FILO Podcast: Recent Episodes
Todd Elliott
FILO Podcast continues the conversations started at FILO Conference and carries them throughout the year. Todd Elliott hosts the podcast and interviews key influencers in the world of church production to talk about ideas that affect all of us involved in pulling off weekend services.
Todd talks about the importance of always refining the methods to accomplish a mission, and not being married to “the way we’ve always done it.” There are many ways to allocate resources, so how do we leverage what we have for the maximum impact? Todd looks back on the podcast and talks about what’s next.
Show Notes:
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If you haven’t read Part 1 (Mind the Gaps) and Part 2 (The Grass is Greener Complex) of this series, take a few minutes and go back. Those lay the foundation for where we’re headed. This series isn’t just about building great teams—it’s about identifying the subtle, sometimes unspoken dynamics that kill great teams.
Now for Part 3: Exception vs. Rule.This team killer isn’t about attitude, performance, or even talent—it’s about culture. And more specifically, understanding the culture you’re working in. Miss this, and you’re setting yourself (and your team) up for constant frustration, confusion, and possibly burnout.
What Do I Mean by Exception vs. Rule?Every organization leans toward one of two types of cultural wiring: Exception-Over-Rule Culture or Rule-Over-Exception Culture. Let’s break them down.
Exception-Over-Rule CultureIn this type of culture, the guidelines are flexible. There may be policies, sure—but they’re more like suggestions than commandments. The unspoken motto is: “We’ll figure it out as we go.”
Need to bypass a process? Go ahead.
Need to make a game-time decision? Totally fine.
Need to work outside your job description? Expected.
This kind of culture is nimble, quick, and creative. It thrives on flexibility and favors people who can improvise and adapt.
But… if you’re a by-the-book kind of person, this will drive you crazy. You’ll ask, “Why even have rules if no one follows them?” You’ll create systems, and watch them get ignored. You’ll push for consistency and be told, “Let’s just get it done for now.”
Rule-Over-Exception CultureOn the flip side, this culture values order, clarity, and consistency. The rules exist for a reason, and everyone is expected to play by them—even if there’s a good reason not to.
Want to change something? Submit a form.
Need to do something out of the ordinary? Let’s take it to the committee.
Even if it makes sense to bend a rule… Sorry, we can’t.
This culture thrives on structure and protects the organization from chaos. But it can also stifle innovation, delay decisions, and frustrate high-capacity leaders who feel like they’re being asked to color inside the lines with a crayon that’s already broken.
So, What’s the Team Killer?The killer isn’t the culture itself. Both styles have pros and cons.
The real danger comes when no one knows what kind of culture they’re in—or worse, they expect one culture but are living in another. If you’re a rule-follower in an exception-driven church, you’ll feel like the ground is always shifting under your feet. If you thrive on flexibility but work in a rule-heavy organization, you’ll feel handcuffed and uninspired.
Over time, this mismatch leads to frustration, bitterness, and burnout—not because anyone is doing anything wrong, but because no one called it out.
Know What Game You’re PlayingHere’s the key takeaway: Know what kind of culture you’re in.
Ask yourself:
- Does my organization value flexibility over consistency?
- Do we make room for creative solutions or default to policy?
- When something needs to change quickly, do we move or stall?
Once you understand which way the organization leans, you can:
- Align Your Expectations: Don’t expect a rules-based culture to operate with exception-level flexibility. And don’t expect an exception-driven team to suddenly create airtight systems.
- Adapt Where You Can: If you love rules but live in an exception culture, learn to loosen your grip a little. If you love freedom but serve in a rule-driven organization, find creative ways to innovate within the boundaries.
- Call It Out (Kindly): Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is help your team see what’s really going on. “Hey, I think we’re living in a ‘rules-first’ culture… but we keep trying to lead like it’s an ‘exceptions-are-fine’ environment.”
- Decide if it’s a Fit: This might sound harsh, but it’s honest: if the culture drives you crazy and you can’t adapt, it might not be the right place for you. Culture misalignment isn’t a failure; it’s clarity.
Every team has its own rhythm. The goal isn’t to change the culture—it’s to understand it so we can lead effectively within it. So, whether your team loves structure or lives in chaos, make sure everyone knows what game you’re playing. It might be the difference between a frustrated team and a thriving one.
That wraps up our Team Killers series—three subtle culture killers that can take down even the strongest teams if we don’t call them out. Let’s lead with clarity, serve with humility, and name what’s real. Your team will thank you.
Looking to learn more and grow in community? FILO Cohorts are for you! These small groups, led by a FILO Cohort Leader, are designed to help church technical artists process challenges, strengthen their leadership, and grow spiritually.
Ryland Russell joins the podcast to talk about the benefits of livestreaming our services. It is some of the most live and unfiltered content online (talk about authentic!) and is a great front door for people to check out our churches. They talk about ways to improve and resources that can help get the most out of what you’re already doing.
Show Notes:
FILO Cohorts: So often as a technical artist, it can be easy to forget to look after yourself. FILO is here to provide spaces where you can feel seen, known, and valued. FILO Cohorts are a place where you can receive practical coaching and best practice sharing. We have 2 more Cohorts launching this fall! Learn more and register today: filo.org/cohorts
Ryland at FILO 2025: Want to hear more from today’s Podcast guest? Check out his class about Making the Most of your ATEM in the Digital Resource library.
Ryland’s YouTube: youtube.com/@RylandRussell
Ryland’s Course: Next Level Livestreaming on a Budget – Be sure to use discount code “FILO50” for 50% off!
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
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If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series, go back and check it out here. We talked about the silent but dangerous impact of gaps—those unnoticed tasks that can burn out team members if we don’t address them. Today, we’re moving on to the second team killer: The Grass is Greener Complex.
You know the phrase. “The grass is greener on the other side.” It’s often said with a sigh or a hint of envy—and it’s a mindset that will quietly poison your team if you’re not careful.
Comparison Kills CultureHere’s how this usually shows up in real life: You start looking around and noticing what others are doing—or not doing. You compare your role, your responsibilities, your hours, your visibility, even your perceived value… and before long, you’re frustrated.
One of the most common places I see this is between production and worship teams in churches.
I’ve heard it more than a few times: “What do the worship folks even do all week? Why are they sitting around with guitars while I’m 30 feet up on a lift fixing a stage light for the third time today?” From the outside, it looks like one person is working harder than the other. But that assumption is built on a limited perspective. The truth? That worship leader is doing exactly what they’re supposed to do. Practicing. Creating. Thinking. Leading their team. Just because it doesn’t look like your work doesn’t mean it isn’t work.
The same thing happens with youth pastors: “They’re at Six Flags again?” Yes—and it’s part of their job. They’re building trust, forming relationships, and creating discipleship moments… even if it’s between roller coasters and churros.
Different Jobs, Different RhythmsHere’s what we forget: not all jobs look the same, and that’s okay.
One of the fastest ways to kill unity on a team is to constantly compare your responsibilities, schedule, or workload with someone else’s. Especially when that someone is in a completely different role or department.
Even within similar roles, comparison is dangerous. Why? Because every person brings their own approach. Some people work fast and loud. Others are slow and methodical. Some love checklists. Others run on caffeine and instinct.
That’s where the battle between results and methodology comes in.
Results vs. MethodologyLet’s go back to our trusty trash can from Part 1.
There are multiple ways to take out the trash:
- Pull out the bag, tie it up, toss it, and put in a new liner.
- Carry the whole trash can to the dumpster, dump it, and leave it empty.
- Text someone else to do it (not recommended, but it is a method).
At the end of the day, if the trash is gone, the job got done.
But here’s where things get tricky: Some people only care that it’s done. Others care how it was done. Some organizations value results more: “As long as it’s complete, we’re good.” Others value methodology: “It matters how you do it—process is everything.”
Neither is wrong, but confusion happens when you start judging someone else’s work through your lens of what matters most. You may think they’re slacking, cutting corners, or doing it wrong—when in reality, they’re getting the same result, just with a different rhythm or approach.
How to Kill the Grass is Greener Complex1. Stop Comparing Across Lanes: Just because you don’t understand someone’s work doesn’t mean they’re not working. Respect different roles, even when they look easy from your perspective. 2. Understand What Wins Look Like: Is your team focused on results, methodology, or both? Define it clearly so people aren’t guessing or judging. 3. Trust Each Other’s Purpose: You weren’t hired to do their job—you were hired to do yours. Trust that each role brings value, even if the output looks different.
The truth is, the grass may look greener over there… but it’s probably just a different kind of grass. Different sunlight. Different soil. Different season.
Don’t waste your time looking over the fence. Water your grass. Do your job well. Celebrate others for doing their job. And that’s how you kill the comparison trap before it kills your team.
Stay tuned for Part 3.
If you want to learn more from Dennis Choy, check out his breakout from FILO 2024 – “FILO 2024 Breakout: How to Recruit Volunteers and Keep Them for Life.”
We spend so much time talking about how to build great teams—casting vision, creating culture, setting clear expectations. I’ve taught on these things for years, and they absolutely matter. But what we often don’t talk about is the stuff that breaks teams. Not the big, obvious issues… but the small, subtle habits that quietly erode culture and morale.
I call these team killers, and I’ve paid a lot of “dumb tax” learning them the hard way.
This is the first in a three-part series, and today’s team killer is something I’ve seen happen in almost every growing organization. Gaps.
What Are Gaps?Gaps show up when a task or responsibility doesn’t clearly belong to anyone. It’s not in a job description. It’s not assigned to a person. It just… exists. And in growing churches or departments, gaps naturally multiply. More people, more complexity, more stuff that needs doing—but no clear owner.
That’s when your gap-filling team members show up. These are the people who just get stuff done. They see a need, and they jump in. No complaining, no spotlight. Just ownership and servant-heartedness.
Sounds great, right? It is—until it isn’t.
A Real-Life Example: The Trash CanAt one church I served at, we had a trash can in a shared office area. One of those common spaces everyone uses but no one owns. Every time I walked by it, it was overflowing with coffee cups, paper, and food wrappers.
So one week, I decided to run an experiment: I did nothing. Just watched.
Day after day, the trash piled up.
Eventually, one of our team members quietly took it out. Problem solved, right?
Over the next few months, I noticed the trash was magically emptied on a regular basis. I assumed the team had worked out a rotation, or maybe facilities picked it up. Turns out, it was that same team member. Every. Single. Time.
And it wasn’t just the trash. They were also restocking the printer, cleaning the counter, and organizing supplies—none of it was technically their job. They just couldn’t stand the gap, so they filled it.
Until one day… they quit. Burned out. Unseen. Frustrated. And the worst part? No one else even realized what they had been carrying.
Why Gaps Kill TeamsGap fillers are gold. But if we let them carry unspoken responsibilities alone—without acknowledgement, support, or shared ownership—they will eventually burn out.
Gaps kill teams because they:
- Create hidden workloads that no one tracks
- Reward silence instead of communication
- Cause resentment when one person always “picks up the slack”
- Lead to burnout when good intentions go unrecognized
Most of the time, we don’t even realize it’s happening.
How to Mind the GapsSo, what can we do as leaders?
- Identify the Gaps: Ask your team: “What are you doing that’s not technically your job but you do anyway because no one else is?” Those answers will open your eyes.
- Thank the Fillers: Don’t wait until they quit. If someone’s been silently carrying something, acknowledge it. Publicly, privately—whatever it takes. Let them know you see them.
- Assign the Task: If it matters, make it official. Assign a name to it. Or create a schedule. Gaps need owners—otherwise, they’ll always fall to the same faithful few.
Building healthy teams isn’t just about what we start doing—it’s also about what we stop allowing. Gaps might seem harmless, but they wear people down.
Mind the gaps. Name the gaps. Share the gaps. And don’t let a trash can be the thing that costs you a great team member.
Stay tuned for Part 2.
If you want to learn more from Dennis Choy, check out his class from FILO 2025 – “FILO 2025 Lunch & Learn: How to Work with Different Personalities and Still Be Friends.”
Todd sits down with the team from Reach Communications, an event, rental, equipment sales and installation company that helped with technology support to make the FILO Conference happen this year. Dan, Steve and Josh share their production journey stories and how that has translated into who Reach is today. They also have a vulnerable conversation about the struggle between being excellent and being perfect.
Show Notes:
FILO 2025 Digital Resources: The FILO 2025 Resource Library is OPEN! Head to filo.org/filo-resources and add the one big bundle of FILO 2025 goodness to your cart. Who doesn’t love a good bundle? Or, take some time to review each Breakout class title and presenter, Lunch & Learn event and Intensive before deciding on a few individual resources to add to your digital library.
Reach Communications: They help their customers effectively REACH their audience through technical excellence. Learn more at reachcomm.net.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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You were afraid to say it. To say what you said and pitch what you did, it raised eyebrows. It made everyone around you wonder what you were thinking. It may not have been scandalous; it may have just been dull. Either way, it was an idea that didn’t land.
If that is the stage you are in, consider yourself lucky. In that version of not liking an idea, you still have a chance to resist the urge to bring it to production.
Sometimes “us creative types” are too stubborn to hear the naysayers in the idea phase. Sometimes we ignore the signs, take a bad idea to the final stages of production, and we end up with a product that has everyone shaking their heads.
This is going to happen. If you are a creative, you are going to pitch an idea that flops. So this discussion is not designed to try to prevent that from occurring, but rather, to discover what we can learn from those moments to press on, and push through the experience to create great moments. Moments that push us to move further while still being supported by our team, our peers, or our direct reports.
