Church Tech Arts

Kent Shaffer over at Church Relevance has a great post about what happens when we get blinded by tech novelty. This is part 2 of 2 (part one largely deals with graphic design, and is interesting, but not what I wanted to talk about).

Kent defines Tech Novelty this way:

Tech Novelty is:
Being blinded by the novelty of an exciting new technology and consequently misusing the technology for novelty’s sake. Misuse of technology may be caused by lack of training and/or from the inability to focus on anything except the novelty.

I see this a lot in churches. I have more to say about the topic, but for now, go read Kent’s post. More to come…

If you’ve just stumbled across this post directly, you should first go back and read Outfitting a Building. Don’t worry, we’ll wait. Alright, here we go.

Today, we’ll talk about the right way to outfit a church. That was a joke. You can laugh now. It would be quite presumptuous to think that A) there is a single “right” way to go about outfitting a church with A/V gear and B) that I know what it is and will now tell you. However, after being around churches and their A/V systems for some 20 years, and being the somewhat OCD thinker that I am, and having recently attended WFX where my thoughts were validated over and over, I would like to share some principles that I think are helpful when it comes to choosing A/V equipment for a church. Unfortunately, this process is hard; harder than just asking the GC for a quote, harder than hiring a consultant, and harder than leafing through the latest Sweetwater catalog. Which is why so few churches do it. But here we go.

Step 1: Figure out who you are as a church.
You were expecting, “Decide between digital and analog for FOH?” Sorry to disappoint. Here’s the deal: Your church is not NorthPoint. NorthPoint is not Saddleback. Saddleback is not Grainger. So often I find myself in conversations with pastors, tech guys or worship leaders who will say, “Dude, I just go back from [fill in the mega church here]. They have this awesome board at FOH, I think it’s a [fill in an awesome FOH desk here]. I think we need to look into that for our new building.” My first question is, “Why?” Very few churches really need a PM5D. In fact, for many churches, it would be gross overkill and a misallocation of ministry resources.

Back to the point. No two churches are the same. Your church needs to figure out who you are, who you are trying to reach and come up with the best way to do that. Depending on the answers to those questions (and a dozen more), you will start to get an idea of what the worship gathering should look like. You may find that going all Prestonwood (full rock band, orchestra, 8 vocalists and a 300+ choir) doesn’t really help fulfill your mission. On the other hand, it might.

You also need to evaluate your technical staff. Are they paid or volunteer? What is there skill and commitment level? What can they learn, and who will teach them? Same goes for the musicians. You need to determine the most effective to reach the type of people the church is missionally called to reach. For some churches, a huge band, choir and orchestra work great. For others, a piano and worship leader work far, far better. It all depends on who you are as a church.

Note also that these are not value judgements on a given style of worship. There is a place in the kingdom for mega churches, and there is a place for coffee house churches. Just don’t confuse the two.

Step 2: Determine what kind of facility you need to effectively reach your target market.
Sorry, we’re still not to picking out equipment yet. Why not? Because we don’t even know what kind of room we need to put it in yet. There are hundreds of questions that need to be considered here, and I won’t pretend to give you an exhaustive list. But think about a few of these and more will follow.

What should the worship space look like; traditional, modern, post-modern? Would a fan-shaped seating area work better, or does stadium seating help us better accomplish our mission? Do we need a room that enables us to pull off services that look like a Trans Siberian Orchestra show? Or do we need to bring together a more intimate “hanging out in the living room together” vibe? Does a big, elevated stage with some separation between the stage and seats work, or perhaps a more “theater in the round” concept?

Keep in mind, though I’m using two extremes to illustrate the point, there are hundreds, if not thousands of shades of grey in between. The point is that no one size fits all. I’ve heard of churches who currently have 100 people, more or less, showing up on Sunday that want to build a 5,000 seat auditorium. Even if they could afford it, which they can’t, do you have any idea how uncomfortable that would feel on opening Sunday?

The type of facility must match your mission. That may well be a huge auditorium. Or it may be a movie theater off the metro line. Or a coffee shop. Or another church you rent on Sunday nights. Just promise me you’ll think it through, OK?

Step 3: Determine the type of equipment that works best in your space, with your volunteers and within your budget.

Finally, we get to choose some gear. But notice that we’ve really done the hardest work up front. When equipment selection flows from missional direction and facility appropriateness, you will find yourself upgrading far less often.

Consider one model; an urban missional church dedicated to reproducing itself in a series of smaller, neighborhood-targeted churches. It’s really easy then to determine that spending $65K on a FOH desk is not an effective use of missional dollars. The church, especially if portable at the beginning may be far better served with a $10,000 RSS V-Mixing system. Or a $4,000 analog desk.

Or think about speakers for a second. Everyone wants line arrays right now (and every supplier wants to sell them). However, they really only work well (the operative word being well) in a fairly limited number of environments. And they’re really expensive. So don’t put them in your building just because Willow Creek has them. Go back to questions 1 and 2 and figure out what is the best use of ministry dollars. What helps further the mission of the church? A $200,000 line array that’s total overkill or a $50,000 distributed mono cluster?

While it may appear that I’m picking on churches for spending too much, other churches will spend too little. Both are mistakes. If you believe the mission of your church will be best served by building a large auditorium and going for a Willow/NorthPoint style of worship, then don’t cheap out on the gear. Because if you do, you will replace it not once, but twice. This frustrates the daylights out of me because churches do it over and over, and it’s so predictable. Seriously, do it once, and do it right. You will save tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of dollars.

