I have been thinking a lot today about how to maintain the wow factor on a weekly basis. It is something that is important to me, yet it is something that can be easily sidelined by stuff, albeit important stuff. How do you make every weekend experience as exciting as the the first one?
Kenny, Jonathan, Gina, Matt and Karl I value your input. What do you do to maintain the Wow factor week in and week out.
Change, Change, Change! The word of God always stays the same, and continuity of teachers and volunteers is important; but everything else is adjustable. From room and/or set designs, to format changes, to seasonal adjustments; I always try and stay fresh by mixin’ it up a little. If it doesn’t work, I’m quick to make it work better.
I’ve found it’s almost as important to mix it up for my volunteers as it is for the kids. My volunteers need to be kept on their toes as much as possible. Of course they need to be educated about the changes, and made a part of the process; but by keeping everything revolving (that can be) I’ve been able to cultivate creativity.
Make Sense?
I heard a great quote that I don’t know who it is from: Without tension you have no attention. As Jonathan said above, Change is very important and it helps build that tension. Another great way to build that tension is the element of surprise. Wow is all about expectations. If you are able to keep a good level of tension while exceeding the expectation then the end result I believe will always be WOW.
Good stuff guys, as always. Totally agree.
Jonathan,
What to you change on your volunteers. Can you give an example.
Matt,
Love the tension aspect very true. Could you give me an example of the element of surprise.
I reassign certain duties every 8 weeks. If you’ve just been a small group leader, I might ask you to do my large group opening activity for a couple of weeks. If you’ve been doing the main teaching (or skit), I might give you a few weeks off to help with setup.
I never make someone do something they really DON’T want to do, but I always ask. And they’ve learned that I will always ask!
I’ve found that change is the easy part whereas the manpower to produce creative and affective change is the hard part. One of things I’ve done is put a leader in charge of that very task. There main role is to take my talk, the theme, the service flow and bring life to it every week. I’ve found 1) I don’t always have time to bring affective change 2) I’m not the most creative one on my team. A huge piece to do well done changes is creativity and you can’t rush that. So we make sure we’re planning months ahead of time in order to get the juices flowing as each weekend approaches. And of course you’ve got to be wiling to risk some things. With creativity you can’t guarantee it will be a success but go for it anyways. Hope this helps. keep on doin your thang