The digital age has over saturated the amount of professionals at varying levels in the work place. Competition is fierce, one person can charge $5 for his services and turn out an amazing mass of widgets for $5. These widgets are inherently garbage, but he did them cheap. Another person can turn out $50 widgets of high quality but he can only focus on a few widgets at a time. It’s the old “fast, cheap, good” adage you can only have two.

This is an industry changer. Prior to the information age the only way to educate yourself beyond school was to soak in trade magazines, go to trade shows and sit through conferences and training seminars. Because there are so many professionals who you can learn from whether in the church market or other A/V-Tech markets, a lot of material is being put out, most of that is unnecessary.

Networking is how we gain more knowledge today. Social tools like forums, blogs and twitter have opened up communication channels that let you be immersed in a community of peers and mentors. The little guy will no longer be left behind.

These same venues of communication that have opened up so many more options to learn, have also over saturated the market with a landfill of information.

Since I work for a church I’m gonna give you an alliteration of the 3 types of information givers out there in an industry (of course there are more than three, but these are what i see as the 3 major ones).

The Professional: This is a person who is active in the community and the industry and knows their trade or craft.

The Personality: This is someone who used to be active in the industry and may have moved on to another profession or stage in life. They may or may not be current on the technology and processes of your craft.

The Prattler: This person just wants to talk or share information but they do not necessarily have all of the correct information to share.

In the tech industry the last two can be devastating to how and what we do if we’re not careful. It’s the wikipedia approach to sourcing your info. There is a lot of stuff out there that people are entering, but what is garbage and what is not?

I wish I had an easy answer for that one, but that leads me to explain why the industry is dead. The industry that gave us conferences and trade magazines aren’t so sure about their source either. They’re picking up anyone and everyone who is giving out information because some of these conversations we have about technology and gear have never been had before.

Some people are just ‘professionals’ in the prattler sense. They like to talk and that has gotten them some notice. The personalities give us some great information that might have been relevant in the community a few years ago, but tech has moved on. Peppered in you have some professionals, but by the time you get to their information you’ve been glutted on the garbage.

The industry information might be great for a newbie, but don’t stay there. Seek, learn and question, get in community, find mentors.

Since industry is dead we don’t have anyone telling us how it needs to be, so lets push some boundaries, lets be creative, but lets share and seek GOOD information!

For more reading on Death in the church head on over to: Sunday| 

and now the blog.

My first piece of advice engage in social media! Most church and media professionals have latched on to twitter to use as a great networking tool, so post what you do, get critiques from peers, people who do it better etc.

So network network network.

Don’t be afraid to keep learning all the time!!! and after your first job you might actually find out what you want to do when you grow up I know for me i changed direction slightly after my first job, and found new passions that were in a similar vein.

Work hard and impress who you work for so you always leave a good reference where you’re at. After you get your foot in the door for a career it becomes about what you’ve done and who you know.

When working for a church (or anywhere really) be ready for hell, and i mean that in a kind non churchy way. 99% of all employers both Christian and otherwise all act the same way, human. So don’t be surprised when there is tension in the workplace. It’s not all roses and smiling faces all of the time. It’s not glamourous but when you’re called and passionate it is the most fulfilling thing you can do!

Find your boundaries early and make them known. Working in a church environment commits you to a 50+ work week automatically even if it’s unwritten (im convinced a full time traditional 40 hour week doesn’t exist any more because you cannot leave work at the door). You have to make sure your comfortable with those hours, and stand up when you’ve had to much and you need a break.

Today, your resume is online. Blogs, social networking, vimeo accounts, flickr accounts, facebook, etc. Keep accounts like that updated, and keep them regulated! (future employers can and will friend you on facebook or other sites and will go peruse your pictures, experiences, connections, likes, dislikes etc)

Church staffing is a great resource to find job openings it is how i found my first church job.

http://www.churchstaffing.com/job-listings/category/media-technology/

looking for a combination student ministry/video production job is kind of a special breed but those kinds of jobs are out there! Sugar Creek Baptist Church where I worked last year has a position like that (its currently filled though), Seacoast’s family ministry has their own kind of video/student ministry postion (currently filled too), but those positions are out there.