Now, I’ve been using sound systems here for most of my examples, but the exact same principles apply to lighting, video and presentation. Do you need to have 18×32 HD IMAG screens in a worship center that seats 300? Probably not. But in a 5,000 seat auditorium, you had better think about it. And know that it’s going to be expensive.

If your worship team consists of 4-5 players and a vocalist or two on a small stage, you probably don’t need to budget for 15 moving lights. In fact, depending on the mood you’re trying to create, a few simple fixtures with gels might be just what you need. Think it through.

We’re working through this process right now at Upper Room. As we work to figure out who we are and who we’re missionally called to reach, I’m beginning to make decisions on the kind of gear I’m interested in. For example, as much as I love the M7-CL 48 we currently get to mix on, we simply don’t need that big of a desk in our new iteration. And while it would be cool to go all wireless in-ears for our band, I’m thinking Aviom because we’ll get through sound check faster. Faster will be important in a portable church environment. I’d love to have access to a bunch of moving fixtures (mainly because they’re cool), but since we’ll likely be loading in, setting up and tearing down every week, those are out. In fact, I’m strongly considering going all LED because of their low power draw. Sure, they’re not as bright, but our worship style works best in low lighting anyway. We like to set a darker, more “candlelit” vibe. So I don’t need to throw 50,000 lux on the stage.

As much as possible, I’m making selections based on our mission, and the facility we will use to implement that mission. And I’m not bothered that NorthPoint uses a DigiDesign Venue in their facilities. That would be total overkill for us. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure a 24 channel analog board wouldn’t cut it for them.
Clearly this is not the be-all-end-all discussion on the matter. In fact, I hope this does nothing more than start a bunch of discussions. We can’t choose our equipment in a vacuum. We can’t choose it because it’s what some other church uses. We can’t choose it because it’s what the GC put in the last church he built. It needs to work for each individual church and their mission. Figure that stuff out first, and the church and the Kingdom will be better of.

Do you ever have the experience of attending a conference, or reading a book, or hearing a sermon and thinking, “Yes! That’s exactly what I’ve been saying.” That was WFX for me last week. For years I’ve been thinking on the right way to outfit a new church building with A/V equipment. And WFX was one of the crystalizing moments where all the thoughts that have been swirling around in my head came together like sugar crystals when you’re making fudge (with apologies for the foodie analogy).

When it comes to making decisions about what kind of equipment we install into our church buildings, I’ve noticed a few disturbing trends. Some churches think about it roughly 3 weeks before the grand opening. They scramble around, make a few phone calls end eventually ask the electrician to hang the speakers a volunteer picked up on sale at Guitar Center. I wish I was making this up, but if you’ve been around the church for any length of time, you know this happens.

Another strategy is to call in a consultant early on with the direction of wanting the biggest, baddest and best sound, lighting and video systems in the city. $1.5 million later, the church does indeed have an amazing system. But get a look at that price tag. And sadly, many churches that take that route don’t end up with systems that their volunteers can run, so they never get the bang for the buck they hoped they would.

A third strategy is for the church to start off with the good intentions of wanting a quality A/V system. But as the project progresses, and the budget begins to escalate, money is borrowed from the A/V budget. Eventually, the system is “value engineered” and significant compromises made. The thinking goes, “Well, we know we’re cutting here, but people won’t really notice, and if they do, we can upgrade it later.” We all know how that turns out. People do notice–they can’t hear the pastor, the music is too loud or soft, they can’t see the screens because they’re too dim–and they end up upgrading sooner rather than later. Which means they pay for the system twice. As the saying goes, “Most churches are on their third sound system.”

What if there was a better way? What if we could find an appropriate balance between going crazy and ending up with a crappy system? What if, and this may sound just radical, we designed our A/V systems to fulfill the specific mission that particular church is called to? What if, instead of having to fight other departments for dollars, the A/V system was thought of as an integral part of the church’s calling and mission (just like the café or the kid’s wing)? Might that be a more effective way to put a system together? Check back tomorrow and we’ll talk more about that.

Most of you have probably guessed by now that I’m a geek. I thoroughly enjoy being around technology, talking about technology and figuring out how to use technology to enhance the mission of the Church. That’s why I have the job that I do. Every day is different, and I’m always learning new things. Some days I feel like I’m trying to drink from a fire hose, but the truth is I love it. I enjoy change, which is a good thing because one thing technology doesn’t do is stand still. There’s always something else to learn about.

What puzzles me is when I run across people who work in a technology field who are not all about change. That is, they are not interested in growing their knowledge base. I can’t figure this out at a philosophical level, and it makes no sense to me at a practical level. For example, a few years ago I was between jobs. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, and in the process I met a lot of people who were also in transition. I was frankly totally unprepared to come across some of the attitudes I did. I met quite a few people who had previously made their living programming in the A/S 400 environment. That’s fair; it was the king of big iron a few years ago. However, those systems are on the way out. What amazed me was how many of those folks would grumble and say, “I’m a great A/S 400 programmer, but all companies want these days is .Net programmers.” “Why don’t you learn?” I’d ask. They’d mumble something about not having time (come on, you’re unemployed), or not wanting to go back to school, or some other nonsense. Seriously, did you think you’d retire programming on one platform?

