that's, that's why I am intentionally placing this healthy creatives cohort right in the pocket of that because in real time, we're gonna learn like healthy boundaries.
What does rest look like what does healthy, healthy rhythms look like? self-care, all that kind of stuff. And this, it will be a, a great battlefield if you will for us to practice on. So without further ado, that was a long intro, goodness gracious. But I think all of that really kind of intros us into what we're gonna be talking about today.
Hear me, listen up the end of the day, there's this major gap and creatives do not feel valued in church spaces. Boom. This is my Kanye West moment. Creatives do not feel valued in church spaces. Creatives do not feel valued in church bases. I don't wanna have this whole discussion around why I'm trying to make the case for it. Let's just, if you don't agree, we're gonna just agree that you're wrong.
I'm just joking, I'm playing. But but at the end of the day in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't, again, that's not, again, this isn't a, a broad stroke. That's a general concept that I'm communicating based on conversations, relationships that I have and the amount of burned out people from the creative departments, from these churches that I've talked to over the years.
Creatives just don't feel valued in church spaces. And oftentimes, I don't believe it's malicious. I don't believe it's intentional. I don't believe it's like, yo, we're gonna do everything we can to burn them out. That's not the case, but there's this gap. There's this gap between pastors and creatives that if it, if, if certain things aren't intentionally done, the creator just won't just will not feel appreciated.
So this, today's topic, real talk is really just around how and again, this is for really for my like, leaders or pastors who are trying to think through different ways or you've had some rough conversations with your creative team. And they're saying like, yo, I'm done, I'm burnt. I'm exhausted. all that. At the end of the day, we're talking about stewardship here.
Like how can the church better steward their creatives? How can the church better steward the relationship with the creatives? How can they better steward the time of the creatives? How can the, the spiritual development of creatives like it? This is a stewardship conversation. That's what we're gonna talk about. So I'm gonna give some biblical references but not a bunch.
And I'm not gonna really expound on them, I'll just date, just encourage you just to take your time and jot them down if you want or come back to them. I might even put them in the show notes and we'll do it like that. But but I will begin how to better appreciate and utilize the gifts of creative in the church the first idea and I'm going to run through these real fast because I have a lot of them.
I listen I, I'm, I'm getting the whole thing off I'm saying I got everything to say. So the first one is creative, create a creative space. That's the first thing and that doesn't have to be necessarily a physical space. But by fostering a culture that encourages creativity, innovation and fresh ideas, churches can create an environment that allows creatives to flourish.
This is like an idea around, this is like brainstorming sessions, open dialogue, Creative sessions, a super super super have example or super application for this is like, yo have an opportunity for creatives to sit in the planning session when we're talking through the sermon series for the year. Oftentimes pastors that know what they're gonna preach in 567 a year down the line have creative brainstorming sessions with the creatives in those meetings with you.
So when it comes time to develop a a bumper or a visual or a graphic or whatever the case would be around this sermon series, hey, they're not caught off guard when you, when you knew that you were gonna be preaching advent in January, like, you know what I mean? You knew that you were, you were gonna be preaching through the psalms in the summer time for next summer.
So give them, that allows them to give a heads up. They can, they can kind of speak into and create and all that kind of good stuff. an idea around this is Ephesians 4 16. I'm just talking about how that the body of Christ, the church contributes to his growth. So everyone's input, everyone's valued, all that kind of good stuff. The other idea assign clear roles.
I need to move fast because I don't want to hold y'all all day. And if you want more context and you want more to go, go deeper, join us at the reimagining worship conference held on October 21st. If you don't like conferences, you can check out our cohort on October 25th through December 22nd. I gotta make sure I get that date right? Because I hope I'm not just saying the wrong date but either way, number two, assign clear roles.
Well, let me get some sound effects in here. I don't want to blow your ears up but assign clear rolls once a creative has identified their talents and passion and give them a clearly defined role where they can utilize those skills. For example, a talented graphic designer could be in charge of creating visually engaging digital content for the church, whatever different things like that.
But don't just say for a for a creative and again, this and I don't want to bleed into like the healthy boundaries conversation because we're, we're kind of getting there. But that's the another con another episode. But this is really like, yo, what is my role? What's my task? And what am I to be doing? That's, that's it. That's it. What's my role, what's my task and what am I to be doing?
So if that looks like, yo, I'm the worship leader, what's the role in that? I, I prepare the song. I developed this, I, I do presentation, I do production like, don't just have a general title because what happens with that is this creative or this person is oftentimes just encouraged or pushed to do a whole bunch of things. Whatever the role is, make sure it's clear, make sure there are smart goals around there.
make sure that and here's another real big thing. If you give them a role, if you give them a clear role with clear objectives with a clear vision around it, clear expectations, give them the chance to do it. That's why deadlines are important. Give them a deadline because you, you, you want for a creative to be able to utilize their creative gifts.
