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Line Out: Sermon on the Rackmount

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with a prominent systems design consultant whose business includes a high percentage of churches.

Line Out: Sermon on the Rackmount

Jan 1, 2004 12:00 PM,
By Brian Blackmore

I recently had the opportunity to spend a few minutes with a prominent systems design consultant whose business includes a high percentage of churches. In the course of our discussion, he conveyed — in somewhat ominous tones — that the church market is in a precarious situation owing to the lack of qualified technicians and systems operators. As more churches adopt technology, the demand exponentially increases for people to fill those roles. Churches often talk about adding a new sound system or camera system. Discussions about who is going to run those systems often come later, if they happen at all.

Megachurches can usually afford a qualified technical staff, but churches in the 500- to 2,000-seat range are being built at a far greater pace. That is the market segment in which there will most likely be a need but no budget, available talent, or even the notion that additional or improved technical staff may be needed.

It’s not a situation with an easy answer. Numerous colleges and Full Sail (www.fullsail.com) offer degree programs that can take several years to finish. There are other excellent training seminars available to churches, such as the Church Sound Check conference and the Inspiration show. Syn-Aud-Con, with probably the most well-respected audio systems training courses available, offers an extensive array of courses. However, nothing can properly prepare a church technical director for a job better than extensive hands-on technical experience and the firsthand knowledge that comes from working in a church environment.

But there may be something more that integrators and consultants can do in light of this situation: better assessment of the technical competency of the church’s likely systems operators.

Anthony Coppedge teaches churches at Church Production Magazine‘s T3 Technical Training Tour that they must first determine their needs. Needs will determine the proper technology, which will result in budgetary requirements.

Most churches approach new systems from the opposite angle: “Here’s our budget. Now what will it buy us?” Sometimes when the church has done proper research, the result can be adequate. Far too often, however, the integrator or the consultant is left to try to fit a square peg in a round hole.

If the budgetary limitations hinder the purchase of the required technology, the church should then adjust its needs and expectations. Of course, this shifts some responsibility and ownership back to the client. That seems simple enough, though the scenario rarely works out that smoothly.

Besides, it’s not hard for churches to find an integrator or a dealer (read: trunk slammer) willing to take that budget and install an inadequate system. It takes a certain level of integrity and business acumen to walk away from a project that has disaster written all over it, even if it would make you money in the short term.

However, integrators and consultants need to remind others to make a renewed effort to research the level of expertise of the church’s systems operators — and not just the lead operator or the church technical director.

Automated control systems, digital consoles, and computer presets for nearly everything in the system can help, but they may not always help the church with the nasty business of troubleshooting or dealing with unexpected or unusual situations such as concerts or dramas.

There are other things you can do beyond a rededicated effort to factor in technical competence as a vital part of systems design. That is an excellent selling point for the local integrator pitted against the out-of-towner. It’s not just a matter of service after the sale but training. Even the out-of-towners will often stay to get the church through the first weekend.

Besides a value-added element of the contract (offering to walk the church through the first few services), the business-savvy integrator may offer extended training as an option, at an additional fee.

You should encourage and possibly attend limited experimentation sessions in which the church techs push the system and experiment when the auditorium is empty. I came across a church that has a smaller sound board and separate effects rack adjacent to the main sound booth. Volunteer sound engineers are encouraged to come in during the week and mix a multitrack recording of the previous week’s services.

There may not be a cookie-cutter solution to each project, and the long-term solution for the lack of a reliable pool of new technical talent for churches is even more difficult, but the fact is that church services, traditional and contemporary, are becoming more technically complex. The subject of technical training and technical competence is one of growing importance.

Brian Blackmoreis publisher and founding editor of Church Production Magazine (CPM), an educational magazine for churches covering audio, video, and lighting.

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