Here is a great forum set for tech advice. Tons of wisdom on it from seasoned pro mixers and HOW guys.

We had an incredible time of worship after the last Sunday (my eyes were closed as I sat on the front row, but Brent and Dustin said it was very Passion-esque). Several people said their focus was ignited by the phrase in the message “a fight for delight” that was used toward the end of the message. I tend to not post my own messages on the trench (fear of vainity, I guess), but enough people said you have to post this on your blog, that I relent. Use it however you want with you team or congregants.

masterpiece-on-fearing-god.mp3

Step One. Don’t have a ridiciulous tech rider like this…

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Conference-itis.
I see it happen all the time. Someone goes to a conference and comes home with changes they “must” make. A new program to start. A new way of doing things. These changes often don’t fit their culture and uniqueness and fail miserably. Should we learn from others? Yes, but don’t blindly adopt with out consideration of your context of uniqueness.

To find out the uniqueness of your church, I am highly, highly, highly recommending a book called Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands =by Marty Neumeier. His argument (moved to a church context) would be, if another church in your area does something extremely well (recovery ministry, etc.), you should probably not be doing it. Find your God given uniqueness and hammer away at it (for example, at NorthWood we mobilize our laity using their vocations and passions to engage restricted countries through an open front door approach engaging their domains of society. Vietnam is our key example of this). Marty has an incredible exercise to go through as a church staff. Easy quick read but so rich in content. It’ll prevent conferenceitis big time.

(for more conference soapboxes see our arguments see here and here. )

It has been 9 years since I came to NorthWood. I remember my first day . . .lackluster to say the least. I came when our former executive pastor was in his first week and we had added 3 other staff members. I felt lost about the first month and couldn’t even find someone to teach me to run the copier. We’ve come a long way in bringing on new employees. Here are some tips when you bring on a new employee.

1. 1. Office Orientation First Thing- give them a thorough tour of the work environment including copier codes, supply locations, phone programming instructions, etc.
2. 2. Computer/Technology Ready- it is frustrating when you want to jump headlong into work only to not have the tools you need ready. Check with new employees before they start and have their gear ready for them. If you don’t, you’ll find they will have to spend time wandering around which is a behavior you don’t want to start.
3. 3. Be Very Specific- Give them very specific and clear directions on exactly what you want and when you want it. You can “lighten up” later. They don’t know culture or processes yet.
4. 4. Work Them Hard- have a heavy list of tasks that they can accomplish so they get used to a good pace and don’t start lazily. We brought in our graphic designer into a “storm normandy” situation which he survived with flying colors. Now things seem “easy” in comparison.
5. 5. Tell Them Why- Tell them why you are requesting they do things the way you are. This will help them begin to learn how you make decisions. Soon they will be able to make the same decision you would in your absence, which is a heavenly experience.
6. 6. Go Eat Often- Take your new employee out to eat on your dime often the first couple of weeks and listen to them. Ask them, “How are things going?” “How are you feeling?” and “Do they have the tools you need?”
7. 7. Correct Instantly- We have a culture of transparency and gracious critique. Don’t allow bad work habits and wrong assumptions to go unchecked. Visit their office often the first few weeks to observe.
8. 8. Teach Culture- let them be “in the know” quickly on any work culture issues. For example, no one is ever late for an official meeting at NorthWood and they seem to start 2 minutes early and go quickly. You need to be in your seat 5 minutes before any called meeting. We tell all our new guys this to avoid embarrassment to themselves.
9. 9. Introduce Often- Don’t forget, they don’t know anyone. Introduce them to anyone you would say hello to in the hallway.

If you have other tips, leave them in the comments section be you the boss or the new employee?

Don’t forget, we have this free resource we offered last year. A complete video with click track for you to download with chart to the song On The Third Day. Worked stunningly for us last year and tells the story of redemption. You can see a youtube preview (grainier than the orig because we compressed it so hard) and download the full version for free here.

(We just ask that you don’t download it unless you are really planning to use it as it sucks up tons of bandwidth. As you can see in the post, we’d also accept a small donation to help us cover bandwidth…but so far we’ve had over 200 downloads without…I don’t know how it worked for radiohead but it stinks for us…ha!)

I’m more glad everyday the Patriots perfect season was thwarted. They are long-time cheaters. It is easier to cheat oftentimes (not having a CCLI # or failing to report, putting up your worship music on your webpage without proper rights secured, not getting proper permission to show videos) than to do the righteous thing. Sure, no one will probably call you on it…at least on this side of eternity…..well maybe. Sometimes God judges IN history. Watch out or you could become God’s example ala the Patriots………hmmmm?

