It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God.
Acts 15:19
Props to you if you know about this scripture because it’s a bit of a deep cut, but I love it because it’s the earliest example of the church practicing what I’m going to call “Holy Flexibility.” The TL;DR version is that Jewish Christians wanted newer gentile Christians in Antioch to essentially become Jewish, particularly by getting circumcised as adults. The new believers in Antioch didn’t want to do that, understandably. So, the apostles and elders had a meeting and decided that those parts of the law were no longer necessary due to the work of Jesus
Production people are often the most opinionated people I know, myself included.
Now, there was and is nothing wrong with a Jewish expression of Christianity through circumcision, feast keeping, and so on. It’s just not essential. It was a hill the apostles decided not to die on.
So, let me ask you, production leader: what hills are you dying on?
Production people are often the most opinionated people I know, myself included. We like our “ideal” setups when it comes to gear, systems, and processes. We tend to be extra neat and tidy, and if someone asks us to bend our rules a little bit, the only bending happens inside of us when we get bent out of shape.
Granted, we are (hopefully) paid to know the best way to do something. Our leaders rely on our expertise to create the right atmosphere for our congregations to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. But we need to question whether our best way is the best way.
All too often, production leaders get prickly and hard to deal with because of perceived slights when our advice isn’t followed to the letter or is otherwise dismissed, however kindly. Once that spiral starts, it’s hard to stop it, and I’ve watched more than a few leaders tailspin their way right out of their church.
...production leaders get prickly...when our advice isn’t followed to the letter or is otherwise dismissed...
I have some advice to avoid the tailspin.
Making It Happen Is the Best Thing You Can Do For Your Church.
I’ll give you a personal example here. At my church, we have a quality live stream. It’s not the best, but it’s good for what it is. Truth be told, it’s kind of my baby. I think I like producing that stream more than producing the live experience in the room on Sundays. I want the live stream to be better—we’re using older Panasonic camcorders, running over 3G SDI, and the stream audio is a set-and-forget aux mix from our A&H dLive. I’d like new cameras, probably the BlackMagic Pyxsis with nice glass to boot. Their 2 M/E switcher would be an awesome upgrade as well. We need to re-run all our cabling with 12G SDI so that we can start upscaling to 4k or even 6k, and, finally, I’d love to have a dedicated audio engineer mixing the stream each week via a Dante feed into the Digico that we replaced in the spring.
But I’m not getting any of that this year. Instead, we’re upgrading our stage lighting with some new fixtures and a new lighting console. The only thing that’s happening with the stream is an encoder upgrade that will uncap our output bitrate.
Why is that? Because my leadership wants to prioritize in-person attendance over online attendance. Our stream serves first as a “front porch” for possible newcomers to check us out beforehand and then second as a supplemental option for regular members who can’t attend in person each week. So, for what we’re trying to do, it’s pretty good. In fact, it’s making it happen, and while I’d love it to look better and sound better (as good as it looks and sounds already), making it happen is how I can best serve my church and my leadership.
That’s just my story, but I hope you can stop and think about where you might be inflexible where it isn’t necessary. Holy flexibility is a humble act of worship that honors the humble heart of Jesus, the very person we are imitating and representing.
May we find the holiness he has set apart for us.
