Vox Church has nine locations across Connecticut and Massachusetts. The church was live streaming its services prior to the pandemic; during Covid lockdowns Lead Pastor Justin Kendrick delivered the message from a small studio housing only he and Vox’s production team.
Like all pastors in his situation, Kendrick was faced with the challenge of preaching to a congregation he couldn’t see, hear, or feel.
In order to reach people in a meaningful way, Kendrick says he asked for God’s help. “For me, it was getting alone with God and asking for grace and for help to see in my heart what I couldn’t see with my eyes,” he relays. In visualizing the members of his congregation, he says that he could see them while he was speaking.
Kendrick also notes that when it comes to preaching to a camera, he’s had the opportunity to rack up some experience. Ten years ago when Vox started its second location, he would record his sermons for that campus in his best friend’s garage. “I got used to talking to no one, and mentally and spiritually trying to see everybody that was there,” he says, adding that these taping sessions lasted almost two years. “I had pre-Covid practice heading into the pandemic, so it wasn’t that strange for me to shift into that again.”
The technical production backdrop
Prior to planting Vox Church, Kendrick worked with a touring worship group for eight years, giving him enough of a background in production, he says, “to be dangerous.” While Vox’s production team doesn’t answer to him directly, he estimates that he probably has more hands-on interactions with the church’s techs than many lead pastors because of this. “I can be a pain in the neck––I think sometimes they would wish that they had a pastor who didn’t know as much about production, just because that makes me really opinionated,” he admits. “But they’re certainly better at their jobs than I am at their job, that’s for sure.” Still, he says he tries to remain in constant dialog with the technical crew, and says that he shares a close relationship with the members of that team. “I think in order for a production team to work well, friendship has to be a big part of the equation, because for us it’s not a job. It’s a family, and all those guys could go and probably make more money doing a different career. For us, there is a sacrifice that we’ve all embraced, and that’s part of the fun of what we get to do.”
“[Streaming] allows for a church—a local congregation—to stay connected to a broader vision but still have its own autonomy.”
—Justin Kendrick, Lead Pastor, Vox Church, New Haven, CT
This fun extends to what’s possible to achieve with technology––and how, over the last decade, some significant advancements have made the lives of Vox’s production team members a little easier, Kendrick acknowledges. Because six of the church’s nine locations are mobile, setup and teardown requires a significant effort, and the fact that loudspeakers have gotten smaller and lighter helps to speed up the process. He adds that camera quality continues to increase while simultaneously becoming more affordable. And, with all of Vox’s sites standardized on pre-programmed digital audio consoles, the church’s sound engineers can easily move from location to location as required. The one technical challenge Kendrick points to is lighting, and he says this is largely because Vox has a limited number of engineers who are knowledgeable in this discipline. Automation is helping with this: “That’s one thing we’re getting better at now––pre-programming our lighting set-up so that [techs] with less skill can run it.”
When it comes to streaming, this technology, too, has gotten more reliable, Kendrick notes. “Our stream really almost never fails at this point,” he says. “I think the technology has come such a long way that I can’t think of too many things I wish we could do that we can’t do.”
A call for caution in the streaming worship studio
Vox Church live streams Kendrick’s sermons to all of its sites, and the pastor believes that having the ability to do this is powerful. “It allows for a church––a local congregation––to stay connected to a broader vision but still have its own autonomy,” he says. “One of the big upsides is just the ability to communicate a single message to multiple congregations and move people on mission, collectively, from one place.” In no other time throughout history has the church been able to enjoy this kind of reach in real time, he adds.
“If you’re using a screen to communicate your sermon, there’s a high propensity towards a celebrity mentality, where people see the pastor as a perfect person or an untouchable person, and I think that’s toxic.”
—Justin Kendrick, Lead Pastor, Vox Church, New Haven, CT
At the same time, Kendrick points to the dangers of multisite; specifically the issues that can arise when lead pastors are delivering the message through video displays. “If you’re using a screen to communicate your sermon, there’s a high propensity towards a celebrity mentality, where people see the pastor as a perfect person or an untouchable person, and I think that’s toxic,” he says. The most dangerous part of this, he argues, is how the pastor may begin viewing himself. “When a pastor starts to see themselves through a celebrity lens, I think it’s the beginning of the end. A pastor is called to be a servant; they’re called to lead in humility and in service. When you start to have leaders see themselves in another light I think it’s dangerous, and I think that multisite can feed that if we’re not careful.”
This can also compromise the autonomy of worship leaders at multisite campuses, Kendrick observes. “You have to be really intentional to empower those leaders spiritually to really pastor their people,” he says. Vox’s goal, he underlines, is not to create overflow rooms. “Our goal is to create local congregations with spiritual authority that’s leading those churches on the ground, and then a centralized message that keeps people on mission. It’s so important for us to have a holistic view of church, and then I think multisite can be really helpful.”
For Kendrick, technology plays an important role in delivering the message, but in order for churches to succeed at this, it needs to be applied with care. “I think when used together with sound doctrine and humble hearts, the opportunities are really, really limitless,” he says. “With strong accountability, humility, and hearts changed by grace, technology can make a great impact for the work of Jesus all over the world.”
