Church Technology Evangelist - Anthony D. Coppedge

I read something very interesting about how we learn:

“Learning has been mathematically modeled using a differential equation… Learning does not occur if there is no change in the amount of knowledge and learning is negative if the amount of knowledge decreases over time.” Fadul, J. “Mathematical Formulations of Learning: Based on Ten Learning Principles” International Journal of Learning. Volume 13 (2006) Issue 6. pp. 139-152.

Stated simply, we learn only when we’re given additional knowledge. Though this sounds self-evident, it made me wonder in what ways church staff are learning how to grow in their jobs and roles.

My role as a staff member had me doing the job so much that I learned new things only when I got out of the routine of my work. For many church staff members, this is actually a rather difficult thing to accomplish. People not on church staff rarely understand or appreciate the unique challenges required of working in ministry; they simply expect staff to “get better over time".

Certainly, we can all become more proficient at a task or job, but does that automatically equate to learning? I don’t think so.

Learning includes sharing our ideas, questions, solutions and tools with people outside of our church. Social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, Ning and blogs have helped us exponentially in peeking outside of our weekly church world into a world that my friend Terry Storch refers to as “the new flat earth". Electronically, the world is flat and we each have same-level access to information, resources and even individuals unlike any other time in history.

But having access to information and actually applying that information to our roles are two very different actions! We can find quite a bit of information, but creating strategic plans around the purpose, plan and payoff requires more effort.

I’ve found that when I seek information or answer, starting with the goal in mind is good; but I must be careful to hold on loosely to that goal when researching because I might find a better answer than even the question I was asking!

In what ways do you learn? How do you train your staff to think strategically? How often do you bring in outside experts to help you think through new ideas and rethink old ones?

It’s great to ask questions. It’s wonderful to learn. But the question is: Will you re-imagine the possibilities with an outsiders’ help?

Chances are your church leadership is sitting down to re-think about your planned & assumed strategies for this new year. But here’s a question: How many of you will ask “How?” as much as you think about “What?” when it comes to online social networking, communication strategies and media development?

At a time when text messaging is overtaking cell calls and online usage is growing exponentially, many churches are still operating from a place of ignorance when it comes to leveraging technology for more effective communication.

With the economy in a recession, many of you will be looking at cost-cutting and budget reductions in an effort to be wise and good stewards over the projected monthly giving. Financial belt-tightening is a good start, but may either be too much or too little based on the effectiveness of the budgeted ministry, item or event.

For example, if your printing and mailing costs are reduced by 10%, it’s possible that the effectiveness of those mailers was so minimal that reducing them by a small percentage isn’t enough of a cut in an area that needs further reduction. Conversely, not properly evaluating the usefulness and interactivity of online communications and information may lead to a budget shortfall in an area that needs time, money and people (even outsourcing).

Getting a Fresh Perspective
It’s not enough to simply ask “What should we do about our communications, online presence and media?” The church leadership must also ask “How?” and, the most important question, “Why?” Of course, those kinds of questions should extend into the evaluation, metrics and tracking of every ministry of the church. I think it’s good to consider this quote God gave to me years ago: “Good stewardship has less to do with how much money is saved and more to do with how much money isn’t wasted.”

When have you had an outsider come in and help you look at your church from an outsider’s perspective? That’s what I do. In fact, I think the best compliment I ever received from a senior pastor was when he said “We brought in a media consultant and I felt we got an entire church consultant.” That really humbled me and made me so glad to know that I’m doing exactly what God wants me to do!

2009 has started and I’m wanting to see churches take a new look at how they can become more effective and leverage new technologies while simultaneously ensuring that they’re making the most with what they’ve got right now.

To reach me, just click on the email icon up at the top of this blog post. That goes right to me and we can set up a time to chat on a phone call.

I was reading a short but very effective post by Jenni Catron and responded to her post with my comments, which I’ve included here on my blog, below.

“What am I letting go of this year?”

In a culture and time when “more is better” and fast beats slow, we’ve entered the life of exponentialism; we have not merely added or multiplied our efforts, tools, technologies, facets and goals, we’ve seen an exponential increase in our time. Problem is, we can’t add, much less get exponentially, more time!

The art of subtraction is part of my 2009 equation.

• What was good, but not redeeming, that I can leave behind?
• Where have I spent too much effort with little ROM (Return On Ministry) or ROL (Return On Life)?
• Where have I added more balls to juggle instead of deciding to not juggle at all, but instead share those balls with others?

I’m all about GTD (Getting Things Done), but not at the expense of exponentially adding to my life’s equation.

Less isn’t more; less is strategic.

How are you refocusing your 2009 life equation?

I was added to Alltop today. If you’ve not heard of it, Alltop is a mashup of affinity/focus/similar blogs and sites based on a category system. Pretty cool, really.

You can find my stuff on the page http://church.alltop.com. Fun.

I recently read a great post over at Jeff Wilson’s blog and posted a comment that I felt passionate about. I wanted to share those thoughts with my blogging friends, too, so here’s my list of “don’t do this” in church. Please add to this list with your passionate thoughts, too!

Don’t preach that same old sermon.

Don’t do another “Living Christmas Tree” - ever. How is that entertaining or relevant?

Don’t send me another Christmas letter from the pastor’s wife writing like we’re best friends. Be real.

Don’t make excuses for not leveraging blogging or micro blogging to expand your reach, create relational proximity and sharing beyond the pulpit.

Don’t let that person sing a solo that really can’t sing. You’re not being kind; you’re being manipulative.

Don’t tell me there’s not enough money in church. Instead, tell me how the vision is going to inspire sacrificial offering.

Don’t ever let “becuase we’ve always done it that way” become a part of a church leaders’ lexicon.

Don’t create a website that promises one experience and then deliver something completely different (usually not meeting expectations) once I arrive.

Don’t send out another mailer with the pastor and his wife smiling from the comfort of a Sears portrait studio. I don’t care if they dress nice or look happy; I care what you’re doing to speak into my life, so please tell me how your church has application for me and my family.

Don’t make me fill out a form on my first visit. I’ll fill something out online when I’m ready.

