Church Tech Arts

I had a good flight in yesterday…except I got busted for trying to sneak more than 3 oz. of toothpaste on board. I am now a toiletries offender. Hopefully it won’t be listed on my permanent record!

Arrived at Willow Creek this morning at about 8:15. Was checked in by 8:20. They really have the process figured out (contrast that to nearly 30 minutes to get my rental car at Dollar last night…and I was one of 2 customers at the counter!). 

It’s hard to say for sure, but it looks like crowds may be down a bit this year. I found a spot to sit upstairs outside the balcony doors; last year there was nary a seat to be found anywhere outside the auditorium. Perhaps the high cost of travel is keeping people away?

I did discover that I left my camera usb cable at home, so I won’t be able to post pictures of the conference as they happen, which bums me out. I had hoped to be able to do that. Oh well, look for a big post early next week with the pics.

I don’t know that I’ll be covering this quite like the guys at Gizmodo covered Steve’s Keynote on Monday, but check back often for updates. I’ll also Twitter a lot, so you can see more stuff there. So far, The wireless is solid. Let’s hope it stays that way!

The countdown is on. Tuesday night I fly out to Chi-town for my second annual Arts Conference. Last year was a great time of refreshment and worship, with a few really good breakouts thrown in. I’m really looking forward to it this year. I’ll try to blog about it as much as I can, and post regular Twitter updates. Last year, their wireless network was totally overwhelmed with the plethora of geeks and techies and our laptops and other wireless devices. I expect the “traffic” to be worse this year, hopefully they’re ready.

I know of a few people that are headed that way this year, if you’re one of them, drop me a note. It would be great to meet up with you.

It’s hard to believe that it was March when I booked my flights to Chicago for the Willow Arts Conference. Last year was my first year, and I was thoroughly impressed. It was great to get a few days out of the office, and to spend some time worshiping without worrying about a video cue, the sound mix or whether the right words were on the screen. It was so refreshing.

So this year, it’s back again. Just over 2 weeks away now, in fact. This year, speakers include Nancy Beach, Gilles Ste-Croix (Sr. Vice President of Creative Content,Cirque du Soleil), Brian McClaren, and Francis Chan. The Robby Seay Band will be there, as well as a host of other breakouts.

Last year, I was surprised that the trade show was as big as it was. It’s not NAB, NAMM or InfoCom, but it’s a decent sized show with some great church-friendly gear.

As far as I can tell, it’s not too late to register. As I’ll be going solo, if you’re planning on attending let me know. It would be great to meet up with as many as I can. One thing I really enjoy about events like that is meeting like-minded people from all over the country.

If you’re going, shoot me an e-mail at mike [at] churchtecharts [dot] org. We can swap contact info and figure out how to meet up. We work really hard all year long; it’s great to get away for a few days!

Submit to Digg | Submit to Del.icio.us | Submit to StumbleUpon

Last year was my first visit to the Willow Creek Arts Conference. I was jaded going in and blown away leaving. I’m excited to be able to go again this year. A few weeks back they announced that Brian McClaren would be speaking, and earlier this week, the breakout session registration opened up.

There are some good breakouts again this year. Robert Scoville will be teaching a “Master’s Class” on mixing (which takes up 2 breakout sessions); a few excellent lighting classes and a breakout on wireless mics in an HD world. Last year I waited too long to sign up for breakouts and didn’t get the ones I wanted (though the ones I had were good). This year, I picked my sessions the day the e-mail came out.

As a reader service, I will point out that April 8th is the deadline for super-early bird registrations. The conference itself is June 11-13. As the date draws nearer, I may be organizing a get-together; I think it would be a lot of fun to meet some of you in person (and by some of you I mean the ones that are going to the conference…not that I don’t want to meet all of you).

Holy Week at Upper Room and CPC was quite an affair; I’ll have some pictures and posts about that soon. I worked a lot last week and am only now recovering. We did get to do some cool stuff, and found new uses for some old gear that you might find interesting. Stay tuned!

Submit to Digg | Submit to Del.icio.us | Submit to StumbleUpon

It’s hard to believe it’s over already. The 2 1/2 days went by pretty quickly. On Thursday night a film festival of sorts was held. Churches who were attending the conference had sent in videos they produced. We must have screened 3 dozen of them, in all kinds of categories. Some were riotously funny (Reconcilosec, a pill that helps you survive family gatherings at holidays), others were more serious and moving. All in all, there was a lot of talent represented and it was great to steal some ideas I mean be inspired.

