The drones are no longer buzzing around the massive convention hall, the Virtual Reality cameras are packed up and the big screens have all come down. The National Association of Broadcaster's annual convention, known as NAB, has come to a close. Church Production was happy to be a part of it, and I was pleased to meet so many people who are fans of the magazine. You see, I had the privilege of manning the CPM booth in the Central Hall all four days of the show. We gave away hundreds of copies of the magazines and had lots of conversations about what type of gear tech people are using, or looking at using, in the coming months.
If you've never been to NAB, it is like many other trade shows only bigger. Much bigger. It's something like a trade show and the Super Bowl. The show covers more than one million square feet and has more than 110,000 attendees from 160 countries. You will find every big, name manufacturer like Sony, Panasonic and Canon plus thousands of smaller companies that don't have that name recognition; like our booth neighbors Mirror Image Teleprompter of Oskosh WI.
Everyone is gathered to see what's new and what's coming soon in the world of production.
Many companies wait until this event to announce the newest products and technologies.
It is very easy to get distracted by all the sights and sounds. That's very true in every aspect of what we do in the church world. We can easily get distracted by the tech and miss the ministry of what we're here for. Just like us, the apostle Paul lived in a distracted world. Consider the words he wrote to the church in Corinth:
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2)
A distraction in the first century was public speech and debate. That may not sound like a big deal to us, but in those days it certainly was. The book of Acts tells us about the people of Athens, Greece, “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there would spend their time in nothing except telling or hearing something new.” (Acts 17:21) In other words, Mediterranean people would gather in lecture halls, theaters and in city squares and listen to someone speak about whatever topic was hot that day.
Paul's principle in this verse is very applicable to us in the tech world. He says that he didn't want the message to get distracted by the method. The words of those public orators would have been considered “lofty speech” and the philosophers used the type of “wisdom” that Paul references. In the world of church production, it's easy to get caught up in lofty technology and methods like does our church really need 4K projectors or a drone that is powerful enough to lift our camera (along with the operator)?
Paul says that his key focus was the Gospel, “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” In our search for the best tech and delivery methods, we must always make sure that we are keeping the main thing, the Gospel, in the forefront of all that we do. We can easily go to an event like NAB and lose that focus in light of the distractions.
I can tell you from having attended NAB for more than 25 years, next year there will be something newer, faster, better and with more pixels and lumens. There will always be new technologies and distractions but our message, the Gospel, will never change. Let us be mindful to never put the method before the message.