In a collaborative environment, there will be a natural divergence of ideas. There will be those who are drawn to the risks of the art, and those who are comforted by the familiar choices of proven success. It is a generalization, but for the sake of discussion, it could be said that a creative wants to take more “risks,” and a pastor wants to play it more “safe.” Usually, the team gathered is a reflection of the tastes and desires of the direct report, and the propensity to risk or play it safe will follow that pendulum.
A rejection of an idea may be as simple as that idea not hitting the mark when it comes to the personal taste of the listener. As the “idea bringer” it will be important for you to determine at that moment how important this idea, or this way of thinking, is to you. Is this an idea bursting with principle, or a throwaway? How hard and long should I fight for an idea that is tanking?
HOLD ON LOOSELYIn my experience, letting go is the most effective way to deal with the negative reaction coming from an idea that doesn’t land. As trivial or cliche as it sounds, it really is true – if you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it is yours. A great idea cannot permanently be stifled by a naysayer. If it was meant to come back into the conversation, it will. Let it go, wait, have patience. If you end up forgetting about it as you have moved on, then that will also be telling.
TRY WHAT WORKS WITH A SLIVER OF NEWOftentimes, those of us who prefer to “risk” get bored. Often, our bad ideas come from not wanting to repeat ourselves, and so in the name of risk, we try to launch with half-baked notions that have a ton of holes that could be easily filled with “what we usually do.” Don’t be afraid of repeating yourself – and if that sounds like heresy to a creative artist, think of it this way: do what works, and add only a “sliver” of new. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel at every brainstorm meeting – you know your taste, you know your team – do what works, and enhance it with the new idea rather than insisting that the entire thing be rebuilt from the ground up.
INCREASE YOUR OUTPUTHand in hand with letting go is a natural need to increase your output of ideas. The bottom line is that you won’t know a great idea until it’s had a truckload of average ideas upon which to compare. If you are not generating enough idea output, it makes the loss or the negative reaction to any one idea seem way more important and devastating than it needs to be. Churn out the ideas, get them in an idea bank, and draw from it often. Write down things you have seen in pop culture that inspire you; often, those things become a great playground for increasing your idea output.
Can this idea survive a change of style to meet in a middle ground with your collaborators? If so, great!
“WHAT IF” INSTEAD OF “WE SHOULD”When faced with idea push-back, it is very important in a collaborative environment to ask the right questions. Many times, the way we pitch ideas reveals our level of trust in the team. If we begin our pitch with “what if” rather than “we should”, we are placing our idea in the listener’s hands – this is a vulnerable place to be, and one that shows trust. It is important that we brainstorm with fewer commands and more questions. Teaching our teams to think about our ideas in terms of “what if” will also lead to more exchange and collaboration between ideas, especially ideas that might otherwise seem to be competing for the same space.
Assuming the best of our team in the brainstorm space will bring the best ideas to the forefront. When bad ideas happen, which they will, there is a path for releasing them and setting your team up for success. Leading by example will help your entire team learn how to hold onto their own ideas loosely and gain trust that impacts the final product in profound ways.
If you want to learn more from Eric Bramlett, check out his breakout from FILO 2025 – “Humor: The Church’s Secret Weapon.”
Bryan Bailey from Prestonwood Baptist in Dallas joins Todd on the Podcast to talk about the importance of not just doing whatever seems good for production, but also the need to be strategic with how technology aligns with fulfilling the mission of our churches.
Show Notes:
FILO 2025 Digital Resources: Stick close to your email and social media feeds to be notified when the Resources are released this week! Be sure to grab the download of Bryan Bailey’s Breakout on Camera Robotics!
FILO Cohorts: If you enjoyed today’s episode topic about production culture, a great next step would be to join a FILO Cohort to continue the conversation with others just like you! Learn more and see the available Cohorts for the fall at filo.org/cohorts.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Delwin Eiland and Nate Parker, the Worship Leader and Technical Producer for FILO 2025, sit down with Todd to talk about some behind the scenes stuff from the Main Sessions of the FILO Conference, as well as the importance of trust between the platform and production teams.
Show Notes:
FILO Book – Learn more about I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas on our website: filo.org/book. Be sure to specifically check out the chapter titled “Tenacity in Relationships” for more on today’s topic!
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
We rarely ever get to hand-pick our volunteers, right? So often in church production ministry, we are meeting people where they are at just like the other ministries of an organization. Some come in hurting, needing community, or just a place to belong and be cared for.
Sorry, I am getting ahead of myself, let me first give you context to me. I began my staff journey as one of our church’s lighting associates where I focused on our lighting volunteer teams at each of our satellite locations. Many, many years ago, our church dubbed our volunteers the “Dream Team”. These guys and gals that so selflessly serve our communities are incredible. All walks of life; young, old, new to faith, long time believers, tech-savvy, just trying to find a team to call their own. That is the beauty of what the local church gets to be: the hands and feet, the family of believers wanting to spread the Good News of the Gospel. But, how do we steward, pastor, and care for volunteers regardless of if we recruited them, inherited them, or if they just stumbled into the booth on a Sunday after service and wanted to get plugged in? I think there are three key things to remember when we are trying to steward volunteers,
First, volunteers need to be pastored. Although we have soundchecks to get to, rehearsals to prep for, and services to run, we cannot lose sight of the fact that first and foremost these volunteers on our team need to be pastored. We can’t forget to check up on, be there for, and support those on our teams from a spiritual level. Pray for them by name, as often as you can. Check up on them and know what they have going on in their lives. Regular phone touch points, texts, meaningful connect points especially when they are going through specific big life moments! Ask how their spouse is doing. How about the child that is nervous to start a new grade in school? We must be present as pastors first, and tech leaders second to these volunteers.
Second, I believe we cannot write someone off just because you might have “inherited” them from someone else’s past leadership decision. It doesn’t always work out that we personally get to recruit every single one of our volunteers to the teams we are tasked with leading, but that doesn’t matter! We are still called to guide, equip, and train every single person we are gifted with. This also applies to volunteers who may be struggling with finding a spot they are comfortable in, or those struggling with a task. Do you have a lyrics slide operator not seeming to get the timing right? We shouldn’t automatically write these people down as unable to perform the task, let’s come alongside them and find a solution with training or perhaps an encouragement to have them try a new role on the team!
And third, just because a team or group of volunteers is thriving, doesn’t mean it is time to set the cruise control and coast! Stay as proactive as possible in each other’s lives by building out times to come together as a team. Build community, foster relationships from team member to team member. You never know what divine connections were meant to be formed within your team, and perhaps that connection is waiting to be made by you! Coordinate team nights, opportunities to cross train in other areas, and perhaps let those already proficient in an area help train new people learning those skills!
We are called to be good stewards of our resources, and “people above process” is the only way to have a healthy, thriving team. We have to make sure that we are maintaining physical, emotional, and spiritual health, and guiding our teams and volunteers to do the same, regardless of if they are “acquired” or “recruited”!
If you want to learn more about how to care for your volunteers, check out the FILO Breakout “Building Strong and Sustainable Teams: Prioritizing Culture and Wellness for Optimal Performance”.
Todd sits down with Nate Aguilar, the brains behind all the technology used to pull off the FILO Conference. They talk about streaming, using Willow Creek infrastructure and setting up the volunteers up to succeed as we streamed 8 Breakouts simultaneously.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Highlight VideoFILO 2026: Live Stream and In-Person tickets are available for the lowest rate through May 27, 2025. Learn more at filo.org/filo2026. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.Want to know more about the behind the scenes of the Conference? Send us your questions! We would love to answer them! Email the team at hello@filo.org.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Imagine this: you are having a conversation with your friend about something important. Just as that friend starts to talk, another friend walks up and also starts talking to you. Then, your phone rings. Amidst these three people needing your attention, you are also late for a meeting. This type of stressful situation is similar to what it can feel like while serving as a monitor engineer for a Sunday service. You are essentially the Air Traffic Controller, assisting and translating the needs of the people on stage. You are receiving a barrage of mix change requests from the band and vocalists and turning them into technical solutions. How you respond and what actions you take in those moments can play a part in how the people on stage are able to lead worship. From personal mixers, like Avioms, to full on mixing desks, there is a technical barrier to creating a mix. Personal mixers are an awesome tool where you are commonly presented with 16 channels with volume, pan, and a general mix EQ. It makes it incredibly easy for the musician to make their own mix because the tools are so few. Let us equate this to a spoken language. Personal mixers are like the skills from your 101 foreign language class. You learn a few basic sentences in the other language that help you get by. Comparatively, serving as a monitor engineer is similar to learning a second language fluently. All of the audio tools and jargon that I have at my disposal has taken years to learn. Imagine a worship leader says, “I can’t hear my voice.” The extent in which they are able to translate a response into their personal mixer by themselves is to just turn up the knob that controls the level of their voice. This may satisfy the problem, or maybe not.Now imagine a monitor engineer listening to that same worship leader’s mix as they say “I can’t hear my voice”. The engineer immediately notices that their voice is a little too dark, the piano and guitars are a little too loud, and there is a compressor squashing the vocal. Of course, the monitor engineer can turn the vocal up the same way the worship leader did on their personal mixer, but more effectively they can address surrounding issues that the worship leader was not able to change on his own with the personal monitor system. Translation is key. The monitor engineer should strive to be the best translator he or she can be. It is important to determine WHAT the people leading are asking for. Learn to take the words, phrases, and adjectives that worship leaders use and translate them into a more educated and practical adjustments from the audio perspective. If you are interested in learning more about the language of monitors, check out Josh's FILO 2024 breakout "Mixing Monitors".
I’ve always been a doer, a self-proclaimed productivity ninja. I was thriving on the rush of completing tasks, but as I dove deeper into my role as a Production Director I realized that my obsession with productivity was hindering the team's growth.I started as many of us do: a passionate sound engineer, eager to tweak every EQ and compressor. As my leadership and influence grew, my focus shifted from the console to the big picture. However, it wasn’t an easy transition. I clung to the hands-on work, reluctant to relinquish control. I wanted to be involved in every aspect of the production, from the initial planning to the final execution. This micromanagement style, while well-intentioned, stifled the team's potential.I failed to recognize that my role as a leader was not to do everything, but to empower others to do their best. I was so focused on the tasks at hand that I neglected to cast a vision for the future. As a result, we were reactive rather than proactive, constantly playing catch-up.A true leader doesn't just manage tasks; they inspire and motivate. They create a culture where team members feel valued and empowered. They provide opportunities for growth and development, and they celebrate successes, no matter how small.To become an effective leader, I had to learn to let go. I had to trust my team to do their jobs. I had to stop micromanaging and start delegating. It wasn't easy, but it was necessary.Ultimately, our goal as technical leaders is to serve the church. We are called to use our gifts and talents to help others connect with God. By empowering our teams and creating a culture of excellence, we can make a significant impact on the lives of those around us.To learn more about how to create a positive team culture, check out the Leadership track in our Digital Resource Center!
Brian Taylor joins Todd to talk about how to show up fully in our roles as technical artists, and how our perspective can help completely change our environments.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Conference: Today’s guest will be joining us at the Conference that kicks off next week, on May 6th! And it's not too list to join us In-Person or on the Live Stream. Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
I’m no stranger to the need for a cultural reset for production teams. When I was placed at our main campus in 2019, I inherited a team that had no clear bullseye, struggled with pride, and who were like sheep without a shepherd. I was a 20-year-old female who was placed in the middle of this already established team and labeled as the new person “in charge.” Not only that, but I was learning the video world on the spot. It was the perfect storm, yet the perfect challenge to take a team and direct them to excellence. We sat down as leadership and asked ourselves a few questions:Do our people feel seen, loved and cared for? If not, what can we do to ensure they are valued?Do our volunteers know our church’s mission?Do our volunteers know how our church's mission applies to their role in production?Do we have a clear, unified vision/bullseye in place that our volunteers know to aim for? Or are we operating on our own personal visions?There were a few different routes we needed to journey down to completely transform the team. One of the most important aspects of this was establishing trust with our volunteers. We realized that if we were trying to push a vision without relationship, we’d sound like dripping water. Taking interest in the lives of our volunteers opened up a variety of conversations and opportunities for deeper ministry and relationship. The next step was taking our church’s mission and documenting how this applies to our ministry of production. We defined what we wanted a service to look and feel like, and set very tangible ways to achieve this. This then became our bullseye. Once we had all of this defined, we kicked out a short video to the team that became the foundation of our church’s production department. Once we had our mission established, it put the responsibility on the shoulders of our volunteer team to carry the mission out, keeping each other accountable. We saw a shift in the way our team interacted after this. Our team became closer. Once we began seeking out more relationship, they did the same with each other. Pride no longer had a place to survive when the foundation of our team became the church’s mission. It became more of a team of “we” than a team of “me.” The shift did not happen overnight. Building trust took consistency and openhandedness. We worked through conflict and lost a few volunteers in the process. However, after we made the cultural shift, we began attracting people who wanted to be a part of the greater mission. We became a team of safety, trust, excellence, and community. What about your specific team? Do you know your church’s mission and how it applies to your role in production? What changes can you make as a teammate to make your team more about the “we” and less about the “me”?If you are interested in hearing more from Willow Hodge about how to create a healthy team culture, check out the FILO Podcast Episode 122 "The Importance of Having a Vision". Click here to listen!
