AUMC AV Blog

I am looking at buying three Staples® Culley™ Black Luxura™ Manager's Chairs for the new sound booth. What do you think?

And yes, I need to fix the banner at the top of this blog, I let one of my hosting services lapse (because I am tired of paying for several hosting services) and I need to link the photo somewhere else.

Matthew

So this Sunday I came in to run the morning services like normal. I turned on the lights in the sound booth, I turned on the computer, I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board...

Ya, the sound board is dead as a nail. So with 20 minutes before the service I wrastle up an extra sound board, unplug everything from the old board, plug everything into the new board, and just as the service starts I start up PowerPoint and we are off.

The services came off OK, with only a few minor glitches, but seeing as our sound board was dead, I can take a few small hiccups.

Today Carter went out and bought a new fuse, thinking replacing the burnt out fuse would fix the sound board. Sadly the problem still exists, the new fuse didn't take long to burn up (only a second or two).

So now we are trying to figure out what to do. We only have a handful of weeks before we move into the new building, so we don't want to spend a lot of money, but we also don't want to have to share an audio board with the night service, as that would mean every week the morning services AND the night services would have to zero out the board and start from scratch. Doable, but not fun.

We have a few options that we are thinking about, so I am not worried. The other question is: what do we do with a large sound board that is dead?

Matthew

*Matthew wonders off to muse about something else for the moment.*

I want to take a moment and type out a personal post.

Over at the ChurchMedia.net forums there is a post that asks the question: "What are the biggest issues your church faces with technology?" There are many answers, and as I read through them, I realized how blessed I am to work at AUMC! Most of the problems other people mention aren't a concern for our media ministry.

Money
Money has never been a problem for us. Granted, we aren't rolling in dough, and we don't have every latest toy on the block, but there has never been a time that something was needed but was not bought due to money. We made a lot of concessions in designing the system in the new building, but all of the concessions were "we are going to get a good system instead of a great system." The decisions were always "we can't afford that luxury", never "we can't afford that necessity." This is partially due to an understanding administration (which we will note again in a moment), and partially due to the fact that while, like I said, we aren't rolling in dough, we are blessed with enough money to get the things that we need.

Volunteers
Often churches have problems finding enough volunteers to staff the A/V system. A few years ago we didn't have any volunteers (at one point I was doing everything, including running the audio board in the sanctuary AND running the video in the sound booth at the same time), and after an all-church call for volunteers went out, we only had one volunteer step up. Thankfully, we now have three dedicated volunteers that continually bless the ministry! I even had to turn one person away because our volunteer spots are covered. But I will say that in the future we will need several more volunteers, and I am slightly worried that we won't have enough volunteers for the new building. But as God has shown in the past, I am sure he will deliver.

Administration Attitude
Joe and Kory (our Music Minister and Pastor, respectively) have been amazingly open and ready to embrace new technology to help enrich worship. I am always getting e-mails from Joe asking "Could we use this video during worship?", and Kory was the one who brought forth sermon notes, which have been a big hit. These guys (and the rest of the administration) are open to new ideas (we just started using a "giving kiosk", which is a Reverse-ATM for giving money to the church), ways of going outside the box to get a sermon point across, or to help people experience God closer. If I were to pick the #2 reason why our media program is so amazing, it is these guys! (The #1 spot goes to the last section below, but don't go peaking!)

Overall Design
When AUMC needed someone to design the A/V system in the new building, they hit the nail on the head. James Nance has done an amazing job designing, building, installing, and testing our new system. He has the ability to see the whole picture, and at the same time know every detail. In the post I mentioned earlier from ChurchMedia.net someone used this metaphor:

If one wanted to remodel a home, one would hire an interior decorator. His job is to make sure everything that needs to be done is done, within the budget and time limits. He has to do research, he has to do homework, and he has to manage. He does not have to actually lay the tile, he hires a tile guy. He does not actually paint, but he hires the painter. He needs to know enough about tile and paint to make wise choices, but he need not be an expert. ~Steven

This is a great metaphor, in that most churches try to just hire tile guys and painters, they don't hire someone who can get the big picture. Well, James Nance is not only the painter and the tile guy, he is also the interior decorator! He can do everything from designing a high end system from the ground up to installing it to tweaking the audio so that even audiophiles are satisfied. I give him full credit for how amazing our new system is.

Leadership
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I give partial credit for our system to myself. I have been (indirectly or directly) in charge of the media ministry for going on five years now, and I have built and formed many of the things that we use today. I work with the administration to plan the media, and I work with and train the volunteers that run the show. And in the future I will become even more directly involved with the media ministry. As the Director of Media Ministry I will be at every service and most extracurricular services (weddings, funerals, the like). As we use more videos during service, I will spend more time behind the camera and in front of the editing suite, perfecting the videos. And there are rumors that we will start using video announcements, and that will require a lot of extra work.

But really, this section isn't about me and how good I am, it is about God. Because it was God that gave me this talent, this desire, this passion for media ministry. I give all credit to God for my talents and accomplishments. Joe is very good about praising me and my work, and I often stop him and say "It isn't me that got this done, it was God." If I deserve any acclamation it is for my devotion to the passion that God gave me; if you want to give praise for the work that I accomplish, give it to God.

This brings me to the last (really it is the first) reason that our media ministry is so blessed:

God
In every aspect God has blessed the media ministry at AUMC. God brought me to AUMC long before I even had a desire to work in church media, and now that it is the passion of my life, I see how he planned for me to be here from the beginning. He planted amazing volunteers here to help in my work. He has given us amazing administrators to be open and willing to try different approaches to things. He gives us enough money to get things done. God has blessed every aspect of this ministry, and I am so thankful for that.

That isn't to say that everything is perfect and sugar-plums. We have our areas of problems and concerns, but the blessings that God has brought here far out-shine any problem.

I look forward to see what God has planned for this ministry. I can't wait to experience worship as AUMC has never been able to offer before in our new building. Yes, we are worshiping the same God as before, and I am not saying that the current worship sucks, I just believe that what the new building has to offer will bring a new level to the worship and teachings that AUMC has to offer.

Matthew