I can definitely tell that I am starting to wear down.  I am a big time morning person, not only because I do my best work in the morning, but the life of a dad with 3 kids who need to get to school, requires that I wake up early.  I told someone the other night that we should move all our rehearsal to 5 am, because then you’d see me at my best.  These late nights are starting to catch up to me.

Once we are all in neck deep in Christmas prep, our families can start to get the short end of the stick.  Not only am I not around in the evening, but it is really easy to spend most of the  time I am at home just trying to recover from working such long days.  I was talking to a co-worker about how we each handle time at home during this season, and I was reminded of a couple things I have learned over the years that help make the Christmas run more doable.

Make the most of every moment.  Many times my family is already in bed when I get home from a late night rehearsal, so the reality is that if I want to see them, I need to get up when they start getting ready for school.  As a result, no matter how late I get home, I make myself get out of bed so that I can interact with my kids.  It may not seem like much, all I’m doing is making breakfast and helping them get out the door, but every chance I have to interact with them helps us make it through Christmas.  My wife and I have had some of our best conversations during Christmas, because we know that even though we are both tired, sitting on the kitchen floor for 20 minutes and looking at each other will help carry us to the finish line.  For me, when everyone goes off to school/work, that’s when I crawl back into bed.

Don’t use Christmas as an excuse.  Your family is not having the easiest time with you gone all the time, so when you are there, pick up the slack, push through your tiredness.  Do the dishes.  Take apart the trampoline.  Help decorate the house for Christmas.   Your family is working harder than normal to function without you being around as much, so you need to step in when you don’t feel like it to make things happen.

I have an amazing wife.  I don’t know how I was lucky enough to marry such an amazing person, but my wife has made me being a technical artist in the local church possible.  She does a great job of calling the best out of me and reminding me that our family needs a vision for Christmas as much as my production team needs vision.  I’d be lying if I didn’t give a huge amount of credit to our family’s survival at Christmas time to her.

I can sometimes make Christmas my excuse for being lame, but his is a perfect opportunity for you and me to build our character and be better people.  You have every right to complain about how much you are working.  You’d be amazed how your Christmas experience can change if you rise above how you feel and choose to make the most of this season.

photo credit by fmgbain

I love Christmas time.  You know, when you are working crazy hours and your body starts shouting back at you to slow down, but because the show must go on, you push through until you collapse at the finish line, with nothing but a heap underneath the Christmas tree for your family to work around?  (I really don’t feel this way anymore, but it is fun to reminisce about days gone by.)

For us church technical artists, another thing that happens at Christmas time, or during any other large production, is that all the great things we do all year long are magnified.  Unfortunately, all our bad habits and not so great process issues are also magnified.  The things we put up with on a weekly basis but should probably change, are blown up to ugly proportions for us that we have to deal with.  All year long we live with a low grade fever, not quite bad enough to go to the doctor over, but when the pressure builds to Christmas proportions, it can send us to the emergency room…so to speak.

I am pretty good at saying:  “we’ll wait and figure that out when we are in rehearsal”.  Many times this is fine, but when we hit the big services this tend to bite us. We have too many details floating around to leave any for the last minute.  There will be enough details that pop up at the last minute that we should be planning everything else we possibly can so that we are ready for the unexpected.  A loose process week in and week out can wreak havoc when the big event rolls around.

In what ways could your process improve each week to make next Christmas be the best experience?  During our rehearsals and services, let’s be observant of the things that we can improve  for next year by doing small fixes throughout the year.

 photo credit: nickpix2011

I have a friend who was a TD of a local church and when he started, he noticed that the volunteer team would talk over the intercom negatively about the people on stage and the content coming from said stage.  As a result the whole production team had a negative view of the creative arts team, and the wall that naturally exists between the booth and the stage was built taller and more robust each week.  When he realized this, my friend went to the worship leader and told him that from that day forward, the production team would not say one negative thing over the intercom or in conversation.  Instead of the standard operating procedure being criticizing someone’s performance or content, the MO would be to speak with positive words, or not say anything.

I was telling this story in a small group setting and there were a few people from the same church that looked at each other and groaned.  They all knew that the first part of the story described their team’s experience and that it was time to stop.  While they were having this revelation, I was having thoughts like “It is OK for my team to talk negatively, because my situation is unique.”  and “My friend’s church has a totally different set of issues that don’t apply to my environment.”  or “I am tired of staying on top of my team to stop the negative comments.” and on and on.  Right about then, I was convicted myself.

Letting our conversation slip into destructive negative comments is no better than letting technical excellence slip.  Would you let a camera operator continually give you bad headroom?  I hope not.  Would you let a FOH engineer keep forgetting to turn people’s mics on at the right time?  No way.  What may seem like harmless fun, slowly erodes respect and trust.