Todd talks with Brian Grahn from Clear-Com. They talk about how a good intercom system can help free us up to do what we do best instead of worrying about how to communicate. Brian also talks about the new technology that Clear-Com offers to help integrate into a system you might already have.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Conference: Our next registration price jump is coming up quickly on April 9! Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.Partner Page: Learn more about our FILO 2025 Partners at filo.org/partners. Visit the website and enter for a chance to win 20% off your ticket to FILO 2025!Clear-Com: Our guest on today's episode is from our partner, Clear-Com! They create exceptional communication tools that are vital for a successful production, broadcast, or project. From headsets to cabling, their product lines include everything you need to get on the air.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
I was working at a church and tasked with a pretty simple project - create a sermon bumper to set up our upcoming series. When I turned in the film project, I was proud of it--really proud. I had worked hard. A few hours later, after the critiques came in, I wasn't proud anymore. They hated it. One of the problems with flaws is that we often don't see them until they're pointed out to us, and afterward, that's all we can see. In the creative world, you need thick skin to accept critiques of your work so that you can get better, grow, and learn from different perspectives. But that initial feedback stuck with me. It played in my mind on repeat. On a good day, I might have viewed the feedback on my film project as constructive criticism because that's what it was, but I didn't take it that way. I let it define me.That night, I trudged upstairs to my home office, while my wife and three kids laughed and played in the living room. Dropping into my chair, I stared at my shelves filled with career memorabilia special to me, but not worth much to anyone else. It used to inspire me to see my old cameras there, and VHS tapes of my grandpa's silly infomercials, like "Mo Hair"-a product to help people grow hair. So goofy yet amazing. My Grandpa Erickson was the reason I discovered my love for filmmaking. But that night, my attention caught on the award I'd received in college from my peers: "Most Likely to Work on an Academy Award Winning Film." It seemed to be making fun of me now, like I was kidding myself. I worked with really talented filmmakers. If I couldn't hit that same level, and that was my main role, what was my worth? If I wasn't a good filmmaker, who was I? I started to believe that if I didn't measure up to those around me, then I certainly wasn't worthy of serving God. I wondered if I should leave my job at the church.I felt like an imposter. “They're going to figure out I'm not really any good at this.” I spent more time worrying about people watching my work than I did creating it. I was sabotaging myself. I worked longer hours and spent less time with my family. I began to lose the joy in the things I normally loved to do. My spiral continued. “If I'm terrible as a filmmaker, maybe I'm a terrible father, too. My friends probably don't want to be around me. Do I even really have friends?”It's a risk to open up to someone, to talk about what you fear most, but I was spiraling toward an emotional breaking point. I knew the enemy wanted me to hide what was eating me up inside, but I also knew God wanted me to bring it into the light so he could help me through it. I met with a Pastor for counseling, and something he said really stuck with me:"Comparison is the root of all inferiority."He helped me realize that there will always be someone better in this race. But if I compared myself to who Christ says I was, I would realize my worth. Isn't it interesting that the answer to comparison is to focus on someone who is perfect? I also talked with my team leads about how I was struggling…which was hard. But I'm blessed to work with good people who care and want me to succeed. They were voices of reason, helping me see that I'd been putting words in their mouths, making assumptions that weren't true.I had to ask myself some hard questions. “Who was I doing this for? For myself or for God? How was I defining my worth?”A verse from Galatians helped me put things in perspective.“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Galatians 1:10When we allow the world to define us, we lose sight of who God says we are. We need to remember who we're doing everything for in the first place and be honest with ourselves.I'm becoming a better filmmaker because I know who I am now, and most importantly, whose I am. I am a child of God who has a purpose. It took the encouragement of those around me to remember why I d...
Megan Fate Marshman joins the FILO Podcast in anticipation of speaking at the FILO 2025 Conference. They talk about her new book "Relaxed" and how church technical artists can learn from Jesus' example.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Conference: Today’s guest will be joining us as a Main Session Speaker at the upcoming Conference. And our next price jump is coming up quickly on April 9! Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.Megan's Book:"Relaxed" Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Todd talks with Brad Bramer, the Executive Producer at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY. They talk about the importance of communicating between teams, transitioning from doing to leading and not running while on intercom.Show Notes:FILO Coaching: FILO Coaching is based on decades of church production experience and provides the specific help you need through one-on-one leadership coaching. Take the next step in your personal development, your leadership development, and your team’s development to make the leap from just doing production to becoming a leader others want to follow. Set up an inquiry call to learn more at filo.org/one-on-one-leadership-coaching/.FILO 2025 Conference: Experience community with other technical artists from around the world to learn new skills and to be reminded that what you do matters. Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”. Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Have you ever tried juggling chainsaws while riding a unicycle? That's kind of how it feels to be a technical director at a church, right? We are expected to be experts in everything from sound and lighting to video production and IT. It's as if we are expected to be superheroes, capable of handling any technical challenge that comes our way.But let's face it, we are not wired to be superheroes. We are regular people trying to do our best with the talents God has given us. I’ve never met anyone actually capable of filling a Superman-sized position with excellence. Something will suffer because there aren’t enough hours in a day, weeks in a year, or years in a lifetime to become an expert in all things. Trying to be a superhero can lead to burnout and being less than effective. So, how can we avoid burnout and still be effective in our roles? Here are a few tips:Know Your Limits: Be honest with yourself about what you can and can't do. Communicate with Your Leadership: Talk to your leadership about your workload. Be open and honest when explaining the challenges. Let them know if you need additional resources or support.Prioritize Tasks: Focus on the most important tasks and delegate the less important ones to volunteers or other team members.Learn to Say No: It's okay to dialogue with your supervisor if you need to decline additional responsibilities if you are overwhelmed. Seek Help: Don't be afraid to ask for help from other technical directors. There are multiple online resources and communities where you can get advice and support.So, the next time you're feeling overwhelmed, take a deep breath and remember that you're not alone. Here at FILO we want to connect you with other production leaders and empower you to be the healthiest version of yourself. If you are interested in learning more, check out our Cohort page.
To hear Richard Hammond of the BBC’s Top Gear fame utter a sincere, “sorry” in his gentle English accent after he has caused mayhem with a motor vehicle is to understand the complex nature of mistakes. In our fast-paced, highly accurate tech world, mistakes can and do happen, and “sorry” is often used to lessen the damage. However, as a leader, trying to decipher whether mistakes are due to lack of training or lack of attention is another matter indeed, since none of us possess the insight of Richard Hammond’s cohost, the masterly James May. Church tech is unlike corporate, entertainment, or educational tech for it must balance the need to accomplish the goal in a precise, professional manner while relying on the variability of volunteers, not paid industry veterans as the other verticals employ. The first step, then, toward creating a healthy and balanced church tech work environment is the setting of clear expectations to establish a baseline and the second step is using our discernment to ascertain whether the responsibility and more importantly, the solution, lies within us or the volunteer. Expectation lies at the intersection of intent and understanding, for it must move beyond implication into clarity and from assumption into the realm of the concrete. A list of written expectations is the only path to success as it nullifies the fleeting nature of verbal communication in favor of a permanent record. The list should flatly state the nature of the role, its time frame, performance minimums, focus requirements, and duration, but it should also be tempered with a list of the resources and investments the team will make to on-board a new volunteer. At the head of this list is a commitment by the Tech Director (TD) to prayerful encouragement, investment in the volunteer through personal connection, small group participation, and comprehensive training encompassed within a spirit of inclusion of the whole person, not just their tech function.New tech training, unfortunately, often degrades into a quick run-through of the task on a hurried Sunday morning, followed by a link to a YouTube video and a one-time shadow of the person currently in the position who is moving out of state the next day. Such a scenario serves no one and must be set aside in favor of a consecutive series of actions designed to bring the new volunteer into the role at a pace slow enough to allow absorption but fast enough to function within the realities of church-world timelines. Most training should start with the concept of the role, then roll into a basic theory of the task’s ultimate goal and followed then by hands-on application in low-consequence environments such as a mid-week rehearsal and a local conference before two Sundays of shadowing, first in the watch position and then in the action position.Once the expectations are communicated and confirmed and the volunteer has been brought up to speed, the function will be met, the leadership satisfied, and the volunteer emboldened to accelerate their learning. However, when the inevitable first mistake happens, the key is to address it directly, but gently, and to do so after the event has ended. It serves nothing to highlight the mistake as it happens since any functional volunteer is utterly aware of it and already feeling the angst and shame it brings. Better to let it lie and interview, not interrogate, in the calm of the after-service. Let the volunteer walk through the mistake, how it came to be, and what was done to correct it before casting judgment or corrective action. Let them own it, then alleviate their burden with encouragement, reassurance, and shining the light of knowledge on a path toward improvement. Win their heart to fix their action.However, if the volunteer later repeats the mistake or commits a series of errors not aligned with the complexity of the task then lack of care, focus or attention becomes a valid cause agent. After confirming the training is up to par,
Todd talks with Jackie Glass, Executive Wellness Coach and good friend of the FILO Team. They talk about the importance of each of us being centered around peace and how that effects everything we do and each person we come into contact with.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Conference: Experience community with other technical artists from around the world to learn new skills and to be reminded that what you do matters. Our next price jump is coming up on February 12! Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”. Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
In the life of a full-time ministry team leader, there are inevitable moments when God makes it clear that He is calling you to to move on to a new place of ministry. For anyone experiencing that proverbial illusion that the grass is greener on the other church staff, please take it from those who have been around - it isn’t. Staff cultures at churches vary dramatically, and you almost never know for sure what you are joining. That doesn’t mean you will always be walking into a nightmare when you join another team, but you can count on the fact that there will be aspects of the culture you would like to change. Speaking specifically of the team you have been hired to lead, you are inheriting a culture that might have years of developed habits and hurts that need to be addressed. So, how do we jump into a new team with a minefield of unknowns and come out the other side successful? Let’s look at a systematic approach that I believe can be implemented at any church and with any team - be it paid staff or volunteers. Feel free to adapt this to work in your specific situation.First, do your research. I don’t mean background checks and private investigators, although, there have been times when that would have saved me a lot of trouble. By research I mean be curious and ask a lot of questions. You’re going to find a lot of processes and procedures that don’t make any sense to you. Some have a good reason for existing, some have bad reasons for existing, and some happen for reasons nobody can remember. Don’t assume you know the difference. No matter how experienced you may be, it is always best to come into a new situation believing that you don’t know everything (because, well, you don’t). While doing your research, make sure to take detailed notes. Keep a Moleskin on you at all times, or create a note in one of your 350 apps on your phone. Always be ready to jot down something that piques your interest. Find time to sit down with team members individually over coffee or a meal and let them tell you their stories. It’s amazing how many people have never truly been heard. If you pay attention (and pray for discernment), you’ll find out all kinds of information about that person, even if they don’t reveal it themselves. Next, move into an evaluation phase. I always have to be careful here because I tend to believe I have things figured out pretty quickly. Be patient in this phase, and continue to ask more questions. One of my favorite things to do at this point is to gather the team (staff, volunteers, or sometimes both) and let them talk. Get a whiteboard out and ask them what things are going well and what we want to continue doing. Write down everything they say, and don’t interrupt unless it’s to ask another question for clarity. Sometimes the hard part is writing down items you don’t see as a positive, but they do for some reason. Don’t worry about that right now Then, ask them to list things that aren’t going so great or that we want to change. You might be surprised how long this list gets and how many items contradict what was on the other list! Here’s what I love about this exercise. One, I get to learn firsthand what they think about their situation. Two, I get to see potential leaders in the group - they are often the ones who speak up the most or have something substantial to say when they do speak. Three, I don’t have to say a word. I just write it all down. At this point in the evaluation phase, it’s time to start moving into action, but not too fast! Take some time to triage the situation. Look through your notes and start to organize your thoughts into at least three categories. Immediate Action Items - These are issues that cannot be allowed to continue. Immoral activity, poisonous attitudes, complete ineptitude, or anything else that puts the team at immediate risk of failure or internal damage. Priority Attention - This could include procedures that need immediate overhauling,
