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.

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.

Be Responsible

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

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?

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

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

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.