Friday morning was quite powerful. Two worship leaders shared their story of ministering in the contradiction—that is, how do you lead people into praise and worship while your own life is falling apart. They told their story of their twin daughters, both born very premature, and one with serious complications. It was (and still is in some ways) a very trying time in their lives, and both really struggled with issues of faith and trusting God. Ultimately, they have found some measure of peace and proceeded to lead us into a very powerful time of worship (I admit to having a hard time singing because I was so broken up after their story).

Next up was Donald Miller. If you’ve read his work, you know how much a treat that was. He talked about how the Enlightenment separated truth from meaning, and we now divide everything into left- and right-brained tasks. The problem is life doesn’t work that way, especially relationships. One of the reasons we are not really effective at leading others to the Cross is because we don’t put the Gospel in the context of a relationship. If the Gospel is turned into a bunch of legislation, beliefs and ideas, we take Jesus out of the picture and it’s no longer a story of a God who loved people.

I’m highly simplifying what he talked about here, but it was a profound concept. He went on to show how Shakespeare, an artist, used Romeo and Juliet to illustrate the Gospel. If I’m not mistaken, he goes through that in Blue Like Jazz (or Searching for God Knows What, don’t recall). You really should read it. The bottom line is this: The arts have incredible potential for communicating the Gospel of Christ to an increasingly skeptical world. It’s at once exciting and a challenge.

The week wrapped up with Erwin McManus and his team from Mosaic Church, Scribble. Talk about using the arts to declare truth! Scribble is a dance and drama troupe that put on a fantastic series of vignettes that Erwin wove his story between. Here are a few notes that I took:

There are no ordinary children, but there are ordinary adults. Sometime between when we’re born and when we die, we loose that sense of extraordinary. Is it possible that God sees more in us than we do.

In the end, the conference exceeded my expectations in so many ways. Having been to so many conferences that were often disappointing, I was a bit skeptical. I was wrong. And it wasn’t just the level of technical execution that was impressive, though it was. What really moved me was once again being reminded of the power of the arts to change people’s lives.

I was also impressed by the heart of everyone who spoke. They were not there to put on a show, or dazzle us with their witty banter, or wow us with their talent. From what I could tell, everyone had a genuine heart that truly believed the arts can make a difference, that people are important, and that this really does matter to God.

At the beginning of the week, Dewitt Jones talked about the need for us to fill our cup. Yesterday, my cup was so full it was overflowing and I could barely sing the last few songs because of the emotions I felt. The week was so worthwhile (though I could have done without the 2 hours sitting in Chicago traffic trying leave—what’s up with that?).

Thanks for reading these unconventional posts. Next week we’ll be back to what we normally do, sharpen our skills and learning how to better serve our King. God Bless…

By the way, if you’re interested in the live, on-line experience Willow put together for the conference, check out this site. You’ll find blog posts, many written live, and some video of the events.

Day Two has been a blur—in a good way. It was all breakout sessions today, and I decided to take a variety of topics. While all of the sessions had value, perhaps the one class that will impact what I do back at my home church the most was the session on “Running an Effective Technical Rehearsal.” Led by Todd Elliot and Chuck Spong, both of Willow Creek, they provided insight and a lot of great ideas

Perhaps the thing that I found most profound, was this concept: A lot of people (myself included) tend to designate the “programming” people (those who design the service, create the videos, act, sing and play) the “creative” ones. Those who execute the service, “production,” are often thought of as supporting the “artists.”

However, the technical team, “production,” are “artists” in their own right. It just so happens that their instrument may be a lighting board, or a sound board, or a computer. Moreover, when those two teams of artists come together, they have the opportunity to create something new, amazing and something that neither could create on their own.

I’ve written at length about how the tech team is part of the worship team, so I’ve not been completely oblivious to this concept. And certainly I view myself as an integral part of the worship experience every time I step behind the sound board. But it was really pausing to consider myself and the rest of the tech team as artists, co-equal with the artists on stage that was revolutionary.

As a complete team of artists, working in harmony (OK, that’s another post), we have the opportunity, the privilege of creating engaging, immersive experiences for those in our care. The challenge, of course, is to help both teams to view themselves and each other in this light, then work together to compliment each other to create new art. As I said, that’s another post.