Todd is joined by Toby Walters from ChurchGear. They talk about trends in the local church, the need for community within the technical artist community and why Toby wears red shoes.Show Notes:FILO Cohorts: So often as a technical artist, it can be easy to forget to look after yourself. FILO is here to provide spaces where you can feel seen, known, and valued. FILO Cohorts are a place where you can receive practical coaching and best practice sharing. Learn more at filo.org/cohorts.FILO 2025 Conference: Experience community with other technical artists from around the world to learn new skills and to be reminded that what you do matters. Our next price jump is coming up quickly! Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”. ChurchGear: They believe in rescuing used production gear from churches, restoring and repurposing it to smaller churches, universities, integrators and individuals. Learn more at churchgear.com.Volunteer at FILO 2025 Conference: The FILO 2025 Conference will welcome over 2,500 people In-Person and on the Live Stream. The only way an event of this size is made possible, is by a large group of people serving as the FILO crew! With FILO continuing to grow, we need your help to equip and encourage thousands of church technical artists around the world. Will you join us? If you’re interested in serving to help make the FILO Conference a reality, check out the opportunities on our website and fill out the form to investigate a particular role deeper.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Imagine trying to motivate your best employees while knowing you can’t offer them a raise. Traditionally, church tech employees aren’t hitting the salary ranges of their non-church peers. The tension is real, and the challenge is common, but there’s good news: you can inspire and motivate your team beyond their paycheck, which could mean the difference between them staying or leaving.Over the last four years, I’ve reduced and restructured my staff team twice, only giving pay increases once. Yet today, we have the strongest team culture we’ve ever had. People are leaning in, excited for the future and ready to play their part.Why? Because money isn’t the only motivator.Your job as a leader is to understand what motivates your team, encourage them, and provide development opportunities that are valuable to them.But first, before you jump to motivating your staff, you must know them. Giving one person added responsibilities may make them feel valued, while it might make another feel taken advantage of. Steve Stroope developed a list of 12 items that could encourage a team member. He asks people to rank them by importance so he knows how to motivate that person uniquely. They are:Private affirmationPublic affirmationOpportunity to give inputMoneyAccess to supervisorIncreased responsibilityEmpowermentMore tools and resourcesIncreased training and knowledgePerks and bonusesFlexible work hours and locationsSignificance (connecting their personal why and the company’s why in the role they occupy) Asking your team to identify what’s most important to them will equip you to serve them! I also like to ask:What’s your dream job? / What aspects of that could we integrate now?What’s something you love about working here?What’s something that would make you leave your role?How can I make this the best working environment for you? Those questions may feel scary—you risk someone leaving—but we’ll all go at some point, so you might as well learn what could keep them!Once you know your team, lean into what matters most to them. Here are four strategies I’ve found that have fueled my team members:Maximize your current benefits. Most organizations offer benefits, but few staff max them out. On average, a company pays anywhere from 20–40% of the staff member’s salary in added benefits. Does your team know it? Make sure you highlight their existing benefits and encourage them to use them. This could include:Retirement matchingGym memberships or discountsPTO/Development timeTuition reimbursementMental health reimbursement It’s easy to focus on what you don’t have (a bigger paycheck), but make sure people know and utilize what they do have.Develop them.Skills and leadership development are some of the most valuable things you can offer your staff. Maybe you’re a sound engineer, and your lighting director wants to become more well-rounded in other areas. Spend time weekly training them in what you do! Having frequent and intentional conversations about your team members’ development will not only show that you care but also build up their skills and confidence wherever they go next. Development, coaching, and mentoring are often overlooked—so lean in and raise your team up!Be flexible.The pandemic threw us into the work-from-home life, and the rush back to five days in the office wasn’t met with open arms (for most). In my experience, when my staff are productive, performing, and communicative, I can be more flexible on when and where they work. Many people are juggling a lot outside of work, so allowing them to work from home when they have a parent-teacher conference or leave early when they have a doctor’s appointment shows them that you trust them. Our team developed a few rules of engagement to make this work. For example, I’m a morning person, so I come in at 7:30. My graphic designer…less so. We have core working hours from 9 to 3 and allow people to flex around that based on what works best for them! Cast vision.Last but not least,
Todd sits down with Todd Henry, author of several books with the goal of helping people be Brave, Focused and Brilliant. They talk about a wide range of topics including building culture around you and not just waiting for someone else to create it; transitioning from doing to leading; and showing up with curiosity and humility.Show Notes:FILO 2025 Conference: Today's guest will be joining us at the upcoming Conference. And our next price jump is coming up quickly! Learn more and grab your tickets at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”. Todd Henry's Books: "The Accidental Creative""Die Empty""Herding Tigers""The Brave Habit""Daily Creative""Louder Than Words"Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
The meaning behind the hymn “It Is Well” stood out to me and convicted my heart when I heard Pastor Darren Whitehead preach a sermon about it at Willow Creek in the early 2000’s.The hymn was written by Horatio Gates Spafford in the 1800’s after having gone through a series of horrifying personal trials. After losing all of his wealth in the Great Chicago Fire, he then lost his 4 daughters in a tragic accident when the boat they were sailing on across the Atlantic Ocean collided with another. His wife’s life was spared and he traveled immediately, by boat, to go and see her. As he was passing over the very location where his daughters had died, he wrote the words to this famous hymn:When peace like a river, attendeth my wayWhen sorrows like sea billows rollWhatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to knowIt is well, it is well, with my soulThough Satan should buffet, though trials should comeLet this blest assurance controlThat Christ hath regarded my helpless estateAnd hath shed His own blood for my soulWhen I learned about the significant story behind these words, I was so moved. Can you imagine what Horatio must have been feeling at that moment? It must have felt like most everything he cared for was gone. His sorrows were as great as the gigantic waves in the sea. But yet, he still wanted to proclaim that the Lord has control and things can still be well in his soul. I still become emotional thinking about it!He goes on to write about what it will be like when the Lord comes back one day:And Lord haste the day when my faith shall be sightThe clouds be rolled back as a scrollThe trumpet shall sound and the Lord shall descendEven so, it is well with my soulIt is wellWith my soulOh it is well, it is well with my soulWhat I love about the story arc of this hymn is that it acknowledges the reality of his pain and loss. It honors the Lord’s place in his life. It centers himself on the truth of the Lord’s coming. I long to live with constant perspective like that. So, I’ve hung the words on the walls in my home. I have it tattooed on my arm. I sing it in church as loud as I can. I process it and declare it as the truth amidst the trials I face.Like me, you might not have lost all of your finances or lost all of your children in a tragic accident, but you have certainly faced trials of all sizes. Loss of a job, disagreements with a coworker or boss, equipment failure during a service, broken relationships, unexpected loss, disappointing news, shocking medical results and more.Each one of those trials matters, regardless of the perceived size. And I believe that all the Lord wants us to do in those moments is follow the same process Horatio did: Acknowledge the reality and claim the Lord’s truth in your life.I love chapter 18 in Todd’s book, “I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas”. It’s titled, “Wait Five Minutes, Then Freak Out”. My personal mojo is typically, “Experience a trial and freak out immediately”. That’s not very helpful, is it?Todd’s book is speaking directly to our posture as leaders or members of a team and how we operate within trials that appear. But for me, the application still works in my own personal life. Growth for me looks like: experience a trial, take a beat or a breath, pray. That prayer will acknowledge the hard truth of the situation and then declare the Lord’s goodness and His steadiness in it.Lord, may it be so. “It is well with my soul.” Always.Read more about Todd's advice of "Wait Five Minutes Then Freak Out" in his book "I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas". It is available in paperback, audiobook, and Kindle format. Go to filo.org/book to learn more!
One of the things that stands out the most for me in Jesus’ three years of ministry is how relational He was. He always took time with whoever crossed His path, even the Pharisees and others were only trying to trap Him in His words. His priority was people and pointing them to His Father and the promise of salvation through Him. He was never in a hurry.So, in a position where the gear and the tasks and the details can sometimes be the thing we’re most focused on (mostly because Sunday comes every seven days), we must be reminded that our ministry is about the people in our care and on our teams. We are the shepherds of our teams. One of our Summer Skills Cohort guests talked about the fact that we may not have Pastor in our official title, but we are called to pastor our flock.I was reading a devotional about the Holy Spirit recently and His roles in our lives. One of these roles is as a uniter of God’s people. Acts 2 recounts Pentecost and verse 42 says, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” The Greek word used for “fellowship” here is koinonia. It appears for the first time in this passage and then 18 more times throughout the New Testament. J. Lee Grady talks about it this way: “Koinonia, which also can be translated as ‘partnership,’ is a supernatural grace that causes Christians to love one another deeply. It was not possible before Pentecost because it is a manifestation of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Just as the Spirit’s dunamis power enables us to heal the sick or work miracles, His koinonia knits our hearts and binds us together.”We have the most important thing in common with those we lead and labor with! The presence of the Holy Spirit binds us together regardless of which ministry we work in or what stage of life we’re in or what profession we work in.I think we can all agree that fellowship with our team is the most important part of our ministry, but I would also encourage you to be intentional about getting to know and spending time with the staff outside of your ministry. I am blessed to be laboring alongside an incredible staff at my church. We range in ages from 21 to 70. We come from all different backgrounds (professional theater, auto mechanics, accounting, insurance just to name a few) and operate in all different giftings. But we are all united in partnership with the Holy Spirit. And the relationships I have forged with staff outside of my ministry have informed so much of how I care for and support and shepherd my own team. Sometimes you just need someone with a different perspective to untangle difficult situations or to be reminded of what our priorities are or to pray over you and your team.The gear and the details are only one part of the story of our ministry and shouldn’t be our only focus. Be intentional about making time for others. That is how the Acts 2 church was built. Obviously, build in time to gather as a team over a meal or fun activity. But also invite your high school ministry director out for lunch. Have coffee with your kids ministry director. Share cupcakes with your office manager. All of these relationships matter, and God calls us and uses us to build each other up in the faith (1 Thessalonians 5:11). You never know how God will use one of your staff team to encourage you, or more importantly, how He might use YOU to encourage others.If you're interested in learning more about how to develop relationships on your team, check out the FILO podcast episode 99 "Leadership at the Speed of Relationship."
Nicole Lucas, Creative Arts Pastor at Christ Community Church in St. Charles, IL sits down with Aubrey Wentz to talk about the importance of self care and taking a Sabbath. God intended for us to last for the long haul and not burn ourselves out.Show Notes:FILO Cohorts: This episode is a recording from a 2024 Summer Skills Cohort. If you are intrigued to learn more about Cohorts or if you would like to sign up for one, head to filo.org/cohorts. Giving Tuesday: FILO Community NFP is a US-registered 501c3 nonprofit corporation. In order to continue providing the best resources to church technical artists around the world, we rely on the donations of people like you. Our goal is to raise $150,000 by the end of 2024 and we are celebrating the over $96,000 we have received so far. Would you prayerfully consider closing the gap with a monthly gift or one-time donation? Thank you for helping us in expanding our reach and ministering to technical artists worldwide! Reach out to the team at hello@filo.org or learn more and donate at filo.org/donate.Nicole's New Book: "Leadership Frameworks: Level Up Your Leadership Skills"Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Hey Technical Artist, what’s your favorite color? Mine is a toss up between Black and Charcoal. My wardrobe consists of many black t-shirts, hoodies and jackets that are great for staying in the shadows, and I bet yours does as well. If you are like most techs you are probably more comfy in the booth than in the pew, but when is invisibility a superpower and when is it our kryptonite? 1. The Value of Being Invisible First and foremost, a well-functioning tech team is ideally invisible. When we’re in a worship service, the technology should enhance the experience without drawing attention to itself. (Have you seen this viral reel on Insta that has stirred up a lot of conversation about this very topic?) Every church culture is definitely unique, when it comes to how they use technology. But I think that we can all agree: when everything runs smoothly—sound, visuals, and lyrics syncing perfectly—people can truly focus on the worship and the message. That’s what we’re after! I tell my tech team that their success is measured by how little people notice them. When technology is seamless, the congregation can connect on a deeper level with the worship. No one wants to be distracted by technical glitches. So, careful planning, preparation, and rehearsals are crucial. A well-prepared tech team is ready for anything that might come up, and that can lead to an incredible worship experience. 2. Recognizing the Team Behind the Scenes While invisibility in function is desirable, invisibility in recognition is not. It’s easy for those working behind the scenes to feel unappreciated. I’ve seen it happen—team members who do incredible work but don’t receive any acknowledgment can start feeling demotivated. That’s why it’s vital for us as leaders to express gratitude regularly. I’ve started implementing a culture of appreciation where we acknowledge our tech team’s contributions. Sometimes it’s a quick thank you after a service and sometimes it’s a fun recognition event. Either way, it makes a world of difference. I’ve even adopted a “Dundee”-style awards ceremony for our team members. This Thanquet was inspired by Michael Scott from The Office and includes a time where I give out little golden trophies to our team members to recognize “Mr. Dependable”, “Sir Mixalot” or our “MVPrayer”. Celebrating their unique contributions help them feel valued and fosters a healthy culture within the team. When the only recognition a tech team receives is for mishaps, it becomes pretty disheartening. Praise publicly and correct privately. 3. The Dangers of Over-AutomationImagine standing in the congregation during a worship service and every single AVL cue being executed flawlessly. Every transition, light intensity, reverb time and lyric was flawless. The service ends and you decide to make your way back to the Tech booth to offer some encouragement to the amazing tech team, but to your surprise…no one is there. Then suddenly a little guy appears from behind a black curtain holding a Wireless Stream Deck XL and you realize who’s really in control! Technology has come a long way, allowing us to automate many tasks through systems like MIDI cues and playback. However, we need to be cautious not to over-rely on automation. It can create a disconnect from the community aspect of worship and team building. Do you have a team of midi watchers or technical artists? Sometimes, I find that tech leaders might prefer to handle everything themselves because they worry that others won’t do it as well. But this mindset can be detrimental. Involving volunteers is so important (Ephesians 4:12)! It fosters community and enriches the worship experience. When we take the time to train and empower volunteers, we’re not just building a tech team; we’re creating opportunities for growth and collaboration. Conclusion: Finding the Balance with a New Perspective When was the last time you got out of the shadows of serving and sat in a worship service?