Don’t make me stand up or “be recognized” - even if you clap for me - by asking visitors to be welcomed. I’m not interested in false greetings. I’m interested in genuine people saying hi of their own accord and not looking or acting like a clique or club.

Don’t ask me to leave my children with your volunteers without knowing only I can pick them up (check-in systems rock for this).

Generally, don’t give excuses. Delivery authenticity, quality and passion!

Several years ago, I responded to a blog post about “innovative churches". Recently I was asked about this same subject, so I’ve revisited my thoughts in the hopes of opening up the discussion again with you - the churches leading and getting it done for the Kingdom. I’d love to hear what you have to say on the subject and learn from the practical ways you think we can become truly innovative.

I’ve yet to be in any church that meets the real definition of the word innovative, though I hear many churches use the term to describe their approach. Instead, a better set of descriptors might be: artistic, clever, hip, inspired, resourceful or even atypical. But these descriptors are really only accurate in comparison to other churches, not to the culture at large.

Yes, the church should be innovative (leaders instead of imitators), but to do so will first require church leaders to understand that the current church definition of “innovation” is often inaccurate.

Dictionary.com defines the word Innovative:

adj 1: ahead of the times; 2: being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before.

Far too often we promote our churches as “innovative” only to set up the attendees for a bait-and-switch.

For example, if you’re going to use the Spiderman theme for a sermon series, then make the full connection between this comic-book superhero and the super-power of God; not a tangential spin that looks at the web that Spidey casts as a metaphor for a web of lies. That tie-in is marginal and could easily have avoided the Spiderman theme, but that wouldn’t look as cool on a post card or movie-theatre advertisement.

And so a bait-and-switch (we offer one thing that will get you in the door, but will largely ignore the thing that got your attention so that we can force-feed you our propaganda) leaves the attendee feeling ripped off - nay, LIED TO.

Our communities don’t expect us to photo-copy our culture - they expect us to be different. We should leverage technologies, themes, concepts and practices that help us achieve our goal of communicating truth without the bait-and-switch actions that turn off the unchurched.

Similarly, being creative is a goal many churches try to attain. I’m in total agreement that church should be creative in reaching their communities, but just because your stage was set up to look like a Lenny Kravitz concert doesn’t mean you’re creative - it simply means you’re good at copying culture.

Real creativity and innovation is hard to do for an organization (the Church, if you will) that’s not been an influencer of culture for a long, long time.

I believe that a two-fold approach is necessary to see real change:

1) Resourcefully equip your church to meet the relational needs of people. This will involve the improved use of technology (audio, video, lighting, computers, database management, etc.) and the adoption of new pastoral models that include production managers, project managers and IT managers as not only people devoted to specialized tasks, but as true pastors who lead a team of lay people to utilize their gifts in these areas.

Let’s face it: when it comes to technology, the church as a whole lags far, far behind the culture and thus continues to feed the impression that we’re out-of-touch.

2) The re-igniting of the arts within the church. If I hear of another “Creative Arts” ministry within a church that limits the “arts” to music and drama, I think I might puke. The “arts” include both traditional art (painting, sculpting, acting, singing, playing an instrument, etc.) and digital art (electronic painting, 3D modeling, voice acting, digital editing, etc) and should be a major focus of both churches and seminaries to re-evaluate how we include artists in our ministry training.

As true art is inspired, real innovation and creative thinking will develop beyond the mere duplication of culture back to the influencing of culture. As this happens, the secular world - ever in search of new and innovative ideas - will start to see the church as a true innovative force.

We’ll measure our results by the impact we make on our local communities and in how we interact & influence people outside of our church walls. The greatest measurement will be how seamlessly our people take the paradigm of innovation out to the marketplace.

Will our Artists and teachers develop community service opportunities that look nothing like what’s available in our local communities today?

Will the church be viewed as a community center that’s open 7 days a week and as heavily populated on Thursday afternoon as it is on Sunday morning?

Will we create opportunities to redeem the culture through our community involvement instead of forcing our community neighbors to come to our (not their) facility and participate in a way that’s culturally out of context with their lives?

Our obstacles are age old:

• Change - not a mere modification - is really hard.
• Cost - technology, in particular, doesn’t always scale down to allow a small church to leverage it as well as a large church.
• Control - it’s hard to manage more than we’re used to managing. Most churches stay small because we can manage (control) a smaller size.
• Commitment - real innovation and creative development is expensive in three ways: people, equipment (resources) and time. Because it’s hard to manage that which we don’t understand well, many leaders will fail to give the freedom and flexibility to the technicians and artists that are so desperately needed in today’s church.

In the end - or the new beginning, if you will - churches must learn to creatively communicate to their local culture if they ever hope to be a leading innovator to the masses.

UPDATE: Check out Ben Arment’s thoughts on the subject of innovation at the Collide Magazine website.

I love the top-notch videos that Rob and his crew over at Igniter Media create for churches. I’ve known these guys for a long time and they just keep taking amazing to a whole ‘notha level!

To see this and a bunch of other amazing videos, check out Igniter Media.

Over the years, I’ve found that my “best church clients list” is far more diversified in style, budgets and denominations (or the lack thereof) than I’d have thought. I’ve worked with very small churches and some absolutely massive ones across a wide spectrum of locales, demographics and leadership styles. Yet what I realized were some key, shared attributes that I found interesting.

Here are, in my order preference, the traits that my best church clients have in common:

1. Their staff is passionate about Jesus. There are no posers in this list; they are all on-fire for our Lord!
2. The focus of the church is on the people (the Bride of Christ), not the “stuff".
3. The senior pastors have serious vision and constantly seek God for his will, not their agenda.
4. These churches enter into long-term relationships with me, not one-off consulting gigs.
5. The executive/leadership/management top-level staff and elders are committed to excellence, not perfection.
6. The leadership demonstrates strong passion, decisive action and significant humility.
7. Expectations are clearly defined, progress is measured and encouragement is part of the DNA.
8. Reproducing leaders are constantly reproducing the leaders under them and exampling the art of delegation rather than the science of singular work organization.
9. Leaders take the responsibility for failure and share the success with others.
10. Training and retraining is part of the culture and expected for everyone. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make consistent.
11. They pay on-time or early. As a small business owner, I’m not in the business of floating loans. These churches demonstrate 1 Timothy 5:18 and value my relationship with them.

