Finding Patterns.

At a recent Thursday night rehearsal, one of our musicians shared a brief devotional about healthy patterns in our lives.  It was a powerful reminder that God is a God of pattern and order and because we are made in His image, we also develop patterns and rhythms in our lives. But because we are so dramatically impacted by sin, our patterns are often unhealthy and destructive.  Paul writes in Romans 12:2, "Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." As worship leaders in our churches, which technical leaders are, we need to be conscious of the patterns we are developing.  We must constantly be renewing our minds in the truth of Scripture so that we create healthy patterns of worship and service.

We need to be aware of patterns that develop in our work habits as technical leaders.  You are always developing some sort of habit.  The question is what kind of habits and patterns are you developing?  Lazy, complacent, short tempered, abrupt, dismissive patterns are all too easy to slip into.  Remember that the technical arts are inherently a service ministry.  Is our pattern one of consistent, reliable service?  Consistent, reliable service will win us the trust and the ear of leadership.  Is our pattern one of cheerful, self-sacrificing service?  Cheerful self-sacrifice will win us the love and respect of our volunteers and coworkers.  Is our pattern one of tactful honesty and edifying feedback?  Honesty will develop those around you and create opportunities for others to speak honestly into your life and work.  Is our pattern one of excellence and dedication?  Excellence and dedication will ignite passion in your team and attract other dedicated team members.

Just like any other area in life, anything that is worth doing takes hard work.  Cultivating healthy patterns in your ministry takes intentionality, persistence, and continual self-evaluation.  But the fruit that it yields has the potential to bless you, your team, and your entire congregation.

Creativity is hard...

Anyone who tells you that the creative process is fast, easy, or simple is telling you a lie (Or they haven't created much).  The truth is that creativity, especially collaborative creativity, is a process that takes a great deal of time, false starts, discussion, frustration, and discipline.  For every #1 song or brilliant movie, there are a hundred more that were dumped along the creative journey.  Creative people often make the process seem easy to the audience, because the audience only sees the end result: a polished, well thought out, well executed presentation.  But the ease with which it is presented to the audience belies the hours and hours of preparation, rehearsal, and deliberation that transformed a glimmer of an idea into the final product.

A great example of this is the process that goes into creating the stage designs we use at Topeka Bible Church.  When we decide to create a new design, I arrive at our stage building sessions with a rough idea and all the materials I think we'll need.  However, never once has my initial idea been the design that ended up on the stage.  For one thing, whenever an idea is honed by a group of creatives, it evolves for the better.  For another, you never know how an idea on paper will work in the real world.  We often find ourselves ending up with designs that we never would have thought of without going through the hours and hours of experimentation and deliberation.  We often completely abandon our original plan and go in a completely different direction, even after spending a great deal of time developing the first idea!  Being willing to scrap a bad idea is as important as developing a great idea.  The fact is, not all of your ideas will be good.  If you can't edit yourself, you'll have a slew of mediocre ideas, at the expense of your great ideas.  Get your ideas out into a community of creatives.  They'll help you weed out the bad ones and develop the great ones, just like our team of creative volunteers at TBC collaborate to create wonderful worship environments.

Check out some of TBC's past stage designs on ChurchStageDesignIdeas.com

TBC Stage Design on CSDI

http://www.churchstagedesignideas.com/2012/11/21/destroyed-angel-wings/

Check out TBC's latest stage design online!  Thanks to our tech volunteers for all their hard work! Be sure to check out all the other great stage designs at ChurchStageDesisngIdeas.com

Keep Calm and Carry On.

Just when something has worked consistently enough to be deemed reliable, it goes wrong.

We recently had an LED light fixture malfunction during a worship service.  But it didn't just malfunction.  It malfunctioned in such a way that it caused all the other LEDs in the light rig to strobe randomly.  In the middle of the pastor's message.  Pretty much a TD's nightmare.  Fortunately it was the last light in that particular DMX chain and it was on the ground so I was able to nonchalantly unplug it from the rest of the lights, thereby ensuring an uneventful conclusion to the service.  After switching the fixture out between services, the rest of the morning went smoothly.