What does this have to do with church techies? I’d say, “A lot!” Thankfully, the pace of change is a little slower in the world of sound, lights and video than it is in the IT universe. Still, we’re well into the transition from analog to digital mixers (sorry analog die-hards, digital’s here to stay and analog is going away…). Those 700 Mhz band wireless mics are going to have to be replaced, and you’d better understand frequency coordination this time around. And of course, when it comes to speakers, line arrays are the hot topic. You should probably have at least a passing knowledge of them, and whether they’re right for your room before someone tries to sell you $60,000 worth.

Video used to be pretty simple. It was all standard definition, 4:3, CCIR-601 and your biggest choice was BetaCam SP or MII. No more! We have have a half-dozen tape formats, again as many non-tape formats and even more aspect ratio/resolution combinations. FireWire was supposed to make video production plug and play, but does your editing software support your camera’s codec natively? Check that out before you plunk down $6K on a shiny new camcorder.

Lighting hasn’t changed a whole lot over the years, save the plethora of new consoles that are introduced every year. It’s now possible to design a show on your laptop, in 3D complete with shading and color, then load it into the new console. Then there’s wireless DMX. For temporary lighting, that’s a technology worth checking out.

For the church tech guy or gal, it’s important to keep abreast of all these changes. Sure, you may not be in the market for a new FOH mixer this year, but you will be someday. And as services get more creative, we need to come up with ways to implement the ideas that make worship gatherings more engaging. Standing there with your hands in your pockets muttering, “I don’t like them new-fangled digital mixers a’tall” is not a way to maintain job security. Pastors want tech people who can make stuff happen, not give them a list of reasons why theirs is not a good idea.

So what can you do to stay current? Here are some ideas.

Read
The internet is a great place to keep up with technology. Any time I’m confronted with something I don’t know about, I Google it. Granted, you need to sift the wheat from the chaff, but there’s a wealth of information out there. You’re reading this blog, which is a good start. Check out the ones I read (on the right sidebar). There are some amazingly gifted church-tech bloggers out there. Check out what they have to say.

Also, subscribe to trade magazines. I’ve listed a dozen or more, most of which are free, on the links page. I read about 14 a month just to keep up with sound and video. If we did more cool lighting effects at Upper Room, I’d be reading more.

Go to Conferences
There are so many good ones out there. I’m headed to WFX next week. It runs again in the spring. There’s LDI, InfoComm, Willow’s Arts festival, the big one–NAB, and more. Get out there and play with some new gear, even if you’re not in the market. It’s good to learn what’s out there.

Network
Getting to know other tech leaders in churches around you is a great idea. The other day I met with a guy who’s a new tech guy at a church down the road from us. I helped him with a gain structure issue he was having, and it turns out he’s an Apple Genius. He had some great pointers for me as I get ready to set up my new IT system. I know I’ll be calling him with more questions as I get further down that road. Hopefully, he’ll call me when he has an issue I can help with. Along the way, we’ll both learn something.

And don’t forget the smart people you learn from on the web. I get questions all the time from people asking my opinion on which digital board they should buy, or which video switcher, or which long-distance video system they should use. My answer usually has more questions for them than answers, but I’m happy to share my opinion. So are many of the other guys who write about church and non-church technology.

Load Balance
I’ve decided it’s impossible to learn everything about everything. So I cope with the enormous volume of information by digging into the things that I really need to know about. As I said, we don’t do a ton with lighting right now, so I’m not spending a lot of time with that. As much as I love audio, right now I know what I need to know so I’m not focusing on learning quite as much. Since my job description has changed to include IT, I’m spending most of my time filling in gaps in my IT knowledge. Once that system is up and running, I’ll be back to the intricacies of digital snakes (that will be next month…).

Forget
I once had to tell a particularly annoying video sales guy that I had forgotten more about professional video production than he knew. It’s sounds arrogant (and maybe it was, but he was really getting on my nerves…), but the reality is I no longer need to remember how time align a A/B roll edit suite. So I forgot. OS 9? Please. How to program the ETC 24/48 light board I used a year ago? Gone. When things are changing as fast as they are, don’t worry about keeping everything you ever learned top of mind. Strengthen what you need to know now. Google the rest. It will come back to you if you ever need it. Though I seriously hope I never have to troubleshoot an extension conflict again!

Use Technology
Google is a great resource. You can learn about anything in a matter of minutes. I also love a program called Evernote. I’ll blog about that sometime. It’s a great way to collect all the bits of information I need to keep handy without actually having to remember them all. What was that ADAT to balanced audio interface I found and where did I find it? Evernote knows. Take advantage of e-mail, blogs, Twitter and iPhones.

We live in exciting times. The pace of change in the arena of technology is staggering. It is a great time to be a church techie. We get to learn about all sorts of cool stuff that most people in the church can’t even fathom figuring out. And we get to share that knowledge with our volunteers! And we get to continually enhance worship while we’re at it. Does it get any better? I think not!

Embrace change–when it comes to technology, it’s the only thing that stays the same!

I still get the chills when I think about it. Having just come off a 7-year run as a 50-week a year volunteer sound guy, I was ready to take a break. My family and I had moved to a new town, and were looking for a new church. We visited one and really liked it. We went back the next week. And the next. Pretty soon, we had been there all summer and the fall “ministry season” was starting up. I stopped by the worship leader’s table and said I had some sound experience, but was on sabbatical. He was excited to have another sound guy on the line, and told me to call him when I was ready to get back into the game. 