My favorite “small church client” runs about 300 in attendance. My favorite “large church client” runs over 12,000 in attendance. Both are incredible churches getting it done for the Kingdom. The rest, like them, are each being true to the DNA of their church and white-hot in their passion to hear from God and move forward in the confidence of their vision.

As this year comes to an end, I’m thankful for each of them and look forward to the continued relationships and new ones yet to come.

I remember one Christmas years ago, when I was first on staff as the lead media director for a church, when the long hours and last-minute changes of the church Christmas production all became too much. In a moment of frustration, exhaustion and anger, I popped off at the worship pastor.

It didn’t matter that I was technically right about the issue, nor did it matter that he wasn’t being respectful of me or my volunteer’s extra time and ridiculously long hours. What did matter was how I handled the situation.

In reading Galatians chapter five this morning, I was reminded of something I’ve read a lot and heard more times than I can recall:

“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.” Galatians 5:16-17

I wanted to be heard and to right a perceived wrong during that Christmas production rehearsal. Yet all I accomplished was to disrespect the worship pastor and not handle conflict correctly. Furthermore, though I did this in a semi-private setting, the tension between the two of us weighed on the volunteers who knew something wasn’t right.

I missed the opportunity to demonstrate love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I’ve tried to remember that lesson and handle conflict much differently since that time. I still fail and let my anger win the conflict between flesh (my sin) and the Spirit.

Remember to practice Matthew 18:15 whenever you’re in a situation where you need to handle a conflict with someone who’s done something against you. Don’t let this awesome season of celebrating the birth of the savior of all mankind be tarnished by conflict with each other. Let the fruit of the Spirit resonate inside you. Show extra patience and self-control. Handle situations with love and gentleness.

I truly pray that you have a blessed Christmas production season at your church and that the results of your hard work and long hours pay off when your family, friends, neighbors and unchurched community hear the presentation of our Lord’s birth on Earth.

Wow. Yes.

I smile almost every time I receive an email from a church asking me for my advice on a very specific piece of equipment. Why do I smile? Because I always get to ask them a question that, hopefully, will help them answer their question.

Asking me to give you advice on one piece of gear is the same as asking “what’s a good car?”

The answer, of course, depends on what you need the car to do.

Do you need it to carry a few people or lots of people?
Is gas mileage a top priority?
Will it be driven in ice and snow and need optional traction control?
Will it be used to pull a trailer?
Will it be used to haul stuff around?
Will it need to support multiple car seats?
Do you want it to have leather or cloth?
Is cruise control important?
Does it need to be an automatic transmission?

The list of questions is necessary to understand what kind of car is needed. In the same way, technology must be approached with the same kind of needs analysis and understanding of who will be using it, how often, where and for what purpose.

I’m more than happy to give advice on equipment, but understanding that my advice is sound only when the application is completely understood. And that’s where churches often don’t go the extra mile; you have to know the context to pick the right equipment.

So feel free to call or email me about gear. But know we’re first going to be talking about cars.

I’ve been reading Getting Things Done and am working on a “zero Inbox". This monumental task is horrific. I don’t know how you do it, but I organize my Inbox into a nested tree of folders (Church Clients>Church Name>Church Contact, etc.) and try to put the right person in the right folder and then set a rule for all new email from that person to go to the appropriate Inbox folder.

Sounds organized and simple, right? You’d think so, but when people send from multiple email addresses or there’s more than one place for the email to go, things get jacked. Add to that the fact that I’ve YET to find an email program that can handle the thousands of rules and folders that I create. MS Outlook & Entourage both crater when it comes to running rules. Thunderbird, my current email client, seems to have the same issue (though it goes longer before jacking up the rules than MS).

So I’m down to under 1,000 unfiltered emails and KNOW I had an email from a church asking me to pick an available weekend for January to come and do training with their tech team. Weird thing is I can’t find the emails anywhere. I want to be able to search for an email or name - not a problem in the Inbox - but very problematic if the email got jacked up into the wrong email folder tree somehow. There’s no way to do a search for all folders in Thunderbird. Ugh.

OK, all of that venting to ask two questions: 1) What’s a truly bullet-proof, IMAP-capable email client that doesn’t break when you have thousands of folders/subfolders and rules? 2) If you’re the church that emailed me about training in January, please call me (I dare not have you email into the mess. )

Getting Things Done is nice…but the zero Inbox may be my ruin.

My friends Jason and Len, creators of the Midnight Oil church resources, are giving away their “Christmas Freebie” and offering training at multiple regional conferences over the next year.

These two guys are the real deal. They’ve authored several books including The Wired Church 2.0, Digital Storytellers and Design Matters. I personally have spent time with them over the years and have continued to be influenced by their creativity and passion.

If you’ve not heard them speak or picked up one of their books, I recommend you get to know these two men of God and learn from their incredible experiences.

For the last couple of years NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC has given away a house to a single mother. Their Senior Pastor, Perry Noble, has blogged about it before.

What would happen if every church that could afford this (or work out a great deal with a builder) did this at Christmas and again on Mother’s Day? There’s such a massive amount of obvious outreach and positive press that comes from an act as wonderfully outrageous as giving away a house!

Has your church done something so awesomely audacious? If so, what was it? If not, why not?

I realize that the title of this post is dramatic. That’s intentional on my part because I believe this is the most simple yet profound way of demonstrably telling stories that will claw their way past any facade, any hard life or any objections about the power of Christ in our life.

The website is IAmSecond.com. It’s a masterpiece of simple, high contrast design with minimal interface fuss and entirely centered around stories. As far as I’m concerned, every Bible-believing church should be prominently linking to this from their own main page, blogs and social network pages.

My personal favorite story is of Brian Welch, the former leader of the band Korn. You can watch his amazing story, told powerfully and beautifully in just a few minutes, by CLICKING HERE.

