A guest post I did over on churchblogideas.com I talked about how everyone leads out in worship in a church congregation, whether it is a worship leader, an usher, a tech person or an attender.
DennyWeinman.com
musings and mishapse of a technical creative
Filed under Leadership …
Two Fifty- Tuesday
I wrote a guest post over here .
I am also brewing a review on Chamsys MagicQ lighting software which most of you may not care about.
The Creative Process
I think a lot of what we do is built upon our childhood. (until we’re told not to be creative any more)
I was talking with @JonathanMalm about things we did as children that very much mimic what we do professionally today. At Christmas I was excited to get presents and unwrap the boxes, but when I go back and look at pictures I’m playing with the boxes more than the toys. I can remember building fake ray guns, space ships and who knows what else with some boxes, tape and a little imagination.
What’s in a Name?
name (n
m)
n.
1. A word or words by which an entity is designated and distinguished from others.2. A word or group of words used to describe or evaluate, often disparagingly.3. Representation or repute, as opposed to reality: a democracy in name, a police state in fact.4.
a. A reputation: has a bad name.b. A distinguished reputation: made a name for himself as a drummer.5. An illustrious or outstanding person:
Two Fifty Tuesday: Job Edition
I accepted a new position at Sugar Creek as the Assistant Technical Director. This position is different, and the same as what I was doing before. I get the honor of working with the Children’s ministry here facilitating all of their technical needs, as well as doing video content and facilitating any type of creative needs for them. Continue reading
Community
My boss Rick and I went up to Dallas for a Church Tech Directors Round Table meet up.
It was a cool time to get together with a small group of Tech Directors, share passions, frustrations and the like and just be able to lean on each other. It really is a support group because working in a church is like a drug. It’s absolutely thrilling and addictive but it can tear you down too. It’s always good to hear other people are going through what you are currently dealing with, or have dealt with it in past whether tech wise, personality wise or life wise.
On top of the meet up Rick and I took the opportunity to go visit several churches in the area and lets just say…if it wasn’t for the highways I’d want to live in Dallas! There are some stellar churches up there. Lake Pointe Church with Jason Cole as their tech director has it going on. Several campus, a rockin system and solid teaching. We snuck in to Fellowship Dallas and had a look at their hall ways the building was locked up (yes we found an open door due to maintenance and snuck in) so we didn’t get any real cool sneak peaks but were impressed none the less. We got into Irving Bible church and loved the warm open atmosphere of their building. There were actually people WORKING and HANGING OUT in the lobby. Very cool atmosphere with lots of art everywhere. Again the auditorium was locked up tight, but awesome to look at the energy the place had and even talk to a member about how much he loves his church.
Last on the list was Gateway Church and lets just say, wow. I know that they’ve got some stellar worship with Kari Jobe who by the way we ran into at Starbucks while hanging out with Fellowship One’s Anthony Coppage. What I did not know about Gateway was just how much tech they’ve got going on, and how well put together it is. Their new Southlake campus has only been open a few months, and it still smells brand new. Not only does it smell brand new but it oozes professionalism, and tech goodness. It’s easily my favorite place I’ve visited and pretty sure it would rock your face off.
While visiting these places was seriously killer and made me drool over all of the tech goodness I walked away with some thoughts about processes for my teams, and the churches teams as we start looking into potentially starting a new campus and just try to streamline and bolster our tech process as well.
So thanks for the tours and talks my fellow techs.
Much learned and much appreciated.
Oh and if you’re missing a piece of gear just ignore it and know it is being put to good use.
Creativity exercise.
Some of us are great spontaneous idea developers or are able to spur on a creative idea at a whim.
Some of us couldn’t find our way quickly out of a box creatively.
A couple things that are fun are start playing word association games.
Beach
- Sand
- Water
- Salt
- Fish
You get the idea…now how would those things fit into a concept for a design, video, stage, etc.
That’s a little harder.
You have some basic concepts from it though. Now how would you go about it if money, space and time were not an object?