A few months later I was. It was about this time that the chills started. The sound booth was a mess. There were cords all over the place, many of them not working. Mics were thrown into a tub. The gain structure of the system was a disaster. It wasn’t EQ’d properly. It was everything that gives a sound guy the willies. I spent 4 years there, slowing building trust with the leadership and being allowed to fix quite a bit of that poor little system. Eventually we turned it into something quite useable. 

I bring all this up for this reason: As a volunteer, it was incredibly frustrating to come in week after week and work on a system that wasn’t put together properly, with equipment that was broken or not suitable for the job. The church wasn’t “small” by most standards (roughly 1,000 attendance each week), but there was no staff member really in charge of the technical stuff. When I eventually left the church, one of the driving forces for my departure was that no one really seemed to care that much that the technical team was being asked to do the incredible with both hands tied behind our back. I knew my efforts were appreciated, but there was never much of a sense that action was being taken to improve the situation.

Like many of my life experiences, I have tried to learn from that one. I find it’s useful to recall what it was like to be a volunteer in church as I try to lead my team of volunteers. Which brings me to today’s post: The Fixer. Now, I understand this post is going to mean different things to different people; and I realize there are some of you serving in churches that are really strapped financially. I know some of you are volunteer leaders and are just as frustrated as I was back then. I hope this encourages you nonetheless.

One of the guiding principles of my ministry to my technical volunteers is to build a system (be that sound, lighting, presentation or video) that is reliable and up to the task. I personally find it completely unfair to ask a volunteer to give his or her valuable time in service on equipment that is sub-par or ill-suited for the job. When things are broken, things go wrong; and when things go wrong, the volunteer usually gets the blame. This is totally unfair. 

Imagine being the lighting operator and week after week you program your cues and work really hard to get things looking right. Then when the service starts, the lights start flashing on and off, colors aren’t changing like they’re supposed to, or the entire board just stops responding. Or as a presentation operator trying to lead worship with lyric slides on a computer that keeps crashing. Or a sound engineer trying to mix with wireless mics dropping out, or monitors cutting on and off, or feedback howling through the system every time you open a mic. How excited are you going to be about coming back next week to face the barrage of criticism you will inevitably endure?

That’s why I believe it’s important, vitally so, that those of us in technical leadership work as hard as we can to equip our volunteers to succeed. I get asked all the time, “How do I get people to volunteer for the tech teams?” I like to answer with a question, “How are your technical systems?” Often times, the question is met with a blank stare; as if it’s hard to imagine what one has to do with the other. But think about it–technical volunteers, the good ones anyway, are at some level, equipment geeks. That’s why they’re there. However, if the equipment is broken down junk, you’re going to have a tough time getting tech geeks to show up. And those that do will quickly become disillusioned and quit. 

Now, I know some of you have shoestring budgets. You may not be able to afford that M7-CL, or brand new wireless mics or a 24″ iMac running ProPresenter. But you need to have mic cords that work. And you can make sure that the presentation computer isn’t full of viruses and crashing all the time. You can clean up the tech booth and make it an inviting place to be. And if you can’t afford to fix stuff, at least start to develop a plan to do so. Bring the volunteers in on the process. Let them know you care enough to start working on making things better. Become the squeaky wheel that the leadership of the church eventually recognizes and properly funds. Show them the value of the investment–that is, reliable volunteers who are engaged, good at what they do and make a valuable contribution to the weekly services. 

I have been amazed to watch the level of engagement grow in our tech volunteers over the last 10 months. When I cleaned the booth up the first time, there was a noticeable difference. When I re-engineered the whole video, lights and presentation system (at a total cost of about $500, I might add), they were amazed the first weekend they came in. They’re now coming in early and working harder. When we have a problem on a weekend, I track it down and fix it during the week so that it’s not an issue again. Instead of criticism, they now receive praise on a regular basis. Which is not to say we don’t have room to grow, that’s what training is for, but everything runs smoother now. 

Here’s the success story to share with church leaders: I now have 16 volunteers who are excited about putting in 8 hours on a Sunday in service to our community. A big part of that is because they no longer have to fight the equipment they’re working on. It just works. They come in, do they’re thing, enjoy it and head home feeling satisfied that they were a part of something wonderful. That’s why we fix the gear. How cool is that?

I heard from a good friend of mine the other day. He was rather frustrated (that may be an understatement…) because he perceived some of the criticism he was subject of was coming from a desire for perfection in worship. Now, I don’t know all the details, but I ventured a guess that perfection was in fact not the goal, but rather progress toward excellence. While I have been around some people for whom anything less than perfection is unacceptable, most church leaders don’t fall into that category. Rather, most church leaders I know are more interested in excellence. Yet when technical problems that seem easily solvable keep happening, they get frustrated. That frustration can spill out as sharp criticism, which can look like a desire for perfection, especially if the tech leader in question higher value on relationships than technical execution. 

In an effort to help my friend, I jotted down some thoughts that I’ve learned over the years. As I was proofing my e-mail (what, you don’t proof your e-mails?), it occurred to me that this was good stuff. One area that I felt needed to be addressed was setting the proper level of expectation for volunteers. I know very few people who are better at caring for people than my friend. But sometimes, like a parent who tries too hard to be their child’s friend, we as tech leaders commit a disservice to our volunteers by failing to lead. Just as a child needs a parent, not another friend, our volunteers need us to lead first, and be friends second. This is not to say the two are mutually exclusive–I’m friends with all my volunteers–but rather, as a technical arts director, I need to direct. Here’s how I see this playing out.

