One of the first bible verses we all memorized after accepting Christ is John 3:16: “For God so loved audio consoles that He gave His only begotten Son…” Wait a minute – that doesn’t look right. Let me look it up. That’s right – it’s “For God so loved the world”. That is, the people who make up the world.
In the technical ministries, it’s easy to lose our focus and begin to think, at least subconsciously, it’s all about the buttons and knobs. Don’t get me wrong – buttons and knobs are great. I love buttons and knobs. However, we need to remember that the buttons and knobs are the means to the end, not the end itself. People are the end. Winning people for Christ. Building up those in the body of Christ to serve each other and the church. Loving each other as we love ourselves. When you focus on the buttons and knobs, you’ll have short-term success. When you focus more on the people in your ministry, you’ll build a team that impacts eternity.
This is what is behind Church Production Magazine’s T3 Technical Training Tour. Not merely improving our craft to better impact the services we support, but learning to build teams and relationships that will impact the Kingdom. Not just for one weekend, but forever. There’s simply too much at stake to limit our vision to the buttons and knobs.
Through the “T3 In Action” column, we will be looking at the impact the T3 seminars are having in local church ministry. Each month, one church’s experience will be highlighted, and we’ll get their perspective on how God is using T3 seminars to refocus the local church’s technical ministry on what really matters.
After returning from the Long Beach, California seminar, Jeff Traintime of Hollywood Presbyterian Church located in Hollywood, California had this to say about their experience: “When three of us from Hollywood Presbyterian had the opportunity to attend your conference in Long Beach last month, we came back totally jazzed by what we learned - we’re still talking about how you inspired us.”
Hollywood Presbyterian Church has an average weekly attendance of 1,500 spread out over four services in three different venues: their 80-year-old sanctuary, their chapel, and a neighboring night club where they do a rock service. With two of these services going on simultaneously, this diversity presents their biggest challenge. To make these services happen, there are one full-time, six part-time technical ministry staff members, and eight technical volunteers. This is one area they quickly realized needed improvement. “We saw from the sessions in Long Beach that we particularly need to beef up the volunteer area.”
Although they attended the seminars looking to learn more about the technology of technical production, Traintime said, “We were being more caught up in the inspiration that was offered, and in the whole concept of team building. We realized that just about all the problems that we had acknowledged about our church could be greatly improved upon if we just concentrated on team building. So, it went way beyond technical for us to become a lesson in running all areas of the church.” One of the things most eye-opening topics was coming to realize the dedication of those working to put on the service. Traintime comments that, “a lot of the people that do jobs to make our services happen were being somewhat taken for granted, and it opened our eyes to the fact that those folks who are [serving faithfully] every week need to know how much you appreciate them.” He adds that, “what really jumped out for me was the way that ministry was also presented as such an important task – that the reason all of us are there is to serve God and to serve the vision of the senior pastor. And we realized how important it is for us [as staff members] to work towards having the entire team share those common goals.”
Because of the impact the T3 seminar had on Hollywood Presbyterian Church, Traintime says they are “completely revitalizing our technical area, and raising the importance of this area at the staff level. As much as the sessions taught us what we needed to do, they also showed us what we are doing wrong. I think we all came back with a desire to stop doing things wrong.” He also came away with a vision for the potential for improvement in their sanctuary, which acoustically was designed for the era of pipe organ and choir.
For more information on the T3 seminars, visit Church Production Magazine’s web site at www.churchproduction.com.
