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Decisions made at the leadership level can often be handed down as tasks without realizing what it takes to make them happen. Certain situations call for a "tech rehearsal," which is very different from just a "quick run-through with the band."
A church technical leader’s job description is to make things happen.
The pastor wants to live stream a feed from another pastor visiting Haiti?
We’ll figure it out.
Want to add a brass section to the worship band this week and people need to see as well as hear them?
We’ll figure it out.
Decide to change the plan at the last-minute undoing what took a week to prepare?
We’ll mostly figure it out.
Church technical leaders are used to being behind the scenes. But sometimes they are so far behind the scenes that they are invisible. Here are six things that church technical leaders wish that pastors were aware of:
1. Volunteers can be trained for simple operation, but you need skilled people to handle the inevitable things that go wrong.
It doesn’t take a lot of time to train someone to operate a lighting board. The problem is when an elbow bumps a fader and the person operating the board doesn’t know how to fix it.
Jim Kumorek—long time technical director and church volunteer—shares, “I think there is a lack of understanding in church leadership about the difference between teaching a new volunteer how to run an audio/video/lighting system when everything is working right, and leading them to the point that they can deal with system failures and get things working right again. And adding a new unskilled person to the team means that the technical director will now get less done each week, as training a new, unskilled person takes a significant amount of time and tasks—that the tech director along could do very quickly—are done slowly for training purposes.”
One of the beautiful things about church technical ministries is that they train people. They allow people to learn the craft. The challenge is that if there aren’t skilled people who are given the margin to train them, then the knowledge-transfer breaks down.
2. Give us your time when you need something out of the ordinary.
Things that are decided at the leadership level can often be handed down as tasks without realizing what it takes to make them happen.
Rex Myers—who has spent his career in professional AV—says, “If you have a Sunday service with multiple elements going on, then meeting with the AV production staff prior to that service is paramount.”
While it may seem as if anything is possible, there can be glitches in achieving what you’ve asked for such as incompatibility getting content from an iPad to the projector…having video or audio in a file format that can’t be played on your system…the need to rent a lift to reset the lights. Theatres have “tech rehearsals” for a reason. If you are doing something different, it may require some of your time and a dialog so that your tech team can be effective in figuring out the details.
3. The band needs real rehearsals.
Everyone is busy. And many times, the worship band rehearsal gets boiled down to a quick, half-hour run-through, just before Sunday worship services. (To translate, that’s only enough time to set basic levels and avoid major mistakes.)
That ensemble feel, where musicians can read each other’s thoughts only happens through time spent playing together. And while it may not be possible to do lengthy rehearsals every week, creating rehearsal time that doesn’t have to hit a hard stop because the service is about to start is a healthy practice.
Sound technician, David Patow, shares, “I’d love to have some time to repeat, experiment, adjust and plan.”
4. Remember that most of us are introverts.
It’s a stereotype that is true. Most of the people serving in church technical ministries are introverts. (Another stereotype that is true? Most pastors are extroverts.)
Just because they are quiet doesn’t mean that they don’t have deep ideas and relationships.
Technical director, Phil Rapp, offers, “If you don’t feel that others are communicating, start it on your end. Most techs are introverts so this is harder for those in this field. Don’t wait for them to come to you.”
Keep in mind that if you want to know what church techs are thinking, you may have to ask.
5. Please don’t treat us as a sub-ministry.
In the business world, technical directors have joined the C-suite. The chief technology officer (CTO) is responsible for leading the technical aspects of a company or organization. While church technical ministry may have begun with one guy sitting in a room behind a little glass window, technology in churches has evolved as radically as it has in the business world.
Technical Director, Bill Harriman shares, “Educating the executive staff and congregation to understand that Tech Ministries is a ministry on equal footing with all others is a priority.”
The questions to ask yourself? How essential is technology to what you do? Have we been investing in it—including with personnel—to the level that it matters to us?
6. Just tell us. We can handle the hard stuff.
Is it any secret that churches are “conflict averse?” The avoidance of sharing bad news or having a difficult discussion can result in some abysmal people dynamics.
Church technical leaders need pastors to be honest about how they think and feel about things. We need a vision communicated clearly and to let us know when what we are doing isn’t meeting that vision.
Otherwise, we can’t get better. Technical Director, Rick Hardin shares, “Non-communication is very destructive.” Technical Director, Bruce Coffy adds, “Clear communication and preparation from leadership makes everything better.”
