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Arguably one of the most important relationships in the church world is that between a lead pastor and his technical director.
At many churches, the TD carries the sole responsibility for executing all of the AVL aspects of the service. Essentially, it’s up to him (or her) as to whether the service sinks or floats. Both the worship and speaking portions of the service exclusively ride on the TD’s ability to amplify and/or deliver the content to the congregation in an effective way.
Without the pastor’s leadership, there is no “true north” for the TD to point his compass to.
Conversely, without the senior pastor providing vision, direction and inspiration, the TD is a rudderless ship in a storm, being tossed around by every opinion in the congregation and lacking a clear, identifiable platform to hold onto amidst the chaos. Without the pastor’s leadership, there is no “true north” for the TD to point his compass to.
Thus, it’s an important synergy. Both pastor and TD rely on the other for success, and both are completely intertwined at the hip.
Why, then, is this such a challenging terrain for most church staffs to navigate?
For many, it may simply boil down to communication. Both worlds are so diametrically opposed in how they tend to approach ministry that without intentionality, there can be consistent issues communicating on even basic levels, simply because neither side speaks the language of the other.
It’s not exclusively upon the senior leadership to fully wade into our world to understand us.
It is important for church techs to understand their role in this and their responsibility to take steps to improve how that relationship works. It’s not exclusively upon the senior leadership to fully wade into our world to understand us. But since we are willingly serving under their leadership, we need to be willing to take steps into their world to fix any communication barrier that may exist.
So, as we all strive to do a better job of communicating with our leaders, here are three main ideas to keep in mind:
1-The "what": knowing what language to use
Most pastors probably don’t care about all the ins and outs of our technical worlds. For them, IP-65 probably sounds like a highway, and they likely haven’t cared about Dante since their high school literature class.
For [pastors], IP-65 probably sounds like a highway, and they likely haven’t cared about Dante since their high school literature class.
Having conversations heavy with technical lingo is a quick way to turn off anyone in senior leadership.
Instead, we need to understand the concepts and ideas that are important to them, and use those as we explain issues in our world.
For example, my boss (who isn’t our senior pastor, but serves as an executive-level pastor on our church staff) may not care to know the features of equipment I want to look at purchasing. But, he’s always very concerned with the level of support and service that we can get from a manufacturer; if something breaks, how efficiently will we be able to get it fixed or replaced?
So, as I communicate the importance of needing to replace a particular piece of gear that is failing, I can’t fall into tech-speak about why a newer model has better bells and whistles. Instead, since I know “his language”, I’m able to talk about how our current equipment is at end-of-life and no longer supported by the manufacturer, and we need to consider an upgrade so that we can be in a better support position in the event that it breaks or fails.
While that’s just one of many examples for me, hopefully we can all find similar ways to change our communication style to better fit that of our pastor.
But the key to this is that we must focus more on listening than talking.
When my pastor (or leader) is communicating to me or the church staff, what are the “buzzwords” or topics that he always seems to focus on? Chances are, the things he talks about the most are the things that he values the most, or at least is the most concerned about.
Understanding what’s important to him can help me better communicate my needs to him in a way that he’ll understand, and it helps ensure that I stay connected to his vision for how he desires to lead the ministry.
2-The “how”: focus on solutions, not problems
It’s inevitable that we’ll always face problems of some sort: gear will break, volunteers won’t show up, some other department won’t communicate with us ahead of time, and the list goes on.
But if we’re trying to earn favor and influence in our ministry, we can’t just be the “Debbie Downer” that always goes around complaining about the problems that exist and hope that someone else will fix it. Nobody wants to have a negative person always running around focusing on problems.
Instead, I need to focus on being a proactive problem-solver. My leaders above me likely have dozens of serious issues they need to tackle each day across all phases of ministry life, and they may not have the emotional or mental bandwidth to process through any other problems I want to drop in their lap.
Nobody wants to have a negative person always running around focusing on problems. Instead, [we] need to focus on being proactive problem-solvers.
One of the greatest benefits I can bring to the table is to be a person who has a solution and plan in place so they don’t have to expend energy to come up with one.
There’s a great chance that they’ll be so grateful for not having to come up with a solution on their own (to solve a problem that they may not fully understand, since they might not be technically inclined), that they will be willing to let me put my own solution into place.
Simply having a plan ready to execute immediately gives me a leg up as I look to earn influence and even some greater levels of independence.
If there’s a problem that needs solving, don’t just complain about it. Do you research, think through options, and gather feedback, both from others on the church team and even from peers at other churches.
Being able to give real world case studies of other comparable churches always helps. It also helps to have feedback from the churches that your pastor looks to for inspiration or guidance; if he already sees them as authoritative voices and influencers in ministry, he’ll probably be more willing to go along with an idea that they’ve pursued at some point.
3-The “why”: connecting solutions with ministry vision
This helps bring the communication process full-circle, because this phase also hinges greatly on having a listening ear to the ministry heartbeat of your pastor.
When I know what my pastor’s main ministry focuses are (outreach, missions, kids’ ministry, etc.), I can help draw a line between my team and our ability to serve those vision areas more effectively.
... this phase hinges greatly on having a listening ear to the ministry heartbeat of your pastor.
If we improved a certain process or type of equipment, can that help us do outreach more effectively? Can it help us film better quality testimony videos that can inspire more people to take mission trips? Can it light our stage better and improve the quality of the video we stream or archive online?
No pastor ever wants to spend money just for the sake of spending it. But if he has to spend it, he will usually need to justify how it will eventually tie back in with helping the church fulfill its ministry vision in the community.
Being able to speak that language is critical as we work with our leaders to help improve phases of how we operate.
It goes beyond just wanting to buy gear or make a change, and it all ends up needing to tie back in with a baseline of vision.
There’s nothing wrong at all with us having our own vision for how we want to grow our technical ministry and improve things under our own purview, and I believe that most pastors would want us to possess that level of initiative to try and make things better.
But as we work to keep our pastors in the loop with developing changes in the industry, or even potential challenges we see on the horizon for our teams, we must constantly be focused on how we communicate those critical details and how they tie back in with the broader ministry focus of the church.
