Church Technology: Support, Efficiency, Impact

Having worked with technology in churches for just under two decades, I’ve come to understand that churches have the potential to use technology in three ways. Independently, they’re all good, but together, they’re exponentially greater. Generally speaking, I believe that church technology really can be brought together under the mantle of support, efficiency and impact.

Here’s how I define each one:

• Support: providing the necessary resources to enable a ministry or event to function
• Efficiency: a high result to effort ratio based on the scalability of the technology and process
• Impact: have a strong effect upon the recipient/user

I believe that, applied on their own, they end up missing the mark.

KINDA LIKE THE LONE RANGER

It’s very common for churches to leverage a single aspect of technology; sort of like trying to do it all as the Lone Ranger. For example, a church might decide to support every ministry event with technology. Unto itself, this is probably a good idea. However, if efficiency was part of the plan (cost savings, personnel time savings, etc.) and impact was part of the goal (was technology transparent to the delivery of the message; how was technology leveraged to produce action after the event), the result could be maximized.

Think of it this way: how often has your technical arts team been responsible for setting up and manning an event, but never asked to participate in the planning, coordination or communication of the event? I’d imagine that happens more often than not, mainly because when media & tech are viewed as support only, the greater opportunity is missed.

However, if each event leveraged technology and the planning process and follow-up activity of being efficient (cost savings, personnel time savings, etc.) and impactful (was technology transparent to the delivery of the message; how was technology leveraged to produce action after the event).

GET ON THE RADAR

Quite often, ministry leaders are simply unaware of the opportunity and ability your team can bring to the table. Get on their radar! Tech arts leaders need to have friendly conversation with ministry heads to help look at the calendar of upcoming events, services and communications. By taking an interest in what they’re doing, you stand a very good chance of helping them leverage all of your team’s strengths. Remember, people generally don’t understand the time commitment involved with much of our world. Bluntly, that’s not their job or concern; it’s yours. But when we help them by providing options, plain-language understanding and a helpful attitude, they’ll respond by giving you more heads-up, more time and even more support on their end.

There are other adverbs that can be used to describe the activities and value of church technology, but when we focus on the big three (support, efficiency & impact), we can bring greater value to our churches.

What say you? How does your church leverage technology to maximize ministry?

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Churches Breaking FCC Law

I wish I had the ear of more pastors. If I did, they would have known by now that the Federal Communications Commission has enacted law that orders all users of the 700MHz band to move frequencies. That may sound like techno-nonsense, but I assure you it will affect a great many churches because older (and often less expensive) wireless mics, in-ear systems and assisted listening systems use the 700 MHz frequency.

As of June 12, 2010, churches must cease using any 700 MHz gear or be subject to prosecution. Here’s the legal mumbo-jumbo:

FCC 08-188 (NPRM&O), Paragraph 14:

“As discussed above, the Commission and various affected parties, such as SBE and Shure, have contemplated that low power broadcast auxiliary devices would lose their secondary status, and would need to vacate the band, upon completion of the DTV transition. We therefore tentatively conclude to revise our rules to make clear that low power auxiliary stations authorized under Part 74 of our rules – including wireless microphones – will not be permitted to operate in the 700 MHz band after the DTV transition.”

My friend Mike Sessler (churchtecharts.org) created a nifty chart (for those who want to dial their inner geek up to 11) showing how this will pan out : Download the PDF chart here.

Fortunately for churches, many of the manufacturers went to battle on The Hill for you (in particular, Shure, Inc. and Sennheiser – thanks, fellas). They lost, but they have since regrouped and made trade-in offers to make this mandatory transition less costly. Check out Shure’s rebate and Sennheiser’s rebate.

So, pastors, follow me on Twitter and have a tech dude speaking into your life. @anthonycoppedge. Oh, not sure about Twitter? Well, here’s a big, shameless plug for my e-book “The Reason Your Church Must Twitter”. $5. Get it.

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How to Soak Up Expertise

I have a problem: the Internet is ginormous and gleaning slivers of insight is hard.

Given the extreme availability provided by blogs, videos and Twitter, it’s not hard to find people who share about topics that interest me. The problem, of course, is that managing the volume of content on the Internet is like drinking from a fire hydrant – nix that – from Niagara Falls. Searching has never been easier, but the sheer quantity of results from Google/Yahoo/Bing can often keep us from taking the time to sort the data. Instead, I find myself starting my searches in two different ways: Blogrolls & Twitter.

Where to Look

I already have a large number of blogs that I follow (thank you, Bloglines for making this easy), so starting my searches on blogs of people who I know have similar affinity is a pretty good way of finding other people who I may not know. Quite often, I’ll find what I’m looking for in a matter of minutes.

But my favorite way to search for people (more accurately: experts) is by making the ask on Twitter. I’m AMAZED at how quickly and how accurately my Twitter crowd sends links to the people I need to find/follow.

How I Sift, Sort & Soak Up Expertise

When I find someone that’s really compelling and has great knowledge coupled with tremendous insight, I’m a sucker for soaking up anything and everything I can find about them. Once I have good information, I’ve had to learn to not be overwhelmed by the amount of information I find.

Sifting

When I find a site or blog that has great information, I’ll search that site using the Google site search “site:domain.com” and then put in the words or phrases that I want to find within this site. For example, I could search like this: site:withoutwax.tv leadership will search pastor Pete Wilson’s blog for the term “leadership”).

Though it may seem ludicrously obvious, I use the COMMAND + F (CTRL + F for Windows) – the ever-useful “Find” feature” – in my browser to search through a page for keywords or phrases.

Sorting

There are plenty of ways to capture data, but my favorite is Mindjet’s MindManager. It’s mind-mapping software that allows me to type in anything (useful for brainstorming, too) and drag-and-drop images, links, URL’s, etc.) right into the mind map. Obviously, this can be as simple as a TextEdit or Word document, or even XMind (a less robust but free mind mapping tool).

Soaking

Because research can be a time-sink, I have taught myself to focus on no more than one main topic at a time. Again, using MindManager, I will capture content that I need. Anything extra gets saved into a different “drawer” on the mind map, ready for me to look at later on.

Once I have my research, I will continue to check for new updates from the blogger and, more often than not, follow them on Twitter and add them to a search group (list). In this way, I can continue to learn from their insight over time. This is the key. A single point of data is good, but a consistent stream almost always provides better context, deeper understanding and more practical application for me.

By taking their ideas, insgights and experiences and writing out how I can apply the information – in my own context – helps me to “own” the information. I don’t think we really soak up anything until we can teach what we’ve learned to someone else, using our own context.

Do you have other ways of “soaking”? Feel free to share them in the comments.

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