The fall is a time for planning for the new year. Budget requests should be submitted in a timely manner, to allow for adequate consideration of needs for Technical Ministry. Equipment does wear out, requiring troubleshooting and repair. The Church needs to have a budget that supports these types of issues:

• Critical equipment fails, requiring immediate repair
• Support equipment needs troubleshooting and repair
• Technical equipment needs replacement
• Security concerns need to be addressed

An adequate Church budget will include funds to cover these types of expenses. But be sure to be good stewards in the process.

People like to get outside during the summer, and Churches sponsor summer programs. It could be an outdoor concert by the Praise Band, or fun and games for the youth. There may be a need for sound equipment outside to support the event. Do you have an outdoor PA (Public Address) system available? How hard would it be to pull equipment from the worship stage for use outdoors? You may need long extension cords to reach the area. The opportunities are there.

Weather is a factor to consider. If it rains – before or during the event – then how do you cope? Best practice is to ensure that all electrical connections are water resistant. Acoustical instruments should be protected from the rain if possible. Electrical instruments need water resistant connections to power. Fortunately, most portable microphones will work fine in the rain.

Summer outside events can be great opportunities to reach the community around the Church. People will wander up and join in the fun. In the process, they will find out more about the Church. Be sure they feel invited to come to Church in the future.

With summer coming up, it is time to finish your Church’s summer plans. This will likely include lots of children and youth events. What are the technical needs for all of these events? It could involve your volunteers in any of the following activities and tasks:

• Sound for VBS program events during the day
• Setup for Youth events
• Producing video clips from Youth trips
• Producing video clips from Children’s events

Your Church may have plenty of volunteers, so the load will not be too great on any one person. But be sure to allow for these types of events. Some may even be popup events – i.e. not really planned in advance, just an opportunity. You want to avoid burnout over the summer.

A lot of the congregation will dress up for Easter. One way to celebrate that day is to provide a picture spot. This can be outside on a sunny day. Or it could be in the narthex. All you need is a backdrop that says “Today is Easter Sunday.” People will take pictures of their family.

You could also provide someone with a camera, but then you have to distribute the pictures. This should be a free service for the congregation (there are plenty of commercial opportunities available.)

As we celebrate Easter, we make memories and praise to the living Christ. May it be a source of joy for all who come.

In a technical sense, Advent starts the Christian Year. It begins with the arrival of Christ as a Babe in a Manger. His coming was foretold by the prophet Isaiah, which gets read to remind us that we expect Him to come again. While we wait, we celebrate with special events and services. One of my favorites is Christmas Eve with Silent Night and live candles.

Advent by it’s nature upsets the regular scheduling of volunteers. There are special services which need volunteers to help. So the regular monthly schedule goes out the window during December. Maybe that’s a good thing. We sometimes get in a rut by doing the same thing over and over and over. Advent has a marvelous way of shaking things up, as we remember that Christ came to make all things new!

This season is also a great time to thank all of your volunteers in Technical Ministry. It can be simple, like sending a Christmas Card with words of appreciation for all they have done this year. Or it can be complex like hosting a dinner party for the volunteers and their families at a local restaurant. Whatever you do, be sure to express your thanks and appreciation. It will go a long way towards making up for the demanding, often hectic, schedule of special events that need to be covered.

Merry Christmas, and may the arrival of the Babe in the Manger inspire all of us to serve the Church in new ways in the new year!

A network firewall helps prevent intrusion by hackers. It is maintained by the IT support person, either paid or volunteer. This helps the computer systems that are on the network, or attached to the network – e.g. laptops – to be secure.

Churches meet regularly all year, but what happens in an emergency? Does your Church have an Emergency Messaging system to let the congregation know that the worship service has been cancelled or moved? This could be as simple as a mailing list that the pastors can use to get the word out. Or it could be a mobile phone alerting system that blasts a text message to the cell phone of every member.

There are lots of events that can impact the worship service. October is the final stretch of the Hurricane season. Storms come and will damage the Church building or community. Fires can sweep through the area, affecting property. Floods can make roads impassible. Earthquakes can damage buildings to the point where they cannot be used safely. Ice storms will make the roads and sidewalks dangerous.

By setting up an Emergency Messaging system, the Church can alert members to the hazard. If the service has been cancelled, then people can stay home and avoid the danger. If the service has been delayed, then people will know of the new time, after the danger has passed. In one situation, the service was streamed from the pastor’s home, so the message was to stay home and watch online! Keeping people safe is the responsible and prudent thing to do, but you have to let them know in advance. Otherwise, some brave souls will show up at the Church for worship and be disappointed!

Every Church should have a plan for protecting Information Technology (IT) resources. This may simply be making backup copies that one of the Trustees takes home with them every week. Or it can be an automated system that backs up computers to the Cloud (Internet). The point is to protect these resources against various hazards. This helps make these systems more reliable for worship and operations.