So let them think, let them, let them explore, let them mess up and delete things. I delete 100 things before I hit export. So, yeah, so assign clear rules. Romans 12, 6 to 8. It'll just talk about us having different gifts and all that kind of good stuff. And the third idea or the next idea, encourage collaboration, encourage collaboration, encourage your c the creatives to bounce ideas off of other people develop a, a thought team or a creative team, even if you don't have one,
even if it's not someone that can actually do something, people have great ideas. This could lead to, to innovative projects that can significantly benefit the church community to do a small group. I mean, we can talk through as a collectively like what's, what does the sermon series graphics look like or what the font or how can we leverage our logo for t-shirts and all that kind of good stuff?
The next idea provide the necessary tools. This is huge and I and I, I alluded to this on my Instagram in last week's podcast, do your best to provide creatives with the tools that they need to excel. I'll say that again, do your best leaders and I know that we have resource constraints and all that kind of stuff. Do your best to provide creatives with the tools they need to excel.
This could be as simple as making sure that the quality of the computer that they have that whether it be that you don't want a four K, a four K 24 frames per second video with, with transitions and lower thirds and, and effects and all that kind of stuff. But they have a 2001 air Mac Air. I know that's not a real thing, but I'm saying you, you like and and be fr everybody be frustrated when the computer keeps crashing.
Like what, where am I sermon at? I just did all this, this whole, this whole big thing. Well, they didn't have the tools for the dog on job. So invest in the necessary tools. Another big one, showcase their work, showcase their work, give creative as a platform to showcase their work. Once you use the, the, the, the sermon, and this is almost a a deviation but like once you use the artwork or once you use their video, yo, shout them out, show them some love.
Like, yo, let the congregation know like, yo, Jimmy did this, like yo, Jimmy did this our own our, I mean, and use it as an as a swag opportunity. Like, yo, it's a big opportunity for someone in the church. Y'all need to know there creatives in the church is a, is in oftentimes like a, like a, especially if it's a staff position, show them some love.
If it's a volunteer position, it's even more reason to show them some love. So give them give them opportunities to be able to showcase their work and and let their light shine if you will before others. The next idea incorporate creativity into worship. Whether that be visuals, whether that be paint like painters, whether that be creative dance, whether that be art installations, whether that be different musical opportunities.
I mean, I've had the privilege of, we've, I've done a, had a mini orchestra. I've had a tuba playing for the openness like yo different creative expressions, like have fun. And yeah, I mean, like every Sunday don't have to be the same old, same old, like try something new. Let's like you at the next Sunday's coming y'all let we got 52 of them, man.
Try new stuff at least occasionally. So you incorporate creativity into the work. Another big idea offer emotional support and care. Here's the truth. Creatives often pour out their hearts into their work, which can often, well, sometimes lead, but I'll say often lead to emotional exhaustion or burnout, make sure to offer support and care just asking about their well-being, caring about how they're doing, caring about where their emotions are caring about how their week
was. What, what are some things you're struggling with that? Give me this week like how can I support you? How, how can I serve you better? That's a big question that I wish we did more. You asked more, how can I serve you better? I promise you. Listen, if you ask somebody that nine times out of 10, they won't even know how to answer you. But but that opportunity to be able to offer emotional support and care is huge Galatians 62, I mean, I mean, bear, bear bearing each other's burdens and
emotional support, oftentimes can do that. So the another idea, celebrate and appreciate their contributions. I talked about this a little bit earlier. But publicly, privately and personally, appreciating their contributions, publicly, privately and personally, publicly can be from a microphone. privately can be you know, I mean, in a staff meeting and personally can be like, hey, listen, this is a gift card that Chick Fil A just wanted to say thank you for all that you
have been doing, celebrate their, their, their contributions. Moving right along. I told you, I'm trying, I'm trying to listen, I'm trying to make these podcasts like under 20 minutes. I me, I have a short attention span. So I mean, I'm trying to work with, with, with, with y'all. So moving pretty fast. But like I said, there is time for me to go deeper, but I really just wanted to kind of give a general rundown of all these things.
OK. Here's the biggest one on this list for me personally. And this is something that I've been navigating through in this most immediate season, organized creative workshops and help creatives monetize their gifts. No, we, last week we talked about resource deserts or resource constraints and all that kind of stuff and we're going to continue to talk about that just because it's just the reality of where things are.
one way to truly care for a creative is to help them monetize their gifts, whether it be selling art, whether I mean, and even for you as a leader, like learn, learn how someone can monetize their stuff. I mean, a perfect example about this. And I want to be overly transparent, like that's part of this podcast is transparency. I talked to a good, good friend of mine today.