For me, the biggest challenge I have faced as a technical artist in the local church is breaking down the wall that can so easily be built between the technical and creative arts teams.  We talk a lot about wanting to feel like one team, but that can’t happen if we let negative chatter happen on our intercom, or in the back hallway or anywhere.

I’m not saying that you have to love everything happening on your stage, or that you have to be best buds with the worship leader.  I am saying that speaking in a destructive way, about the people whose art we are facilitating, is destroying any chance we have of creating something amazing together.  There should be room for constructive criticism, with emphasis on constructive.  There should be room to speak the truth, but in love.  We shouldn’t live with blinders on, but we shouldn’t live with n0-holds-barred either.

If you are a leader, please hold your tongue.  Your people are watching and listening to how you speak about the people on your stage.  If you are leader, hold your people to the highest standard.  Push your team to the high road.  Breaking down the wall between the creative arts and the technical arts requires constant attention.  Without diligence, it will naturally get built slowly, brick upon brick, which is the exact opposite of what we need and what we really want.

 photo credit: Pikesville

I spent an entire day with technical artists from around the world yesterday during the Technical Director’s Retreat Day hosted by the WFX conference in Dallas.  It was inspiring and reassuring; sobering and sad, all at the same time.  It is great to see so many churches working hard to make a difference in the world through the use of production technology.  It was amazing to be surrounded by fellow technical artists trying to get better at their craft, while trying to help each other through issues we all face.  On the sobering and sad side were the people who are at the end of their rope, who feel misunderstood by their leadership and who are ready to throw in the towel.

There was one universal theme that stuck out to me that all of us, as technical artists can work on:  Defining Expectations.

At one table I sat with, pretty much everyone had issues with expectations.  Whether it was what a senior pastor really wanted, or if it was being realistic about how long something would take to accomplish or how much something would cost; expectations were lacking at many churches.  The thing about expectations and the technical arts, is that for most non-technical people, things just magically happen, and there is no understanding of what it actually takes.  If we need someone to define expectations for us, we have to push them, we have to help them define them, we need to have data that supports our perspective.  

Leaders need information and to say you don’t have enough time or money is an answer that doesn’t work for most senior leaders I know.  They need to understand what you need to do the job, not just that you need more than you have now.  The next time you work on a video project, document how much time each phase of production took.  Now you have defined, with this much time and this much money, that this is the product you can expect.  Documenting how you spend your time is an amazing tool to communicate reality so that expectations can be set.

There is a apt quote in Charles Dickens’ book “Great Expectations”:

“Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There’s no better rule.”

Work with your leaders now to define what can be expected and change the outcome of your next project.

 photo credit: Andy Martini

In my last post, I mentioned that we are getting ready to replace the sound system in one of our venues at Willow.  We have been looking forward to this for so long and we have been placing so many of our hopes and dreams on getting something new and shining that will solve all our problems.  It is time, and the old one is horrible, but I predict that the new system will lose its luster, it won’t be perfect and we’ll move onto the next thing that is wrong, and put our expectations on the next thing that is just around the corner.

As technical artists, our forward looking selves are generally wanting our equipment and personnel issues to be solved or to pull off the next amazing production. We look forward to the day “if I only had HD cameras”, or “once the newest version of ProPresenter comes out” or “this Christmas is going to be amazing”.   Not that any of these things are bad, it is just that they don’t really solve all the problems, they don’t make life perfect, they will let us down.

Waiting for everything to be perfect is a fantasy.  Putting our hope in “things” cannot fully satisfy, and it is at odds with the very message of the gospel.  The new equipment that you are longing for will let you down.  Solving one problem will inevitably raise other, newer problems to the surface.  The next big idea will provide you with a great adrenaline rush, but then comes the crash.

In Psalm 42, the writer talks about how our souls long for God, yet he asks the question: “Why, my soul, are you so downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?”  The only solution to this feeling of being let down is to “Put your hope in God.”

Our jobs as technical artists in the local church is to push and strive for technical excellence; to look for new equipment, to recommend new ways of doing things, to push our current normal onto something special and extraordinary.  It is how we fulfill our role in the body of Christ.  We must also not put our hope in any of this.  Reach.  Strive.  Work your butt off.  But don’t place your identity in something new and shiny or flashing and amazing.  Put your hope in God.  Allow him to be your motivation.  Let him fill you up because the adrenaline will wear off.

 photo credit: marc falardeau

I am on a flight back from an event where I facilitated a table of TDs from local churches.  It was amazing time to connect with people who are in similar situations and have similar challenges.  We spent a lot of time talking about what is working well, what isn’t, and there was a particular subject that kept coming up.  Either these TDs were at a church where you were required to work at least 6 days a week, or a TD was at a church where they had 2 days off, but they rarely took them because there was too much work to get done.

