What Video Cannot Do

Many churches over the last 7-10 years have rightly come to the conclusion that they need to tailor their communication styles on Sunday morning to the needs of the people filling the chairs (or pews). They have done this because, while not wanting to compromise the Gospel in any way, they want to be as effective as they can be in their communication. And of course, projection and media made for church services has been a huge part of that change in communication style.

However, as Sally Morgenthaler pointed out several years ago, there is a danger that comes with this change: we tend to start depending on the style to replace some of the big things the church is called to do, namely evangelize and disciple.

Videos can do a lot for you. They can bring practical application to a message. They can make a message point more memorable and stir the heart. They can enhance your worship time. They can help you communicate information in a way that grabs and keeps the attention of your audience. They are an important ministry tool.

But videos cannot go out and form a friendship with the guy who works in his yard on Sunday mornings. They cannot talk one-on-one with the woman who grew up being abused by a church member, and help her see that God really does love her. Videos cannot serve in the soup kitchen, or bring groceries to shut-ins.

Let’s face it: to have creative communication in your church service (videos, dramas, sets, object lessons) takes time and effort. So do evangelism and discipleship. A healthy church is a church that has found an effective way to do all of it.

And there is no short cut – the only way to do it all is for every member of the body of Christ to step up and do what they are called to do.

These are serious, sober times. We desperately need each other, whether we realize it or not, to be fully engaged in the cause of Christ. So this week, encourage your brother or sister who has been sitting on the sidelines to get back it the field. We need them!  

Tech Teams: 5 Questions for the New Church Year

This week marks the beginning of the new church year for most US churches.  With that in mind, it is a good time to take inventory of our tech teams, and make some plans for the new year.

To that end, here are 5 questions that can serve as discussion starters for your team:
Question #1:  Do we have the personnel we need, and are they properly trained?  Sub-questions:

• Do we have enough volunteers for rotation so that the same person isn't "working" every Sunday?
• Are our people cross-trained, so that they can cover staffing gaps in case of emergencies?
• Are our people in the right positions, so that they can best use the gifts God has given them?
• If we need to recruit, should we make a general appeal or make personal invitations?  And who will be responsible for training the new recruits?

Question #2:  What are our priorities for new equipment?  Sub-questions:

• Have we separated desired items into needs and wants, and needed items into critical and non-critical? How will each item help us further the mission of the church?
• Have we gotten responsible estimates of the costs of these items?  If not, who will be responsible for doing so?
• Once we have gotten cost estimates, have we organized them into an easily understandable proposal for the appropriate church government entity?

Question #3:  What can we as a team do this year to help each other grow spiritually?
Question #4:  Can we use our skills to help others? Sub-questions:

• Is there a new or small church in town that needs our help? Could we offer assistance in helping to train their technical volunteers or helping with equipment installs?
• Could we serve our community by offering to provide tech support for certain community events at no charge?
• Could we offer to teach local non-churched teens technical skills as an outreach?

Question #5:  Have we met with our senior pastor to discuss his vision for the new year, and how we might best support it?

I'm sure there are tons of other great questions we could discuss, but these will hopefully get us started in the direction of a technically better 2010 - 2011.     

Setting The Right Goals In Church Tech

It's been said that you have to know where you are trying to go if you are going to get there. In other words, we all need to know what the goal is, no matter what area of life we are talking about.

As church techies, I would argue that we need to have a unique set of goals.  Underneath the bigger goal of bringing glory to God in everything we do, here are several important ones:


Goal #1:  Don't be noticed. Our positions are support positions. They are not ones that garner attention.  If we are doing our jobs right, the congregation will not think about us doing our jobs - they will think about the message being delivered.  Tech people tend to be noticed when they do something that causes a distraction during the service, and that is not what we want.

Goal #2:  Reinforce the message without becoming the message.  If we work with sound, our job is to bring the clearest audio signal possible to the ear of each person in the congregation at the right volume level.  If we work with lighting, our job is help focus the attention of the congregation to the right area, and produce visual effects that will help to maintain that attention.  If we work with projection, our job is to project images, videos, and words that serve to reinforce what is being communicated.

Everything we do should be done in unity with and support of the decisions already made by the senior pastor and/or worship pastor regarding what is to be communicated that particular week. Anytime we do something outside of that, we run the risk of muddying the message.

Goal #3:  Love others while we serve.  As techies, we tend to be task-oriented and focused on excellent performance.  This can lead to us having a lack of patience with others when things don't go the way they should.  We need to always keep in mind that part of the reason we are there is to love and encourage others.  God can give us the grace and patience we need, if we ask Him.  While we need to aim for excellence, people are always more important than performance.

Goal #4:  Employ the gifts God has given us.  God has given us creativity.  He has given us the ability to see the answers to technical problems.  He has given us ideas to enhance a presentation so that the message is even more clear and impacting.  We need to employ those gifts with full confidence that it is God enabling us to fulfill our roles in the body.  Often, this requires extra hours and effort on our part.  And while everything has to be held in balance, we have to aim for making sure that we are being great stewards of the gifts we have been given.  If He gave us those giftings, it's because He intended us to use them fully to the benefit of others.