I was highly impacted by Brian’s story and desire to meet him one day, hug him and thank him for sharing his story on this website. It moved me.

Have you seen this site yet? Is your church linking to it and sharing this with your community?

Are your church members and attenders getting the point of Christmas? This video says it all:

A friend pointed me to this very brief and excellent demonstration of over and under cable wrapping. This should be required viewing very every church tech and volunteer!

“Over and Under” cable wrapping is the correct (and professional) way to wrap cables. If your church has issues with cables flipping up , coiling or building “memory” (it only wraps one way), then you need to learn how to wrap properly.

I actually have taught my family how to do over & under for everything - garden hoses, extension cords, ropes, you name it. Yes, I’m a geek BUT our house has BEAUTIFUL coils on everything that can be wrapped!

Pass this post along to all of your volunteers and other church techie friends!

I’m friends with the CFO at Sweetwater and wanted to share another holiday giveaway contest (it’s free) with my church friends. They’re giving stuff away every day through December 24 and much of it is really great stuff. Click here to go sign up.

According to their rules the only thing you need to know is that they reserve the right to call if you sign up for this sweepstakes. They’re good folks, so a nice sales call is nothing, I think, for a chance to win. Hey, someone’s gotta win; might as well be you!

This came through my Inbox today and I wanted to share it with my church friends:

NILES, IL, December 1, 2008 — Shure Incorporated today announced a rebate program of up to $1,000 for the trade-in of Shure 700 MHz frequency band (698-806 MHz) wireless systems and other related components purchased before February 1, 2007, and for any other manufacturers’ qualifying 700 MHz frequency band wireless systems and their related components.

“Our number one priority is to provide our customers with the highest quality products, service, and support,” said Al Hershner, Vice President and General Manager of the Shure U.S Business Unit. “We’ve known for some time that the ‘700 MHz band’ would be reallocated for new services following the DTV transition on February 18, 2009. Although a final decision from the FCC is still pending, we felt the need to assure our customers now that we will take care of them regardless of the outcome.”

Customers may submit their rebate forms with the purchase of the following new replacement products: UHF-R®, ULX®, MX690/SLX4L, PSM®700 (H3, L2 bands), and PGX.

For a complete summary of the terms and conditions of this rebate program, to learn which products are eligible for the rebate program, and to obtain a rebate form, customers should visit the Shure website at www.shure.com/rebate.

“There has been a great deal of confusion for wireless microphone users regarding the political and technological developments surrounding the DTV transition and the 700 MHz auction over the past few years,” added Hershner. “As always, Shure has a team of sales, customer service, and technical support staff available to answer any questions people might have about this rebate program or their products.”

For information about rebates or trade-ins for in-warranty Shure wireless systems purchased on or after February 1, 2007, please contact 800-25-SHURE (800-257-4873).

The gurus over at WorshipHouseMedia.com are at it again this year giving away a free download every single day. I’ve known these guys since, well, before they were WHM! I respect them mightily and love the quality of producers they attract.

Go get your daily freebies here: http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/

God is using everything in my life to speak to me in this season, whether that’s through my bride, my family, my friends, my pastors, bloggers or, of course, His Word. I’ve been pummeled by His love, admonished with His gentleness and encouraged with His kindness over the last week.

I desire to share some of these learnings both as marker stones along my life’s journey and, hopefully, as encouragement for you in your journey, too.

“When I think that something is mine, the only person I’m fooling is myself.”

If there’s really nothing new under the sun then thinking that I came up with the idea or even own the idea is flatly absurd. God is the owner of everything and that would include new ideas (at least new to me). Therefore, rather than assume I somehow deserve to take the lead for every idea I come up with, I should first acknowledge that if I had an idea, God gave it to me. I then need to ask him what He wants me to do with it, not try and figure things out on my own.

“If I don’t stop to ask God if he wants me to do something, why should I be surprised when things don’t work out the way I planned?”

It’s very easy for me to make a decision on my own. After all, I’m capable enough and experienced enough to know how to work through situations and am able to make snap decisions. The problem with snap decisions is that unless they’re directed by God, I risk making the wrong decision.

I’ve recently been challenged to pray about everything. Literally. Everything. Every decision. Every question. Every time.

I make hundreds, maybe thousands, of decisions every day. The intentionality and humility I’m learning are lessons I hope I won’t forget. If I really want to live a God-centered - a God-chaser - life, then my will should be His will. The best way to know His will is to pray about everything. It’s a whole new way of living, but I’m learning to make this my new priority and focus. So far, I’ve been surprised to find out how much easier it is to make good decisions when I have to run every single one up to God.

“Could it be your arrogance that makes you think God owes you an explanation?” (from Francis Chan)

The short answer is: “Yes". God owes me nothing. I owe Him everything. For me to assume that God needs to share his motives, timing and decisions with me every step of the way - especially when I can’t understand why things are happening - is nothing short of supreme arrogance.

The revelation God gave me after praying about this was: “If God doesn’t tell me why something is or isn’t happening then He needs for me not to know.” That should be more than enough comfort to assuage any “need to know".

These three lessons have been important both for the moment (now) and for my life (all of my next tomorrows). I hope they resonate with you, too.

If you’ve ever had a “Toll Tag” - a device which lets you drive on toll roads without stopping to pay with cumbersome coins - you know the blissfulness of driving uninterrupted to your destination. Or if you’re using a high-speed internet connection, you simply open up a browser and search and surf in real time. Maybe you’ve shopped a grocery store that use RFID for auto-scanning items for checkout and bills your credit card on file so that you literally bag your stuff and walk out the door.

If you’ve experienced any of those situations then you know what it’s like to have transparent technology.

Transparent Technology
The application and usage of technology that is seamless to the user; technology that doesn’t call attention to itself.

I think a lot of church leaders have an aversion to certain levels of technology (and the costs associated with them) because they don’t get to experience transparent technology in their week-in, week-out church service, events and communications. A few examples of interruptive technology usage:

• Feedback through the sound system
• Volunteer/Children’s check-in system that doesn’t offer bar code scanning
• Motion backgrounds that stutter and skip behind song lyrics
• Microsoft Powerpoint. Yes, I’m jaded. Buy worship software or use Apple’s Keynote
• Poor lighting on the stage
• Typos in song lyrics, sermon notes or anything else (electronic or print)

We typically can’t eliminate every distraction, but we should be actively doing our best to minimize distractions. In my short list above, most of those distractions have a relatively inexpensive solution and all of them can be eliminated.

