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May 2012

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by Carolyn Heinze

It’s an exciting—and daunting—task, and for many churches, it’s the most important event of the year. Planning an Easter production can bring out the best in people, from those animated brainstorming sessions where everyone involved builds upon one another’s ideas, to the challenges that pop up along the course of the production … and the bond that ensues when the team works together to solve them. As churches incorporate more technology into their events, the possibilities are endless. But it’s necessary to first establish what role the equipment plays in the grand scheme of things before you can come up with a viable plan of action.

It all starts with getting the right people involved: obviously, any production planning session should include key personnel, such as senior pastors, music ministers, media ministers and technical directors. However, Kevin Young, minister of creative media at Mountaintop Community Church in Birmingham, Ala., cautions against solely involving “upper management.”

A Wider Lens
“Many times, pastors, ministers of music and ministers of media work inside of a bubble, and think they really know what their church needs, and what their people need,” Young says. “While I think that’s true, they don’t always look at a wider demographic.” What do the children in the congregation want and need out of the event? What about the youth? Or the college-aged adults and young professionals?

In many cases, Young observes, the leadership positions in a church are held by middle-aged white men—people who are addressing multicultural congregations made up of both genders and all age groups. “You have to ask yourself: what communicates well to women? What communicates to people who are either of Mexican decent or African American?” he challenges. “Broadening out the scope of who you look at and who has input is important—especially when you’re looking at a production.”

When devising where technology fits into a production, Kent Morris, president of Cornerstone Media Group in Canton, Ga., declares that the key word is “appropriate.” “It has to be appropriate in the sense of what the church is capable of technically,” Morris says. “It’s much better to pull off something low-key very well than to strive to do something above their means—either technically or financially—and then come up short of that.” In some cases, churches produce services that feature modest technology for 50 Sundays a year, and then pull out all of the stops when the time comes to launch a large-scale production. This approach can be tricky—especially if your team is not accustomed to operating sophisticated equipment. “It’s not acceptable to have that requirement for them to step up three steps beyond their current position.

It’s like asking a high school baseball player to step up to the major leagues,” Morris explains.

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Carolyn Heinze is a freelance writer/editor.