by John Mayberry
Synopsis: Let's explore how brethren can use modern tools to improve group communications within the local body.
How teams communicate has a dramatic impact on their overall effectiveness. Productive team communication allows for the maximum efficiency of individual members as well as the group overall. Although improving team communication is a worthy goal, it can be challenging to implement in a tightly structured and regimented organization. It can be significantly more challenging to do the same in a loosely structured organization such as a local congregation.
Regardless of congregational size, various groups work together to accomplish immediate as well as long-term goals. Elders work together to provide leadership and meet the spiritual needs of the congregation as a whole. Deacons work with the elders and with each other to meet a wide array of different congregational needs so the elders can focus their efforts. Many other members work together to accomplish great things every day in a myriad of different ways in which we care for and support one another as a spiritual family. We have sought to improve this communication and collaboration in our local congregation using tools explicitly designed to achieve these ends.
Historically, members of such groups face significant challenges in maintaining timely internal communication. Over the past ten to fifteen years, many congregations (as well as most other groups) have come to rely on email as the de facto means of communication and collaboration. Although email has its place, it is not very good at improving group efficiency in collaborative efforts. Email chains with numerous recipients can be hard to reference and require laborious efforts to dissect and track so as to ensure that one is working with the most up-to-date information. Email may be useful in broad dissemination of information, i.e., to the congregation as a whole, but is not as effective with inter and intra-group communication.
Fortunately, due to the availability of some modern team-collaboration tools, it is possible to create a highly effective communication structure within the local congregation with a modicum of effort. These tools are explicitly designed to allow teams of any size to coordinate their efforts and more easily stay up-to-date on various projects, tasks, or initiatives. There are many such tools available for free or relatively low cost. For the sake of simplicity, I will focus on the one we use in our congregation called Slack (https://slack.com/downloads/). Other options include Microsoft Teams, Basecamp, Asana, etc.
Most of these tools, including Slack, separate specific areas of communication into different channels (in the case of Slack), teams, or projects. These channels can be created as needed and be devoted to particular tasks. For example, we have a "# control_room" channel dedicated to the coordination of in-service media delivery and preparation. Song leaders can submit their desired songs before services, and those of us who create the presentations can build them out before the actual day of services. Those delivering lessons can submit Scripture readings or entire PowerPoint presentations ahead of time. Having a central area for such collaboration and preparation is quite valuable. It allows us to be more proactive in preparing for and facilitating the various aspects of our worship.
In most applications, such as Slack, there are options to create both public and private channels or groups. To give a picture of what is possible, I will list a few public channel ideas below. However, there are infinite possibilities of how to use them in your work.
In addition to public channels, it is easy to create private channels for more sensitive communication. These offer a secure means of communicating within a group as needed. Some basic examples of these would be:
The options you have in customizing these areas are limitless. Channels can be created for one-off reasons or have a long-term purpose with any combination of lifespan or use. The critical part of this idea is to target communication to individuals that need (and can act on) the information. Each congregation will have different teams and different needs that will change and expand over time; most collaborative tools are designed to change and adapt as needed.
I would be remiss if I did not include one of the most challenging aspects of implementing new tools such as this. It can be problematic to get large groups of people to adopt new tools or methodologies. Some will be very proactive in utilizing new tools, while others can be slower to adopt or ambivalent about using something new.
In such situations, it may be advantageous to find a team that can immediately benefit from using such tools and roll it out to that group first. In our case, we adopted Slack as a means for those involved in the audio/visual aspects of our services to collaborate and share information. This method of targeted communication was taken up in earnest. It proved highly beneficial for us in preparation for services. We could also coordinate our schedules and easily share files and presentations to make them available on the necessary equipment for lessons, etc. After a few months, we began to invite more to participate, such as song leaders and teachers. Many became avid participants in a short amount of time.
Soon afterward, I rolled out the tool to the remaining elders and deacons with a detailed set of instructions on how to install the application coupled with additional instructions on how to use various features in different situations. As expected, some were more rapid to adopt than others, but many quickly recognized the benefits. I also assumed that some people would not readily embrace the tool or use it after completing the initial setup. In reality, I would have been surprised if everyone had eventually begun using the tool. In such cases, we take note of the fact that these individuals are not part of the particular channels or online groups and adjust accordingly.
As a side note—I highly recommend that a few people test potential solutions before attempting to deploy it to any broader group. It is much better to make an informed decision and roll it out once. There is inherent friction associated with asking people to adopt a new tool or change their existing workflow—even a one-time change, much less with repeated false starts and stops.
Despite long experience, I have never found a perfect application or tool that does everything exactly the way I would want. However, it is possible to significantly improve team communication by leveraging tools that are readily available today. I hope this brief description of how we have been working to strengthen our collaborative efforts will be helpful to others in the same pursuit.
Author Bio: John has worshipped with the Brentwood Church of Christ in Brentwood, TN for the past eleven years. He and his wife, Karen, have one child. The church website is brentwoodchurch.com. He can be reached at jmmayberry@gmail.com.
