No, this post is not about identifying cables. We who are involved in technical arts are taught to label everything. Run a cable, label it. Pack a roadcase, drawer or storage shelf, label it. Have a broken piece of gear, put a huge warning label on it. You get the idea. But there is a downside to our propensity to label everything. Volunteers who are always late or do not respond to Planning Center requests may get labeled. Band members…
Putting together a team of great volunteer tech people can be tough. But let me challenge your thinking on this topic with this statement: we, in church tech, tend to make it tougher on ourselves. Don’t believe me? Well, let’s put 60 seconds on the clock and take a look at the topic of… Bringing in (intimidated) volunteers If you are doing tech well – you will likely have people in the room thinking “wow, this is really cool. They…
“Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” – Warren Buffett When stormy seasons come I am reminded of Warren Buffett’s statement, “Predicting rain doesn’t count. Building arks does.” I wonder, if God through Noah had only warned of the coming flood, what good would that have been? Love is shown only through the fabrication, provision and the opportunity to be rescued by the Ark. As a technical artist (in church or elsewhere) I am called to be a problem solver,…
“Take 1” … minute to improve your team One of the challenges in volunteer-driven church tech is keeping people on the same page. In many cases we find totally different teams serving from week-to-week. If unmanaged, these teams can drift apart in terms of their styles. As I visit churches, I hear things like “I didn’t even have to look in the booth to know who was running sound/video/lights/etc. today”. So, let’s take on the topic of establishing your “style”…
“Take 1” … minute to improve your team I’m so excited to be kicking off a new series of Controlbooth.tv mini-blogs related to improving your volunteer team and culture! At my church, The Ridge located in Columbus IN I am honored to lead a video tech team of about 30 people (in a church of 1,400). Our hope is to not only inform what has worked for us, but also to start some conversations. More importantly, our hope is for…
Can you imagine having to listen to the same person for 5 hours? Even if it was a great speaker – that’s a long time. Now let’s make things worse by starting that listening session early on a Sunday morning. Ugh! But, that’s exactly what some of our tech people (for example, camera operators) go through each week. They sit quietly in the isolated world of their dual-muff headsets and listen…and listen… and listen. With rehearsals and pre-service work, this…
This installment of Things I Like: LEAD . . . For God’s Sake! A parable for finding the heart of leadership (Unabridged) by Todd G. Gongwer To be honest with you, I am not typically a fan of “leadership books” and as a result have not spent much time reading in this genre, however I heard someone I deeply respect (my son) make mention of this book and decided to look into it. LEAD . . . For God’s Sake!…
I really hate confrontation. In fact, I don’t even like tension in a conversation. But sometimes in leadership we need to have some hard conversations with our people about their performance. These are not fun. In fact… If these conversations are fun, you should probably not be a leader. So how do you encourage a poor performer? How do you graciously let someone go? Let’s put one minute on the clock and start the (difficult) conversation. Apart from prayer, before…