It's a beautiful thing when the body of Christ pours into each other for encouragement. That's what I witnessed in early March at the Gurus of Tech event at Willow Creek's McHenry Campus in Crystal Lake, Illinois --- tech directors sharing their successes and struggles, pouring into each other technically, relationally and spiritually.
The event, sponsored by Mankin Media with support from Renewed Vision, attracted nearly 600 technical directors, media ministers and other technical personnel for a three-day event. Representatives from the Harman brands, Digico, Vari-lite, Seachanger, Digital Stache and Proforma Synergy Graphics were also on hand to demonstrate products and support the event.
With considerable expertise shared in classes taught Willow's staff, many other classes were led by presenters from other churches. For example, a session entitled "Working with Non-Technical People" was led by Daryl Cripe, formerly with Grace Community Church located near Indianapolis, Dennis Choy of North Coast Church in Vista, CA, Jeff Vandergiessen of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, WA and Kristin Twilla from Kensington Community Church in Troy, MI. In the session, Vandergiessen shared that tech people need to be good planners. They need to be intentional about relationships with non-technical staff. He recommends tech people document and share workflow with non-technical staff. This will help the church's non-technical staff members learn more about what we as tech people do.
Cripe suggests that sometimes tech people sabotage their own success by sharing too much technical detail with non-tech people. But he adds that often they are not thankful enough. He says it's too common for tech people to believe their budgets are never big enough, their equipment not good enough, and timelines are never long enough or with enough detail. "We need to be more thankful about what we do have," he says.
Twilla supports this, saying tech people often say "No" too quickly. It could be a "control reaction" she suggests, but always saying "Yes" is a "people pleaser" response, and that could be a dangerous attribute for the church tech director.
Choy's point had more to do with attitude. "On the weekend, we don't argue, " he says. Choy trains his staff to do everything possible to support the services on the weekend. "Come Monday, we argue, but the weekend is different." This is a point he has to drive home and repeat every weekend since there are so many staff and volunteers cycling through the service, there's always someone new who needs to hear it.
A general session on day two featured an in-depth interview of Robert Scovill, the award-winning sound engineer who has toured with Matchbox 20, Prince, Rush, Tom Petty and Def Leppard. Scovill is also the former technical director with Mountain Valley Community Church, Scottsdale, Ariz. and currently functions as senior marketing specialist with Avid. Willow's sound engineer, Scott Ragsdale led the discussion.
Willow's McHenry campus, located in Crystal Lake, Ill. was perfectly sized for the intimate event. With a dozen or so modestly sized classrooms and a main auditorium seating something less than 1,000, the satellite campus is located about 35 miles north west of Chicago's O'Hare airport and roughly 15 miles north west of Willow's main South Barrington, Illinois location. Situated in an industrial complex off off Illinois Highway 31, services at the McHenry location feature live music, with the sermon/teaching time delivered by video from the main South Barrington location via Sony DSR-DR1000 Studio Video Disk Recorder. Similar to the South Barrington "mother ship", the McHenry location runs Meyer brand loudspeakers, though instead of line arrays like the 7,200-seat auditorium in South Barrington, the smaller campus opted to use JM-1P trapezoidal two-way boxes with EAW JF50 downfills (two-way, dual 5.5-inch woofers) and JBL ASB-4128 subwoofers. And, while the Willow's main location relies on a large-format Yamaha PM1D digital console, the smaller brand relies on a newer M7CL console from Yamaha.
Despite being a satellite location, the lighting was excellent, creating a fantastic live IMAG image, which would certainly rival the image quality generated at the much larger South Barrington campus. At Crystal Lake, a Jands Vista T2 lighting console controls an ETC Sensor dimmer rack, nearly 100 ETC Source Four static fixtures (four with Rosco i-Cue moving mirror accessories), six Martin Mac 550 motorized spots, two Var-Lite VL1000 washes and eight Wybron CXI IT color scrollers.
A range of Sanyo video projectors and Da-Lite screens are used through out the facility, all running standard-def signals, though some are 16x9 aspect ratio.
Video production system at Willow's McHenry location features Sony DXCD50WSL series cameras with Fujinon A20X8.6BRM 20:1 lenses. Renewed Vision's ProPresenter presentation software runs on a Mac Pro with a Renewed Vision PVP motion graphics card. Willow uses a Sony DFS-700 production video switcher with on-board 2D, 3D and non-linear digital effects. The switcher accepts four SDI and dour analog component inputs.
Willow's main South Barrington location can be an overwhelming experience for the average church. While some church tech teams are inspired by the immense size of the building, the sophisticated technology, and the personnel resources, others can come away saying, "Yea, right. Not in my lifetime".
Hosting the Gurus of Tech event at the smaller, more accessable McHenry campus was a wise choice. It was an inspiring environment, with a commitment to feeding a sophisticated audience with quality content using professional, though not necessarily "over the top" equipment.
The Gurus of Tech event included a healthy balance of sharing on technical, gear-oriented topics, navigating internal church communications with technical team building, and small group breakouts where between attendees could share individual concerns and struggles.
The next Gurus of Tech event will be held in Lousiville, Ky in July 2011. For more information, visit www.gurusoftech.com.