(Update: The Patriots are getting sued as they should be. But I ain’t so sure with all the US/world issues we need to have a congressional hearing on every pro-sport . Perhaps there are bigger fish to fry and the Justice branch of our tri-pronged government should be handling this? But that is just me and my geopolitical degree at work. Has anyone noticed how soccer has NOT had a congressional hearing. Yes, still the best team sport in the world — okay nobody mention the Italian payolla fiasco.)

Someone recently asked me why do you do worshiptrench when there are so many worship blogs out there. We ask before every post, can someone else take this and use it in a practical way during their week. As such, we don’t post up a bunch of worship confessionals, our set lists, or side soapboxes. It is not that the other things are wrong. We enjoy them. We just don’t want to re-echo content or styles.

We don’t write for road warriors (been there, done that, got the Denny’s belly to prove it). We write for guys and gals who are charged with leading teams of worship facilitators in a local church context. We try to deal with the Monday-Friday leadership, productivity, and design stuff that sets you up for a great worship experience more than the do this in the service stuff. That is our final answer and I hope this site is giving you practical tools that you are utilizing.

As we move into the new building we have tons of new technology available to us. One of the things that we’ve noticed at NorthWood is that we have people who end up here from some of the “showier” presentational models of churches in the area. These people are seeking authentic, participatory experiences without the doctrinal errors seen in some participatory communities (health/wealth, etc.) We also attract a large number of young 20-something families who are very used to technology’s integration into everyday experiences and expect its usage. Our inaugural weekend we used technology in a tasteful way to make much of God (like the Medieval Church would have done with stain glass). You can see the pics of the things we did and we’ll have video up soon.

We got very diverse comments. I was expecting it. Some people absolutely loved the experience and said it helped them connect with God. Others said it was to ‘Vegas like’ or ’showy.’ At first we thought these comments were breaking down according to age, but we soon realized they were not. Week two in the new room we intentionally scaled way back (simple lighting, no changes and only corporate worship and a message-no video, no specials, etc.). Some people said, “Now that is NorthWood,” while others said, “When are you going to use more media and lighting?” Week three we did a hybrid where the corporate songs were very simple and Brent did a special during which we did more lighting and Imag video work.

I am realizing this is going to be a constant ’seeking God’ tightrope walk (which is as it should be). We need to use technology to visually and aurally make much of God as long it reinforces the content of our worship. Cristian and I were recently at a large church for a communications conference wherethey blasted moving fixtures across the congregation for no apparent reason other than to say look what we can do. While we would never do that, even with subtle/content based use of lighting some worshipers are going to love and some are going to say, ‘not needed.’ There will never be a day where we can put it on cruise and control and say, “We’ve got this down.” In our old sanctuary, we didn’t have many of the options available to us now. I have seen churches use technology without correspondence to content (no names mentioned here). They show mountain images on a screen while singing about the atonement….what is that? I have also seen churches use technology to truly reinforce the content of their worship (New Life Church led by WL Ross Parsley has a nice balance of this–that’s Ross, not Rod, btw).

Lord, help us seek You as we always should be in our worship design. Let us make much of You. AMEN

It is always interesting to watch untrained graphics design people tell a trained designer how to “do it like this.” I just watch most of the time as the designer smiles futilely at them until they leave and they sigh, “That is gonna look ridiculous.” Our own David Wen will do a post soon on how a non-designer should work with a designer and vice versa.
With that in mind check out this designer humor:

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/003259.html

http://www.makemylogobiggercream.com/

We usually make a big deal of our Good Friday services. They are using very involved and use heavy reflective liturgy. Here are two of the best services we’ve designed free for your taking.

The Cup

includes sample video and tech script and narrator script

Celtic Color

includes complete tech script and powerpoint files (you can save each slide as a jpeg and import them into any other character generator program).

As my role has shifted from one of doing 70% and overseeing 30% to the opposite of doing only 30% and overseeing 70%, I have had to make an interesting switch for a beaver personality. My function has shifted from actual hands on production to, as our Executive Pastor, Mike Reed says, “Inspecting and expecting.” So how do I do that?

1. Care

For my staff to truly accomplish great things, they need to know I care about them and about their work. They need to know that I want them to succeed. I need to be asking them often:

• Do you have the tools you need to get what I am asking you to get done accomplished?
• Do you feel invested in?
• Is their an area you need training or help in?
• Do you feel heard?
• Do you feel like I communicate well?
• What do you need from me that would help you be more effective?
• How is life going for you outside of the work environment?

