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Planning and Purchasing Audio, Video and Lighting

Good stewardship begins with a series of questions designed to assist you through the process.

by Rob Connelly

Most church leaders would agree that planning for and purchasing large items within the church is not nearly as simple as doing so for individual use. However, I have run across few churches that have a systematic framework to assist them in this area. The purpose of this article is to define and briefly apply a series of questions for purchasing and planning audio, video and lighting that will help pursue what I call gospel stewardship.

Gospel stewardship is quite simple: Making disciples who worship God with their lives is the primary mission of the church, according to Matthew 28. Everything we do and buy should be directly linked to this mission. This worship is also expressed through caring for the poor and hurting, caring for creation, serving our communities where real need exists, by essentially loving what God loves. Actually living this mission out in the church is quite complicated. In order to make disciples and facilitate worship, the gospel message and indeed the gospel community (the church) must be "contextualized" appropriately to the culture.

This idea of "contextualization" is debated greatly with differing opinions of how much contextualization is too much. In other words, at what point have we somehow altered the gospel in an attempt to contextualize it? While the church should use relevant methods, the message of the Bible and the end goal of making disciples must motivate their use. Each church must have a vision: a stated understanding of how the biblical mission of the church will be contextualized to unify and drive all of what they do.

The following three scenarios (regarding the purchase of audio, video and lighting, respectively) apply these gospel stewardship questions to reach effective decisions. For the sake of this article we won't ask all questions for each example, but only enough to give readers a better understanding of the process.

When you're considering equipment upgrades for your church, answers to some questions may be obvious, while other questions may require meetings, conversations with consultants and prayerful consideration to reach accurate conclusions.

Eight important questions:

1. How does the function of this equipment enhance the accomplishment of our long-term vision?

2. Do we have the budget to do it right legally, safely and with quality?

3. Are we prepared/able to put in place the proper infrastructure to make this a good kingdom investment for the long-term?

4. Are we willing to pay someone from outside the church (unless a volunteer experienced in A/V system design for houses of worship is available) to help us with both the decision and the integration?

5. Will this equipment be operable by our volunteers/staff in such a way that it will add its theoretical value?

6. Are there any technical issues that this upgrade might cause that would be a detriment to the vision?

7. Is there another piece of equipment that may cost less, be easier to operate, require less infrastructure or has only the features we need and none of the ones we don't, which would bring the value we desire?

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Rob Connelly currently serves at North Wake Church in Wake Forest, NC as director of technology and communication. He is the owner of Connelly Audio, providing technology, ministry and systems consulting to churches. Rob is also a student at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife Ashley have two young sons.