Let's just be honest for a minute; as much as we tech guys and gals love to do it, buying new A/V/L equipment is fraught with peril. Unboxing all that shiny new gear is exciting, but it all seems to come packaged with the underlying question, “Did we make the right decision?”
A lot of churches tend to take a “crisis management” approach to purchasing A/V/L equipment. That is, they find them- selves in desperate need for something, then run out and buy the first thing that appears to meet the need at hand. While the problem might be solved for today, it's not uncommon for that equipment to be removed and replaced because it wasn't quite right, or won't work with the next big thing that's needed.
I suggest there is a better way, one that will be far more fiscally responsible and build confidence and trust in the technical team from church leadership. It all begins with thinking ahead.
Start With A Master Plan
Most growing churches (or those that aspire to grow) are familiar with the concept of a master plan. A master plan is simply a vision of the goal state—the place you want to be when you're done. To use a building analogy, a church might start out with a multi-purpose room and an education wing. In the future, the master plan shows an office/admin building, another education building and a new, larger worship space.
All those buildings would be drawn up, at least conceptually, before the first is ever built. The master plan tells us where we are headed, so we can make good decisions along the way.
A master plan for A/V/L equipment is very similar. We start by taking a look at our existing needs, making some educated guesses about where the church is headed, and coming up with a goal state. At this point, we're really defining functionality, not specifying equipment. For example, a master plan for video might include the desire to have four to five cameras available to shoot the service, and the ability to produce both an IMAG mix, a satellite campus/ video venue feed, and a web stream. The eventual equipment list for that system will be quite different from a master plan that requires only video archives of the service.
While the master plan would most likely be developed by the technical team, I submit it should be developed in concert with church leadership, as well as any other ministry leaders who will be affected by it. Because a master plan should be campus-wide, you should consult with the stu-dent ministry leaders before drawing up plans for the student space, for example. The campus-wide master plan will become your road map for the next three to five (or even seven years) of equipment upgrades and purchases.
Planned Purchasing
Once the master plan is developed and approved by senior leadership (don't skip that part), begin to filter all your equipment purchases through this plan. Going back to our previously mentioned video system, you may currently have two cameras and are simply creating video archives and maybe a web stream of the message today. However, if you know that video venues and IMAG are in the master plan, and it's time for a new in the next few years. Yes, you'll spend a bit more now, but in the long run it will be less expensive because you won't be buying equipment twice.
The master plan will guide our thinking for infrastructure decisions, as well. For example, you may choose to run
coax, fiber or Cat5 (or all three) around your building or campus depending on the needs dictated by the master plan. Pulling cable in existing buildings is really hard, and you want to do that as few times as possible. Make sure whatever you pull today will serve you well for many years to come.
Transitional Pieces
While a master plan might show you the theoretical path from A to Z, sometimes you can't get from A to Z or even A to D directly. In those cases, you may have to purchase transitional or bridge equipment to get you through the next year or three until you can purchase what you ultimately want.
For example, I will sometimes advocate the purchase of higher-end, used SD cameras and an HD switcher for IMAG because, right now, new high-end HD cameras are still very expensive and I'm not convinced low-end HD cameras are ready for primetime. HD switchers, however, are both affordable and ubiquitous, so it makes sense to buy that piece of the eventual all-HD video system now. I know the SD cameras are stopgaps, but from an ROI standpoint, it often makes more sense over a three- to five-year period.
Perhaps you envision making the transition to LED-based lighting at some point, but based on your current stock of filament-based fixtures, you can't afford a total swap out. It may be that you purchase a few additional incandescent fixtures to add additional light to the stage for now, while waiting for LEDs to come down in price (and go up in brightness). Once the funds are available and the technology ready, you can swap the equipment out, and probably sell or repurpose the used gear.
A master plan will help you think like a chess player, three to five moves in advance. You might buy a piece of equipment for your main auditorium today, knowing that in two years you can move it to the student room when you upgrade. You know it will work in the student room be-cause you bought it with that in mind.
Predicting the Future
The hardest part of creating a master plan is predicting the future. The challenge is that none of us really knows what the future holds. We would like to believe our church will be larger in five years than it is today, but what if it's not? Or what if instead of growing to a single 3,000-seat venue, we've reorganized into a 1,000- seat main campus and four 500-seat video venues or satellite campuses?
You might make a series of purchases based on the assumption that paid staff will be in place to operate the equipment, only to find in two years that economic realities dictate the need for volunteers to run those systems. In that case, it may be that the systems need to be simplified or changed out altogether to enable less-skilled volunteers to be successful.
The simple truth is this: plans—even the best of them—change. So it's important to review the plans often and make sure they're still relevant. It's also important to not lose too much sleep over making these decisions. Make the best decisions you can with the information you have available and adjust or adapt from there. There will always be a healthy market for used equipment.
Despite the potential pitfalls, developing a master plan is still worth it, especially compared to the alternative.