Volunteers will only perform to the level of the expectation we set. When I got to Upper Room, the tech teams were rather sloppy. Cues were regularly missed, the team was often late, and the team seemed nonplused when a mistake was made. Without once yelling at anyone, I started raising the bar. When someone missed a cue, I confronted it right then, and offered suggestions on how to do it better. If they were 5 minutes late, I called their cell phone. I started calling cues on the com, and expected them to be followed.

It’s been an a nearly invisible transformation–but I’m now regularly told our services have never run smoother. And it’s not because I’m a task master, I just expect excellence, and everyone knows it. Every Sunday, I work harder than anyone, and they respect me for that. And to make sure the volunteers feel safe, if there’s a bad cue or a problem, I take the blame for it in front of them. 

Because really, when a volunteer messes up, it’s ultimately our fault. We’ve either not trained them well, not empowered them well or didn’t fire them when we should have. My team is now sharp enough that they over-ride my bad calls. We work together, I expect the best from them and they bring it. And believe it or not, morale is up, and we’re having a lot more fun each weekend than we did a year ago. Volunteers want to do a good job, and the want to serve; we just have to equip them to do it.

I know the heart of any tech director is to value and appreciate the volunteers, but you’re not doing them any favors by not expecting them to perform at a high level. When you’re in a setting that clearly calls for excellence in execution, and you need to set that expectation, and deliver. Otherwise, the the heat that you’ll feel travels straight to them. They get discouraged and ultimately stop caring about doing a good job.

You may need to get clear coms set up and get everyone on them. Call the service like you would any other show. If the guy who runs the lights can’t follow a cue sheet, then you need to tell him to only move on your cue. Same with slides, video and anything else. 

And if someone keeps messing up, then yeah, you may need to fire them. Have a serious conversation with him or her and find out what’s causing the problems. If they’re just not paying attention, or lack the ability to do the job, or just doesn’t care, then fire them. Sidebar: OK, fire might be too strong. You may need to move them to an area of ministry that better suits their skill set. Never fire a volunteer out of anger, and make sure that in “letting them move on,” you express appreciation for their service. Because in truth, not everyone is cut out for the tech team, just like not everyone is cut out for nursery duty (I’d be terrible at that, for example, and should be fired immediately). Still, anyone who shows up week after week to serve needs to be valued. End Sidebar. If it’s an equipment issue, get the equipment fixed. If it’s a training issue, get them the training they need. If it’s a preparation issue, make sure everyone involved in the service is prepared and knows what’s supposed to happen.

Ultimately, church leaders aren’t really after perfection. I’ve heard them mess up on multiple occasions. What they want is progress–progress towards excellence. If month after month the same issues keep cropping up, it’s because those issues are not being dealt with. 

Perfection is a elusive as a spotted leprechaun, but excellence is achievable and repeatable. I was once told that I shoot for perfection and settle for excellence. If all you’re going for is good enough, then you’ll likely get poor. Set the bar high, and people will perform. 

I know many church leaders expect a lot, and they may not do a good job of equipping you to deliver the goods. You can’t fix that, but you can fix what you do. Ultimately, you are responsible for what you do, and what the people below you do. We can’t blame our volunteers for things that go wrong in a service. We need to own the mistakes of our team, then figure out how to keep them from repeating. That’s why we get paid the big bucks (funny, I just accidentally typed big buck–might be more accurate…). 

But you get the point. You’re responsible, you fix it. And never apologize for a mistake without having a plan to keep it from repeating. You may not get it perfect every time, but you can plan to get better. Now, this begs the question, “What do I do when I’m not given the authority and/or budget to fix what we need to fix?” That, grasshopper, is an excellent question. One that will have to wait for another day.

Robert posed an excellent question as a response to a previous post (Helps for Scheduling Volunteers).

How do you keep your volunteers sticking around? We are a large church approx 3000 members running 5 services and everything is volunteer run. The engineer that runs the services that weekend is there for about 20 hours on the weekend, and the schedule has them running every other weekend. At what point does a church hire a position to “lead” a technical group in scheduling and training?

I seem to get asked this question a lot. Not surprisingly, I have some opinions on the topic. But before I share my thoughts, I have to admit a certain amount of confusion when this question comes up. The question is often phrased similarly to Robert’s, and I’ll translate what I think the question really is; “We’re a good-sized church that places a high value on our production values. We want good sound, good lights and good presentation. We’re not getting it however, because our volunteers don’t seem to have the skills or desire to learn or stick around. How can we fix this (without spending any money)?” Often, the church in question is pretty well endowed technically. I’ve talked to one church that has a PM5D, a big fancy Strand lighting console and some high-end video gear, yet no staff dedicated to technical leadership. And for some reason, the volunteers either don’t really know what they’re doing or burn out and quit. Pardon the touch of sarcasm… ‘;-).

Here’s where my confusion comes in. Does this church rely strictly on volunteers for their kids ministry department? Nope. Youth ministry? Nope. Adult ministry? Nope. Do they have a full-time worship leader/music director/worship pastor? Yup. Why? Because these are important ministries that require the attention of a staff member to keep on track. And yet, I find church after church expecting great things from their technical volunteers without providing them any leadership. The results are predicable. They don’t show up when scheduled. They get tired. They don’t do a good job. They quit.

Now, keep in mind, this is not a ding on volunteers. The ones I know are dedicated, and really want to do a good job. But just like you would never send an infantry unit into battle without someone in charge to say, “Here’s our objective and here’s how were going to achieve it,” you can’t tell a volunteer, who already has a full-time job, that you expect full-time performance out of them. Well, you can, but you’ll be disappointed in the results. 

