The Misunderstood Life of a Technical Artist

Leadership Summit Calm

2008-08-09T15:41:00.004-05:00

I had a great time leading the production team to pull off the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. It is amazing to see what a group of very different people can do when we all put our talents and gifts together. It is very humbling to see how amazing the Summit was and that I was able to be a part of it.

Besides being the production manager for the event, I also was the floor manager during the sessions. My job was to coach the speakers on where the cameras were, how each transition was going to happen and to walk them into place. One of my biggest pet peeves is when I see people, especially leaders freaking out when things are not going according to plan. I am a pretty calm person and am always roughly the same no matter what is going on. Remaining calm had a huge effect on every one around me. When things were not going so well, staying calm was just what everyone else needed for them to stay calm.

One time, I was visiting a church that met in a high school and the TD in charge spent the whole time running from task to task. Not just jogging or even fast walking. This was full on, out of breath running. Everyone in the room felt a fairly high level of stress, all based off the intensity of this one person. Everyone seemed rushed. Everyone seemed paniced. Everyone was freaked out.

The result was people feeling like the set up and rehearsal were a disaster and that the service was going to bomb. Everyone was on edge, waiting for the next disaster to run to.

Walking people into position and telling people when to talk at the Summit this year reminded me of the importance of a calm spirit. People are always watching and wondering how to follow their leader. A stressed out leader makes for stressed out followers. A tranquil leader makes for tranquil followers. Which kind are you?

Technical Artists Owners Manual

2008-07-11T07:42:00.004-05:00

When I buy a new piece of equipment, it comes with an owner’s manual. If I am trying to figure out what equipment to buy, I can generally find literature, a magazine article or some other tech person who can help me determine what is best for me. Gear is easy.

What about dealing with the life I have chosen as a technical artist? Where can I go to learn how to be all that God has created me to be; a so called “techie”? Where is the manual that helps me with a difficult music director? Or where can I learn how to deal with last minute changes that always seem to come my way?

There are so many issues that face each of us technical artists. They are common to every church. Regardless of the size of the congregation or how big your budget is, there are challenges we all face and yet there is nowhere to turn for help or answers. We all struggle with not enough money; with church leadership that doesn’t understand our world; with working too many hours at Christmas time…OK all the time.

How can we navigate all these issues? Or are these struggles just the way it has to be? Since we all deal with them, maybe. Yet I believe we are called to change the world through the use of the technical arts in the local church, and that won’t happen if we are constantly feeling victimized by the very churches we are called to serve.

Check out http://www.willowcreek.com/wca_prod.asp?invtid=PR32004, where you will find the first in a series of resources I have written to explore the issues that are specific to being a technical artist in the local church.

Profound?

2008-06-28T08:39:00.002-05:00

I have gone and done it. I have taken this blogging thing too seriously, and now I don't ever want to blog unless I have something profound to write about.

OK, OK...

2008-04-25T06:20:00.002-05:00

I realize that after a couple of weeks of being stretched by working with new people, that it is essential for everyone involved. For me to grow and get better at my job, I must be forced out of the comfort I have from working with the same people every day. For everyone else, it is a chance to do the same.

Without mixing it up, we run the risk of not developing and stretching. To keep the production ministry going, we must always put volunteers or staff in places where they have a big learning curve. When we do that, we have to be ready for it to take a little more work so that they can succeed and get better. We also have to be ready for some level of failure. Failure is the way for us all to get better.

During this last event, I have a list a mile long of my own failures. While I don't like to fail, I know that I will be less likely to make those mistakes again, which makes me a better person.

If working on the same teams is our highest value, then there is potential that none of us will get any better.

Taken for Granted

2008-04-18T08:10:00.002-05:00

I am currently working on an event with people I don't normally work with. As a result, all the things that normally seem to happen without effort, aren't happening, or happenig with lots of effort. I think I have underestimated the relationships I have built up and the way my team works together so seamlessly. Given another event or two with this new team, I think we would be up and running, but for right now, I have new respect for the people I work with every day.

There is something invaluable and difficult to quanitify that comes from working with the same team week in and week out. I have decided to protect that more; to care about it more; to define reality more.

The other side of this is the chance to be stretched and to learn to work with other people. OK...I guess.

Production isn't everything

2008-03-07T09:04:00.003-06:00

So, God created me as a technical artist and I think about tech stuff all the time. I think about every problem from a production viewpoint first. That's how God designed the body of Christ to work: each of us is made to fill a certain role. Mine is production.

The beauty of this is that I have been given the opportunity to spend a good bit of my time focused on production. The bummer of this is that I can forget that I am a part of something bigger. I work at a church. The church has needs. The congregation has needs. Other ministries have needs. I am one part of the whole. Like all good production people, I can be obsessed with my thing being the most important. It is important, but rarely the most important.