He was he was a pastor that was with when we started in Baltimore. But I called him today with a bunch of ideas and a bunch of frustrations. And he was like, man, I think it would be helpful for you to like just do a conference. Like, yo, you have so much content that you just kind of have sitting around, you have the experience, you have the time that you have like all that kind of stuff.
He was like, man, like I really want you to consider like doing a conference, like, like do something, invite people to something, charge something and share your gifts and monetize your creativity. And that is where this conference that I just told you about that just came from, it came from today. That's the other big thing. I'm just gonna be honest with you.
It happened today. That was the day. So I wanted, yeah, I mean, I just, but him telling me that the work that I bring to the table is valuable. What I have in me is valuable. That is a, that is, there is a possibility of monetization to be able to make some more, I mean, make some more money on the site like this is, that's huge, that's huge. So, first off, I appreciate him.
and hey, another shameless plug, he he has agreed to do one of the sessions at the conference and the cohort. So I'm excited about that. But I'll give you more information if you sign up on the go to Trevor dot com and sign up on the thing. I'm gonna keep, I'm gonna stop dropping plugs through this content. No, I'm not. But real talk. But I said all that to say like that meant so much to me that he would take his time to help me think through a way how to monetize some of this stuff.
So, that's a, that's a big thing. Whether that be hosting an art show, maybe, maybe you have the space. Sometimes you just need to utilize what you have, assess what you have. I have space, but I don't have nothing else for you. Well, listen, you can use this space for, for you, for an art show. You can use this space for a concert, you can use this space for a, for a conference, whatever the case, like help them monetize, help them with the LLC.
That's, that's a whole other conversation, but we're gonna get to it in another podcast but help them monetize and create workshops. Another big one offer flexible schedules. This is where some of the goals and direction in, in the conversation is important because I'll tell you from experience, you know what I mean? Don't, you can't, you can expect all you want.
But like I, again, if we're talking about just from a healthy space, allow creatives to go through the creative process. It oftentimes doesn't happen in a 9 to 9 to 5 situation. I am I, I'm late night Larry, like that's who I am. I turn on at 7 p.m. like and I think it's more so internal like I know the kids are going, you get me headed, headed to bed, you know, I mean the wife is quiet, you mean headed to bed like drinking tea and carrying on like so it's a great opportunity for me personally
like where it's just like, all right, everybody's quiet, the house is quiet. My phone is not ringing emails ain't coming through. I got from seven to midnight to be able to knock out all this stuff. So it allows, but again, allow just the flexible schedules. It might not get done before that five o'clock deadline, but you might have wake up to an email from, from one o'clock in the morning.
saying like, hey, this is the graphic design for next week. So offer flexible schedules I'm gonna have a few more and I'm gonna be out of your way. Another big one, mentorship programs, mentorship programs, mentorship programs, mentorship programs, wherever you are in this season of life, there is someone that is going to go through what you went through.
And there's someone that has gone through what you're going to go through. Bridge those two gaps allow, allow this creative to be able to train someone else on the side, but also be trained by somebody else. So you have the full gamut of care and mentorship. So pair the less experienced folk up with more experienced folk. You know what I mean?
This is, this is a typical, yeah, this is your typical. Each one reach one teach one. Like that kind of that kind of idea model. This is mentorship here. Discipleship happens here, care happens here. Genuine relationship happens here. So pair less experienced people with more more experienced people and vice versa. But moving fairly quickly involve them in strategic planning.
I alluded to this already earlier, but involve them in the strategic planning of the church. Don't hit them after you've made all the plans, involve them into the planning process so they can speak into maybe the title that you have for that sermon series is really, really bad. OK? It's not good, Boo Boo, it's not, it's not. And if you would allow a creative to help you think through it or design through it.
That's where some of this organization leadership and this creative in that creative bridge bridges those two together where you have the opportunity then to, you know, really show a high level of care by allowing them into those spaces and to speak into the what and the other really big thing that does that I think that we downplay way too much is the ownership that they feel along with it.
I promise you, I promise, I'm telling you this from experience and my own emotional stuff. The more ownership that I feel that I have something the more valued, I feel like the, the, the, the more valued I feel about being a part of it. Like the more I know that this is mine, the more I'm gonna take it seriously, the more I'm gonna be intentional about it like this is the ownership thing is a real, real thing.
Bring people in the New York Stock Exchange. Does that? Hey, listen, you're gonna care about Apple. If you have 45 stocks. in Apple, you're gonna care about how they do. You're gonna be doing everything you can to low key, be a AAA Apple apologist. So, yeah, so either way involve them in strategic planning, involve them in strategic planning.