What distractions do you see in church? How should we eliminate or minimize them?

Once in a while you read something insightful in an unlikely place. For me, it was the quote on a Starbucks cup:

“The irony of commitment is that it’s deeply liberating - in work, in play, in love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life.”

- Anne Morriss, A Starbucks customer from New York City.
(From “The Way I See It - #76)

So, in essence, commitment is freeing. The Apostle Paul said it another way:

“Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”
Romans 6:19-20

It’s hard to accept sometimes that we tend to think our way into a situation, all the while assuming we’re in control. But the weird part is realizing we’re not in control and, in fact, the sooner we get our head out of the way, the sooner we can have the commitment to God’s way instead of our way.

I need a sign that says: “Step One: Remove your head.”

“Step Two: Repeat as necessary.”

White sugar donut powder coats EQ knobs. Coffee cup rings leave sticky circles next to equipment. Cables are left strewn on horizontal surfaces. Labels are mysteriously missing from most connectors. Dust is layered on top of equipment and clogs the filters and fans of electronics.

In short: it's a mess.

Maybe it's because media people would rather plug in cables than label them, or maybe it's that we have a tendency to do things quickly to "make it work" but don't take the time to "make it right". I'm not sure what the reason is but most churches have a mess in the tech areas. (I was guilty of this at my first church media job, so I'm guilty, too!)

You have not because you clean not

OK, that's not exactly what John 16:24 says, but I'm convinced that media folks usually don't get new equipment because the leadership doesn't see them taking care of what they do have.

When I first started at my third church staff position, I inherited a young assistant named Daniel. This quiet young man and I had spent less than a week together before I had to leave and go teach at a conference. Before leaving, I had toured the entire campus and looked at everything (Audio/Video/Lighting) that we were responsible for and had made the announcement that we were going to clean up and organize those areas. My rationale was for three reasons:

1) I was new to the church and wanted to have a complete inventory list of every piece of equipment;
2) I wanted each tech area to be organized so we could easily operate and repair the equipment;
3) I knew that the business administrator and executive pastor would appreciate our new list for both insurance purposes and for a fresh start towards excellence in our ministry.

Daniel took the lead and pulled together staff and volunteers to do some major cleaning, organization and labeling. When I returned four days later, he and his team had it completed!

Now beyond the moral of the story (get it done and do it right) is a great ending: when I was able to show the church leadership what equipment we could re-use and what needed replacing (instead of expensive repair for outdated items), getting a P.O. signed was a piece of cake!

Your leadership wants you to have the right tools

I know some of you don't believe that statement but I submit that if you show that you're using what you have to the best of your ability and you research and document the cost for replacement vs. repair, the money will show up.

People don't give money to need - they give money to vision.

When you show that you're taking responsibility for what you do have and you create a vision for what should be, people and resources will show up. Every time.

Get it right. Keep it right.

I know, it's not fun to clean. It's a daunting task to chase cables (hundreds of them), test them and label them. All of them. It's not easy or a quick task to create start-up and shutdown checklists for every position in every venue. It's certainly not easy to break habits of sloppiness. But it all must be done.

How has your tech area improved? Share below...

If you're a ministry-minded person looking for a church job, please send me your résumé and a one page manifesto describing your ideal church position. If you're a techie or worship leader, please include a web link for your demo reel. I've got quite a few churches needing qualified and experienced people for a multitude of positions. As of today, some of my church clients are seeking:

• Children's Pastor
• Media Pastor
• Technical Director
• Video producer
• Executive Pastor
• Motion graphics artist

Email me your résumé and be sure to include all of your contact information, including a cell number and an email address.

Your résumé should include this additional information, dependent upon the kind of position your seeking. Some additional info might include:

• Type of position you are seeking
• Minimum Salary requirements
• If you're willing to relocate
• Areas of specific expertise
• Proficiencies in software/hardware (name and version)
• Years of experience on software/hardware
• Licensing and/or Ordination information (if applicable)
• Denominational preferences/requirements
• Your greatest strength
• Your greatest weakness

This doesn't cost you anything. My fees are paid by the churches who hire individuals. Just be sure to send me an email. Be sure to pass this along to your friends in ministry who are searching and your church leaders who are looking for just the right person!

You’re the only staff or volunteer person who shows up week in and week out. Every rehearsal, every service, every event, every Easter, every Christmas - you’re the one making the tech happen. Oh, sure others help out occasionally, but if you’re not there, things just go wrong. You have to be there, right?

Or maybe you’re in a church where the demands and expectations from the leadership are unrealistic. You have some gear, so they think you have all the gear you need. You have a few volunteers, so what’s the problem? Pastors can change things on you last minute, but that’s why you’re the expert - you’re supposed to know how to fix things and make it work, right?

And quite possibly the aggravation of working with people who don’t understand what you do has you stressed out. Suck it up, right?

WRONG, on all three counts!

Dave Wilcox asked a great question about burnout:

“I have heard tech folks at churches use the term burnout frequently. How would you define burnout? What are its symptoms? What are its remedies, both for the ‘burnt out’ individual and for the church that ‘burns out’ people?”

Wow, is that a terrific set of questions or what?! I’m going to answer his question in the hopes of helping out the folks in the trenches of technical ministry. Maybe something I’ll say here will give you the freedom you so desperately need.

What is ‘Burnout’?
Dictionary.com defines burnout like this:

“Physical or emotional exhaustion, especially as a result of long-term stress or dissipation.”

I’d add to that spiritual exhaustion, because I think that it’s the main reason that media personnel experience burnout.

Understanding Burnout
Spiritual Exhaustion

The technical ministry is often one filled with people who don’t want to attend a Sunday school, small group meeting or Bible study. Many of these folks would rather click a mouse, spin a knob or push a button than talk with people about God’s Word. “Hey, no one asks me to quote Bible verses when I’m mixing sound,” say people I’ve talked to before.