Todd & Chuck had a lot more to share, more of which will show up on this page eventually. Other highlights of the day included a Line Array workshop taught by EV’s Monte Wilkes. This class (unfortunately for me at the end of the day) was very technical and full of great information that I’ll be able to use even though we don’t have a line array, nor am I likely to be out on tour with one any time soon.

I also got a chance to play with the Yamaha M7CL, which I have spec’d as a replacement board for our aging Soundcraft Series Two. I’ve done a ton of research on the board, but never got my hands on one. I was very happy to see that I walked up to it and within seconds figured out the layout, was playing with EQ, dynamics, and even a little routing. It’s very intuitive and reinforced my choice. Now, to find the dollars…

Another cool resource I learned about was Meyer Sound’s MAPP Online software. It’s a free, Java applet that allows you to import drawings of your room and model the room with any of their speakers. I saw a brief demo of the software, and it looked pretty impressive. Did I mention it was free? Granted, they set it up to use their speakers, but presumably you could get an idea of how other speakers would map out by looking at the specs and finding an equivalent. It may not be perfect, but you’d have an idea. I’m looking forward to playing with this when I get home. Internet access is somewhat sporadic, so I’ll post a link to that at a later date, or just visit Meyer’s web site.

Today is Day Three, and I’m excited to hear from Donald Miller again. If you haven’t read Blue Like Jazz you should. His other books are excellent also. Thanks for reading, more to come!

Session 3 of Day 1 featured Dan Kimball, author of They Like Jesus, But They Don’t Like The Church. Dan talked about a great number of things he found when he got outside of what he terms, “The Christian Subculture Bubble.” That was followed by a panel discussion of what the church really needs to do to reach the emerging generation. It was a fascinating discussion, and something that I think people in the technical arts really have a lot to contribute to.

Because the current generation is so media-savvy, they have come to expect a certain level of production excellence. On the other hand, Dan asked the question, “Are we creating an “American Idol’ worship experience?” As always, too much of a good thing is bad for you. If we go overboard with technology and make it the end in itself, the emerging generation (and probably even those in the pews today) will leave because it’s not authentic, nor does it meet any real needs—other than the desire to be entertained.

Which leads to my favorite part of the day, the evening service. While not technically part of the Arts conference, we were all invited back to the regular Wednesday night service. Regular is probably not a good descriptor; worship was lead by The David Crowder Band, and Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz among others) spoke. It was a great service.

The gist of Don’s message was that we all live in stories. We love stories. In fact, the Bible is made up of stories that are so well written and so engaging they are on a whole other plane than what we write. What struck me is that we as the Church need to get better at telling engaging stories. Too often the message is “Turn or Burn,” which when viewed from the outside (strike that, from any angle, really) is not that attractive or engaging. Jesus gave us the words of life, and He gave them to us in stories. We have at our disposal the ability to use film (OK, video), drama and other immersive experiences to convey those stories to the next generation. How well are we doing?

More to come…

It’s the first day of the Willow Arts Conference. It’s also my first trip to “Mecca” (aka Willow Creek Community Church) (that’s tongue in cheek) . It is a big church. They have lots of toys. A lot. But I didn’t come here to be impressed with the toys. I’ve seen and worked with a lot of this stuff already in other venues. Sure it’s cool to have all the latest technology, moving lights, hazers, a great sound system. But unless you can create an engaging and immersive worship experience, what does it matter? I think that’s what we’re learning here.

The first speaker, Dewitt Jones, spoke of finding creativity. He suggested an exercise that all of us in the technical arts should do regularly. Take a blank sheet of paper and write down 5 things that “fill your cup.” In other words, what do you enjoy doing, what brings you joy? Then put a date next the last time you did any of them. Has it been a while? How can we as technically creative people be creative and give of what we do when our cup is empty? What do we have to give when we are empty?

Here are some more of my notes from the second session, presented by Nancy Beach:

We can become so consumed with the work of building and sustaining our “church,” that we leave no margin for with engaging with the culture. All of our time and energy is spent getting ready for Sunday morning.

Who am I intentionally building a friendship with that is not part of the family of faith and has no part of the church?

Other miscellaneous observations: I really like the moving lights and the hazer they use extensively during music scenes. I didn’t care for the tuning of the speaker system (at least where I sat). Seemed pretty hot in the 1-2K range. Nearly painful at times. They run the sound quite a bit louder here than we do. I like it. The musicians didn’t feel the need to play all the time during a song. That was good.

So far we’re only a half day into the conference, so stay tuned for more posts as I can access the “inter-web.”