You may not consider your church to be liturgical, but every church has a liturgy that they follow. You may have certain ways your services typically flow, when and how you baptize people, how you partake in communion, and even how you start and end your services. Whether you realize it or not, there is even a liturgy in the way you use your production technology each week. The questions at hand are, “Does your production liturgy match the church’s vision for ministry and how do you accomplish establishing and maintaining good parameters for your production liturgy to meet your church’s goals for the now and for the future?” Here are a few questions for you to reflect on and evaluate the direction of your production’s liturgy.
The mission
The first question is, “What is your church’s mission?” If your church has an official mission statement, that is great, but if it doesn’t, you should ask your church’s leadership to get the best understanding from them of what your church’s mission is. Having this mission in mind, run all your decisions through the filter of fulfilling your church’s mission. “Is the way you are using or operating your current systems helping best fulfill the church’s mission, or is it maybe being a distraction? Is a new LED wall going to advance your mission? Is adding haze going to achieve your mission? Is livestreaming going to accomplish your mission?” These are just a few examples of questions you might be able to answer yourself before you even bring ideas to your church’s leadership. Many production technicians are guilty of learning something new or seeing some of the newest and greatest technology and wanting to incorporate it into their churches, but if it doesn’t help fulfill the mission of your church you probably shouldn’t make the purchase or invest the time. This is one of the biggest foundational places to start discovering and developing your production’s liturgy.
Knowledge is power
The second question you should ask is, “Do you or someone on your team have the knowledge to operate your current system well or the new technology you are looking into?” You might be wondering what this has to do with liturgy. Too many times there have been churches that purchased the latest and greatest technology with high hopes and dreams but did not have the knowledge and know-how to meet their expectations. This means technology went to waste, didn’t reach its full potential, or that the church had to pay someone every week to operate it. All these things can negatively affect your production’s liturgy. Having to pay someone to operate specific equipment from week to week may not be what your church normally does if your team is typically volunteer-driven. It can also cause division in your team if someone is now being paid for their expertise, but the others are not. If the technology becomes a waste because you don’t have someone with the knowledge to operate the system, you could also lose the trust of your church’s leadership because the church’s money was not spent wisely. This all points back to knowing and establishing your production’s liturgy that matches your church’s mission. Even though the technology may fit within the church’s mission, it does not mean that what you must do to operate it aligns with the mission.
Plan for the future
At this point, you have determined that the technology or new process will help fulfill the mission of the church right now and you know how to use it, but the third question you should ask is, “How am I going to use it in the future?” This should play a big part in figuring out your liturgy for your production technology. For the most part, the way you use your technology should never just focus on the immediate needs but also fulfill your needs in the future. So, ask yourself, “How will we use this equipment or process two years from now, five years from now, and even ten years from now?” Nobody wants to waste their time, energy, and money on something that is not going to be used well or will become obsolete and meaningless quickly.
Are you using what you have?
One last question to ask is, “Are you maintaining and using the equipment and people that you already have to its fullest potential to help the church fulfill its mission?” This could mean multiple things and cover an array of questions. “When was the last time you did maintenance on your equipment? Had your room tuned? Repaired the piles of cables that are damaged?” Taking care of these kinds of things prevents issues and distractions during your services which will detract from your church’s mission. “Are the production systems you have in place being used to their full potential? How about you and your volunteers? Are you and your team trained up on your equipment? Have you poured into your team as to what the church’s vision and mission is for your services?” These are the things that are very important to be able to work together as a team and with all the ministries of your church to create a liturgy for your production team.
There are probably many more questions you should ask yourself and ask others, but these are a good place to start. It’s quite easy to fall into the trap of focusing on the right here, right now needs and wants and forget to think and reflect on the mission and liturgy of your church. Funneling all decisions through the filter of your church’s mission and liturgy, as well as making sure your tech team knows what that looks like is a great way to develop your production liturgy. There is nothing wrong with having and using the latest and greatest technology as long these kinds of questions have been asked and are answered affirmatively. Remember, God does not need your technology to further the kingdom, but what a privilege it is to use the technology we have to create spaces where the mission of the church can advance the kingdom. That is a liturgy all of us church production technicians share!
About the author
Jared Webster is the Technical Director of Providence Church. He will be presenting two sessions at the Technical Arts Conference at CFX in Chattanooga, TN October 21-23, “Tech Maintenance & Repairs: Planning and Budgeting” and “Networking 101: It’s More than It Used to Be“.
