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?
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Technical Artists Owners Manual
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.
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.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Profound?
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.
Friday, April 25, 2008
OK, OK...
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.
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.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Taken for Granted
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.
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.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Production isn't everything
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
New Year's Resolution
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.
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.
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