The technical ministry is perhaps the one ministry area where it’s easy to hide from spiritual discussions. Yet this is robbing them of personal growth, a closer relationship with the God who loves them and a stronger sense of mission and purpose for the tech team. We can no longer afford to ask our volunteers to serve unless we serve them with spiritual food, too! Any tech leader reading this should memorize it, print it out and post it:

The technical ministry is not about the tech. It’s about the people behind the tech.

Emotional Exhaustion

Volunteers are often set up to fail, and fail spectacularly. Churches - even large ones - rarely provide adequate or consistent training for their staff and volunteers. Instead, it’s simply assumed that we’ll somehow get better without knowing exactly how to get from where we are to where we need to be. This puts a real toll on tech arts staff and volunteers who feel the pressure to make everything work flawlessly week in and week out but who do not have the proper training, planning or practice to produce effective results.

The result? People get tired of sitting in the booth when the audience turns around because of feedback. They get tired of being told by a frustrated music minister that there’s not enough monitor volume even though the monitors are creating more volume in the room than the PA system. They are emotionally spent when the pastor makes an unhappy remark about the problems with the technical team on a Sunday morning during service.

The stress of having to perform without the right tools, the right training and the right amount of preparation wipe out volunteers who are often under-appreciated and not shown the love they need.

Physical Exhaustion

If you’re serving more than twice a month in a volunteer capacity, you’re probably serving too often. We need a break. We need to experience corporate worship. We need to unplug from the matrix of tech volunteering and focus on the message, not the medium.

“But we don’t have enough technical volunteers, so I have to be here,” some try to explain.

You have not because you ask not. Every person in your church has a sphere of influence. That is your starting point: asking those who you know are not serving regularly (or at all). And I’m not just talking about pew-sitters, either. We all have unchurched friends who share some of our same interests. We can invite them to come and observe the tech operations and see if it piques their interest. In addition to growing your ranks, you also get people involved in church, as attendance outside of volunteering should be required for every member of the tech team.

While this article is a basic overview of burnout, I have previously written an entire three-part series on “Dealing with Tech Arts Burnout":

• Tech Arts Burnout: Part I
• Tech Arts Burnout: Part II
• Tech Arts Burnout: Part III

I hope you find these articles helpful and freeing from the unnecessary burden of burnout at your church. If you have a story of burn-out or a story or restoration after burn-out, please share with us below or email me offline.

In my previous posts, I’ve been talking about WFX as a tech conference and, well, it is…but it’s also more than that. Where I spend most of my time is in teaching in the Church Production or Digital Church tracks, but the reality is that WFX is more holistic.

The goal for the event is to help build the Kingdom and for churches to make better investments in facilities and technology. Attendance and content-wise, the goal is to present an appropriate balance of content and exhibitors to attract a balance of executive, facilities and technical teams. There’s simply not a lot of conferences that try to do what WFX is doing (are there any?) and, for that, I give them full credit.

All that to say I’m also interested in hearing from those of you that went to WFX for more than the tech side of the conference. What say you?

In previous years I’ve taught more classes solo than I have at this past WFX. With more and more panel discussions becoming the norm, it seems, the intimacy and connection that I feel with the people is somehow diminished. Yet there were still some times, even with three to six other people on a panel, that I felt the Lord giving me instruction for some in the audience. No, I didn’t get a word from God about a new tech directive, but instead about the larger spiritual issues facing all church tech arts and worship teams.

Essential Management Skills for Technical Directors is a class I taught with Ryan and Chuck. There was a time towards the latter part of the class when the Lord spoke very, very clearly to me about people being burned out in ministry.

I knew there were people in that very room that needed more than management skills and project management tips; they needed a fresh wind from the Holy Spirit.

So, right there in the middle of class, I asked for people to be totally transparent and raise their hands if they were at the point of burn out or very close to burning out. A dozen hands went up and I invited them to come down to the front for a time of prayer. God spoke so clearly to me that it was, simply, the most natural thing to do in the middle of a tech class. Everyone in the room either raised a hand over the group down front or literally walked down to lay hands on these hurting brothers and sisters in intercessory prayer.

Can I tell you something? That was the best part of WFX for me this year!

WFX is the brain child of Brian Blackmore, Armando Fullwood, Greg Persinger and myself. Yet for all of our planning and strategizing and the subsequent explosion of the conference by the capable hearts and hands of the convention team at EH Publishing, the one thing that really makes this tech conference stand out from the rest is the freedom for us as presenters to go beyond the tech and touch the heart. God’s very presence is palpable in so many of the classes and keynotes and in discussions in hallways and on bus rides together. This is the greatest part of WFX. This is why it’s my favorite tech conference.

I truly hope that everyone at WFX had a time like the one I just recalled. It is my personal desire to see WFX have more moments like that than the mere dispensation of knowledge. If you had a time where God really touched your heart - stuff way beyond the tech - please share your story with us all in the comments section below or on your own blog. Just give us a link here so that we can hear about how you were moved by the Holy Spirit and allow us to rejoice with you in what God’s doing in our lives!

Blessings,

Anthony

A while back I posted a variant of this theme, but with the questions at conferences and from emails that I receive regarding volunteers at church, I’ve added to my 7 Steps of Recruiting, Training and Retaining Volunteers. Feel free to share and comment.

1) Invite someone to learn with you. There’s something powerful about being invited and asked to participate in something bigger than ourselves. Most of the best volunteers I’ve met at hundreds of churches came because someone asked them if they’d like a chance to see what it was like to do what we do! Your pool of current volunteers are the best possible recruiters. Why? Because, chances are, they are friends with people similar to themselves. That means techies know more techies. It also means that your non-techie volunteers (more on that below) know people like them, too. Leveraging the spheres of influence that your volunteers have is the best way to invite new people to your ministry.