I was thinking about an event that our church was doing. The list of wants for this event require a certain level of production that costs lots of money. What is acceptable to me or my department requires a ticket price that isn't affordable. Is it better to not do the event at all or to lower the production bar? My humanness says, don't do the event.

Or...is the event worth doing in spite of the production value or lack thereof? Is it possible that people's lives can be changed regardless of the level of production? Whatever church you might be a part of, can you have honest conversations with your leadership about how far can we lower the production bar and still have a quality event? I know that I have to be willing to ask the question and be open handed with whatever the answer might be.

I am not sure what the answer is, but I am a part of something bigger than just production. I am a part of the church. It is easy to worship the gospel of great production values instead of the Gospel that changes people's lives.

New Year's Resolution

2008-01-01T08:29:00.000-06:00

Another year gone, one more started. It is amazing to me how one single day can make you rethink what you are about and what matters to you most. I have been deep in that struggle myself. What is ahead this year for me? How will it look different than last year? How does God want to use me?

This is a great opportunity to look back on the year and see all the areas that I could have grown in. To remember situations where I could have made a better decision. Unfortunately, I can think of tons of times when I chose the "easy way" instead of the right way. What I realize is that the easy way usually turns into the hardest way by the end. Choosing to to ignore the way someone treated someone else, or someone showing up late once or twice, or not having everything prepared ahead of time, or someone being passive aggressive too many times.

All these are situations are difficult, but they are essential to hit head on. If we don't, they mushroom into something even more difficult. My New Year's resolution is to speak the truth in love more often to everyone. This is the real "easy way". The challenge for me is that I need to have time to think about the situation. I am a processor. After the moment is gone, sometimes I can forget about what happened, so I need to learn how to follow up as soon as I have processed.

My other New Year's resolution is to stop sitting back and watching things happen. So many times this past year I have sat in the back of the room and critiqued how things were going instead of being involved in making them different. It is so much easier and sometimes more fun to just throw pot shots at people that are trying to lead instead of doing it yourself. At least they have the guts to stand up and try.

Theodore Roosevelt said it best: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Happy New Year.

Be Responsible

2007-11-14T13:13:00.000-06:00

I am constantly reminded that we are all, individually responsible for our own actions. So often, it is much easier to complain about the way someone else is behaving or responding to a given situation than to actually do something about the way someone is acting.

Lately, I have been in many situations where I felt God nudging me to have a difficult conversation with someone. I tend to hesitate when I feel this kind of prompting, because I am worried how the other person is going to respond.

When I was in Campus Crusade for Christ in college, their big thing was it was my responsibility to go out and share the Gospel and leave the results to God. It wasn't my responsibility to make someone respond a certain way, that was up to that person and how God was working in their hearts.

The same applies to me in my everyday life. If someone is acting inappropriately and I know it is wrong, it is my responsibility to do something about it. Not to respond in a similarly inappropriate manner; or to just ignore someones behavior; or to talk to someone else about how poorly someone behaved. The Bible calls me to "speak the truth in love", not "speak the truth in love knowing that the other person will always respond in a way I want them to."

If I am unwilling to speak the truth in love, the other person may never hear the truth. They may never be given a chance to become a better person as a result. If I don't speak the truth in love, I am as much at fault in a situation between me and another person.

No is a bad answer

2007-11-09T21:00:00.000-06:00

I say no because people don't know how crazy their ideas are.

It is always tempting to assume that everyone knows what I know. They don't. They can't. They may never know what my life or my job is really like. It is up to me to fill them in. If someone is asking for something that seems impossible, remember that they don't know it is impossible. It is up to me to tell them...not just that it is currently impossible, but a few ways that it could be made possible.

Before I say no, I need to think about 3 ways that I can say yes; thinking about 3 options that would make it possible. The beauty of this way is that more often than not, if it is impossible, the person asking will realize it and say no for me. Now, I don't have to be defensive; I' just stating the facts. Not only that, I am a team player with options; looking out for the best interests of the team I am on.

Vision?

2007-11-06T10:36:00.000-06:00

Are all people motivated internally? Are some people just made up that way? Or do all people need a dose of vision given to them from time to time? Is it because we are all running so fast that we don't stop and think about what we are doing or why we are doing it?

I am hanging out downtown today walking all over and thinking about this. Is it my job as the leader to stand up in front of less than 10 people and write values on a flip chart? Yes. Why does it feel like someone else's job? I know that I get so frustrated when I am not given any clear vision, regardless of the size of the group. It is so easy to get wrapped up in the details of what all needs to be done, that we neglect talking about why we even do this stuff.

It can probably be traced back to all kinds of stuff that I should be going to a councelor for, but I have a hard time thinking that I have the market cornered on the values we should hold to. Aren't they obvious? Don't we all know them and follow them each week? If I were to take a poll of my team, staff and volunteers, I am guess that maybe 1 person would be able to vaguely remember me holding up one value once.