This seems pretty normal in church production and it is one of the contributing factors to such widespread burnout and bitterness among TDs.  What can we do to change this trend.

Be realistic about what can be accomplished in week.

Someone at my table said that his senior pastor jokes with him that what he does is so mysterious that the TD doesn’t even really know what he does.  The role of TD is like being an auto mechanic.  We all need one, we don’t understand what they need to do to fix our car, but we just write the check.  We need to be ruthless to quantify what we do for our bosses, so that we aren’t just complaining that we work too much.  Take a month and keep track of every hour that you spend editing videos, updating Planning Center, cleaning your storage closet, whatever.  This exercise will help you get a handle on where all your time goes, as well as providing documentation for the people who lead you, to help them understand what is involved.

What can only you do?

Once you have all this data, sit down and figure out what you uniquely contribute and should be doing, and what things could you delegate to someone else.  This is a good place to start trying to figure out what needs to be done and what you should stop doing.

What is mission critical?

If you schedule is overfull, you will need to eliminate some things.  Sit down with your boss and go through the list of things that you spend your time on.  Get help to determine what you can stop doing and what is critical for church to continue to happen.  This can be a difficult exercise since everything seems mission critical or else you wouldn’t be killing yourself to get it all done.  The other challenge will be that your boss might have a different set of priorities on what is critical and what isn’t.

It is important to come to an agreement on what will and what won’t get done.  Mike Sessler, from Coast Hills Church was at my table and he recommended Andy Stanley’s book “Choosing to Cheat“, as a great resource for figuring out how to step back from working too many hours.

Letting go

For each of us to be in this for the long haul, we have to be ruthless with our time.  The list will never go away.  there will always be more to do than time to do it.  The abundant life that Christ offers us requires us to let go of control of certain things.  Are you willing to let go of some good things and hang onto only the most critical for you and your church?

There are times when long hours are necessary, but living with no margin to refresh, recharge and recenter yourself will ultimately only hurt you, your ministry and your church.

 photo credit: add1sun

I was on a flight recently where I watched the movie “Midnight in Paris”.  The basic idea is that the main character is unhappy with his current sitution and dreams about a time in the past that seems more like a golden age.  People were more interesting, amazing things were happening, it was basically more perfect.  Through some mysterious method, he ends up in the 1930’s, in the very magical time he had been wishing for, and he is hanging out with all the amazing people he was only dreaming about earlier that day.

When he gets to this better time, he meets someone who is dissatisfied with her current situation, and dreams of a different golden age, of an earlier time.  Spoiler alert:  the main character realizes that he needs to start looking at the present as a golden age and live a different way.

As the people on my team are all too familiar with, I can tend to look back to my years at Kensington Community Church as my own Golden Years.  Even on our team at Willow, it is really easy to look back to the past and think about all the amazing productions we have been a part of and think back to a more magical time.

Looking back is interesting to me, because I am pretty sure things are never as amazing as I remember.  And if I fast forward into the future I would guess that people will talk about the era that I live as the best and most perfect time to be involved in production in the local church.

Seeing this movie and thinking about how much golden era thinking I do, and those around me do, amazingly, just like the main character in the movie, I started to realize that now is the Golden Era.  Now is the chance to create something that will effect people now and in the future.  Now is the opportunity to stop wishing for something from another era, and to create a whole new era, now.

Regardless of what era you are living in, it never seems quite like we are living in amazing times.  But what if we started to act like our era was the most incredible time?  What if we lived life, right now, like we believed the current era was special?  Golden years are great to look back on, but looking back doesn’t do any good unless we let them inform what our present can look like and what the possibilities of the future could be.

 photo credit: moleitau

The other night, I woke up at 1:30 and couldn’t sleep, which is not normal for me.  When this happens, the thing that usually puts me back to sleep is reading.  It doesn’t matter what the book is.  It could be amazing or boring.  Both kinds will put me to sleep.  So I picked up my e-reading device and started reading.

Now,  no offense to Gary Molander, but I figured his book “Pursuing Christ, Creating Art” would do the trick.  Instead of falling back to sleep in 5 minutes, against all my expectations, I couldn’t put the book down.  One of the many sections I read was called “Missing the Mark”, where Gary talks about how easy it is for artists to be critical of the people in leadership over us, and it hit a little too close to home.

I was most awake during the section called “I Can Struggle to See the Big Picture”.  Gary says:

“I think my stories are the biggest, and the most important stories being told.  The lead visionary of the organization sees the clearest portrait of the organization’s story.  I do not.  The key leader gets ticked when the organization isn’t reaching its full potential.  I get ticked when my software takes too long to render.”

