Over a hundred of the top church technical directors from across the world met Tuesday at WFX Atlanta (Nov 2-5) to share in a day-long Technical Director's Retreat. A prelude to WFX's main event, the Tech Director's Retreat was a coming together of technical personnel to discuss team building techniques, personal and budgetary management, communication and interaction with co-workers, dealing with burn-out and many other important topics.
After several morning panel discussions, the group broke into round table topics included:
- Multi-site tech issues
- Back up solutions for A/V/L gear
- Self-installations vs Contractor-based installation
Todd Elliot technical arts director from Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL shared on the topic of Multi-Site Tech Issues. Meeting in a small group-style, round-table format, discussions ranged from individual product selections for cameras, audio equipment, financial considerations and it's impact on audio and video quality in a multi-site situation, choices on video screen sizes and location and camera shot selection (full-height or headshot/bust shot).
Attendees shared what they've learned with each other from their experiences, asked questions, got answers and developed relationships with other like-minded technical personnel with whom they can stay in touch and consult long after WFX ends on Friday afternoon.
Matthew Josey from Seattle's Mars Hill Church and Bill Swaringim from Windsor Crossing Community Church in Chesterfield, MO lead a round-table on Back-up Solutions for A/V/L Gear. Participants discussed back-up plans for holding services should they experience equipment failures, partial or full electrical failure or similar disasters. Battery back-ups were commonly discussed as one way churches are keeping processors and consoles running during black or brown outs.
Keeping internet streams going involved discussions on a range of variations. Redundancy for those who rely on fiber often involved pulling back to cable/DSL solutions, but most who did multi-site said they had a campus pastor ready with a script to take over and present a live message should technology fail just before, or during a service.
Several TD's shared how times of crisis have brought out new people and new talents to their church teams. What was originally perceived as a disaster really often turned out to be a God thing.
Another roundtable discussion led by Fellowship Church's Dave Clark dealt with relationships with senior leadership. TD's shared stories of success and failure on planning church services, sermon series and relationships between a technical team and non-technical senior leaders.
The day ended with a panel discussion of full-time technical directors taking questions before breaking again into small groups for a time of prayer together.
Dennis Choy production pastor at California's North Coast Church said to his knowledge there were no other church technical directors back in 1995 when he first started at North Coast. Fifteen years later he's amazed at the number of full and part-time TD's.
Jeff Vandergliessen from Mars Hill Church in Seattle, ended the day adding that he feels becoming a church technical director should not be viewed as a career path. He says due to the many demands, including low pay and long hours, it needs to be considered more of a calling.
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