FILO's Aubrey Wentz talks with Shawn Williams and Jeff Boriss from Willow Creek Church about the challenges of production people and pastors working together. Learning to communicate and teach each other what it takes to make Sundays happen are key ingredients to having successful outcomes...and not hating each other. :)Show Notes:FILO Cohorts: This episode is a recording from a 2024 Summer Skills Cohort. If you are intrigued to learn more about Cohorts or if you would like to sign up for one, head to filo.org/cohorts. Jeff's FILO 2024 Breakout: Processes That Get You to Sunday Without Going CrazySubscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
In my work as a leadership coach, I often encounter church leaders who are frustrated with a lack of resources, progress, or vision–and sometimes all three at once. After twenty plus years of serving the local church, I've had plenty of those moments myself. The most difficult time was when things didn't turn out as I had envisioned them. I bet you share my passion for doing things right and doing things well. But how do you do that when it seems like your resources aren't keeping up with your vision?PerspectiveFirst, let's talk about our perspective. There's a striking story in 2 Kings 4. In verse 1, a widow comes to the prophet Elisha and says, "Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD, but the creditor has come to take my two children to be his slaves."Not only does this woman have tremendous debt, but she doesn't have enough to live on. She's lost her husband, and now she may lose her son, as well. I can feel her sense of urgency and desperation. The story goes on:Elisha replied to her, “How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?”“Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.”2 Kings 4:2 (NIV 1984)Have you ever felt like that? When you look at what you have available to you, it feels like nothing. What happens in the rest of the story is nothing short of miraculous:Elisha said, “Go around and ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don’t ask for just a few. Then go inside and shut the door behind you and your sons. Pour oil into all the jars, and as each is filled, put it to one side.” She left him and afterward shut the door behind her and her sons. They brought the jars to her and she kept pouring. When all the jars were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another one.” But he replied, “There is not a jar left.” Then the oil stopped flowing. She went and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left.”2 Kings 4:3-7 (NIV 1984)Here's the key: the widow didn't have everything she thought she needed, but God needed everything she had–even though it seemed like nothing to her.The same is true for us: often, we must surrender our "not enough" to get to God's "more than enough." Sometimes, we dismiss or devalue what we have because we forget whose hands we place it in. God can take what seems like nothing to us and turn it into something we could never imagine!The first question for us, as we consider what excellence looks like is, "What do you have in your house?" What is your "nothing at all, except"? Don't discount it. Choose to give it to God wholeheartedly.PracticalNow that we've adjusted our perspective let's get practical! What's most important to remember is that excellence scales. There is not one "standard of excellence." It has to be relative to your context. Why?Excellence is, first and foremost, a posture, not a product.In the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25, the master doesn't scold the person with two talents for not turning them into ten (like the person who started with five could do). Each servant was given according to their ability. It wasn't about the outcome, as much as their obedience.Not only can unhealthy comparison steal your joy, but it can also steal your vision. You can get so fixated on the talents in someone else's hand that you essentially bury yours in a hole! Stop trying to compete with the church down the street. Stop comparing your church with the conference you attended or what you see on YouTube. Those things can be beautiful sparks of innovation, but you were intended to be a creative, not a clone.Here are a few practical things to help you on your journey:Rekindle Your Expectation. If you've grown weary or discouraged, it's time to dream again. Take it all to God and ask Him to reset your vision.Set Your Standard. Excellence is relative. As a team, discuss what excellence will look like for you. What areas are hitting the target?
Todd and Willow talk about why it is so important to figure out a vision for teams to understand what matters and what doesn't. From there, they discuss why our volunteers need to hear the vision often, so that the whole team can be on the same page.Show Notes:You Matter To Us: We periodically ask the FILO Community on Instagram about what struggles they're experiencing. We take those topics and produce content addressing those issues. Keep sharing and keep engaging in the Blog and Podcast platforms. We hope they serve you! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
It's a unique and exciting situation when more people are eager to join your production team than the amount of serving roles you have available. This 'challenge' presents a unique opportunity to think outside the box and find ways to develop and grow our teams. Consider these three options:1. The Power of Spiritual Gifts Each person carries a unique set of spiritual gifts—gifts that are not meant to be confined but nurtured and released in service. It's essential to help new and existing volunteers understand the purpose of these gifts in God's greater plan. There's always an opportunity to guide them in discovering how their gifts can be refined, expanded, and used. As leaders, we are responsible for providing a framework for volunteers to understand and explore their spiritual gifts. Encouraging intentional conversations or helping them learn more about their spiritual gifts (which you can learn more here, and they can take a test here) can help them uncover their potential. Below you will find a list of spiritual gifts that one can use in Production. Underneath each of the spiritual gifts are ideas for serving positions for new or existing production team members: 1. Leadership Role: Production leaders, technical directors, and team coordinators. 2. Administration Role: Production managers, schedulers, planners. 3. Service (Helps) Role: Stagehands, setup and teardown crews, lighting and audio assistants. 4. Exhortation (Encouragement) Role: Team leads, volunteers who support and mentor others. 5. Wisdom Role: Senior production roles, strategic planners, problem-solvers. 6. Knowledge Role: Specialists in audio, video, lighting, and tech. 7. Discernment Role: Team leaders, content directors, decision-makers. 8. Creativity (Craftsmanship) Role: Set designers, video producers, graphic designers. 9. Faith Role: Prayer warriors, visionaries, those pushing boundaries in tech. 10. Teaching Role: Trainers, mentors, team developers. 2. Shifting to Coaching and Training With more volunteers than roles available, we can embrace the role of a coach and trainer, focusing on developing individuals rather than just filling roles. Start by identifying individuals on your team who could coach and, in turn, open a seat to new volunteers. As you onboard volunteers, let your approach be proactive in equipping them. Equip people not just for the role but for their growth. When we shift from simply recruiting (filling roles) to coaching (developing individuals), we help each person find their stride with a committed individual to help them every step of the way. 3. Mentoring the Next Generation Kids and students offer a unique opportunity for current volunteers to pour into the future. Whether in kids' rooms, student environments, or other opportunities, this is a pivotal moment in their development as individuals and in their faith journey. They may not have a fully formed understanding of their spiritual gifts yet, but that's where mentorship becomes crucial. Invite them into the journey of discovering their strengths. Allow them to shadow seasoned volunteers and leaders. This offers immediate, hands-on training and mentorship. The young people serving today will become the leaders of tomorrow, and their time in ministry will profoundly shape who they become. Also, taking time to create development tracks specifically for kids and students can be a transformative experience. Whether it's specialized training or regular check-ins to discuss their growth, make sure they feel they are part of a community that sees and supports them. Practical Next Steps 1. Create a Development Plan: Determine how you will help new and existing volunteers discover and grow their spiritual gifts and where that track leads them. 2. Build a Mentorship Culture: Pair experienced volunteers with newcomers, especially kids and students, to provide a deeper, hands-on learning experience. 3. Communicate the Vision: Be transparent about your team's needs an...
Todd is joined by the lead pastor and production volunteer at Hope Culture Church to talk about creating an environment for serving and setting a foundation for others to succeed.Show Notes:2025 Cohorts: The 2025 schedule of Cohorts has been released! Learn more and sign up today at filo.org/cohorts.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
I’ve heard the question asked: “I work for a church… how do I keep from feeling that Sunday is just another work day?” This is certainly understandable. Working in the local church, as with most things, is both rewarding and challenging. It is called work because it requires effort from us. Whether you are serving in the church as a volunteer or as staff, the call to use your spiritual gifts for God’s glory is clear. 1 Peter 4:10 says, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another ”. Serving others is an act of love. With this service, comes a sacrifice. We give time, energy, resources (and more) to serve. This pouring-out can deplete our spirit and begin to harden our hearts for what God has in store for us.If we do not take care, this depletion will begin to weigh us down and hold us in a place of bitterness. Small cracks in our once solid foundation will grow into a gap that seems far too difficult to repair. We can prepare for this and be ready with a response to bring His truth back into alignment. We can choose to turn to His word for guidance and seek understanding. John 3:30 says, “He must become greater; I must become less.”As believers, Jesus has called us to be free and live life to the full. We are not to use our freedom towards self-centered and selfish desires. Rather we are to serve one another in love. This act of love shows our love for Jesus. I am confident that we need to strive towards remaining humble before God. There are many distractions that are pulling us away from this stance of humility - all of them are just that, distractions. Our focus needs to remain on Him and on His calling for us. As C.S. Lewis said, “humility isn’t thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” Humility is first serving God and our neighbors before serving ourselves. When we respond in obedience to Him and give Him all the glory and honor, we are practicing humility.This reminder, to stay humble before Him, provides us with an opportunity to check our heart for serving others. Before the work begins, pause and ask yourself: “Who am I serving? And to whom do I belong?” This check-in brings a calming peace of understanding that we are children of God and we are chosen to bring his light to the world.Caring for the production team and strengthening our bond and connectedness is vital towards creating a healthy team. If we stumble into a pattern of weekend services becoming a routine checklist of tasks to perform, we are missing out on the opportunity to live a life on mission for God. We should wholeheartedly enter into the weekends with our focus on making the name of Jesus known and showing His love.Looking for opportunities to talk about challenges like this, and be in community with others facing the same struggles? Check out our FILO Cohorts!
Todd is joined by Christina and Adam to talk about collaboration. Coming from the production and creative ends of the spectrum, they talk about the ways they have found to work best together to accomplish the goals of the weekend service.Show Notes:Invest In Your Team: As we head into fall, now is a great time to invest in your team! Purchase copies of the FILO book and talk through the discussion questions at the end of each chapter. Or download a digital resource from a past Conference and watch it as a team. Rick Rubin's Book: The Creative Act: A Way of BeingSubscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Beau Norton joins Todd to talk about how, when and why use contractors to fill positions on the production team at church. They talk about the importance of consistency and team culture, as well as expectations from the church’s leadership.
Show Notes:
FILO Cohorts: There are a few spots left in the final 101 Cohort of 2024 that launches October 8th! Register today! If that Thursday weekly Cohort doesn’t work in your schedule, you can view the rest of the year’s schedule on our website.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
When Your Pastor Sees You, How Do They Feel?When I was 16 and serving in my church, I loved being back at front of house making the music sound amazing. As a teenage volunteer, I wasn’t there every week and in the summertime there were a bunch of weekends that I was on vacation. When I would get back behind the console after being gone for a while, I had so many people come up to me and say “Thank God you’re back!” It didn’t make a ton of sense to me at the time, and I would just wonder what happened last week that could have been so bad that you’re so glad to see me?
One thing I thought was that maybe the other people on the team weren’t up to the task. I was just so much better than them. But upon reflection, I was pretty confident that that wasn’t the case. I was good, but not that much better than anyone else. And problems were happening on the weekends I was there, so it wasn’t like my weekends were flawless.
The more I thought about it and have reflected on it over the years, it was more about how I responded to the problems that came up. When the people on the platform looked back at FOH, they had a sense of relief that things were going to be OK, that I would be able to take care of whatever was going on. It didn’t mean that bad things wouldn’t happen, but that they would be handled.
When your pastor looks back and sees you in the booth, what are they thinking about you? Are they relieved to see you or are they wondering if everything will be OK?
One of the best ways we can support our leaders on the platform is a sense that you have stuff covered. The question is, how can we do that?
Be VisibleWhen something unplanned happens in a service, become visible so that the person on stage can see you and that you know something happened. When someone is on the platform and they know something isn’t happening correctly, it is helpful to see that someone else noticed and that they can stop wondering about it. It has become my knee jerk reaction to stand up as soon as I know that something just happened to become visible.
The other helpful time to be visible is when there is a transition or a question on what’s going to happen next. If someone is about to call for a video, I stand. If someone is confused about what’s next, I stand up. I want to be the focal point for people on stage who have questions. If they can see me dialed into what is going on, then they can know they aren’t alone on stage.
Follow UpAfter the service, communicate about what happened and what you plan to do about it. This shouldn’t involve shrugging your shoulders or pointing out why you need new gear. This should be about immediate solutions…what are we going to do before the next service.
Even if you don’t know exactly what happened or what you’re going to do about it, it is important to let people know that you know something didn’t work and that you’re going to do your best to figure it out before the next service. I used to have the luxury of having a Saturday night service, so I had 12 hours or more to figure out a solution. For many, there is only 30 minutes to work something out until the next service, so it is important to have a work-around plan until there is time to really dig into the long term fix. Communicate all this.
It is so important to get everybody on the same page, and agree on how to move forward. It might mean an easy solution. It could also mean a compromise. But one that everyone agrees to and adjusts to. Everybody understanding the plan going into the next service is key.
Remain CalmAs adjustments are made and solutions figured out, it is important to remain calm. Nobody needs to see you panic. That’s not helping anything. Especially if you’re visible, watching you lose your bananas doesn’t help build confidence. Very rarely is panic the right solution to any problem. It isn’t going to speed things up or help you solve the problem sooner. It is also vital to solve problems with intensity. It is key for people to feel the reality of how important it is to come up with a solution. But it is also important to show calmness. Calm intensity will help to build trust between the people on the platform and you as a leader at the back of the room.
And frankly trust is the correct answer for what your pastor feels when they see you at the back of the room. If you answered the question differently, it is important to develop a new way to begin to establish a trusting relationship.
Todd is joined by Tim Stevens, former executive pastor at Willow Creek Church. They talk about the importance of the culture on a team and the part that each of us has to play in creating it in our own sphere of influence.
Show Notes:
Summer Skills Cohort: Journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support as well as meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around a topic. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your group for added support and accountability. Join us for the final August session! Learn more at filo.org/cohorts.
FILO Cohorts: There are a few spots left in the next 101 Cohort that launches August 15th! Register today! If that Thursday weekly Cohort doesn’t work in your schedule, you can view the rest of the year’s schedule on our website.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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When I first started doing production stuff at my church, I did it for the gear. I wanted the chance to play with the gear. I didn’t really care about what we were doing or why. I just like the shiny new stuff.
Little did I know that there was way more to being a technical artist in the local church than the equipment I got to use. For one thing, there was the reason we were using all the gear…to create a worship experience for our congregation to meet with God. Secondly, the interpersonal dynamics at play between the stage and the booth was not something I was prepared for.
After a few years passed, I realized that the relationship between the worship leader and me was the ballgame! I had a difficult time getting anything done when our relationship was strained. Since it was my job to execute their ideas, I needed to figure out how to get along with these people!
It was one thing to realize this, but what could I do about it? How do I make sure that the relationship I have with my worship pastor can lead to amazing collaboration? At the base of it all is trust. Me trusting them, and them trusting me. So how do I build that trust? Here are three ideas.
Do Your JobThis isn’t quite as harsh as “Just do your job, and shut up!”, but on some level I’m not joking.
One of the most effective ways to build trust with the people on stage is to be good at what you do. As a production person, that means nailing all the little things that nobody really understands or cares about. Input lists. Stage plots. Neat and tidy backstage storage. Mics on when they are supposed to be. Lights aimed at the right things.