If you are leading a team of technical people, regardless of the size, it is our responsibility to lead the way for these people. To hold up the banner for the technical arts. Your people need to know we aren't just doing all this because the pastor asked for it. Why do we do it a certain way? Why do we always set the band up on stage right? Why do we have to have white top light on all the people.

I know you're not an up front kind of person, neither am I. Push yourself out there. If you don't no one else will. I am telling all this to myself. I think I know what matters. I am going to share it. Regardless of how uncomfortable it seems standing at a flip chart, when the room is half full of attitude problems.

Like Manna From Heaven

2007-10-31T21:18:00.000-05:00

It is interesting to me, in the world of church production, how we live most every day on the razor's edge. Not of technology or even culture, but survival. When we are building teams of people to carry out the amazing work of the technical arts ministry, we are required to live one day at a time.

We recruit new volunteers and fill up our teams with just the right number of people. No more. No less. If we had more people than we needed, then some would potential sit around with nothing to do. And we all know what happens when we don't have enough people. The trouble is, I want to store up people for when we lose team members. I want to have people waiting in the wings to swoop in and fill empty slots, otherwise, I am always dreading the next someone leaving.

I have realized lately that God is wanting to see if I believe that He is able to take care of all my needs. It's His Church, He wants it to grow and reach more and more people. How is it possible that I could care more than He does? Am I capable of being content with what is provided today and let God worry about tomorrow? At any time my ministry could crumble around me and God would still provide. Can I deal with that?

Thou Shalt Not Covet

2007-10-28T15:28:00.000-05:00

We had a service about the 10 Commandments this weekend and the one about wanting what you don't have caught me. This is such accurate discription of so many production people I know. "If I only had this piece of gear, then the mix would fall into place" or "Wouldn't it be great to have 9 cameras instead of 5?"

It can be so easy to blame lack of gear for why we can't pull something off. Or to be always asking for more equipment, even though we may not be using to the fullest, the gear we already own . It can be like a curse to go to different churches or to a concert and only see all the gear you don't have.

We should celebrate what equipment we d0 have. Let's use it to the fullest, with gaff tape if necessary. Let's plan for the gear that could take us to the next level, but let's stop complaining about all the gear we don't have. We have been entrusted with God's resourses, however large or small. Be faithful with it.

Ruts

2007-10-26T07:00:00.000-05:00

I have decided that it is easier than I care to admit to get stuck in a rut. It is obvious to complain about programming or the pastors getting stuck in a rut, but it is more difficult to see my own.

Getting out of a rut can be so difficult, especially if you have to drag other people out of it with you. It takes tons of energy that could maybe be spent elsewhere. Maybe I'm worried that if I get out of a rut and try something new, that it will mean I will have to work crazy hours. At least I know what to expect.

In spite of all the people I need to pull out of the rut, and in spite of all the other events it will effect and in spite of all the headaches I might cause for myself and others, I need to get out of the rut.

Expectations

2007-10-25T08:42:00.000-05:00

So, I am at a meeting yesterday to talk about the tension between the music ministry and the production ministry in our children's ministry.(that's a lot of ministry) There had been a previous meeting where there was yelling involved and people actually got up and walked out of the room. Needless to say there needed to be follow up and I was asked to come to this meeting to help back up the production person involved.

After listening for about 30 minutes, I had written down 4 things that apply to almost any situation involving two groups that are as different as production and music.

Don't assume people know what matters to you. - It is so easy to get caught thinking everyone knows your world and the things that are important for your ministry. If you have a certain idea of what music should sound like, tell someone. If you have a new volunteer that needs grace on how the mix sounds, tell someone.

Sit down and have a meeting about expectations. - If everyone knows what to expect, then when you get to rehearsal or the service, you'll all be on the same page. If the music needs to sound a certain way for the music director, sit down before all hell is breaking loose and agree on what can be expected. If you and the drama director agree before hand how loud the sound effects should be, there will be lots of understanding during rehearsal when everyone knows what to expect.

How can we stagger rehearsals? - Think about ways to make things a little better, not perfect. We have music rehearsals happening all over the building, all at the same time, so why not stagger them so the people who need to be in the room can be in the room. Just because we are doing things a certain way now doesn't mean we couldn't change that to make our present situation better.

There was one other thing that I have since forgotten.

New Blogger

2007-10-24T10:12:00.001-05:00

This will definitely be a challenge for me to not take this too seriously. I feel like the life of a tech person at a church can be a lonely one, and I want to share the things I learn about as I go along.

Maybe the goal is so that we don't feel as alone. Maybe the goal is to help us all live life to the fullest. Maybe the goal is to realize what it means to be a technical artist in the local church. We all need to be reminded what matters, and I intend to remind myself through this blog. If anyone else can benefit, so much the better.