On the flip side you may end up finding a church job where you’re wearing more hats than just student ministry and video production. A lot of churches are not at the point of supporting multiple speciality positions, which we are. so you may be the av/it/video/student person until you get enough experience to move to a bigger/different church.

I have seen a few pop up over the last couple months in production so the jobs are out there, and they’re starting to pop up with greater frequency, apply often and don’t give up!

craft

[kraft, krahft]
1. an art, trade, or occupation requiring special skill,especially manual skill: the craft    of a mason.
2. skill; dexterity: The silversmith worked with great craft.

“This changes everything. The Industry is dead. There has never been a better time to be an artist” – Seth Godin

I watched Press Pause Play while I was on vacation and I have slowly been digesting the film and what it means for creatives, but also what it means for the church.

Growing up I had a computer, but the most I could do on it was MS paint and maybe printshop pro version 0.2 or windows movie maker (pretty sure that didn’t come around till much later).

Sitting around a few of my peers this past week we discussed how the industry has totally changed. Most of us didn’t have access to high speed internet until we got to college (and even then at home I didn’t have it till well after the fact). Today…I doubt many kids go without some kind of access to higher speed internet, even at school. What does that mean? access to media, software and inspiration unlimited.

Things have changed because our craft is being done by kids in middle school starting to tinker with video editing software, graphic software, audio editing software.

What does this mean for creativity?

It means that we’re being inundated with crap. The skill required to create inspiring art is gone.

The Craft is dead.

It also means that the cost of production has gone way down and more inspiring art can and should be created. It means that the younger generation can enter our craft with more knowledge than we did and if they continue to learn, can surpass us.

What does this mean for the church?

I see it in a few sections.

We are in an age where communication is king. The church needs to be communicating, and with the tools available we need to be doing it well. I’m talking within the body, and what we’re communicating publicly. There is no reason we cannot unify across lines, and yet we sit back and watch or tear each other apart. Communicate effectively. Find similarities not differences and stand together.

The tools are cheap, but don’t cheapen the craft, or the story. As the availability of tools grow, the amount of garbage story telling starts to rise. When I talk about craft here I talk about every moving piece, those communicating the narrative of the gospel in any capacity. From the part time secretary answering phones to the lead pastor and everyone in between. Just because you can make movies, produce music, do a rock show each week, went to school to be a pastor/speaker, start a church, pull off large stunts in service, etc. doesn’t mean you should. You need to start asking yourself, does this cheapen the story? What am I communicating to the congregation? The public? Is it helping make a point?

The flip side to this is because the tools are cheap you have no excuse to be doing mediocre or poor art and story telling, and if you don’t have the skill,  generally you can find someone that does for a reasonable cost. If they are bought in to your narrative then all the better! Then they can tell your story from first hand experience.

The craft is dead because the skill that it takes has been diminished. No longer does it take years of training in a trade or multiple degrees to design, write, record, mix, or speak.

Like Seth said, this is an exciting time for the artist, this is an exciting time for the church!

We do not have to be tied down by what used to be, the craft is dead but the art and the story is not. Now we can re-create what it means to have church, tell a story, to weave a narrative that inspires us to seek after Christ.

I can’t really complain about that because it’s my passion to see the church grow in its weekend experience and the projects we have been working on have helped in that area.

Seacoast is a place that I am learning where you work can be a family, and a place to grow and push limits. To say I’m enjoying it is an understatement. Hopefully in the next few weeks I will be able to make some time to post about projects both creative and technical that I have been working on!

I have also started writing a bit over at sundaymag.tv where you can find resources to help grow your Weekend experience!

Right now I’m chilling in Nashville taking some time to recharge. Making some new friends while reconnecting with a few old ones. So until I write again, adieu.

Just a couple quick things. I love reading and figuring out small pieces of God’s character.

Genesis 16 is all about the conception of Ishmael, Abraham’s son via Sarah’s servant Hagar.

Hagar becomes pregnant and the when she does she lost respect for Sarah. Sarah then tells Hagar to leave.

The first thing I see here (and i had to re-read this passage to even understand this) is that God takes care of his own, and will bring about restoration.

