Greg Atkinson

Sometimes newcomers to a technical arts ministry are intimidated, overwhelmed or confused as to whether or not they are needed and how best to get assimilated to the team. At my church, I have 3 “gateway ministries” that are a quick way for someone to get plugged in. These positions are camera, graphics and stage manager.

This is not to say that these positions are not important, needed or difficult to do. These are just the best 3 options to quickly start out on the team. The other team positions are hand-picked after one has served in one of these “gateway ministries” for a healthy season and has excelled at them.

The truth is that we can have someone trained on graphics, camera or stage managing in 2 weeks (2 Wed. night rehearsals). This is just getting them up-and-running and able to dive in and be a part of the team. We LOVE welcoming new people to the team! The other truth is that it takes months and sometimes years to be GOOD at graphics, camera and stage managing.

When someone shows great promise and a desire to try something different, they become a potential Service Director. When a camera operator does well on camera for a long time and has a knack for technical things, they get moved to our Video Engineer/Shader position.

One current camera operator is being groomed as a Video Director, but is starting out as a Video Engineer/Shader to be in the control room during the “heat of things”. Another newcomer is being considered as a potential future Video Director and is spending time in “the empty chair“. Some camera operators make good shaders, some don’t. Some shaders go on to be Video Directors, some don’t.

This a little behind-the-scenes look at how people get involved and how we fill non-gateway positions like Video Engineer/Shader, Video Director and Service Director. The Producer is also a hand-picked postion. What’s the assimilation process like at your church?

I’m the Director of Technical Arts at my church (Bent Tree), so I oversee all the technical arts ministries. I’m coming into a new and long-awaited season of being able to put up the blueprints, take off my hard hat and be the pastor, shepherd and leader I am called to be. Praise God, this Sunday is Bent Tree’s official “Grand Opening”! After being in construction for 3 years, we are finally opening our doors wide to the community.

Many close to me have pointed out that I’ve been a little busy, a little (that’s an understatement) stressed and a little preoccupied with work the last year. I’m hesitantly glad to say that I think I’ve made it through the valley and am looking forward to moving forward as a church and as a Technical Arts ministry.

Let’s talk practical: I’ve blogged before about the team that it takes to pull off a Sunday. Only myself and our Audio Coordinator are paid. The rest of the team is an army of dedicated servants. It usually looks something like this:

1. Dir. of Technical Arts (that’s me – I float around, encourage and oversee)
2. Front of House audio (usually our full-time Audio Coordinator)
3. A2 (second audio engineer at FOH)
4. Monitor Engineer
5. Lighting Technician
6. Service Director (on headset with stage managers, times service, executes)
7. Stage Manager on stage left
8. Stage Manager on stage right
9. Stage Manager on floor
10. Producer (takes in overall experience, gives creative feedback/guidance)
11. Video Director (right now the VD calls and switches)
12. Video Engineer (this person is the camera shader and is responsible for starting the recordings for the DVD-R and capture to FinalCut for the video podcast)
13. Camera operator 1
14. Camera operator 2
15. Camera operator 3
16. Graphics Operator (right now their is one that runs EasyWorship)
17. FUTURE: Broadcast audio engineer (right now we capture to ProTools HD)
18. FUTURE: TD at the switcher (the Video Director will just call the shots)
19. FUTURE: Prompt Screen Operator (we are going to move to 2 graphics operators, one for the screens that the people see and one just for the prompt screens that the singers see)

So, currently there are 16 “black shirts” serving around the main worship center on a Sunday. As you see, I hope to increase to at least 18 in the next few months. I’ve said it many times before and I’ll say it many more times: YOU MUST CONSTANTLY RECRUIT! For various reasons, you have to keep recruiting. Once we have more than enough graphic operators, we’ll split and have 2 graphic operators each week. If we had too many of them, we’d split again and have one for an effects screen (which we’re working on). If we got too many camera operators, then we’d add cameras 4 and 5 on stage left and stage right.

One note: all 16 are at rehearsal on Wed. night: EVERYONE. We do a complete run-through with full music, tech and any other elemenHold high the value of rehearsal.ts that might happen (drama, etc.) each Wed. night from 7p to 9p. That’s a blog post unto itself.  Raise the bar. Set a standard for quality and value each person’s time and commitment. I don’t think it’s right for one person to miss and 15 others give up their time and be at rehearsal. ALL 16 must be there. Committing to serve on a given week means you’re “on” for Wed. night and Sunday. Our volunteers mark their availability via Planning Center Online – that’s another blog post all to itself. What a resource!