I would rent a big surf generator and have a pastor surf on stage.
- ok maybe that is a bit extreme but I could video it
I always think of the lame inspirational statement “shoot for the moon and at least you’ll land among the stars”, but it’s true.
Dream big, then once you’ve got this grand concept figure out pieces you can make work. Your final concept will still come out stellar, and far exceed most of your leadership’s expectations.
Two-Fifty Tuesday
Status quo vs. status WOAH.
How many times when you’re at work are you just meeting the status quo?
Are you pushing yourself? Are you being pushed?
Here is my challenge, if you’re not expected to push it then just take it one step above the expectations. Keep doing that until the bar is set above what you are comfortable doing, and then work past it!
I guess the next question you have to ask yourself is, could you do better? or are you ok working for status quo?
Music Segment: This is What Happens – The Reign of Kindo
I love the Reign of Kindo and have been checking back for new music from them all the time. Somehow I missed their August release and about wet myself for joy. They have this amazing melodic sound and are totally singable. They’ve got some sweet harmonies as well. Check them out. Totally worth it.
I’m sitting in a broken chair right now and I’m really kind of hoping it breaks completely so I can just leave. This week is kind of shot, and meetings are killing it further. I’m excited that I will be heading out Thursday and Friday with Rick Russell to Dallas for CTDRT meet up, there is an ipad release this week (totally buying one and I’m AMPED) and we’re testing out a D&B rig in our auditorium on Wednesday. So it’s a good week, but its just shot.
Oh and the grey Tshirt won!
Sweet action!
Stand Out
In today’s market you have to do some really stand out things to get noticed.
It doesn’t matter what your job is, or what you know. Paper goes through a shredder, so the only thing that travels is word of mouth.
I’ve been asked before why I’m so easy to work with. I’ve been commanded a couple things, to live humbly and to show the grace that I’ve been given. If you can live by those two simple rules then you can work with anyone (almost, there are ALWAYS exceptions). This also goes to how you stand out.
Philippians 2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Whatever project, meeting, conference, situation, etc that you are finding yourself in that person is the most important person in the world, no matter how much it pains you.
That is the word that travels about you. That is what make people stand up and take notice of you. Not that you have worked in the industry 12 years (or the required 5 years), that you’ve got a list of ink below your name that would make a college freshman blush or that you’re awesome, or can talk like you’re awesome.
Talk is cheap and a lot of people do it better than you. So walk it out, live it. Take a few simple rules in the Bible to heart, whether you believe it as truth or a good moral book those are principles anyone can live by.
99% of the people that do what you do are either on level or better than you.
It’s time to stand out.
Rework Review
I think Rework might be a book a lot of people would overlook simply because it was written by a small company that writes web based apps for other businesses. Who wants to read about ideas centered around web based apps or small business? Coding for me would be extremely boring, I’m not running my own business and even then wouldn’t I want to grow a big business?
Cover to cover it’s an extremely easy read because it is written in short format blog post style blips. So you can pick it up read a page or two, and when you put it down you’ve gathered one complete thought from the book.
Now on to content, it isn’t a tech book or a business leaders book, this isn’t John Maxwell you’re going to be reading here. This book was written with anyone that has a brain and is a working part of society in mind. Sure there are trade tips on how to run a small business but it’s also applicable to you who manage a couple people in any scenario. It speaks to creatives, those in customer service, marketing, communications, business executives and the list goes on.
I think what is most incredible about this book is that it totally blows up traditional concepts that most industry is built on. If you’re looking for a game changer in the way that you view work, your industry, how you approach leading people or running a business pick it up. Another game changer is Linch Pin by Seth Godin. Yeah these books are geared towards the business and were not written specifically with churches in mind but 9.9 times out of 10 the way you manage people and run a church is the way you run a business and leadership practices and structure ideals are something we should be reading too.
Pick it up, it’s not expensive and if you don’t have time it’s a great read in short bursts!
