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4 Indisputable Qualities of Church Tech Directors
Being a church tech director is not an easy job, and everyone knows it. While they may never be in the spotlight like the pastor, worship leader, or musicians, they are always arriving earlier and leaving later than anyone else. They’re setting everything up, organizing, running the slides, planning lights, and doing everything else related to Sunday morning production. And just like the band, t...
Read MoreBest Places to Find Youth Ministry Countdown Videos
Finding church media can be really difficult – especially when you’re looking for quality stuff on a low budget. It seems like there’s a million different companies offering countdowns, motion backgrounds, and mini-movies, and it’s hard to know which one is right to go with. Some services are hundreds of dollars per year, while you can find free media in other places – but it all varies ...
Read MoreEffective Feedback Management as a Service Producer
Working as a service producer at a church is tough work. You’re always right in the middle of everything. You’re responsible for everything going as planned, but the actual execution of everything is often in the hands of others - the worship pastor, the sound engineer, lighting people, other volunteers, etc. Naturally, you’re put in a predominantly managerial role. You get to decide on s...
Read MoreWorship Tracks: 5 Most Common Ableton Pitfalls
Ableton is an incredibly powerful tool, especially in worship music. Churches of all sizes around the world are using it during live services for a variety of purposes. It enables keyboardists to run synth patches, pianos, and other instruments. It can be used for complex automation of keys patches, tracks, and other instrumentation during a worship service. And of course, it can be used as a simp...
Read MoreWorship Pastors: How to Talk to Your Drummers
Worship pastor to drummer communication has got to be one of the most stressful things to be a part of within a worship team, but I think there’s a reason it’s so common. The drum set is such an oddball instrument, and also the only one who’s role is entirely different than most contemporary worship instruments. Unfortunately, it also happens to be the loudest and one of the most important a...
Read More3 Tips to Improve Your Church Screen Media in Youth Group
It seems that the youth room is often the most neglected when it comes to quality gear, sound systems, and stage setup. Obviously, most churches don’t have an infinite budget to spend on every single room in the building, so most attention is put towards enhancing the main worship center. However, improving the atmosphere, appearance, and experience in a room doesn’t need to cost a ton of mone...
Read More4 Best Practices: Motivating Your Volunteer Worship Team
Many volunteers live for worship team rehearsals and playing on Sunday mornings. It’s where they get their energy and they’re absolutely ecstatic to be a part of the team. But unfortunately, it’s not that way for everyone. When worship team volunteers are excited and motivated to be a part of the worship band, your team thrives. But when it feels like a weekly “to-do” item, they’re not...
Read More5 Tips for Being Efficient at Church Media Production
There are so many moving parts in church media production. As a media director, you’re constantly doing things on the fly – changing song setlists, replacing lyrics, reordering songs, switching backgrounds out, importing and adjusting sermon notes, etc. You know the story. That’s why it’s so incredibly important to have a good grasp on ways you can make your work more efficient. The quicke...
Read More3 Strategies: Get Youth Ministry Students to Bring Friends
Youth pastors want for nothing more than to have students develop community with each other, build genuine loving relationships with God, and grow in their faith with one another. And I’d argue that you would be hard pressed to find any youth pastor where “growing the youth ministry” isn’t one of their top 5 priorities. But growing a youth ministry is tough. Usually, a youth ministry is...
Read MoreHiring Church Staff: Tried and True Practices
Hiring the right church staff is incredibly important if you are actively working in ministry. It’s especially important in churches smaller than 500, as all staff are working closely with each other every day and weekend. Hiring a bad candidate doesn’t mean one department of the church suffers - it can drag down the efficiency, morale, and culture of all church staff. Unfortunately, many c...
Read More3 Ways to Make Sermon Slides Look Better
Accompanying a sermon with visuals helps to clarify and drive home the message exponentially. That’s what sermon slides are for. It’s meant to reinforce the message and give an easy-to-digest summary of the main points of the sermon. But sermon slides aren’t always helpful. In fact, in many instances they can detract from the message. Bad design, poor font choice, improperly sized text, t...
Read MoreHealthy Church Tech Director to Worship Pastor Communication Tips
Communication is everything in ministry. Good communication practices can help a ministry to operate ats fullest potential, while poor communication (or a complete lack of communication altogether) can cause a ministry to crumble. The same is absolutely true for worship ministries. More specifically, the communication practices between a tech director/media director and the worship pastor are s...
Read MoreWhen is My Church Ready for a New Building?
Many church leaders dream of the day when their ministry grows enough for them to be able to move to a new building. It’s an exciting prospect! Having the chance to search for a place that will be the ideal building and location for your ministry is huge. But knowing when the day has arrived can be tough. You may be financially ready for the move, but is that the only thing that matters? If y...
Read MoreWhat Drum Equipment Needs to be Replaced at My Church?
Drums are supposed to be the life, dynamics, and foundation of any worship song. But usually… church drum sets sound BAD. If you’re reading this article, you probably are experiencing it firsthand. Obviously, as with anything sound-related, getting a good drum sound is a multi-facetted topic with endless factors including equipment, room, acoustic treatment, mics, mixing, the drummer who’s a...
Read MoreHow to Plan Ahead as a Church Tech Director
You’re the first one to band rehearsal and often the last one to leave. You may frequently be in charge of setup and teardown in addition to all the work you have to do during rehearsal and on Sunday morning for all services. Being a church tech director is a lot of work. We understand! Most church tech directors will agree that the most valuable thing to them is “time”. You need time ...
Read MoreGetting Your Congregation Excited About Giving
Giving a sermon on tithing is difficult. Obviously, we all know it’s a Biblical teaching, and the church survives only as a result of people’s commitment to and generosity for her mission. But everyone tends to think of giving as a necessity. As a chore. Giving 10% of your income as a tithe to the church frequently feels like an obligation rather than a joy, and it seems that in the last sever...
Read MoreReducing the Impact of Church Staff Turnover
Working in ministry can be one of the most demanding jobs. Aside from a few very large churches with hundreds of employees, most church jobs require you to be flexible and versatile in a variety of areas. Any church staff member will tell you how grateful they are for their fellow coworkers, as they recognize just how much each person carries on his or her plate when working in ministry. That b...
Read MoreHow to Properly Handle Church Complaints
If you’ve worked in a pastoral role for any amount of time, you know full-well that there are people who just love to complain. And generally, most of the complaints received in a church always seem to come from the same few congregation members. Complaining is a habit in some people - there’s no doubt. And it can be hard to deal with when much of it is aimed directly at you. But complaints...
Read More4 Factors That Affect Church Attendance
Pastors are almost always in tune with the state of their church attendance. But getting down to what it is that truly controls your church attendance is a tricky task. There are so many varying factors that will affect church attendance and nearly every church will have unique aspects that differentiate them from others. So, while this certainly isn’t a fool-proof, all-inclusive list, it is ...
Read MorePastoral Care: Things to Consider
Pastoral care is a tough job, primarily because it doesn’t rely on one individual but the whole community system and leadership structure of a church. You’re all working there for the sake of impacting peoples’ lives and helping them through times of need and crisis. But that’s incredibly difficult when people feel let down. A pastor misses a hospital visit, doesn’t get the memo on tr...
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