God tells Hagar, yeah you’re pregnant, now what? you don’t have any where to go and the baby needs taken care of…go back to Sarah. I could give you examples out of my own life where i see this taking place either with me or others, and if you thought long enough I’m sure you could too. God brings about the restoration necessary for life to go on…did he fix the problem the way Hagar wanted it to be fixed? probably not, was the proclamation that Ishmael is going to be fighting for his entire life what she wanted for her son? doubtful, yet God worked. God restored Hagar to Sarah, maybe not under ideal circumstances, she was still pregnant you know, and she probably still didn’t see eye to eye with Sarah.

Secondly, the obvious statement is God is the one who sees me, he saw Hagar’s affliction, her pregnancy.

Although obvious it is incredibly powerful.

A little glimpse into the character of God, even when we’re not expecting it, even when we’re hiding, even when we don’t want to be found, God sees us. Then, we see God. We see God for who he truly is, we begin to see his plan, we begin to see that he’s always been there watching over us. Like Hagar we see God as the protector and restorer. It does not say here that God fixes everything just right with a cherry on top and everything is peachy keen, it just says that God saw, and in return she saw God.

That is actually a powerful statement…to see God…
just relish on that for a second.

are you seeing God? am I?
What am I burying myself under, trying to hide myself from God with?

I’m not going to write a ton on it here because I’ve written the process of the stage through the descriptions on Flickr. The challenge in this space is that there is not much stage depth and because the screens are over the stage I am very limited on where I can play height into any type of look. The original concept was to create some very large spheres in the vertical space, but that could have messed with more sight lines than the tree does (we did have to add some side TVs to cover our wing positions which had bad sight lines to begin with, this was talked about before the stage was even in design so it just sped up the install). I took the original concept and kept the winter theme but made it work for our space so it wasn’t quite so bulky and hid some of our unsightly stage floor mess. I wanted it to feel like winter, not Christmas so that it could squeeze past the holiday season and get some longevity out of the build.

As always you’re welcome to ask lots of questions! CLICK HERE for the flicker photos.

So that is who leads out in worship. Everyone.

So when you’re intentionally doing that whether as a paid team member or a non-paid why are you doing it?

Are you doing it because you are called to serve?

Are you doing it because you know what you’re doing?

Are you doing it because you think that is what you need to do?

Are you doing it to grow?

Are you doing it to prove something?

As a person on staff at a church I look around at my peers (tech world and non tech world) and I see a lot of burn out, a lot of people dropping off. So when I get approached by someone who wants to work in ministry i tell them to do anything they can but ministry, and only when you cannot do anything else because the calling that has been placed on you is so strong then go do it. Ministry is messy, it isn’t pretty, it is stressful on the family, it isn’t all lunch meetings and never being in the office.

As a volunteer it is a part of growth and discipleship. Where do I fit in? Where will I find maximum growth? What matches my gifts, talents and passions? All of these are important questions when you think about where to serve on a ministry team. I would have never found my calling in technical ministry had it not been for serving in that area, and the growth I experienced. I’m not saying God will always show you a need to work in ministry through service, but it will grow and stretch you.

We do what we do because we’re called to grow!

Jesus told the disciples when he was preparing to leave them that they would do greater things than he had done. The key was the future tense! Jesus said, you’re not there yet, you have some growth to do. Continue working hard, exceeding yourself constantly and you will do greater things than I have done. Work, and service is a process, just like your salvation. Part of that process is service and growth.

This is a gut check for myself,
Am I growing?
Am I serving because of my calling?
Am I serving selfishly?
Am I serving appropriately? (in the correct area)

IEM’s vs. Floor Wedges vs. Hearing Loss

Floor wedges were great when In Ears were not available. It was such a touring standard that even when everyone moved to In Ears that wedges are still put out too. So there are multiple noise floors to be overcome by the PA. This is great when a musician decides to pull his ears out, or one dislodges itself, or they want an SLP feel firing at them in addition to filling their ears.

Floor wedges are not good in small venues, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in a church or a tiny club.

IEMs are not a purely church world concept and it protects your hearing. Your’e not pounding your head with 100+ DB of sound for hours on end for days on end. You can control it and leave it nice and quiet and best of all for the mix engineers is you’re left with no noise floor to overcome from all of the wedges.

