I remember feeling overwhelmed and under-qualified. At the time I was in a new role at a new church, and it required a lot of me: experience I didn't yet have; knowledge I had yet to pursue; resources and connections I didn't even know I needed. But I knew God had called me to that church, and that He wouldn't have done that if I weren't the right person for it at the right time. So, I pushed on, learning as I went, and building relationships I could lean on both technically and interpersonally.
That time ended up being one of the most rewarding and challenging periods of my life. I learned so much. And I developed relationships that will last forever. I took away a key principle from the whole experience: when God calls you to something, He's got your back, so step out and go for it.
Are you feeling overwhelmed, under-qualified, or just plain stuck? Does it seem like there's so much to learn that the more knowledge you acquire the more you realize you still don't know? When a technical issue comes up, do you struggle to find good answers?
Knowledge Integration
I believe the answer is to build relationships with other technical experts you can learn from and lean on in difficult situations. Get connected to the tech folks at larger churches and learn from them. Reach out to production companies to observe how secular productions operate. Check out Church Tech Unite, an organization that gets church tech people to connect for just these types of reasons.
I've had countless people reach out to me over the years because they want to learn how we do production here at Lakewood [Church, Houston, Texas]. I'm always happy to answer questions, dive deep into topics, and give tours and demonstrations of our equipment. You'll probably find the same spirit of cooperation at other large churches.
There are many ways to approach live sound, video production, and lighting. You may pick up valuable insight into industry standards and best practices just from a conversation. Or you may realize the other church tech person with whom you're speaking has a lack of knowledge in an area you happen to know a lot about; you can bless them with your experience. Synergy is a wonderful thing.
“Noise-to-signal” ratio?
There are also environments nowadays where synergy can sometimes be harmful. For example, there are some online forums that now have so many members contributing to each discussion, most of whom have little to no expertise, that the discussions have become mostly noise. I like to joke that the “noise-to-signal” ratio is too high. In fact, there is such a significant enough amount of incorrect information and misguided advice in many of the conversations that many experts have stopped trying to respond, or simply get drowned out by bad advice (from well-meaning folks, I'm sure). So, while getting out there and networking is still vitally important and fundamentally good, you have to exercise discernment when wading through these online groups.
Learn to listen more and speak less when trying to network and grow. I know many people who think they've got it all figured out, and want to provide all the answers. I've learned that there is so much to know that you'll never have all the answers, and therefore you should never stop learning. That requires good listening skills.
So, be encouraged: the people, the knowledge, the resources are out there to take you to the next level. Get out and network, because building relationships will take you higher.
