Serving Sleepy

This is a great Blog Post by David Wilcox from Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland. It ties into the sermon that Ryan gave on Worship. Click on the link for the full post.
undistract: 1.16.11 Reverb: "This last Sunday was powerful. God's Spirit proved his faithfulness to meet us once again. What happened?Matt Richley led us in singing.We t..."

New Years Resolution (A bit early)

I thought it would be a good time to lay some goals for the near future. These are things I have let slip or just ignored over the last few months. Well here they are:

1. More gatherings of the Audio Team for fellowship, encouragement, and training.
2. More and better training. I would like to see more training individually and as a group.
3. Get the service schedules out sooner so people can actually make plans.
4. USE and FOLLOW check lists for services.
5. Try and have a member of the audio team besides me run sound at Lord's Supper.
6. Train someone to edit and post sermon audio for website. (Maybe I can take a Sunday off)

Well these are just few things I hope to better in upcoming months. Training, as you can see, is going to be a big part of the next year. I just hope I won't have to write all this down again because I dropped the ball on these six steps.

Fun Set This Week

Well we are having a little fun this week with the music at DSC. We have Z on acoustic and vocal, 1 female vocal, cello, bass, drums using brushes. I went with a minimal stage so I am micing the drums without using any mic stands. I put a Beta 56 on the snare, beta98 on floor tom, SM91 on the kick, and miked each cymbal with Audio Technica Pro35's. I am using my usual ATM35 on the Cello, Radial ProDI on the acoustic, Sans Amp for the bass. Vocals are a KSM9 on Zach and my wife Koren using her usual SM87a. It is always fun to try new things. I will let you know how it went. Let me know what you think after service.

It is not about the Gear

Here is an article on why we do what we do. Short and sweet from Church Sound Check. We do this for the Kingdom not the cool gear. http://www.churchsoundcheck.com/inatg.html

Relationship Between the Band and the Techies

I had Zach Nielsen, our music director, write a short piece on how he sees the band/Worship Leader and the Techies working together to make our worship services worshipful and not a distraction. I think you will like it.

Zach writes:
The relationship between the musicians on stage and the tech people is a very important one. I have always said that at times you can get away with a “so-so” bass player, but you’ll never get away with a “so-so” sound guy (or other facets of the tech ministry as well). Most people don’t really know when a bass player is bad, but they all can know for sure if the mix is poor, the lights don’t work, or the projection is distracting.

All this to say, the tech booth could be one of the most important places in our church. I value you guys to a great degree and know that if we don’t work together well, things will go south in a hurry.

Communication should be a high value for all of us. If we don’t communicate well, we can’t work together well. Good relationships are founded upon good communication.

Trust is also very key. Do the people on in the booth believe that the music guys know what they are doing and vice versa? Our jobs are big enough on their own without worrying about someone else's job.

An environment of grace has to be the norm as well. We all make mistakes and nothing ever runs 100% smooth. Undistracting excellence is always the goal, but when we fall short we all have to embrace an ethic of grace.

The are just some initial thoughts. Would love to talk to you guys more about this in person if you would like.