Another important recruiting tip is to find college interns, stay-at-home moms and retirees who have the time to give on a Monday thru Friday basis. Unlike your other volunteers with full-time jobs, these folks have more flexible schedules and can help you with a host of necessary, if not technical, areas including volunteer scheduling, administrative support, copywriting, duplication, organizing, documenting and encouraging. I have had men and women help me out during the week so that I was freed up to do the work that only I could do instead of work that anyone could do. One of my best volunteers never touched a piece of gear; she just kept me organized and helped me with the myriad of daily tasks that I didn’t like or have the time to do.

When you use interns, keep a log of what they do and give them the chance to apply their time and effort towards their high school or college credits. It may mean you need to go and visit with their high school counselor or college professor, but those real world on-the-job training hours can result in applicable hours towards their degree.

2) Guide someone through the process, initiate them slowly through the ropes and give them a lot of freedom to watch and observe. There’s a great deal of safety in knowing that an invitation to come into the tech booth has no expectation for them to perform. If possible, have a trained techie with the observer to point out what’s happening and to answer their questions. De-mystifying the tech is a big part of alleviating their fears.

3) Encourage those who have a giftedness at certain tasks or in certain areas. We all love hearing when we’ve “got it” and like to know we’re doing something well (or have the potential to do so). Your best volunteers will ‘own’ their role, taking your ministry to new heights because of their joy, passion and talent! Plus, really happy volunteers are also highly motivated volunteers who show up early and stay late.

4) Develop the people who show the most interest, have the best servant attitudes and are teachable. I’d much rather have a person who is inexperienced and teachable than an “expert” who can’t be taught. If you’ve got a soccer mom who doesn’t know technology but is highly teachable, pour into her and see where she can serve. I’ve quite often found that soccer moms make some of the best presentation software volunteers and excellent camera operators. Truly, you don’t have to have a techie person to keep up with detail work. They don’t have to know the operating system or even how the camera really works. They just operate with confidence and style!

5) Evaluate honestly. Hurting feelings doesn’t have to be a part of the job, so be gentle when you have to redirect people out of areas where they can’t accomplish the job. Keep written records of evaluation and offer tangible steps for people to either improve or find new ways to serve.

6) Participation has to be consistent. There’s not an expert or professional on the planet who simply showed up and started being a genius without any failures or dedication to their role. This is a “team sport” and it takes all of us working together in unison and not flaunting individual talents.

Personally, I’m a fan of having a volunteer team serve the entire weekend. This means you will have the same team for all rehearsals and services so that you’re all very consistent and work fluidly as a unit. By building these teams and operating in a one-week-on, two-weeks-off rotation, they’re consistent in their roles while having the time off to recoup from a long weekend.

7) Reproduction should be a natural part of someone becoming seriously qualified and competent in their role. Far too many churches have “the sound guy” (as in ONLY ONE PERSON) or “the worship leader". While there can (and should) be a leader for decision-making and administration, a team of leaders is the only way to obtain consistency, quality and growth.

One of my roles at Fellowship Church as a volunteer was as a volunteer trainer. I had a blast doing my “job". I called my job “Loving On Volunteers". That’s how I viewed my role of doing technical training! It was just another way to pour into people and equip them to serve successfully. And I did that as a volunteer myself.

These are the staring points or recruiting, training and retaining. There’s a whole lot more to it, but I can’t fit it into a blog post. There’s simply too much to cover. But if you want to learn more, shoot me an email or call me sometime. I’d be glad to chat.

Disclaimer: I’m on the WFX Advisory Council. I’m dear friends with the head honcho Brian Blackmore. I’ve been invited by the folks at EH Publishing to share my thoughts and get involved in the planning. I’ve been with WFX before it was WFX (it was T3, the Technical Training Tour, as part of Church Production Magazine). I’m on the Editorial Advisory Board for Church Production Magazine and write for it as well as its sister publication, Worship Facilities Magazine. In other words, I’m not just some guy spouting off about WFX. I care about it enough to speak the truth and share honestly. End of Disclaimer

WFX needs to make one major change: They need to lead out by using the best, most reliable technologies along with some of the cutting edge technologies as a way to demonstrate what’s being taught in the classes.

Where WFX missed leveraging technology to the fullest extent at WFX in Houston:

• Smoke What You’re Selling - WFX is, at its core, a technology conference. Therefore, it should have the best audio, video, lighting, staging, networking… whatever… on display and in use. I realize that every convention center is different and, sometimes, you don’t get to pick your technical support company. But that just leads me to think that if you can’t control the quality of the technology support, find another venue (more on that below).
• Keynote w/ Dave Ferguson - I was the video director for the event and came in to find that we were missing some important technology. Namely, we used PowerPoint and Windows Media Player to handle the on-screen graphics and video playback. Ugh. With Renewed Vision in the house, I’d have much rather had Brad or Matt running the gear and leveraging their cutting edge solution through our SDI switcher (thanks to Sony for use of the Anycast). Also, the ‘wide shot’ (cam 2) was not set up correctly (it was in 720P mode while the other camera was in 1080i - leaving the switcher unable to make it all look the same). Plus, the operator was not a trained techie and was, in my opinion, set up to fail. I don’t blame him. We simply needed a techie with experience running the on-screen content delivery.
• Wireless mics in all presenter rooms - I was told we’d have a wireless for every presenter, even during a large panel, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. The AV techs were hit and miss with a table top SM-58 on a stand for 3 presenters to share. Not good. With Shure, AKG, DPA and others on the show floor, it seems that we should have zero issue getting free (sponsored) mics in every room for every presenter. Personally, I wanted to wear a DPA-4066 all week and simply plug it into the bodypack in whichever room I spoke in next.
• 16:9 projection. Everywhere. - Any laptops created in the last 5 years will offer 16:9 output resolutions. Why not have every presenter build all of their presentations in 16:9 and project them onto 16:9 screens with native 16:9 projectors? Let’s face it: 16:9 in churches has more to do with typing song lyrics like they’re actually sung than it does with HD video. Let’s use the technology that we know they should be using!
• Proper audio reinforcement - In a room that seats 400, two EON speakers may not work. Yet that’s what I found in one of the large meeting rooms where I sat on a couple of panels. Worse yet, only one of these worked. Where’s the AV tech company when you need them?
• FREE Wi-Fi - Seriously, at a TECH conference this size, making me pay for Wi-Fi is dumb. Roll it into the price of the tickets. Make the manufacturers pay for it. I don’t care. I just want to have free Wi-Fi everywhere I go. I’m already paying for Wi-Fi at the hotel (T-Mobile), but have to use the convention center’s provider, too? Not cool. Plus, the conference is missing out on people wanting to blog, text, download and share their real-time experiences by not making it free. We’re at a technology conference! Gimme the technology, baby!
• Create time and space for impromptu get-togethers - there was a nice seating area with tables in front of the main Ballroom at the Houston event, but with a killer back-to-back-to-back list of sessions, it seemed difficult to make time for meet-ups. The morning breakfast discussion groups (moderated) were a great idea, but I think they can be extended to times before and after lunch and again before dinner. I heard from a few people who traveled alone that, other than the church tours, were bored and wished the could have a place to sit and talk about what they’d learned and share experiences.
• Meet in Smaller Venues - The last few WFX events have been held in HUGE convention centers. So big, in fact, that the WFX portion takes up about 1/4 of the space, if that. I’d rather see them meet in a place where it felt a little crowded than feel like we’re pebbles rolling around in a big ‘ol box car. Here in North Texas, we have the Frisco convention center that would fit WFX snugly. Then again, we have Six-Flags-Over-Jesus, too (Prestonwood Baptist Church - it’s ginormous). It does make me wonder if we should be meeting at big churches with the facilities to handle our classroom, meeting area, and large venue areas instead of convention centers. Hmmmm.