Why do people pull out an ear. There seems to be one thing no matter what is expressed that seems to cause a person to pull an ear out, room feel. Whether they feel isolated and naked without being able to hear the room, cannot feel response from the crowd or cannot hear any other number of elements they feel the need to pop one.

I get it, I really do…but you’re killing your hearing.

If you notice when you do that one of two things happen, (given a monitor engineer scenario) you ask for more output volume to compensate because you’re trying to overcome room volume. Or you crank your wireless pack up for more volume to compensate for the room. Either way you’re blowing your ear drum out because of how close the source is to your ear and as it becomes fatigued you have to crank it up louder, and louder.

Please put both ears in, encourage musicians to put both ears in, encourage subtractive mixing not additive mixing. If you need more vocals try pulling volume back over all to give you the boost, not adding more vocals to the mix.

Also try minimal mixing. You don’t need a full CD mix in your ears, only what will get the job done. Start out with a rhythm instrument or click and a pitch reference and then build from there.

Don’t take it from me…go talk to a hearing specialist!

I heard this tearm a lot in college in reference to media and the more and more I think about it the more I cringe. Christians think that in order for us to be able to utilize something in reference to the gospel we must try and redeem that medium.

What does that even mean?

I may not be popular with this statement and you don’t have to agree, but I don’t think it really should. So here are some thoughts on that.

Twitter uses 140 characters to hold a quick personal global conversation through sharing stories. Churches cannot tell a story in 140 characters (and if you’re tweeting multiple tweets to get a point across, send an email or write a blog instead).

It is all about brevity and conciseness. 

Persons within the church can use twitter all day, communicate, tell stories, connect with people on a personal level. Entities on twitter or most social networking platforms are impersonal, cold, and most times obnoxious. Links to awkward videos are fine from friends because I can actually reach out and smack them later. I can’t do that to the church.

The best representation I have for this are companies like AT&T and Comcast who are putting real people behind twitter accounts linked to their customer service and are relating well to people. These people are dealing with problems and bridging relationships with companies. Churches really don’t have the opportunity to deal with problems on twitter in a public venue, unless you want to hear about uncle Henry’s divorce, or Johnny’s drug addiction, which is not exactly appropriate.

So what do churches do wrong on twitter. 

They share too much, whether meaningful information or absolute junk (most falls into this category)

They share too little, some entities haven’t tweeted in 153 days…thats engaging….

They share only self promotion items, too much look at me and self pats on the back.

They promote every single thing that shows up on their calendar, I don’t care when Martha May’s birthday party is.

They don’t promote ANYTHING that the church is doing, which should be a primary use of this short burst medium.

What do some churches do well on twitter? 

They share short meaningful stories on twitter to encourage community.

They share meaningful promotional items on a regular basis (scheduled out so not to be obnoxiously frequent), important time changes, cancelations etc.

They share short exciting stories about how the church is impacting the community or the world.

How does the church engage on twitter? 

Use one concise voice for your social platform whether twitter, Facebook or some other site. And if it’s all of the above, assign a singular person this task to update so it all sounds the same. Create a unified strategy, usually spear-headed by whoever handles your PR .

Share information that is relevant to your group. Aka don’t post forwarded email junk, footprints in the sand, random you-tube posts (unless its a youth site…then maybe). Post great pictures from the recent fall festival you had on Facebook and cultivate conversations around those. Tell people your service times changed through twitter!

Use unique hash tags to create conversations about your church, your message series, your event. This bypasses the necessity for a church wide twitter account all together. Use a few strategic church staff members to cultivate these conversations, promote the use of the hash tags from stage, signage or print material.

Remember that twitter is still considered a fringe social media platform and it’s hitting a very small section of your congregation. Yes it’s growing, but it’s still not to the Facebook status, and google plus (that isn’t going any where fast). Many of these principles can be applied to Facebook too,  but dont expect a large group of your ministry to be active on fringe social platforms unless they’re nerds or early adopters.

Be careful when adopting social media. It is a personal story and conversation medium, not a mail chimp blast medium.