It’s important to keep in mind that I don’t share this perspective from the ivory tower of academia, or from a lofty view out a full-time tech director’s window. I was the lead volunteer in 2 churches for a combined 15 years. After 10 years at my first church, I was completely burned out. I had begun to resent the demands that were placed on me. I wanted to do a good job, but I wasn’t really empowered to do it, nor was there a clear direction on what was even considered a “good job.” I ended up leaving the church and taking 6 months off. At the next church, I was quickly recruited to take on a similar role. This time, the burnout only took 5 years. So I know of what I speak.

So what is the solution? A technical leadership position. Call it Technical Arts Director, Tech Director, Minister of Media, Pastor of Weekend Technology; heck, you can call me Al if you want (but only if I can call you Betty). I believe this person’s job description needs to include the following: Caring for existing volunteers, which includes scheduling, training, equipping and leading them; recruiting additional volunteers; and providing a clear direction of what constitutes successful job performance. As much as I love being a hands-on techie, I think the TAD should remain as hands-off as possible for weekend services. The technical team is a great place for volunteers to serve and make a huge contribution to the church, and we need to empower them to do, and do it well.

In the case of Robert’s church, I think they are crazy asking volunteer sound guys to give 40 hours a month. Does it really surprise anyone that they don’t stick around? To be fair, recruiting sound people is the hardest recruiting job in the church, hands down. The pool of possible candidates is perilously small, and the demands of the job are high. It’s also one of the most rewarding volunteer positions in the church if it’s done right, which is why I like to keep it volunteer as much as possible. 

To that church, I would say you are long overdue for a full-time tech arts person. That staffer’s first responsibility is to reduce the workload for the sound guys. That might mean finding more sound people, developing a set-up team so the engineers can come in later, develop a tear down team so the engineers can leave earlier, or running sound for Saturday nights. You’ll need to develop a short-term fix, and a long-term plan that is sustainable.

I’m also a firm believer that the TAD’s position should not include dealing with every single technical need in the church. I’ve seen job descriptions from some churches that are just laughable. This poor chap is expected to be an expert in sound, lighting, video, presentation, video production, the heart of a pastor, a theology degree, full understanding of IT issues, etc.; will be responsible for all weekend and mid-week A/V needs for all ministries of the church (min. 55 hrs./week). And oh yeah the max. pay is $35,000. Good luck with that one. At best, you’ll get someone who can do 50% of what you want, will be a recent college graduate and will be gone in less than 2 years. Don’t go there. 

Most churches don’t understand the depth of the void they have. If the TAD position is new, there’s the tendency to think that because they have been “getting the job done” with volunteers (and I quote “getting the job done” because by asking the very question above, they are admitting the job is not getting done), that there won’t really be that much for the TAD to do. They think that it’s at best a 20 hr./week position, so they look to fill up their time with other stuff. I actually used to think that. I was wrong. 

My work ethic is off the chart, I’m an efficiency maven and I have developed some really good systems to make myself as productive as possible. And I could work 60+ hours a week and still not keep ahead of my to do list. Developing top-notch technical teams takes a lot of work. Period. So don’t short-change yourself by thinking that it’s not a big deal. In fact, you might find that the TAD needs a part-time assistant to handle some of the admin tasks they will be faced with.

Back to the original question, “At what point to you hire a lead tech person?” You hire them before you get to the point that you need them. And if you missed that point, you hire them now. As churches grow, they naturally add staff to keep up with the demands of the ministry. In most churches, the worship service is a big deal. It needs to happen well. Good leadership is required  to make that happen. Most see the need for paid kids ministry staff, but that really only benefits a sub-set of the church community. Same for youth, adults and seniors. But everyone is affected by the worship service. If anything, one could argue you should hire a TAD before you hire a kids ministries director (heresy…I know…).

A good TAD will become invisible in the church. Worshipers won’t brag to their friends about how great the technical arts ministry is (like they will the kids ministry). But a solid TAD will make a huge impact on the life of the church nonetheless. Worship services will flow more smoothly, people will interact with God distraction-free, and there will be a sense that God is present like never before. I know, I’ve seen this transformation first-hand. 

So there are a few of my thoughts on this topic. I have more, but I’ll save them for another rainy day ‘;-)…

I was struck by something recently. And just so you know, this will not be a techie post. I spend a lot of time writing very technical stuff here, but working in a church, our job is as much about people as about technology. Maybe more. Anyway, back to what struck me.

In our staff meetings, we often do a spiritual practice to remind us why we’re meeting in the first place. Last week, we looked at a list of the sayings of Jesus. It was not all-inclusive, but a good collection of things He said that might impact our lives. We were challenged to pick one and memorize it. One stood out to me right away. This week I was clearing off my desk, and I found the list. The verse I chose I had committed to memory years ago (so I guess I was technically cheating at the exercise), and once again I was struck with the power of the phrase.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

Go back and read that again and let it sink in. I found this so striking because I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks re-wiring our tech booth and making plans for an upcoming IT migration. I was struck by how easy it is to get completely wrapped up in technology, and forget that unless we remain connected to Christ, we are doing nothing.

Sure, we may be wiring gear together, but that’s all we’re doing. We might be making graphics, editing videos, mixing sound, and firing off ProPresenter cues, but unless we are doing in the context of a relationship to Christ, we are doing nothing. That’s right, nothing.

