AUMC AV Blog

I just thought that I would give people an update on the AV for the new building.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we met with a consultant that had several proposes for our new system. He has given us three proposals for the sound system, a proposal for lighting, and two proposals for video/projection. We talked with him for nearly two hours ironing out the details, asking questions, concerns, etc. After he left, we (staff from the church) continued to talk for another hour about the proposals and what we want to go into the new sanctuary.

So right now, we have a lot of decisions to make, decisions that will make a difference later on. Most of these decisions relate to balancing budget to necessity. Do we go with two projectors, or one? Do we need 6 SM58s and 4 wireless handhelds, or can we get away with less? Choir mics that hang from the ceiling, or put them on stands? Is a patch bay worth the money?

These are a few of the more trivial decisions. With most of the problems, if we make the wrong decision, it will cost more to fix later then it would be to install now. But we can't just install everything now; our budget is extremely tight, and every dollar that we can squeeze out of one item can go to pay for something else.

We are also on a time crunch. The quicker we make these decisions, the quicker we can sign a contract with said consultant, the quicker he can place the orders, the quicker the items come in and we can install them. (if we act soon, then the equipment should arrive just before the building is ready for it to be installed... right now we are in that "sweet spot" and if we wait any longer, then the building will stand empty while we wait on deliveries)

Please pray that we make the right decisions. There is no "right/wrong" decision in the idea that they won't work together, or that it won't look good (that is what we are paying the consultant to do). The "right/wrong"ness is related to the future: what will be good for us, what is exactly what we will need, so that we won't have to go back later and add something, and what is too much, so that we don't waste money. While we can have meetings and talk about what we want to do as a church, a lot of the decision-making-information comes from God. Only He knows what will be perfect for us six months, a year, six years down the line. I pray that God would lead us to make the right decisions now, so that we won't have problems later.

I also pray that we would be reminded that with all of the numbers, figures, products and ideas being thrown around, everything is being done for the glory of God. I pray that we remember that while it is easy to get into the mind set that "we are getting new toys to play with," we should be in the mind set of "these are tools that will be used to glorify God's kingdom."

Word of the week (thanks to our consultant): value engineer verb a derogatory term meaning to cut expenses so that the end product is no longer usable. "If we value engineer our AV system now, we will have to pay to fix it later."

Matthew

PS: Yes, I know that in the Welcome post I said that I would sign my name as "AVBlogger." Well, I have dropped that idea and will just sign my posts "Matthew". Apparently, when I wrote the welcome post, I was being optimistic.