These are all very “boring” tasks, but they make up the foundation of excellent production. Without them, we can’t hope to go deeper in the collaboration with our friends on stage. If you can’t do the “boring” stuff well, why would they want to hear what you think about their work or their ideas? It is difficult to talk about wanting the process to be better, if we aren’t handling our side of the equation well. Let’s say you complain about a particular guitar tone messing with your mix, but no one can hear the worship leader when they are talking over the music. Why would anyone change their guitar tone when it’s obvious to them you don’t know what you’re talking about?
The best way to build a solid relationship with your worship leader is to be as good at your job as possible. Without excuses. Without complaining. Just nail it.
Buy CoffeeFind out your worship leader’s favorite foofy drink from Starbucks and show up with it. (Or maybe they’re a Dunkin’ person. Know the difference!) Do it more than once. Maybe even sit down and drink the coffee together. Talk about stuff. And not all work stuff. Life stuff. “How are you doing?” “How are your kids?” “What’s your favorite color?”
Working with someone is not the same as knowing them.
The context for our relationship is generally speaking, the pressure cooker of rehearsal and services. When we aren’t in the intensity of work, then we’re in meetings to figure out what we’re doing. Our whole relationship is built around a very narrow window of each of our personalities.
You know what else? I bet that your worship leader doesn’t know all that much about you either. This coffee time is a perfect chance to share about your own life outside of production at your church.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll discover that you like the same college football team, or the same flavor of ice cream, or that maybe you have the same favorite color!
When you know someone beyond just one dimension of who they are, there is a chance you’ll trust each other a little more. You know me. I know you. You are more than just the mistakes you make or the ways you frustrate me on a Sunday morning.
Share the ResponsibilityPulling off weekend services together is a challenge. Or at least my part is. Their part looks easy. Not only that, but sometimes it feels like they make my part even more challenging than it needs to be.
The reality is that the people on stage have a difficult job also, just in a different way than me. I’m trying to make the service awesome and they’re just worried about their indoor man scarf matching their ripped skinny jeans. Right?!
While it seems like we have different goals that are on opposing sides, we are really trying to solve the same problem but from completely different perspectives. I’m focused on executing the plan and they’re wondering whether or not the plan is the right one.
We need to combine forces on this. We both want to make something amazing for our churches, and the combination of what you do and what they do is the result. Share the load together. Work together. Come up with a plan together. Lift the load together.
Building a relationship with your worship leader isn’t easy. It must be built on a foundation of trust. To make the most of each of our strengths, we owe it to each other and to our churches to build a solid relationship.
Learn more about building relationships through FILO digital resources:
Check out Creative Chemistry – Production and Platform Teams Working Together to Create Transformational In-Person and Online Gatherings By John Cassetto and Brittany Crimmel if you are interested in learning more about building healthy relationships with your worship leader. And find even more resources on this topic, and many others, at filo.org/filo-resources.
“I’ve got some last minute changes.”I heard this a lot this past week. I was working on an event that for some reason had a ton of last-minute graphics changes. When the people came to the team with this phrase, we pretty much always said, “Sure, no problem.” After a few days of this, the person doing graphics was pretty wiped out.
On one hand, we had someone who cared enough about the presentation to be the best it could be, that they said yes to every change. The results were an excellent program with the graphics being exactly what the presenter had in mind. With the end goal of communicating a message most effectively.
The results were also someone who was frazzled by the end of the program and right on the edge of making mistakes. The graphics person was definitely ready for a very long break after the program was done.
The question for me is, should we have been saying “No” to last minute changes to protect the graphics person, or was saying yes to all the changes the right idea?
On one hand, as a leader on the team, it is my job to keep the scope of work to something manageable for the team. On the other hand, the purpose of the team is to help support the message, and if we can make it better then why wouldn’t we?
There is also something to be said for the graphics person making the changes to stick up for themselves and to be able to say “No” if that is what’s best for the overall program.
The reality is that this gray area is where we live as production people. There is no standard answer for all the situations. Sometimes making the last minute change is the right call. Sometimes locking things down early is the right answer.
Down at the foundation of this question is trust.Trust between you and the people you’re supporting and their trust in you. Trust between you and the graphics person and the graphics person you, and with the presenter.
- Without trust, it is almost impossible to say “No” to a last minute request.
- Without trust, it is difficult to understand why a last minute request isn’t possible.
- Without trust, it is difficult to understand why a certain last minute request is even necessary.
Trust comes from time working together. Trust comes from living through all the outcomes, good and bad. Trust comes from enough shared experiences to know the best ways to respond in certain situations. Trust also comes from speaking the truth in love to each other, in a culture without fear but understanding.
How can we be about creating that culture instead of waiting for someone else to create it?
Todd has a chat with Kirk Denson from Willow Creek Church. They talk about the importance of developing people, not just to be better technicians but better humans.
Show Notes:
Summer Skills Cohort: Journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support as well as meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around a topic. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your group for added support and accountability. Join us for the final August session! Learn more at filo.org/cohorts.
MxU Pop Up: Join Todd at the upcoming MxU Pop up in Dallas on August 20th. The pop ups are one day events designed to equip you with leadership training and an opportunity to engage with other worship and tech leaders in your city. Learn more at getmxu.com/pop-ups.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
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When I started as a tech person at my church I loved getting a great mix. I loved solving the problems we experienced from technical problems during a service. I loved being in the back of the room and not on stage. From that moment to this, I can see how the pathway of my development got me to this point. And when I think about all the steps between the first one and my most recent one, each one along the way stretched me in some way. In one way or another I learned, adapted and became someone a little bit different. And overtime, I have a difficult time recognizing myself.
This isn’t bad. In fact it is necessary. By pushing myself to try new things, or to be uncomfortable for a few minutes in order to explore a new way of doing something, or to try something completely different, I’ve been stretched into a new version of myself.
Frankly life would have been simpler to stay behind the console. But I would have been doing a disservice to my church and myself if I’d been content to stay there. My life has been a series of choices, to stay comfortable or to stretch from something a little more. While staying comfortable sounds nice, I don’t really like who I become when comfort is the only thing I’m after.
When I think about the FILO Community and being able to watch God move over the past 10 years, I can’t even imagine how much I would have missed if I’d simply stayed comfortable. Who I am is made up of similar choices along the way. I would argue that my survival has been dependent on the choices to be uncomfortable and follow where I felt like God was calling me. Not just in big ways, but in small, everyday ways: take responsibility for a mistake, apologize for my tone to my co-worker, decide to be more disciplined in the way I use my time.
Each of us needs to grow and expand if we hope to survive to become the version of us God has in mind. Not only in our roles as technical artists, but as humans as well.
Todd sits down with Brennan Wilkins to talk his journey of working at a portable church to now helping to design technical systems for some of the coolest projects around from stadiums, theaters and even large spherical venues in the desert.
Show Notes:
Summer Skills Cohort: Journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support as well as meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around a topic. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your group for added support and accountability. Join us for the July and August sessions! Learn more at filo.org/cohorts.
FILO 2024 Digital Resources: The FILO 2024 Resource Library is OPEN! Head to filo.org/filo-resources and add the one big bundle of FILO 2024 goodness to your cart. Who doesn’t love a good bundle? Or, take some time to review each Breakout class title and presenter, Lunch & Learn event and Intensive before deciding on a few individual resources to add to your digital library.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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I was visiting a church this past week and I was reminded of how similar all of our situations are as technical artists in the local church. The list of should-do’s is always pushed to the side for have-to’s. Recabling the stage vs. running an emergency line at the last minute to make the service work. Setting up a system that is easy for a new volunteer to use vs. scrambling to get something working at the last minute to make the service happen. Basically anything vs. the last-minute fix to make the service work.
The last-minute fix to make the service work will never go away. It will always pop up. And what I’ve noticed is that we aren’t so great about going back and cleaning up after that hasty fix. And after a while, the pile of unlabeled extra becomes invisible to us. Just a part of “normal”.
At a certain point, all the unlabeled, hastily installed cables will be the source of problems if we don’t stay on top of keeping our areas clean and organized.
What if we built margin into our lives to handle the clean-up after each hasty fix? What if we gave ourselves time to label things correctly and then keep things neat and tidy? How can we set up our teams for success instead of only jumping in when it’s an emergency?
“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Theodore Roosevelt
I heard this quote at an event today and I have to confess that I rolled my eyes. I’ve heard it so many times that it seems super cliche. It might be because I’ve heard it from people who I don’t really believe mean it. Which I guess proves the point.
I’ve been with a great crew on an event this week and I had an interesting conversation with a creative director who was responsible for a few creative elements in our general sessions. What we do as technical/creative artists happens in a stressful environment. Things not going as planned. Not having enough rehearsal time. Doors open before we’re ready. Is it even working?
It can be so easy to give into the intensity and have it leak out on the people we’re working with. Short answers. Moving too fast. Yelling to the stage from front-of-house. For many of us, our team of volunteers are affected by this leaking. I know it is easy to think, “We need to fix this probably as fast as possible. I’m not really yelling, I’m just intense.”
While I believe thatwe need to be competent at the task we have in front of us, I think that is the easiest part of what we do. What we need to be good at is handling the stress of our environment and leading our teams through it. Instead of our stress negatively affecting the people around us, we need to learn how to channel that stress into finding solutionswith a positive attitude and kind words.
In the short term, there is aproblem to solve. In the long term, how you solve it will determine what matters most to you. Reaching for perfection at any cost, or a culture of honor and continual improvement. the long term, how you solve it will determine what matters most to you. Reaching for perfection at any cost, or a culture of honor and continual improvement.
I want to be on the team of honor and continual improvement. I want to be a leader that shows honor and is pushing for continual improvement.
Todd talks with Alexis Leon, Gatherings Producer at Passion City Church. They talk about being tired on Sunday morning, working long hours for a conference and showing up with confidence in who you are in Jesus.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024 Highlight Video
FILO 2024 Parody Video
FILO 2025: Live Stream and In-Person tickets are available for the lowest rate through May 31, 2024. Learn more at filo.org/filo2025. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.
Summer Skills Cohort: Journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support as well as meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around a topic. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your group for added support and accountability. You can register for all 3 sessions at a discounted rate, or choose which months you want to join. Learn more at filo.org/cohorts. Registration for the June session closes soon!
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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Toby and Blake wrestle the hosting role away from Todd to talk about everything that’s happening at the FILO Conference starting tomorrow!
Show Notes:
FILO 2024: Conference starts tomorrow! Live Stream and In-Person tickets are still available. Learn more at filo.org/filo2024. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
I was serving at my church recently and it is amazing how easy it can be to get in a rut. So much of what we do each week can start to feel the same and so we enter into each service with a mind set of “I’ve done this before. Let’s repeat what we’ve done in the past.”
There is something really good about saving our energy and not reinventing the wheel every time, but I think we do ourselves, our teams and our congregations a huge disservice by not really living with and knowing the service as if we’ve never done it before. While the songs might be the same, and the order is pretty similar, God might want to be about something new this weekend. How is God moving in your life personally right now? It is probably different from the last time we did this same set list. If you sit with the songs for this weekend, they will probably hit slightly different from the last time we did them.
God is always doing a new thing. And for us as humans it is easy to get into a rut in the name of simplifying or because we don’t give ourselves the time or space to get out of the rut. Whether you’re a worship leader or the audio engineer, drummer or lighting designer, God wants to do something new in our lives and in the lives of the people we are serving. What if we created space to engage with our services as if they were brand new to us?
Todd is joined by Alex Seeley, the Lead Pastor at The Belonging Co Church in Nashville. They talk about the story of leaving everything and starting a church in another country that focused on people who were on tour: musicians, artists, production people. This beginning has given the church a unique perspective on serving together.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024: We are a couple weeks away from our next Conference! Learn more at filo.org/filo2024. Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.
Summer Skills Cohort: Journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support as well as meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around a topic. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your group for added support and accountability. You can register for all 3 sessions at a discounted rate, or choose which months you want to join. Learn more at filo.org/cohorts. Registration is open!
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Whit George joins Todd to talk about transitioning from creative director to lead pastor and how his early days helped to shape where Church on the Move is currently. From production and worship culture to what’s best for the congregation as a whole, they talk about how all the areas of the church play a vital role.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024 Price Jump: The final price increase for FILO 2024 is happening on April 9th. Grab your tickets today and save those dollars! Don’t forget, the 10% off discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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Nathaniel Smith joins Todd to talk about balancing family and work, personal and professional, and being intentional with the people in our lives.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024 Intensives and Lunch & Learn Events: We recently opened registration for our extended learning opportunities at FILO 2024. Intensives are longer form learning environments taught by our industry partners that are held a few hours before the conference kicks off. Lunch & Learns are one hour classes taught by our industry partners and include a free lunch! Check out these links to learn more and to register. Intensives. Lunch & Learn Events. Don’t forget, the discount code for podcast listeners is “podcast10”.
FILO Cohorts: There are just a few spots left in the next Cohort that launches April 4th! Register today! If that Thursday weekly Cohort doesn’t work in your schedule, you can view the rest of the year’s schedule on our website.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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Todd sits down with FILO 2024 main session speaker, Trey McKnight. Leaning on Trey’s diverse experience, they discussed all the different ways that having a personal mission statement and being intentional with the time we have can help create the life we’re wanting.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024 – The next price jump happens tomorrow, February 13, 2024! Don’t delay! Tickets are available for the In-Person experience or the Live Stream experience. Learn more at filo.org/filo2024 and be sure to use code “podcast10” for 10% off your registration fee.