I am one of the first people to admit that production isn’t the most important thing all the time, but these words put this into an even brighter light.  When I think of the reason my pastor gets me graphics late, or that he wears a shirt that a mic has a difficult time clipping to; knowing that he is worrying about a mountain load of things that never even enter my mind, puts all the “short comings” into perspective.

We all have a lot to think about and plan for.  Our job as technical artists in the church is to care deeply for the things we were created for and then to execute to our best ability.  Our pastors need us to do that each week, otherwise the church wouldn’t function properly.

We must also cut our pastors some slack.  They have more going on than you or I could imagine.  I want him to care as much about my area as I do, and so does everyone else that works for my pastor.  Our pastors are carrying a mammoth load that I cannot comprehend.

Next time you wish your pastor cared more about your stuff, pray for them.  Pray that God would help them shoulder the burden of leadership to lead your church where God wants it to go.

photo credit:  Some rights reserved by igb

My last post talked about applying the rules of improv to how we  behave as technical artists in the church.  Since then, I have thought more about the idea of cynicism and negative responses.

It is so easy to get cynical and negative, as the things that I care about are undermined or disregarded or misunderstood.  As an unusual bunch, it can be easy for us technical artists to feel these things; to become disillusioned with where we are and what is happening.  It can really easy to let the cynicism get the better of us and drive us to become bitter people.  Here are a couple of my own observations as it pertains to doing production in the local church.

God doesn’t call us to be negative and cynical.  I believe it is OK for us to be disappointed in how things go, or wish that the process were better, but to live in a passive aggressive state because you are misunderstood or that nobody cares doesn’t help anyone, especially you.  If you are frustrated with the process, channel that frustration into positive action:  what am I doing that is making the process difficult?  What is something I have control over that we can change to make the process more smooth?  How can I communicate differently so that the production perspective is better understood?

Being passive aggressive is not the abundant life.  In John 10:10, Jesus says: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  Satan has a field day with church tech people when we give into our cynicism.  Christ didn’t come so that we could wallow in that type of living.  He came so that we could have an abundant life that is way better than whatever version of “tech person cynic” you are living.

You are not a part of the body of Christ so you can complain all the time.  As tech people, we look at the world from a different perspective, which is necessary for the church to function properly.  However, always complaining about how leadership doesn’t understand, or how undervalued production is, or complaining to your volunteer teams that the pastor’s last minute graphics are stupid and evil, isn’t what God designed our role to look like.  If things aren’t right, do something about them, don’t just sit in the back of the room and throw stones.  If you have given it some effort and things haven’t changed, perhaps you should move on.

How are you letting cynicism get the better of you?  How can you channel your frustration into positive momentum instead of letting it drive you to being passive and aggressive?

 photo credit: Wetsun

We have been having some great conversations on our team about the role of production at our church and it has reminded me of a conversation I had over 10 years ago…probably more like 15, where we were talking about how the technical artist fits into what our church is doing.

In a meeting all those years ago, I had been suggesting that the role of production was to support the ministry happening on the stage.  Someone else in the meeting disagreed in the extreme, saying that it wasn’t a big enough vision.  He argued that we were fellow artists with the people on stage and that we were all working together to create something that would minister to people.  After a lot of back and forth, I tend to agree with the former.

All that said, the foundation of what we do as technical artists involves technical support.  Turning mics on, lights aimed right, graphics correct.  All these things are fully supporting what is happening on stage and without good, solid technical support happening, the idea of being fellow artists, blah, blah, blah, is a joke.

However, if that is all I am called to do, that rings a little empty to me.  Is my life just about making sure a camera is color balanced correctly?  For me, I need to be a part of the creating.  I don’t need to be around for the blank page type of creating, but share your idea with me and let’s figure out how technology can help me it the best possible version.

The Willlow Production mission statement reads like this:

to create life changing moments through the fusion of the technical and performing arts.

I want my team to take what they know and what they are gifted to do and combine it with the ideas of the people designing the service to create something no one could have imagined.  There is so much potential in this idea, and unfortunately is not a common occurrence in church, yours and mine, or even outside of church.

So how do we get there?  Here are a few ideas:

Do the support thing with extreme amounts of excellence.  Be trusted to not distract from what is being done on stage.  This is a key component to moving past simply supporting a service.

Put yourself out there and make suggestions on how technology could help to enhance an element or service.  Hold your ideas loosely and be patient.

Don’t enhance something in a vacuum.  Make sure your ideas match the intent of the service.  Many times we can enhance something into unrecognizability (not a real word).  The technical arts by themselves can be distracting, unless they are fused together with the creative element.

How can you move you and your team from simply supporting an event, to making the service far better by bringing the best of your art form to the table?

 photo credit: okalkavan