I'm sure you've experienced a similar situation.  Something is going really wrong and you have a few minutes (or a few seconds) to decide what to do about it.  Staying calm and taking time to think through the situation are the keys to solving issues during a live production in the least painful way possible.

Stay calm.  If you start to sweat and hyperventilate, you're not doing anyone any good.  You'll figure it out and the world will go on.  This is especially important if you are a team leader.  Nothing will freak your team out faster than seeing their leader fall apart.

Take your time.  If you react abruptly and suddenly to a situation, the likelihood of your reaction being a distraction or not best course of action is pretty high. Sometimes problems work themselves out after a moment.  If the pastor's mic crackles once and you immediately sprint to the stage with a spare hand held, only to realize that it rubbed briefly against his beard, you've probably caused a larger distraction then necessary.  Ask yourself which is more disruptive to the service, letting the situation play out or stepping in to change something?

Decide and act calmly and with authority.  If you decide to go on stage and unplug a malfunctioning light, then just do it. Don't run, don't look around at the audience, don't apologize, don't fiddle, just do it and leave.  Act like it was part of the show.

Tell your leadership that the problem is fixed.  They don't necessarily need to know how, they just need to know you've got everything under control.

Analyze afterwards.  Take the time later to go over the event and see what could have been done to prevent the issue, what contingencies could be put in place, and if your response could have been different.  Learn from these experiences, unpleasant as they may be at the time.

Justin Bieber and Theology.

If you follow pop music at all, then you've heard Justin Bieber's latest song "As Long as You Love Me".  Although the song is primarily focused on Bieber's romantic relationships, the bridge of the song (featuring Big Sean, of course) contains a lyric that is applicable to all areas of life.

"But the grass ain't always greener on the other side,
It's green where you water it..."

We've all heard the saying, "The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence".  In most cases that's the end of the phrase, leaving us with the idea that what looks good from a distance, isn't always what it seems.  But in this case, the lyric takes it one step further - "It's green where you water it..."

What a profound idea.  Any place you find "green grass", remember that it didn't get that way by accident.  This truth applies to relationships, careers, the arts, and even church tech.  Its easy to look at some churches and think they have it all together.  They've got the gear, the resources, the personnel, the healthy culture, the creativity, the vision, and the buy-in from their leadership.  And you may think that you could never achieve anything worthwhile or effective because of the "limitations" of your situation.  However, as you dig deeper you may discover that they experience limitations and frustrations that dwarf yours and your situation is really not so bad.  Now, while its good to keep that fact in mind, thats not my main point.  

Here's the truth that could change your team and inspire your church.  There are many churches that have developed a vibrant and effective creative arts ministry, in which worship and production are aligned and church leadership supports their efforts with resources and personnel.  In those organizations, the grass really is green.   But remember the caveat from before: "Its green where you water it."  Those teams did not become effective and powerful forces for the Kingdom of God by focusing on the things other teams had and being discouraged by the things they didn't have.  Rather, they built into their people and focused on getting the most out of their resources and equipment.  It wasn't easy and nothing changed overnight.  But being consitently faithful with what they had eventually resulted in the growth of their ministry.

Jesus teaches us this same principle in the Gospel of Matthew.  In chapter 25:14-30 Jesus shares the Parable of the Talents, in which a master gives his three servants varying amounts of resources, each according to his ability (v. 15).   When the master returns from his trip he finds that two of the servants have been faithful with what they were given and he gives them even more!  But the third servant had not done anything with the resources he had been given and in the end even that was taken from him and given to another.  

Whether you're a volunteer, a leader of volunteers, or a leader of staff, these are sobering words but so very applicable to our work in the Church.  So how are you doing with the resources you've been given?  What are you doing to water the grass where you are now?

Who knew Justin Bieber was such a theologian?