“And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” Hebrews 10:25 NLT

“As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.” Proverbs 27:17 NLT

If you are a Tech Director, you probably know that it is one of the most rewarding places to serve in the church. It can also be one of the most thankless, misunderstood, and stressful jobs in the church. Most of all, it can be incredibly lonely. I can’t tell you how many conversations I have had about feeling like “a man (or woman) in the wilderness”. The Church TD is often the most misunderstood person on the staff.

Most TD’s are hired for their technical skill, but then are also expected to be skilled at so many other things. On a recent Church Tech Weekly podcast Dennis Choy, TD at North Coast Church in Vista, CA, summed it up best, “We have to be skilled, but we also have to be able to build a team, but we also have to lead a team, and we have to be a “pastor”, there are so many different aspects of it.” Many TD’s are not prepared for the many aspects of the position, that has really only been around for the last ten years.

So where does a lonely, stressed out, misunderstood TD go these days to keep from being crazy? Enter Church Technical Leaders Network. Formed by Bill Swaringim and team from two existing organizations, Church Tech Directors Round Table (started in 2009) and Church Technical Artist Network (started in 2010), CTL is a real community just for the Church TD or Tech Leader.

“As Bill watched these two resources grow and develop, and after CTDRT had hosted over 20 local / regional roundtable events he realized that God’s plan for these communities was bigger than his vision. Bill invited Dennis Choy and Jeff VanderGiessen to join him in leading these communities so to better serve the members of CTDRT and CTANonline. Together they have invested many hours of praying and planning, structuring for the future of church technical leaders and artists.” From CTL’s mission & vision statement.

CTL is an online community that is powered by the On The City technology. A hybrid Facebook/ Twitter/ Google + meets message board and forums to create a place custom made for the church TD and Tech to get answers and most of all, community. As of this original post date, CTL boast 900 plus members and counting.

One of the great features of the CTL community is the Groups section. Users can pick from the major disciplines of church tech; Audio, Video, Lighting, etc. or start their own.

There is also a Calendar section showing regional meet-ups, industry trade shows and events, as well as a Marketplace to buy and sell equipment.

There is so much to the new CTL community and the potential for growth and change as the job of the church TD and Tech Leader changes, it will be exciting to see how God uses it to grow, strengthen, and bless all of us who serve the church through tech.

Bottom line: If you are a church TD or Tech Leader, JOIN CHURCH TECHNICAL LEADERS! Get involved, get in the game, and stop feeling like you are alone. You are not.

Since I posted some pictures of our new check in stations I have received lots of questions on them, so I thought I would write a quick post on what they are all about.

Recently South Hills Church switched from ACS to Fellowship One for, what I call “an inventory control system for our people”. The reasons for that I will leave for another post.

In that move our Children’s Pastor, Justyn Smith wanted to upgrade our checkin stations for kids and families.

After some concept discussions with him, I came up with this design for our Main Street Campus. Each station is comprised of the following components:

1- Global Truss 12″ square 2.0 meters high
1- Global Truss 16″ end plate
1- 24″ square 3/4″ plywood base, precut from Home Depot
2- MonoPrice Monitor Mounts, Mounted to a 4″x1/4″ custom steel plate
2- ACER T230H Touch Screen Monitors
2- ZOTAC N330 Mini Atom PC’s running Windows 7 Enterprise
2- Honeywell Metrologic MS 9520 Barcode Scanner
1- Godex EZ-DT4 Label Printer mounted on a custom build steel shelf. (These are Print shared between the two PCs on each station).
1- Power Strip.

All the mounting was custom built by me and assembled by my team of staff and volunteers.

photo © 2010 Center for Jewish History, NYC | more info (via: Wylio)

This is part 4 of my 4 part revisit of some older posts. Part 1 can be found here, Part 2 here, and part 3 here.

THE PROGRAM MATERIAL

At most churches each musician brings their instrument of choice and the sound person is expected to mix and equalize all and any instruments into a glorious blend of celestial music. It is a true fact that you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. In a later article I will address the need for the Music Pastor/Worship Leader to set and keep a standard for musical instruments that are onstage. As your congregation grows it is likely you will want the church to own the majority of key instruments you use on a regular basis such as drums and keyboards.

The other part of the program material that can make or break the sound of your service is the singers. I realize that I am walking on glass when talking about this but it must be addressed. Which is worse: seven singers who are flat and not in key or three singers who are flat and not in key? You would be surprised at the number worship teams where the singing was bad the decision was made to throw more singers at the problem, but the bad singers only threw the new singers off.

The last part of this element is the quality of musicianship ontage. This is more than just talent, the sound of your band or orchestra is also very dependent on the servant’s heart to submit to the Music Pastor/Worship Leader as they submit to the Senior Pastor.

These four elements are the foundations for sound in any venue and they need to be addressed and incorporated into your church vision. It is very important that you never stop trying to achieve perfection in all these areas even though it may seem impossible, pressing toward that goal will constantly improve the quality of all you do at your church.

Now that we have our FOUR Elements, we can talk about how to make them work in your favor. More to come…