There was a time when computers in the Church were a new thing. Everyone took care of them like they were their own; and many times they were donated by members not too long ago! Nobody thought of stealing or harming them, for they respected the Church. But times have changed. Church staff can be duped by phishing attacks into giving up passwords, allowing malfactors to get into Church networks. Volunteers can unintentionally download malware onto Church computer systems. And hardware does go down occasionally. The Church needs to plan how to mitigate these issues, just as businesses do.

What happens on Sunday morning if the computer that runs the lyrics for the service goes down? Ideally, you would have another system that could be hot swapped in to run the service that day. Or what happens if the Internet connection goes down? Can you still stream the worship service via a hotspot on a cell phone or another device? Or what if the lighting system goes down, so the sanctuary stays dark? Is there an emergency setting that will at least provide some light to see by? This author has seen all of these circumstances, and scrambled to find workarounds.

Worship can and should go on in spite of these technical problems. The Holy Spirit will still be present if we are singing a cappella by the light of candles. And most preachers know how to project their voice to the last pew so the congregation can hear them without a PA system. But with some wise planning, we can have systems that are reliable to work around these problems and have regular worship. A lot of times, the congregation won’t even notice; and that’s the way it should be with worship. We focus on glorifying God!

Many Churches follow the Christian Year in their programming, which runs from Advent to Kingdomtide. This implies that new budgets should be set in the Fall, rather than December. The end of the year is time for execution, not decision making. Christmas has a lot of activity centered around the birth of Jesus in Nazareth. Why add to the busyness of the season by having budget meetings?

A better time for setting the budget is September. Start after school is back in session, and schedules have settled down. Follow your budget review, planning process then to completion. The goal would be to have a new Church Budget settled and ready to go by Advent. This should include technical ministry needs for the Christmas season as well. By doing this, the new equipment will be available for the Christmas productions, rather than having to wait until next year.

Many worship services use technology to augment the service. This might just be wind instruments. Or it might be electrical instruments, with their associated PA systems. Or it might include screens and lighting. One use would be to link a video that celebrate a national holiday with movements by volunteers in the congregation. The results can make worship more dynamic and engaging for the whole congregation.

In general, the equipment is run by staff or volunteers. But volunteers can be hard to recruit and train and schedule. One alternative is to include automation. For example, you can automate the lyrics for a worship song by using a click track with queues for the projection software. This ensures that the correct lyrics show up on the screen as the congregation sings together. My rule of thumb is as follows:

Lyrics should advance when the congregation sings the last word of the current slide.

Bradley Roberts

The automation can also apply to lighting cues. The lighting scene can thus change from song to song, or even within songs. This allows a spot to appear on the soloist, to emphasize that they are singing the current verse. Or the lights can shine in front of the altar, where a reader is reading the scripture for the day. Or the lights can be dimmed, but not totally out, during the sermon so people can focus on the message.

Overall, automation can help the worship service run smoother, with less likelihood of glitches due to human error. It can also reduce the demand on volunteer scheduling, so that worship is completely staffed and high quality.

Church Staff serve the congregation, so they are accountable to them. This means that in administrative matters, the staff will be held accountable. Of course, this can be taken to the extreme, where the staff are criticized for everything they do, right or wrong. Hopefully, in the Church, people have some appreciation for Grace! And staff are human beings, fallible and prone to mistakes.

Should staff have performance reviews like you find in companies? Those reviews are designed to be objective, measuring performance and how well the employee met their stated goals for the year. By setting those with a manager in advance, there is less room for emotional responses to some issue that popped up during the year. And the employee knows what is expected, besides showing up for work every workday. However, having been in numerous performance reviews over the years, they often seem rather sterile and perfunctory.

In the Church, reviews should be more of a reassessment of goals and objectives. Last year’s goals should be discussed honestly between staff and senior leadership. This could be the senior pastor, or an executive in charge of all programs. The goals should be evaluated to see how well they were met, and what could have been done better. This should be documented. And then new goals and objectives should be created for the new year. By taking this approach, the review becomes less about personalities and more about accomplishments. And the results can be summarized to the congregation so they know what was accomplished in the past year.

For most Church staff, online storage – i.e. Storage Area Networks – is a way to collaborate on planning. You can have a locally shared copy of planning documents, tentative copies of newsletters and bulletins, etc. But is it worth it these days?

With more and more resources found on the Internet, you can have virtually unlimited storage for Church documents. You only need to decide who has access and how is the storage organized. Here are some ideas:

• Organize the documents by Area of Ministry – e.g. Adults, Youth, Children
• Allow staff to access the documents in their Area of Ministry only
• Create a shared Church Administrative calendar, so everyone on staff can see what’s coming up and avoid conflicts

Since the files are on the Internet, they will be accessible online no matter where staff members go.