Usually I’m walking new team members around on Wed. nights, giving them the behind-the-scenes tour, introducing them to the team and passing them on to a volunteer team leader that trains them on their particulal place of service.

* Tomorrow’s blog will be about how new people get plugged in and where/how I start them out.

Another note: What I listed above is just what takes place in the main worship center. I’m working on a new position for an AV Coordinator to oversee the equipment throughout our campus. In putting together a job description, I realized we have 13 different venues (22 projectors) across our campus.

On a Sunday, “tech” is happening in classrooms, the Treehouse, the gym, the main worship center and our new FX Live family production that kicked off this past Sunday. The FX Live team has their own full tech team and uses IMAG (Image Magnification) in their production as well. NOTE: FX Live has 2 cameras right now (the same ones we used in our old worship center).

I’ll blog more about FX Live another time. You may have heard of North Point’s KidStuf – FX Live (FX stands for family experience) is based off of KidStuf – featuring worship for kids and parents led by singers, dancers and actors. They have a newly built 2 story theater/stage. I heard this past week that we have the largest family production theater in the country. Estimates are that we still turned away 200 people! We are meeting and planning on how to remedy this.

Below is a picture from this past Sunday’s official kick-off of FX Live:

More tomorrow on what I call “gateway ministries”.  SO.. what does Sunday look like at your church?

I just saw this on Church Marketing Sucks. Let me take a breath. Chill – drink some Green Tea. BREATHE. I can’t tell you how much this angers me, frustrates me and honestly: breaks my heart. What the heck are these people thinking?

Friends, we are called to love and serve. Do you really think you can debate someone into Heaven? I remember years ago at a Willow Creek evangelism conference hearing Bill Hybels describe some of the long-term relationships that he’s in with lost friends. Yes, he considered them true “friends”. He said some he had been praying for for 5, 7, 10 years before they even asked about church or became a Believer. Some still haven’t. Some may never become a Christian. He’s committed to loving them and befriending them regardless. To paraphrase Hybels – he’s in it for the long haul and not just something to check off a spiritual list.

Personally, I’ve been thanking God for some of my non-Christian friends lately. I’ve interacted with people in-person, on the phone, through Facebook, Twitter and via email that are agnostic, a universalist, Muslim or Jewish. Our neighbors are Muslim. I LOVE it! I had a great conversation with a new Muslim friend the other day (who reads this blog). I hope to continue the relationship and develop a friendship.

I know the arrows will come. My email is greg@gregatkinson.com.

What do YOU think of this sign? I want to hear your voice. Also feel free to comment on CMS HERE.

Most ministries benefit from a ministry fair, where those interested can obtain more information about serving in a ministry. It is often a time for those who don’t know ministry leaders personally to get to know them better and make connections that can last a lifetime.

I was recently asked why an IT ministry didn’t take advantage of a ministry fair to recruit new volunteers for their team. The problem with IT/media ministries is that most people that like technology are quiet people. They see things so clearly that they believe that if someone wanted their help, they’d ask. This isn’t about ego, it is about how they see the world and the church – it just makes logical sense to them. What they don’t realize is that you have to let people know about your passions and interests. They never make this connection and they miss out on the blessings of using their skills for the local church.

So, how does a church reach out to potential IT and media volunteers? Here is a step-by-step guide for recruiting tech-saavy volunteers within your church:

1. Identify all areas within your church that utilize technology – A/V gear PCs, servers, network closets, or any other technology used to support the church. Examples include: soundboards, projectors, streaming audio/video encoders, switches, cat 5/6 cable, and DSL/Cable/T1/T3 trunks
2. Plan a technology tour 10 minutes after each weekend church service for one weekend, with the idea of showing a “behind the scenes tour of the technology used to make church service happen”
3. Announce this tour from the pulpit or in the church bulletin 1-2 weeks prior to the tour, and again on the day of the tour. Ask them to meet you at the first location of the tour, most likely a sound booth or something easy to find
4. Take the group to each location within the church and speak about how it is used to make church service happen
5. After the tour, ask them to fill out a simple form with their name, email, home phone, and what area(s) they are most interested in volunteering
6. Follow-up with an email or phone call the same week to find out their availability and schedule a time to chat further about their skills and placement opportunities
7. Be prepared to create new opportunities to utilize the skill sets of those that want to get involved, as most technologists prefer to stick with what they know when they first sign up but will be open to trying new things later

Being a tech geek myself, it has only been a few years since God took me out of my position of shyness to developing other leaders within the church. How did I go from being a shy, solo technology guy to leading leaders? Well, it started by attending the very same kind of technology tour 8 years ago by another leader in the church!

