What was the last concert you went to? If you're a techie like me, I am sure you spent an equal amount of time checking out the gear and counting crew as you did watching the artist. It's easy to become envious and begin to feel down about your situation at a church when most of the time all those roles on a tour are done by you...only you.
I was a tour guy for years, and stepping off the road and into a church wasn't the easy life I had envisioned. With a tour, your team does the same thing day in and day out. You develop a rhythm and it becomes second nature. Not so in the church where you have different band members each weekend and different crew (volunteers) running the various positions. So even if you're a one-man (or woman) show, how can you still get professional tour results?
First off lets debunk that the tour has it all together - they have hiccups too. So it may be time to right size your expectations and define what is excellent for your team. Don't measure yourself against a model that is unsustainable. The first time Third Day came to our church, they sounded amazing. I was blown away at how good our system sounded, and so were many of the people who attended. I was asked for weeks why weekend worship didn't sound like Third Day. It's difficult for the regular joe to put together I guess. I still remember being asked what I do for a living by a new volunteer. I turned around and in my best Mufasa from the Lion King impression showed them that everything the light touches in this sanctuary is what I do for a living. They looked at the brand new stage design, then looked back at me and said, “Yeah, but when you're not here, what are you doing, for like, a job?” The average congregation member has no idea what goes into making a weekend service; they have no idea that a band like Third Day, has: 1. Great gear, 2. A lot of talent and practice, and 3. They do the same thing night after night, allowing for tweaks. For most churches, the band is a revolving group of volunteers. They may rehearse one night a week and then warm up before service. The next week it's a different band with different songs, while a sound engineer can dial that in and make it sound great, don't beat yourself up that you don't sound like an award-winning artist.
As a lone TD, you can't possibly do it all. So empowering people is crucial. Depending on the church size, your tech staffing can vary, but I don't know of a single church that can survive without volunteers. Even when I toured, we didn't bring enough people to do everything, we relied on local help each night. Deputize some of your key members into helping you lead your ministry. I've even created positions for people with special skill sets catered to them. For example, we created a position called the Capture Captain, someone who has a lot more focus than I do to monitor our recording systems to ensure we have a great capture for the web.
There's another group in our church I call the “uber nerds.” These are the people who are not satisfied just running the equipment; they need to know how it works. Get these people as involved as possible, because I can tell you from experience, tech ministry is so much more fulfilling when it's shared. It's so much better than burning out trying to do it all yourself.
Finally, learn to network. Break the barrier between tech and band. You need those relationships to fulfill your task. Engage the band in a new way to help build camaraderie. I am sure there are some people on your teams that would love to come along side less-experienced players, and help them dial in their pedals on rehearsal night. Maybe a drummer who will come replace the and tune the drumheads on a regular schedule. These little things can have a huge difference on the weekend service. I even have band members now serving once a month on the tech side just so they get a better understanding of what it is we do.
I know it can seem overwhelming to be one person filling so many roles. It doesn't just seem like it, it is. When you're head audio guy, lighting director, and graphics designer every week, it can begin to wear on you. At a concert, it can be discouraging to see a crew of 12 or 15 people meeting the needs of five musicians, all the while you're wondering if you even have time to be sitting at this concert when your own stage needs to be set up.
Remember that you are a part of a ministry. So the number one priority is not killer audio, stellar lights, or amazing lyric execution. It's giving that ministry away to those who can mix, design and operate.
I'll never forget a certain young man who so desperately wanted to join the tech team. I put him in the control room, in charge of recordings. We were still burning CDs and DVDs at the time. This middle school-aged kid developed a serious passion for doing what, to me, seemed a very menial task. It wasn't long before he recruited his dad to serve with him. The son would make the masters and the dad would run the duplicator. This kid's passion took two things off my plate while he and his dad found the greatest fulfillment in it. So what can you give up?