Of course, you want to make sure that anything that needs to be confidential has added access control. Ideally, you would log who accessed these confidential materials.

Many Churches provide volunteers to help with Disaster Recovery. When a nearby city suffers damage from a natural disaster, the needs are great and immediate. The 1st responders will perform search and rescue operations. After that, there may be a need for volunteers in a shelter, or home repair, or delivering food and water.

The Church can help these efforts. One Church bought a trailer and outfitted it with emergency tools and supplies. They organized a team of people to be immediately available to go and help. They provided service to damaged communities in Christ’s name. This is the Faith Community in action.

Whenever a new team member comes on board, they should receive training. This should happen outside of the worship service. The team member should be trained on just one piece of equipment at a time, to let it sink in. They can ask questions to ensure that they understand the equipment, for example:

• How do you turn on the equipment?
• If needed, how do you sign in? (Most computers require this.)
• What are the features and functions that are typically used in worship?
• How do you troubleshoot problems?
• How do you turn off the equipment?

Some equipment is left on all the time, but not everything. There may also be a power up sequence for the technical booth. (Typically, there is a master switch on the racks; then other equipment gets initialized in order.)

Training time should always be outside of the worship service. This provides time to go into details, explain just what is going on, and answer questions thoroughly. If you must provide on the job training, then try to followup with a training meeting afterwards to explain details, answer questions, provide guidance.

By providing training, you ensure that the equipment is handled well and not abused. It also makes it easier for the new team member to get on board.

Growing Churches attract New Members. How you bring those New Members on board has a lot to say about the Church. You want them to come and grow spiritually. But how do you do that effectively?

You need to challenge new comers not only to join the Church but to also want to Grow Spiritually. There are many paths that this can take:

• Bible Study, both individually and in group settings
• Service to others, both in the neighborhood and across town
• Missions, both local and global

If you bring New Members on board and help them to grow, then the Church will be strong and well. While not every Church has opportunity to grow, every Church does have the opportunity to help its members grow spiritually. By focusing on that service, you help build up the Church.

In order to plan effectively, you need good Attendance Tracking Data. Whether it be worship, or small groups, you need to plan for space needs. To do that, you need a good idea of what Attendance looks like, and how it is changing over time. Without it, you’re planning in the dark.

How do you get good Attendance Tracking Data? There are apps available that allow people to self report their attendance at an event. However, not everyone will use those apps; so you have to add estimates of the number of additional people at the event. The leader of the event should be responsible for ensuring that the report is accurate; or you could have staff do it. Ideally, then, you look at the trends of the data to perform capacity planning. If attendance is on an upward arc, then you need to arrange for bigger and bigger spaces for the event. If attendance is on a downward arc, then you may want to consider arranging for a smaller space. However, be sure to inform the event planners of the trend that you see. They may be surprised, thinking all is well and attendance is growing. Or they may have some insight into where the attendance is going in the future that the trend line doesn’t reveal. Let that also factor into your space planning. The goal is to always provide space that is “just right” for the number of people that are coming. You don’t want to always be adding chairs at the last minute. Nor do you want to waste money on seats that won’t be filled. Attendance Tracking Data is the way to plan effectively, using the resources for God’s glory at all events.

Christmas Eve services are always memorable. I remember growing up that we would have individual candles to light. At the end of the service, we would all sing “Silent Night” and light the candles. Some Churches stopped doing that because it was a fire hazard. Other Churches have renewed the tradition, but with candle holders that were a little sturdier. Instead of the paper circles, I’ve seen clear plastic holders that would catch any wax and not catch fire. It is a wonderful tradition and a special moment.

How do you manage the lights in the worship service when you are lighting the candles? The best way would be a very slow fade from fully bright to about 20% light – i.e. just enough to see by if someone left their pew during the lighting. But this may need to be a manual process. Can you get your lighting board to run a slow fade taking several minutes to complete? Most of them are designed for quick transitions. You may need to string together a number of transitions in a row, each one taking the lights further down. The goal is to have the sanctuary dark enough that the candles stand out, but not too dark to walk. That way, the ministers, ushers can see where they are going. And the congregation gets to experience the full effect!

Thanksgiving is a national holiday. Churches don’t usually have a service on Thanksgiving day, since it is considered family time. However, there may be a special emphasis on Giving Thanks that week. How can the Tech Team support that?

One approach would be to produce a short video for worship that includes people giving thanks. This could be shot in various locations, then edited together into a short video. It could then be played before or during worship on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. This helps with the special emphasis. It could also be part of the sermon. The point is to show people giving thanks.