Still, in spite of those observations, I maintain that WFX was a good success and that people were encouraged, uplifted, inspired and equipped. In my next post, I actually talk about what sets WFX apart from other tech conferences. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

Though I’m on the WFX Advisory Council and have been in the conference teaching role for years, I actually love learning more than I love teaching. I learned quite a bit at WFX Houston this year and wanted to share some of the thoughts that have been percolating in my head.

I had lunch with Kirk, Mark, Tim, Aaron, Brian and Mike on the show floor of WFX. The conversation included a fun discussion about the viability of social networking as a means of attracting/connecting small groups in churches. In addition to “the regulars” (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Ning, etc.), two companies occupied the majority of the conversation: Unifyer and Roov.

I’ve not played with Unifyer yet. I’ve opted instead to watch from a distance and lurk through blogs and their website for others experiences. My chief complaint/issue is their pricing structure. For anything approaching a larger church, this becomes financially daunting due to the cost ratios, even with larger group discounts.

I brought up Roov, as I’ve personally spent time with Chris and Hannah and am seeing it work at my church (Gateway Church, Southlake, TX). I’m wondering if there’s not the possibility for a meeting of the functionality between Unifyer and Roov?

Regardless, social networking, at least in my opinion, exists for far more than narcissistic individuals spouting off about their innocuous day-to-day happenings. There’s real power in giving voice to conversations online that can lead to IRL (in real life) collaboration and engagement.

Walking the show floor, I enjoyed the wide variety of vendors exhibiting but felt that it might have been helpful to create a show map application for either a browser or, specifically, the iPhone. I wanted to walk the show floor and have solid Wi-Fi (FREE Wi-Fi anyone?!?) with an interactive app that let me search for vendors based on keyword searches. With the iPhone, it seemed reasonable to have it use the GPS built-in to the phone to give me directions. OK, that may be a bit much, but still, a way to see the show floor and know where I needed to go would save me from wandering.

Totally as an aside, I wanted a way to blog/post/Tweet about where the best swag (give away stuff) was at the various booths so we could get the good freebies.

Now think about this: what if your church offered that kind of interactivity through a free Wi-Fi system at your campuses? People could download a map, find where to take their kids, download a PDF of the sermon and .mp3’s of audio podcasts and worship services (with the proper licensing, of course). The possibilities are nearly endless and can, of course, extend to two-way interactivity.

In my next post, I’m going to step on the toes of my good friends at WFX. I love them dearly, but I want to share what I think is the major thing missing from WFX. Stay tuned!

This first post of the series will most likely be the shortest of the bunch, but perhaps (hopefully?) it will be the most commented of the bunch.

Today’s post is for two groups: those who attended WFX in Houston (or past WFX events) and those haven’t yet attended. Since that includes, well, everyone, I’m hoping this removes any barrier to posting! In fact, if you’d rather answer these questions on your own blog, please feel free to do so and post a comment below with a permalink.

There’s only one rule: You’ve gotta be completely, totally, flat-out honest.

What should a conference like WFX accomplish?

Specifically for those who attended:
Did WFX accomplish this goal?

What should be added, removed or changed about WFX?

What was the best thing about WFX for you?

Finally, I have a personal request:
If you attended any of my classes, please tell me the good, bad and ugly. I want to learn from you!

We had a very interesting and lively discussion today in what can only be described as the largest panel discussion I’ve ever been a part of. Lots of churches (well over 70% of the room when I polled) are looking at getting into some flavor of video venues. There were plenty of questions around the technology, but I hope that what they took home was asking “Why?” before they spend any money AND getting their focus off of the tech and on the people behind the tech.

I think some of my favorite moments were rethinking the live vs. taped (is it Memorex, anyone?) video venue. Great thoughts by Dennis Choy, perhaps the grandfather of video venues in churches, solid input from Steve Reed of Acoustic Dimensions, intrepid thoughts Brad Weston of Renewed vision and future pontificating from Peter Taylor of Barco projection.

I’ve got some other thoughts that I’m still chewing on, specifically in relation to what technologies will help take video venues to the next level. More to come…

I had the privilege of sharing the stage with Bruce Smith, the former tech director for Willow Creek, Dennis Choy, the tech director of North Coast church and Chuck Walthall, a renowned consultant. We had a class that asked great questions and spoke into more areas a good deal more than I anticipated. I hope that we were able to bring the ship around and really help drive home the key points of recruiting, training and retaining volunteers, a subject that is very close to my heart!

Here’s my notes from a presentation I did for this at the Spring WFX conference when I taught the class by myself:

WFX Volunteer Training Class

Enjoy!