Appeal to the technology interests of others by meeting them where they are at whether than making them meet you on your terms. You’ll be amazed at how your IT and media ministries will grow!

–
James Higginbotham
http://www.churchdirector.com – Volunteer scheduling tool
http://www.agileministry.com – Volunteer recruiting and leadership
http://www.bluejazzconsulting.com – Software consulting

The last couple of posts have been IT-related and I’m intrigued and curious as to what the IT situation is at your church. At Bent Tree we have an IT department. I’ll soon have a special guest blog post about recruiting IT help at your church.

For now, I’d like to know: Is IT at your church done by full-time employees? multiple staff/department? part-time? Out-sourced? A volunteer? A volunteer team? A combination of staff and volunteers? What’s the IT status at your church?

I’d like to find out how many of you use Google Apps at your church. I’ve heard of some churches (including very large ones) that have left Exchange and gone completely “Google”. How many of you have done that? How many are considering? How many would never leave Exchange?

Let the wars begin! Just kidding. Actually, I ask the question because I think the answer (for most churches) is BOTH. I just talked with 2 guys that do video at 2 different larger churches and they use both Avid and FinalCut.

In the world of Church IT (which I’ll blog more about later), there seems to be a either-or mindset and after talking to a few geek friends, plus Tony Steward (who is just too fun to call a geek, but he knows his stuff) – they seem to believe that church networks can have a happy marriage of PCs and Macs.

I wonder: is this your reality? Is your church all PC? all Mac? Are you a hybrid? What’s your situation? My church is predominately PC, but the whole Worship & Arts/production staff is Mac and after talking to several of our pastors, they’d like to be Mac, too. I wonder if you, like me, since we’re at a tipping point.

HERE’S an article that I wrote almost a year ago for Monday Morning Insight. I was shocked at home much attention it got. It was obvious I had hit a nerve/hot button. I asked in the article how many have switched to Vista and how many have switched to Leopard. I ask you the same. We recently switched all our Macs to Leopard and got the Final Cut Studio 2 upgrade.

So, what say you? PC? Mac? Both? Are you near a tipping point? Do you think both can live happily together on a church network? Are Exchange and Entourage incompatible? Are they either-or options or does that even matter? Let me hear ya!

That’s me with Chris and LV from Catalyst. They and Jesse (from the Catalyst blog) were at the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta. Behind us is the infamous “Vanagon” that LV has been driving around the country. It’s pimped out on the inside – don’t let the outside fool you. Jesse blogged about Church 2.0 a week ago HERE. I’m trying my best to be at Catalyst this year, like I have the last 3 years. Are you going to be there?

I had an amazing time in Atlanta. I heard of what the Church there is dealing with – good and bad. My heart was encouraged to hear of Unite and how churches are working together on various issues in the ATL area. My eyes were opened and I was stunned to hear of the child sex trafficking going on there (Atlanta is #1 in the nation). I had no idea. There are some great stories that I believe will find their way into the book (Church 2.0).

Like always, I met some new friends and some people I knew online face-to-face for the first time. It was a joy to connect with them. The host church, Perimeter, was awesome. They are doing some amazing ministry to their local community that was exciting to hear. They also have staff dedicated to just reaching out to other churches to work together – that’s cool and THAT’S a Church 2.0 Church!

PERSONAL:
Though my heart was full and I was encouraged by my time in Atlanta, I came back exhausted and desperately missing my family. I’ll blog more about them tomorrow. For now, I have decided to take the month of September off from traveling. I’m still coming to Boston in October, but have moved Portland to November – November 7th to be exact. For the next month, I’m going to rest, write and be with my family.

This is from WiredChurches.com – We’re looking for original films created by church volunteers or staff to further their mission, illustrate a point, or promote or highlight an event. Professionals in the film and advertising industry will determine the top films in each category to present during the film festival at Granger on Thursday, September 18.

To get more info, go HERE.

PERSONAL:
Today I fly to Atlanta for the Church 2.0 Local Forum – ATL tomorrow. See you soon ATL!

At Bent Tree, we’ve got a busy Fall coming up. As part of what all we have going on, we’ve been working on 2 in-house video projects, as well as a few smaller pieces and outsourcing several things that we couldn’t fit in.

The 2 we’re working on now are a baptism highlight video for next Sunday, the 31st and a look back in time video for our Grand Opening on Sept. 7th. I’m sure I’ll post these on here later for you to check out.

I’m curious: What video projects are you up to at your church?