Here's the big one. And I have about four or five more implement creative outreach programs. Let me tell you why this is big creatives engage with other creatives. what they say birds of a feather flock together like that's, that couldn't be more true. Allow creatives to have programs in where they can serve almost as an outreach center for other creatives.
There are people that's out there that, I mean, that, that is a discipleship pathway. that could be an evangelism pathway. That can be a a way that the church can show value to the community, to communities that in by allowing for creative input or visual help or creative help in different community development projects, like whatever the case may be like, there are so many things that can happen.
And, and, and in turn, it makes the, the whole credit department just like more engaging and more effective. One more, I think I'm gonna skip that one. I'm gonna see. I'm tucking a few of these because I want to pull them in to next week because some of some of for next week, we're talking about recognizing and burn out how to prevent it and all that kind of stuff.
So I want to save a few of these for next week. But another huge one, another huge one is feedback, feedback, feedback. let creatives know that it's OK to make a mistake, mistake, learn from them. Let them know in a intentional and caring way that you would rather do this, that you would rather see it go in a different direction. I would encourage you to not use words like, but this is cool but this is nice but this is dope.
But but there's there's, there's a, there's of course, emotional, healthy spirituality and there's a, a communication pathway and there's called now it's gonna, it's gonna bother me because it was just on the tip of my tongue. But community, a community temperature reading. and there are these words or phrases that you would begin your statement with that will allude to just for a level of clarity.
But like I appreciate this. I noticed this, I noticed and preferred this. so use very clear and intentional and caring language, just check it out. I ain't gonna get into it but use intentional language around this because it's a big deal and oftentimes especially, and I'm once again, Erykah Badu said it best. I'm a, I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about, about my stuff.
She ain't say it like that. But she said it something like that but not quite PG for the kids that are in the back seat. Hey, kids. All right, I'm moving along. Come on, Trev. But you know, allow them to give you give, give feedback. because oftentimes they would have worked till one o'clock in the morning or something and they sent it to you via email and you don't respond.
Now, granted you have a lot of things going on. you have meetings you're going into like it was 11, it was one o'clock in the morning. So like you, you're almost asking questions. Like, why are you email me at one o'clock in the morning? Well, to go back, that's when their creative process is and that's when it happens and all that kind of good stuff.
But give feedback. Yo, thanks for this. This looks great. I appreciate you doing this. Thanks for this. I like the green, engage with the art, you know, I mean that they created, you mean for the minute that they created for the ministry? Like, hey, I like, I like the green. The green looks nice. I wonder if it'll look better in yellow. Because that more aligns with the color of our logo, but I like the green.
And then that, that causes some level of creative dialogue. They might respond like, oh man, that's a really good, that's a really good point. Let me try with yellow. I didn't think about that here. We are now with a creative collaboration. This is now helping strengthen that relationship with between the creative and the pastor. All of these things should and will create healthy conversation, healthy dialogue between these two parties that would help to strengthen the
relationship, help the relationship grow in a healthy way. Help with communication because with all of these things, naturally, relational equity is gonna build. And once that relational equity builds now you have the opportunity to like, hey, say, listen, hey, I know I'm about to say this wrong. Like I'm normally say this wrong. I just, I just, I'm so I need help but I don't like it.
Like I'm, I'm not a I would love if you can go a different direction. Hey, without no relational, that's sharp. But with a friend, with the mentor, with the pastor, with the team lead that there's a level of respect and relational equity with. Oh, that, I mean, you know, I can get, I can get down with that. I can get down with that, especially if, if it's on some.
Hey, I like it but not, but I'm sorry. II I like it. I would love to try it like this or can we try it like this? Give feedback, give feedback, give feedback. So just a few just things that you can really help creatives feel cared about, feel like they feel like they have ownership, feel like they're valued in spaces. You can create creative spaces, assign clear roles to them, encourage collaboration.
provide the necessary tools, showcase their work. incorporate creativity into worship, offer emotional support and care, celebrate and appreciate their contributions. help them monetize offer flexible schedules, get them mentored and disciple involve them in strategic planning, implement creative outreach programs, support their personal projects and be intentional about giving feedback.
Y'all be intentional about giving feedback. So listen, that is all that I have for you today. Next week, I want to invite you to come on back out. We're talking through recognizing burnout, how to prevent it and what to do if you're already there, how to recognize burnout, how to prevent it and what to do if you're already there. So listen, final plug, please like share and subscribe. Tell your friend to tell your friend to tell your friend that we are at it again. Go to Trevor chin dot
com and sign up for more information. Hey, listen on there. There's a sign up sheet. It's, it's really kind of all it is. It's not a registration, it's just a sign up for more information. So once we continue to solidify like the topics and the location, all that kind of stuff, I wanna be able to take some of your feedback into consideration as we plan, develop and all that kind of stuff. So, hey, listen, thanks for checking us out until next time.