I find myself devoting hours of thought to how I’m going to distribute video in our sanctuary and the rest of the building. Or perhaps how I’m going to set up our new XServe. Or maybe how I’m going to structure a new training series for our volunteers. But I struggle to “find time” to spend reading the Bible or simply praying. I’m staying very busy, but am I doing nothing?

I suffer from insomnia, which I’m learning is common among people with my temperament. It’s really easy for me to lie in bed for hours working out solutions to complex technical problems. But it’s a lot harder to spend a few minutes before I turn out the light reading the words of Jesus. Even when I try to spend some of my “can’t fall asleep” time praying, my mind wanders off to solve the current dilemma. 

But over the last 2 weeks, those words keep coming back to haunt me.

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

What am I really accomplishing? Am I bearing much fruit? Am I really remaining in Christ? More and more, it seems to me if I miss this, I’ve missed the whole point. Unless I remain in Him, it’s all just gear wired together. It’s all just stuff…procedures…plans…nothing.

So what does it mean to “remain in Him?” I’m not entirely sure I know the answer, but I think it starts with being still long enough to listen for His voice. Not the audible one we all would love to hear, but the still, small voice that gives us our next direction. I think it means spending some time in prayer for our teams, our church and our co-laborers. I think it means hanging out in the Bible, letting the words wash over us. I think it means subordinating our agenda to His.

Let’s face it, brothers and sisters; we’re techies. We’re not likely to become famous, or be loved and adored by the congregations who aren’t even sure what we do. We’re behind the scenes, and most of us like it that way. But when I look back, at the end of my life, I want to see fruit. My fruit will look different than that of the pastor or the evangelist or the conference speaker. But I want to see fruit nonetheless. What I don’t want to see is nothing more than a collection of really well wired gear. That would be a tragedy. That would be nothing.

After a full two weeks out on the road, it’s good to be home. According to our trusty Garmin 360 GPS, we logged 2,446 miles; averaged 59.1 MPH while moving; drove for 41 hours, 11 minutes, were stopped for 11 hours and 56 minutes (some horrible construction in Wisconsin and Indiana); which translates into an overall average speed of 45.8 MPH. Interestingly, our moving average speed on the way to NY was barely 55 MPH. We hit almost all our construction delays going east; which meant that if I could calculate our return average speed, it should be a good bit higher. Call me a geek, but I find this interesting. 

Standing in front of what could be the world’s largest Weber Grill
at the Weber Grill restaurant in Schaumburg, IL.

In all that driving, I had a lot of time to think. Here are some things that stood out to me (in no particular order):

Road trips aren’t nearly as much fun as the used to be. Between construction, traffic and probably age (mine), slogging my way down the highway for 8 hours a day holds a lot less appeal than it did 10 years ago. The thing I found most aggravating was roads that were completely rebuilt from the ground up only a few years ago are now being torn up again for repairs. Here’s to you, PA!

Sundays are a much better day to drive than Fridays; Saturdays are better than either. We drove from Cleveland to Chicago on a Saturday and we made some time! Traffic was light, and none of the construction zones were active. I will use this information to my advantage in the future. Avoid Fridays at all costs.

Two weeks is a long time to be gone. Call me crazy, but I would have rather had a single week off. Perhaps 10 days. By then I missed my bed, my routine, and my backyard. It was fun to see friends, but I wish it could have been more efficient. 

I need alone time. I already knew this, but it was reinforced during the trip. If I don’t get sufficient alone time, I get cranky. Vacation was tough because we were always staying with relatives (which meant we were invading their space), and I was surrounded by my family. I love my family, but I need time to be alone with my thoughts. Regularly. As in daily. I think the best day of the trip was the day I had lunch with my friend Jamie, after which I went back to the lake, took a walk, sat on a bench and just thought. By myself. I felt like a LiOn battery being recharged.

I love what I do. Again, I knew this before I left, but it was again reinforced. By about day 10, I found myself sitting with my laptop researching servers, network topologies, piano mics and other techie things. I just can’t stand to be away from the action for that long. I know it’s healthy to unplug for a while, but I need to do it in shorter bursts.

I don’t like having nothing to do. Perhaps this is the great paradox of my life. I’m both lazy and driven. After a week of not working, I didn’t feel like doing anything. Getting out of bed before 9 seemed like a chore. If I was ready to go anywhere before 11, I was doing good. It reminded me of the days after I sold my company and I didn’t have any compelling reason to get up in the morning. It’s fun for a few days, but after a while I felt like a slug. I need action. And peace. There’s a balance there somewhere…

I’m a creature of habit. Another paradox. In my work, I’m a change agent. I’m constantly taking things apart, changing them and making them better. I am always asking if there is a better way to do something. Change is my middle name. At the same time, I eat the same thing for breakfast every day. I have a strikingly consistent morning routine. I like things in the places I put them. Living out of a suitcase bugs me. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already made my system as efficient as it can be, and thus it doesn’t need change.

I have a good team, and good systems at Upper Room. Even on vacation, my cell phone never turns off. While I took my time off on weeks that we were supposed to have outdoor worship (and theoretically, no tech needs), for the first time in 7 years, outdoor worship was moved indoors. Though I wasn’t there, my team handled it well. I did field a few tech-support calls from my presentation tech, and I was able to solve the problem by logging in remotely (since I planned for that possibility). Still, my time off was not consumed by making sure things were happening back at the ranch. I’m one step closer to working myself out of a job.