Churches often have special services – e.g. weddings, funerals. These are usually short notice, and specific to a family in the Church. They may have specific technical requests – e.g. playing a video. How do you handle these?

Since these requests usually come through the minister, you should let the minister know when you are available. Some members of the Tech Team will have flexible schedules; they can drop everything and come to the Church to handle the request. Others will have less flexibility; they might be available, but also may not be able to get off work. A best practice is to make sure the minister knows who to call first, then second, third, etc. If no one on the Tech Team is available, then the technical request may go unfulfilled; but that should be the last response. If no one shows up, then family members will often try to work the equipment themselves. As a team, you should talk about whether that’s allowable in cases where none of the Tech Team is available.

Presuming someone on the Tech Team is available, then the minister should put them in touch with the family. They can then work out the details. One scenario would be the following:

• Family provides media to the Tech Team – e.g. videos, images, etc. (If they need some preprocessing before the service, then the Tech Team will need time to do that.)
• Tech Team plans the technical aspects of the service. This determines what equipment, personnel will be needed to support the service.
• Tech Team participates in rehearsal, if appropriate. Typically, a wedding will have a rehearsal, but the participants may want to skip using microphones in rehearsal. You should identify lighting, microphone placement, etc.
• Tech Team executes the service, running any videos before and after. They will also control the audio desk to ensure good sound quality.
• If requested, the service can be recorded for a master copy for the family to remember the event by.

Since the special request is over and above the usual worship services, the family may choose to give a small gift of appreciation to the Tech Team members involved. This should be received with gratitude, not demanded. Families may also give a financial gift to the Church, part of which could be designated for support of the Technical Ministry of the Church.

Special Requests don’t fit into the regular rotation schedule. They should be considered as additional, optional service by the Tech Team. For Tech Team members, they can be a

With the fall, Churches sponsor lots of outdoor events. From hayrides to outdoor concerts, it is a great time to reach out to the community around the Church. You never know when someone will find a new Church home.

How does your Tech Team support such outdoor events? They might be involved in setting up a stage for a concert. They might be involved in providing lighting and/or sound for a festival. All of these events are beyond the normal routine of Sunday Worship, so be sure to let them know how much they are appreciated.

Many Churches have multiple networks installed on campus. You might have a Staff Network, which provides access to Staff resources – i.e. servers with Church Management Systems. You might also have a Guest Network, which is Public and accessible by everyone on Sunday mornings.

How do you manage the Guest Network? You may not need to. However, there should probably be some limitations. If a Church member is teaching a Church School class, then they will need network bandwidth to play a video. They may also need Internet access in order to access slides. On the 4th of July, they might even want to play a video with some fireworks. All of these should be allowed.

If someone abuses the Guest Network, then you will need to impose some restrictions. Perhaps add a firewall that will stop the abuse.

If your Church has a building, then it has Infrastructure Needs. There will be one or more doors that need to be locked and unlocked. There may be steps and/or a ramp to those doors. There will probably be a parking lot. The buildings will need services – e.g. electricity, water, sewer, Internet.

Someone in the Church needs to be concerned with the infrastructure needs of the Church. Typically, there is a group known as the trustees who take care of this. The pastor should be able to focus on the Spiritual Needs of the Church.

As winter continues, a lot of congregations are planning winter events. How do you support those events? You may need outdoor PA equipment, or at least an amphitheater with some cover to protect the sound equipment. With wireless mikes, the ministers can go anywhere on stage or in the congregation.

As you plan for the new year, be sure to identify the needs of the Technical Ministry of the Church. Perhaps you need to add or subtract equipment. Machines that are constantly being used eventually break. Equipment also becomes obsolete rather quickly in Technology, so you may have something gathering dust on a shelf. Sometimes you can find a good use for old equipment – e.g. sharing it with another Church that still has a use for it. Or sometimes you just need to discard it. Either way, you need to make room for something new in the New Year.

You also need to plan for how you introduce new technology to the ministry of the Church. Don’t just assume that everyone will instantly like that new Information Kiosk in the hallway. Introduce it gradually. Perhaps you run an article in the newsletter, or add an announcement to the announcement loop that says it is coming soon. List some bullet points that show how Church members will be able to use it. Or better yet, have a short video clip on the web site that has a Church member talking how it will help them find the room change for the evening event that they are coming to. (People don’t always catch the email that announces the change two hours before the event, but the Kiosks will be there so they can look it up.) That avoids the circumstance where someone shows up for the event, but they can’t find it on a large Church campus.

Many Churches have a fall festival as part of their children’s ministry. It can be as simple as a halloween party, or as complex as a fair inviting everyone in the city. It can be a challenge to plan such an event this year. There are still a lot of public health concerns.

What if you made the Fall Festival an online event? You could use a video-conferencing tool to allow family groups to participate. You can still offer prizes and story-telling, just online.