2. Set Expectations

One of the most important things I do is to set the work flow for the staff. By freeing them up from having to spend mental energy on guessing what is most important to work on next, they have more energy to actually do the work. We live and die by vitalist.com for this purpose. All my staff use 1 vitalist account (allows for multiple log-ins) and I have set up each of them as a context (@david, @cristian, @brent, @chris, etc.) where I dump in everything we need to get done and prioritize its order.

The red star means it is full on project that requires conceptual design and usually takes longer. The blue star means a quick in and out project. The yellow means the project is temporarily postponed. The guys can also see the attached creative brief and any notes I have added by clicking the tablet icon on the far left. I can drag and drop the projects for each individual and reorder them in an instant. The staff has to simply start knocking them off in the order I have listed them. Of course if it is 20 minutes before lunch, they can jump on the top blue star project since they wouldn’t have time for red tab. This system is beautiful because they can type notes back to me and it also helps me with #3.

3. Inspect

Vitalist allows me to see how quickly guys are getting stuff done as they click off tasks as completed I can also assign due dates which they can see. It makes it super easy for me to do a check up meeting with them. I simply print out their vitalist list and we go over each item and talk about any concerns or obstacles they have. Then I can help them obliterate the obstacles keeping them from completing the task.

If I do these three things well, we should have good longevity on staff and be productive. If I don’t, the guys will get frustrated. It doesn’t feel like I am “working” since I am not doing everything, but me seeing from the metaphorical leadership balcony and getting all those needed things into vitalist is huge, as is creating a caring work environment.

1. You are the #1 person seeking your best interest. Yes the architect and acoustical consultant can be great advisors, but only you know what you need and where you need it. Don’t let them plan something you don’t need or leave out something you do.

2. Make sure you are very picky about your project manager on the acoustical consultant end. They should be a stellar communicator and check with you to see if you have questions. Don’t take “Oh, I’m sure we’ve got that covered” as an acceptable answer. You are not hounding them; you are a client paying good money for answers and assurity. You should receive prompt answers to your questions.

3. Don’t ASSUME anything ever. Triple check every detail including:

1. a. equipment sheets- we had some pricing concerns and some inventory amounts concerns with our installer which we worked through but would have been a mess had we not caught them. Go over every inventory list and keep a photocopy of every change order you make. Example: We caught the fact that their was no acoustical treatment for the soundbooth spec’d by the consultant. We also caught a couple of overcharges on gear and some missing mics, all remedied thank goodness. We missed that there were no lights for the M7CL so we’ll have to be ordering those ourselves.
2. b. gear spec sheets- if you see it spec’d, go get the manual yourself from the company’s webpage (most have pdf’s) and read it thoroughly. You don’t want to be suprised later. Example: We have some moving fixtures that we assumed would be color mix but are scrollers instead. Can we work around it? Sure. Just would have been nice to know earlier.
3. c. That your architect and acoustical/video/lighting consultant are communicating. Ask to be copied on all emails. If you see a problem or snag, let them both know and make sure they are working in tandem to solve the problem. Examples: We found a bad curtain situation (taupe drape around center screen) when we wanted a fade to black look. We got that fixed. We also saw a problem with the box lids and grills around the edge of the stage which we notified them both. Another fix. Don’t assume one party is working on it, as they might be assuming the other is working on it. Email all your concerns to both of them.

4. Inspect, inspect, inspect. You know how the room will be used. Walk it at least 3 times daily and check the install. We found all sorts of things that needed to be tweaked. Don’t drive the installer crazy with a set of question every 2 minutes. Let them work, but DO have a regularly set meeting time with your installer to go over questions, concerns and insights. Example: We found a missing camera position and had to find a work around, a breakout box that was turned to a position where a person entering could trip and several other little things that would have been constant headaches had they not been caught.

5. Make sure the job is finished well. You should have a super thorough punch list of gear that is not functioning well, not dressed well, and any technical questions you have. Most AVL contracts have some training time in the contract. Keep track of that and make sure you get all of your training time due you. Believe me you are paying for it. Don’t cut checks until it is completely right or other friends have told me you won’t see hide nor hair of almost any contractor as a paid gig is exactly that, a paid gig. Make sure you get every bit of your loose inventory (mic cables, patch cables, etc.) Also, have an established system with the installer as to who you are to call for your warranty work as something is bound to fail.

6. Do at least one service before the mother of all services. We did a simple acoustic unplugged with only side screens and no fancy lights the week before the big monster inaugural. This allowed us to see how worshipers would enter and function in the room, what tech issues we still had to get fixed, and allowed us to sonically adjust to the room with an easy FOH and stage mix (3 acoustics, djembe and 3 vocalists). We were very, very daring for our true opener but would have been even more nervous without this previous week.