I really like Minneapolis. No offense to anyone who lives in Cleveland, but it took me about 12 hours there to remember why I left. And while I love the Finger Lakes region of western New York, being back there didn’t elicit feelings of, “I wish I still lived here.” Which lead me to conclude that…

For me, home is where God calls me. When finally escaped Wisconsin Sunday (it’s a big stinkin’ state!), I told my wife that last summer, I never would have guessed I would be so anxious to get to back to Minnesota. I’ve lived in four metro areas in my life (well, actually three, one of them twice), and during each season, I was fully invested in that place. It was my home. But when the time came to leave, I felt no regret, and became almost immediately anchored to my new home. I think this is a protection mechanism from God, a true fulfillment of Psalm 37:4—God giving me the desires of my heart (He puts the desires there…).

Well, that’s what I did on my summer vacation. I’m glad we went, and I’m glad we’re back. I can’t wait to get back to work tomorrow. We have some very exciting things coming up with Upper Room over the next few months. Life-changing big things. Stuff I can’t talk about just yet—but I will as soon as I can. God is doing a great work in our midst and I’m blessed to be a part of it. More techie stuff to come…I promise!

Today’s post is again inspired by an e-mail I got the other day (I get a lot of e-mails like this…). This time it was from a friend of mine who is a worship leader at a pretty good-sized church on the west coast. She was asking me at what point I would start hiring sound and lighting guys to run weekend services. Now first of all, I personally like having volunteers do this as much as possible. I know there are a lot of great churches out there with full-time, paid sound and lighting guys (and probably a few gals) and I have nothing at all against them (some days I even want to be them). But most of the time, from a philosophical standpoint, I really like building volunteer teams that can do sound, lights, presentation, video, etc. I’m not saying my way is right and any other way is wrong, it’s just the way I like to roll.

Back to the story. As the e-mail conversation developed, she started listing off the gear they had in house; PM5D-RH, a big Strand lighting console, an FSR video switcher, some pretty high-end stuff. Then she wrote the line that stopped me cold. It went something like this: “our technical staff is all volunteer except for a 1/4 time tech assistant and the other worship leader, oversees audio…he’s 1/2 time.”

I said, “HUH?? You have a PM5D and no full-time tech guy. Well there’s your problem!” It looks like someone drank the Koolaid. Don’t get me wrong, the PM5D is a great desk. It’s just not volunteer friendly–especially when there’s no full-time tech guy to make sure it’s set up and ready to rock every weekend. And after looking into the rest of the gear they have, I thought, “Wow, how did this happen?” 

Now, I don’t know for sure, but if I had to guess, I would suspect that the church went to a consultant as they were building the new building and said, “We want our sound, lighting and video to be state-of-the-art. Make it so!” And the consultant said, “Cool! Sign here.” My guess is that no one ever asked, “Who’s going to be running this gear? How will they be trained? Who will maintain it?”

And because the church doesn’t have a full-time tech guy, there was no one around to ask those questions. So once again, we have a church that spent a ton of money on gear that no one in-house can use effectively. I have to be honest–that really frustrates me. 

I’m all for churches using top quality equipment. And I’m all for having high production standards. However, at some point, you have to ask if you are putting in equipment that is hard for your volunteer staff to learn how to use. It comes down to philosophy of ministry. If you believe in using volunteers, you have to install equipment that’s easy for a non-professional tech to use once a month. 

Personally, I would never spec a PM5D for a church that doesn’t have a full-time sound guy (or at least a full-time tech guy who’s really good with audio). Again, it’s a great desk, but it’s too hard for a volunteer who mixes on it once a month. A M7CL would have been a far better choice, would in all honesty, likely provide more than enough functionality and would have saved $45,000. The same goes for lighting consoles and video switchers. Folks, we have to think this through. 

If your church is considering upgrading equipment, it is imperative that you evaluate each new piece of gear based on the staff (volunteer or paid) you have to run it. I think we can stretch people and encourage them to learn new things, but we have to be realistic. Most of our volunteers are not über-geeks. They don’t spend time reading FOH, Live Sound, Mix and EQ magazines every month. They don’t dream about different ways to automate the service using snapshots, or controlling the desk from their iPod Touch.

We need to be sure to set them up to succeed in what they do, not fail. I view my job as a Tech Arts Director as one who empowers volunteers to be successful and use and develop the skills and talents God gave them. To do that, I evaluate every piece of gear, every procedure, and everything I do during the week to see if it helps empower my team.

Church leaders, it’s up to you to not drink the consultant Koolaid. Now I understand there are a lot of great consultants out there who ask the right questions, and spec appropriate gear. But there a lot more who don’t. Ask them if the gear will be easy to use by your non-professional tech volunteers. If they respond with, “Oh, yeah, I use it all the time, it’s super-cool.” Keep pressing. Ask them if a guy or gal who does this once a month can learn how to use it effectively. If they stutter, keep pressing. If you’re still not sure, call me. I so hate to see churches spend money the wrong way.

In the media-driven society we live in, we need to have high standards for our production. We need to have quality gear. We need to be able to make is sound and look great. But it also needs to be easy to use by those who generously and often sacrificially give of their time each week. Don’t put in a Digidesign Venue just because they advertise in Church Production each month. Don’t buy a GrandMa just because it can control a bazillion moving lights while making your coffee.

Choose your gear wisely–you will probably save a lot of money, and you will get higher quality production because your volunteer staff will be more effective, more confident and better equipped to do a better job each weekend. Isn’t that what we really want from our technology?