First In Last Out… Together – FILO exists to encourage and support technical artists who create moments that connect people to Jesus, no matter where they are in the world or how big or small their church is. This means some of our friends in under-resourced communities can only afford to attend FILO for roughly $6. Unfortunately, revenue generated from the conference is simply no longer enough to fill the gap and reach more people. This is where you come in! Will you join us? FILO.org/donate
MxU Pop-Ups – Check out these one-day events designed to equip you with leadership training and an opportunity to engage with other worship and tech leaders in your city. Todd will be at a few of the stops and he’d love to see you there! Learn more at getmxu.com/pop-ups.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Todd sits down with FILO Cohort Leader Alex Sawyer to talk about all kinds of topics: leading up, building trust, congregational approval, committees, mall church…and the list goes on.
Show Notes:
FILO Cohorts – Join other church technical artists in smaller group settings on Zoom to grow in your skills this year. The entire Cohort schedule has been released for 2024! Check out the 101, 201 and Summer Skills Cohorts at filo.org/coaching.
FILO 2024 – The next price jump happens on February 13, 2024! Don’t delay! Tickets are available for the In-Person experience or the Live Stream experience. Learn more at filo.org/filo2024 and be sure to use code “podcast10” for 10% off your registration fee.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Paul Johnson from Bravingbird joins the podcast. He and Todd talk about collaboration, leading up and down, and ways to create a culture of care and trust on worship and production teams.
Show Notes:
Bravingbird – Our guest today, Paul Johnson, is the Executive Director of Bravingbird. They are a non profit dedicated to telling stories and giving those away for free. You can learn more about their organization and view their beautiful works of art at bravingbird.com.
FILO Cohorts – Join other church technical artists in smaller group settings on Zoom to grow in your skills this year. The entire Cohort schedule has been released for 2024! Check out the 101, 201 and Summer Skills Cohorts at filo.org/coaching.
FILO 2024 – The next price jump happens on February 13, 2024! Don’t delay! Tickets are available for the In-Person experience or the Live Stream experience. Learn more at filo.org/filo2024 and be sure to use code “podcast10” for 10% off your registration fee.
FILO: Advent – If you didn’t have a chance to engage in our Advent devotional during Christmas, it’s not too late. Let the FILO Community encourage you and remind you of the reason for your hard work this season. Create a shared plan and read together on YouVersion or check out our YouTube Playlist!
Donations – We are so grateful for the donors who contributed to FILO allowing us to continue reaching more tech artists globally in 2023. If you would like to learn more about our vision or how to donate, head to filo.org/donate.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
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Todd and Andrew Junge talk about how to maximize being a portable church. Especially when there can be so many expectations for production in today’s church, trying to get it all done while having to set up and tear down each week can be a challenge.
Show Notes:
Christmas is right around the corner! Look for ways to encourage your teams this holiday season. Consider one of these three options:
- FILO 2024 – Purchase tickets for your team to attend FILO 2024 In-Person or on the Live Stream. Learn more at filo.org/filo2024 and be sure to use code “podcast10” for 10% off your registration fee.
- FILO Book – Purchase copies of “I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas” for your team. There are questions at the end of each short chapter, making it conducive for group discussion. Learn more at filo.org/book.
- FILO: Advent – Let the FILO Community encourage you and remind you of the reason for your hard work this season. Create a shared plan and read together on YouVersion or check out our YouTube Playlist!
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
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Dara joins Todd to talk about leading all types of volunteers, from the super committed to the “my mom signed me up to serve” variety.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024: Are you starting to talk budget for next year? New things are coming with the schedule and breakouts for FILO 2024, so make sure you get that added into your 2024 budget! Learn more at filo.org/filo2024 and be sure to use code “podcast10” for 10% off your registration fee.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Justin Firesheets joins the FILO Podcast to talk about dealing with change and leading through change from his experience in ministry at Church of the Highlands.
Show Notes:
Coaching Cohorts: Registration is open for a few more days for our final Cohort of 2023! Join this group of people just like you during this holiday season to invest in yourself and lean into community with others. Learn more and register at filo.org/coaching. Podcast listeners get a unique deal! Use code “podcast33” for $33 off your registration fee.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Todd gets to chat with Dan Johnson, the technical director at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI. They talk about how recruiting volunteers is way more than just having a ministry job fair.Show Notes:Coaching Cohorts: Our next winter Coaching Cohort will be announced in just a few days! Stick close to your email and socials to learn when it is live. Learn more and register at filo.org/coaching. Podcast listeners get a unique deal! Use code "podcast33" for $33 off your registration fee.Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Volunteers….one word that holds a lot of meaning, pressure, baggage, frustration, oh hey…and joy…right?Did I hit a chord with any of those words? I don’t think any of us would want our first reaction to the topic of volunteers to be one of hardship or struggle - and maybe that isn’t your story and leading volunteers has always been easy and your teams have been drama free and your weekend rosters are full - that is awesome!! For so many of us though, we know that volunteers are a large part of what we do and we are totally sold on the concept, but we get stuck on all the details and challenges that come with leading a team of volunteers.I can’t promise to demystify all of your challenges with your volunteer team, but I do believe that if we become better at knowing our own tendencies of leading from a place of fear, scarcity or control and we can begin to lean into empowering people - that we will watch our relationship to leading volunteers transform.“But it’s easier if I just do it.”What might be more accurate is “it’s easier/faster/better if I just do it”. Leading volunteers and inviting them to be part of our ministry in significant ways can often feel like the road to lesser-quality products and slower workflows. So our tendency is to take all the high-pressure or high-profile tasks (things that are very visible or more likely to be critiqued by senior leadership) and do them ourselves. While this may be faster and maybe even better quality in the short term, what it does is leave our volunteers with roles and tasks that don’t feel significant or important. Some of the people who join our teams will be totally fine with that, but there are so many men and women on our teams who are waiting for someone to call something more out of them.A turning point for me was when another leader asked me if I could empower and train volunteers in such a way that I work myself out of a job. I loved the idea of this and you could even catch me telling people how important I thought it was to have volunteers leading at all levels. But when I actually started looking at all the parts of my job, I had to stare at my fear and tendency toward control in the face. I was afraid that if I gave certain tasks away then I would somehow lose my job or people would misunderstand my intentions and think I was being lazy. I was afraid that if certain things took a little bit of a dip in quality while I was training a volunteer to get them up to speed that I would be reprimanded and critiqued in some hurtful ways. Want the truth? Some of those things did happen, but the one really important thing that I did was have a few people in my corner who also believed in the idea, had my back, and gave me lots of affirmation and encouragement.The question I started asking myself was “What can I give away here?” This does require a bit of a slow down. The first place I have to slow down and pay a little more attention is in my knowledge of my volunteers. Am I getting to know my volunteers on a deeper level, do I know what they are interested in and curious about on our team and in our rooms? Maybe they have always wanted to know how to operate the video switcher, but feel intimidated by all the buttons. Maybe they have a deep prayer life and would love nothing more than to help facilitate some team connection time where we look at scripture and pray together. Do I know the untapped skills that my current volunteers bring to our team and maybe they just need a little more training, encouragement and an opportunity?The moments in my ministry career when I took a risk and allowed a volunteer to own something BIG were initially scary and fraught with some anxiety, but those moments also became some of the most energizing and rewarding. Empowering volunteers freed me up to lead more people and also celebrate the growth of each volunteer as they discovered some of their untapped potential. Empowering volunteers to lead and execute at higher level...
Todd is joined by the original Swedish Gurus of Tech, Johan and Albin. They talk about the importance of community within the local church technical community, whether you're Swedish or not.Show Notes:Christmas Playlist: Need a playlist for all those Christmas planning meetings you're about to have (or already having)? We've got you covered! We've curated over two hours of upbeat, feel-good, get ya in that holiday mood, Christmas music. Download now on Spotify!Coaching Cohorts: Our next winter Coaching Cohort will be announced soon! Be the first to know and have first dibs on the sign ups when you join the waiting list. This is the perfect session to participate in, leading up to the Christmas season!Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.orgFILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
As a church tech, solving technical issues can definitely be a challenge. But what can be even more difficult at times is trying to get others (especially our leaders) on board with bigger-picture technology changes, especially if it requires substantial finances.
How do we handle those situations? I know we all want to be good stewards and make our current gear last as long as possible, but there is always a limit to how far the MacGyver paperclip-and-duct-tape approach can get us. And if we’re spending additional energy (either mental or physical) maintaining a stressful Band-aid system, then we really aren’t being very efficient or stewarding our time as well as we should.
So how can we make sure we’re doing our part to help our leaders understand the importance of investing in the right types of technology infrastructure? Here are three quick things to keep in mind:
- Have a plan.I was reading recently in the book of Nehemiah, where the author told the King about his desire to return to Jerusalem to help rebuild the city’s wall. When the King pressed him further about what he wanted, Nehemiah was immediately able to answer with a detailed plan of what he wanted to do, what help he needed, and what he hoped to accomplish.
As tech leaders, we need to be able to emulate Nehemiah’s approach. It’s one thing to campaign for equipment upgrades. It’s something else entirely to already have a plan formulated that can help address any questions our leaders may have.
Have I thought through the full cost, not just of the big items, but also of any necessary, ancillary items like accessories, connectors/converters, cables, etc.? Nothing is worse for a leader than to be presented with a budget, only to have someone come back and ask for more money because they forgot about a detail.
Have I mapped out the timeline, especially knowing that there may be issues with timely delivery due to supply chain shortages? How will the labor be addressed, and how long will that take? Does a third party (like a licensed, insured rigger or electrician) need to be involved?
How will the install or upgrade affect our existing workflow and event schedule? Will we have limited features or restricted access to our current system for a certain number of days while old parts are being replaced with new ones?
What about training and after-install (or -purchase) support and troubleshooting? Warranty coverage? Back-up plans if something doesn’t go as planned?
If I demonstrate that I have a well-planned process mapped out, it becomes much easier for my leaders to get on board with my proposal. It allows me to gain credibility and buy-in, and it leads to a level of trust being established because I’ve shown that I can handle the details and address potential concerns in advance.
- Determine the long-term COO and ROI.If you’re not familiar, these acronyms are important to note anytime equipment upgrades are necessary, because very rarely is an expense just a one-time thing. It often has an impact far beyond the date of the actual install itself.
Here’s a scenario. I’ve got a proposal to move away from conventional theatrical lighting fixtures and replace them with LED fixtures. I shouldn’t just say that it’s a flat $15,000 expense, for instance.
I need to be able to map out the cost of ownership (COO) for my current situation and the future one, and then be able to show a potential timeline for the return on my investment (ROI).
With the conventional fixtures, we might spend a certain amount of money every year on replacement lamps, gels, lift rentals (to be able to access the lights above the seating area), and a certain amount of time (I can probably extrapolate a ballpark hourly rate for whoever does the work). All of those items factor together as part of my current cost of ownership.
Moving to an LED lighting system removes nearly all of those things. So I’m not just making a bulk purchase of however many thousands of dollars. At the same time, I’m also saving a certain amount of money on maintenance and upkeep, and I can use that number to show how long it will take before we break even on our investment. And on something like this, where I would also be drastically reducing the amount of power required and head load disseminated, I may also be able to show how the church’s utility bills would be impacted as well.
The big idea is that almost nothing is a one-time financial line item as a purchase. It will cost me money to own and use that thing, or it will save me money versus another alternative. But I also need to communicate what the potential lifespan is of my item. Will our board or leadership need to address a purchase like this again in 5 years? 10? I should be able to communicate those things ahead of time as well.
- Use their language.Our ministry’s leadership probably isn’t super tech-savvy. When I try to explain the need for an upgrade, living in industry language likely doesn’t help them understand the need at all. Is a deacon board of older businessmen really going to latch on to why a Dante infrastructure will be better for the team as we move more into an AVoiP, IoT workflow?
Um, no.
Most of our leadership will understand things distilled down into two key funnels: financial impact and ministry impact. How much will it cost (or save), and how will it help us be more efficient at reaching and impacting people?
This is where I have to be able to drop my tech jargon and lean into their world. Keep it simple: the gear is cheaper to own and use long-term, it removes distractions that could impact people’s worship experiences, and because it’s more efficient, it will allow us to have a smaller team involved to run it during services.
Those are the types of things that will help get non-technical people on board. It might be a massive technological win, but if I can’t easily sell my leaders on the why and the how, then it really doesn’t matter.
Making big investments in technology systems is a natural step for a ministry that expects to continue growing over time. Congregations grow and so does vision, so it’s natural that the tools used to support those things also grow.
But if I’m not able to effectively communicate all of the necessary details, then I may be stuck in a place of frustration in more ways than one.
Looking for more learning on gear upgrades and working through those with your team? Check out our digital resources! Digital Resources from FILO 2023 are now available!
Dylan Hofmann joins Todd to talk about volunteers. How to develop a volunteer friendly culture from the recruiting process all the way through developing your key volunteer leaders.
Show Notes:
FILO Blog: New blogs have recently been released! Read about caring for volunteers, leading through transition and creating a culture of celebration. Check them out at filo.org/blog.
I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas: Learn more about today's podcast topic by reading certain chapters of Todd Elliott's book. Chapters 20, 22 and 23 are a good place to start. Learn more at filo.org/book. (Buying 10+ copies at a discount for your team and walking through the content together is a great idea!)
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Here at FILO, one of the most frequent challenges we hear about is how to lead volunteers. Church production is busy and it’s easy to feel stuck when we need to spend most of our time on production systems. How can we make more time to work on developing our volunteers?
I have some ideas for you, but first I need to share a hard truth. The pressing needs of the church–the next set design, the next ministry event, or the handheld mic that just died in the kid's wing – will always demand your time. There’s no way around it, there’s no shortcut - you have to make time to invest in your volunteers. However, I want to share with you 2 ways you can keep leading volunteers at the forefront of your work.
Make volunteer growth part of your regular rhythms It’s important to make volunteer growth part of your annual, weekly, and monthly rhythms. Just like you have systems for patching the stage, programming lighting cues, and building ProPoresenter playlists, you need a system for how you manage volunteers.
Start by identifying how you can do this regularly throughout the year. Take volunteer recruiting, for example. On the first day of every month, set a reminder to email all of the ministry leaders in your church and ask them if they know anyone who might want to serve on the production team. Once a quarter, ask your communications team if you can have a platform announcement or social media post to recruit people. Next time you go to send a PCO blockout request email, encourage your volunteers to ask if their friends might be interested in joining the team.
Right now you might only intentionally recruit 1-2 times per year, but if you use the examples above, you’ll now be recruiting 15-20 times per year! The same goes for training and growth. How often could you host a team night? How often can you take a volunteer out to coffee or ask them to come to a rehearsal to catch up? How can you make volunteer development a regular part of your work?
You’re a production leader - you’re a master of complicated systems. What you need is a system to manage the most important aspect of your ministry: your volunteers.
Here are some questions to consider as you create your own volunteer growth system:
What app or tool are you going to use to schedule these rhythms? What are the best months of the year to focus on training and growth? (Hint: it’s after December and April) What things are you already doing? How can you improve that? If you go to the FILO conference (which you should!), could you host a team dinner when you get back to share what you learned with the rest of your team? What’s one creative way you could recruit people for your team? (A BTS video of a rehearsal? Recording and sharing your comm feed with multi-view?)
We often get stuck because we think engaging volunteers needs to be extravagant. If you can host a team night, great! But don’t reinvent the wheel here - look for the small steps you can take each week and month to keep volunteer leadership at the forefront of your work.
The best part of having a volunteer system is you don’t have to maintain the system alone, which brings me to my next point.
Empower your team by asking for help A lot of production leaders believe the lie that it's up to us to recruit, train, and grow our volunteers. But don’t forget - you already have a committed team who helps make Sunday happen on a regular basis. These are the same people who will help you grow the team!
What would it look like for you to ask your volunteers to reach out to their friends? What would it look like to have your volunteers train other volunteers? Can you ask them to help you schedule and plan training events?
Say you’re getting ready for Christmas and you have to do an entire stage redesign for a new sermon series and then change all of it for Christmas Eve. Are you going to do this all by yourself? Of course not! You're going to get your team and as many people as you possibly can together to make ...
Todd talks with FILO and Fusion Productions' leadership coach Neil Sternberg. They talk about how important it is to understand who we are so that we can become the most effective technical artist possible.
Show Notes:
Coaching Cohorts: Our next fall Coaching Cohorts will be announced soon! Be the first to know and have first dibs on the sign ups when you join the waiting list.
FILO Community NFP: At the beginning of 2023, FILO became a non profit! FILO is now open to receive donations toward raising $100,000 in 2023. Will you join us? Learn more and donate at filo.org/donate.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook
Navigating change is difficult work. Full stop. Whatever the change may bring as an outcome - good or bad, the actual process of changing from an established routine to the unknown, IS difficult. In our world of producing services for the church environment - change is going to happen. How we handle the change and choose to carry ourselves through the process is where the learning and growth happens. Navigating changes in leadership, while leading others is challenging. But it can be rewarding if we take a posture of humbleness and curiosity into the uncertainty of the new. SERVICE TRANSITIONS Transitions are important. In our church services, we will strive to make the shift from one element to the next as smooth as possible. We will rehearse that key change until each instrument of the band feels cohesive. We will tweak the timing on the lyric slides to match the tempo of the tune. We will practice the moment when we enter into prayer from a song until it flows together well. As a group, we will pour into these details - all for the opportunity to help eliminate distractions and usher people into a closer relationship with God. I believe we are called to commit that same attention to detail and care to our team relationships as well.
PEOPLE TRANSITIONS Transitions for staff, leaders, and key volunteers on your teams are all going to happen. Setting a foundation of trust and connection will ease the channels of communication when changes occur. I have come to an understanding of how ministry work comes in seasons. Some seasons are longer than others and can lead to a lifetime of working alongside someone or even a group of people. Some seasons are short and powerful - with lots of learning and quick growth for your team. As these seasons change - let us be open to the idea that if things are feeling great and clicking on all cylinders for you right now, there will come a time when that shifts and your team will struggle. This looks different for all of us - it could be lower recruitment numbers during a specific time of year. It could be that your best volunteer now has to move away for another opportunity. It could be family dynamics or health concerns, or really anything that causes change within your ministry team. Leading through these changes will grow your influence with the team. Let’s be open, honest, and caring during these times. Sharing your thoughts with team members, either individually or collectively, will help to bring a cohesive team together. Unity around a change is a great way to keep learning through the process. Here are some key ways to bring a team together around a new idea or change. First, celebrate where you have been as a team. Call out the things that are important to your group and will remain a strong part of your culture as you go forward. Over-communicate the vision for where you want the team to be as you look further ahead. Pastor Andy Stanley is famous for saying: “Vision is a mental picture of what could be, fueled by a passion that it should be.” If we can lean on the vision of our teams and trust the process to move forward, we are already pressing into the changes from a healthy position. Often, an unexpected change can bring a sense of disunity and can stir up questions of stability. By shifting our focus back to the tenets that we have built upon, we are able to lead from a place of faith rather than fear. Faith that God has seen us through many storms, that He has never failed, and that He won’t let us fall. We should also be quick to understand that transitions are necessary. We learn through the loss of what came before. A disruption to the status quo can often push us into a place of learning and development. Growth happens on the edge of your comfort zone. If we can check our posture to be sure that we remain humble - it will help us to lead from a place of curiosity rather than skepticism. This is a hard practice to master. We should start with trust and seek to understa...
Episode 100! Aubrey takes the reigns as the host to interview Chelsea, Nate and Todd to talk about ways to celebrate. Celebrate big wins and small wins. Celebrate individuals and celebrating as a team.
Show Notes:
Podcast Guests: Todd Elliott - Founder Nate Parker - Technical Producer Chelsea Pribyl - Chief Operations Officer
Podcast Host: Aubrey Wentz - Event Host & Cohort Leader
Team Mayo:
Pom Pom Encouragement:
Photo Credit: Christina Pendleton
FILO Book Chapters: Chelsea references 2 chapters in I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas, by Todd Elliott: Chapter 22: Production is Tough. Let's Enjoy It Chapter 37: Celebrate the Wins
Summer Skills Cohort: Our next session about all things lighting is coming up soon! Learn more at filo.org/coaching. We hope you can join us.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
In my early days as a young church technical director, I quickly identified that my strengths were not in the actual operation of the equipment. I know what you’re thinking. It’s difficult to be a church TD if you don’t know how to run the gear! Well, as frustrating and defeating as that was, it allowed me to hone my leadership skills instead and build volunteer teams that were made up of people that had an interest in the technology. They were passionate about learning how to improve and get the most from the equipment and they were motivated to serve the ministry I was leading as well as the church at large. I identified leaders within each of my audio, video and lighting teams and since I lacked the specific knowledge and complete skill set to train my volunteers on the gear and on the science of tech, I created training experiences. I would pair those volunteer leaders with my coworkers, contractors or friends who had specific knowledge worth sharing. My team leaders would be trained and then they would pass along those skills to the other volunteers they served with. And suddenly my frustration started shifting into freedom. Freedom to focus on overseeing all aspects of production for that ministry, delegate skill development to people I trusted, and freedom to lean into the way God wired me: for shepherding. One of the most beautiful things about Jesus’ disciples is how unique and diverse they were. They were a group of people made up of various professional backgrounds, disabilities, wealth statuses and viewpoints. These 12 disciples might have looked like a random group assembled out of confusion, but Jesus saw the potential and picked them for a purpose. We all know that volunteers are a church’s lifeline. They are the solution to how a leader’s dreams can become a reality, how big plans can take shape and most importantly, how our churches can reach more people for Christ. Volunteers are disciples. Each of them is unique. And they must be and deserve to be shepherded and cared for intentionally.
Get curious about your people. Who are the key people in their lives? Family members, significant others, children? What do they do for a living? What are their hobbies? Curtis Templeton says that “Leaders have to smell like their sheep. They cannot smell like them through Planning Center.” The idea here is that shepherding includes getting to know your people. You can’t expect them to take direction or stick around for the long haul if you only know them for the tasks they can perform. They want to be seen and known for who they are entirely, not just on a Sunday morning. And you can’t get to know them just through scheduling and communicating through PCO. Take the time to connect before or after a service. Host a fun night where they can bring their families. Call them during the week just to check in. You will find that over time, team members will open up to you. And dare I even say, they’ll likely recruit their friends and family to join their team!
Pursue your people. Ask what they’re enjoying about their role on your team. Do they have any ideas on how to make it better? Do you see any areas where they could grow in their skills or advance to new levels of leadership? What are their spiritual gifts? How are they wired? Are they in the right seat on your team? What motivates them in their work? The more deep and intentional work you can do in this area, the more that your people will feel challenged to stay sharp in their role. And the more they will understand your goals and expectations for the team and desire to be a part of the solution.
Celebrate your people often. I could simply call it “encourage” or “acknowledge”, but that doesn’t fully encapsulate the intention! Celebrating is an act of truly honoring someone else. It is a little too easy to think that honoring others takes too much time or that it isn’t important or that someone else will do it. So we have a tendency to let it slide and fall by t...
Todd sits down and finally talks to Arnez Bonsol instead of just talking about him on the podcast. They talk about Arnez's secret sauce when it comes to building teams and developing people.
Show Notes:
Summer Skills Cohort: Our next session about all things audio is coming up in just a couple of weeks! Can't make it? Jump into the August session all about lighting. Learn more at filo.org/coaching. We hope you can join us.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We'd appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Author, social media influencer and FILO Main Session Speaker, Carlos Whittaker joins Todd to talk about his new book “How to Human”.
Show Notes:
Summer Skills Cohort: The very first session kicks off next week! Can’t make it then? Jump into one of the sessions in July or August! Learn more at filo.org/coaching. We hope you can join us.
Carlos Whittaker’s Books: Carlos has written multiple captivating and life-changing books. We encourage you to check them out! carloswhittaker.com/books
Carlos Whittaker at the FILO Conference: Carlos was a Main Session Speaker at FILO 2021. Check out his message.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Todd is joined by Joanne Botten, long time Willow Creek volunteer turned production staff turned the leader of Arts and Worship at Willow Creek South Barrington. They get a chance to talk through surviving through different eras of a church’s story and the necessary focus on people.
Show Notes:
FILO 2024 Conference: Registration has opened for FILO 2024! In-Conference pricing ends May 31, 2023 and is the lowest pricing you’ll have access to all year. Learn more and register today at filo.org/filo2024.
Summer Skills Cohort: Looking to extend the FILO Conference into the rest of the year? Join us this summer for a 3-month Cohort experience. Each session you’ll journey with like-minded technical artists for growth and support. Then, you’ll meet with an industry leader for an in-depth discussion around audio, video, and lighting. The best part? Sharing how you’re learning and growing with your cohort for added support and accountability.
There will be a 90 minute session once a month for the 3 months of summer (June, July, August) and you can register for all 3 at a discounted rate, or pick and choose which months you want to join and register for them individually. Learn more at filo.org/coaching.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Todd sits down with Pastor Ricky Jenkins, Main Session speaker for FILO 2023. They talk about what a senior pastor needs from their tech team, but more importantly what a senior leader needs to provide for their tech team.
Show Notes:
FILO 2023 Conference: The Conference is in one week on May 2nd and 3rd! Learn more at filo.org/filo2023. We hope you join us and today’s podcast guest, Pastor Ricky Jenkins, at FILO 2023.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Todd sits down with James Jaskowiak, the production manager at Willow Creek’s Huntley campus where Todd serves on the production team. They talk about living life with people versus just serving with them and how important it is to continually stretch the skills of our volunteers.
Show Notes:
I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas: This book by Todd Elliott is an owner’s manual for how to live the abundant life of a technical artist in the local church. Learn more about it and order yours today at filo.org/book.
FILO 2023 Conference: The Conference is right around the corner on May 2nd and 3rd! Learn more at filo.org/filo2023.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
You’re a tech person. You know how to get stuff done. Chances are you are super competent at some aspect of production: you’re an amazing audio engineer; you crush video editing; you can shine light in people’s eyes like nobody’s business.
And because you’ve been good at a piece of the whole production, it makes sense that you might get promoted to lead the entire production team. Unfortunately for you, the only thing you really know about leading a production team is how you would have done it differently from your last boss. You also know how to do your old job really well.
Both of these perspectives are not bad to have, but they fall far short of what is required to lead a production team.
LET GOThis was one of the more difficult parts for me about becoming a leader. I was a really good audio engineer. Stuff sounded awesome when I was behind the console. When I had to move into more of a leadership role and hire someone else to mix audio, I realized how much I loved it and that I didn’t like it when someone else mixed. (Looking back, I was probably deriving too much of my significance from my killer mix.)
When you start leading people, you have to let go of the specific tasks that you used to love to do. The whole point of having a team is to increase the capacity of your department, which means you need to stop doing and let someone else take over. However, someone forgot to tell me that those tasks I was so good at weren’t getting done exactly the way I would do them. I found myself butting in all the time, or redoing something when people weren’t looking.
After banging my head against this wall for a while, I asked myself, “Is the new person’s mix wrong, or just not my preference?” I realized that I needed to give that new person some space to learn and grow and make that task their own, without imposing my way of doing it on them.
I also realized that I needed this person to succeed. I was already buried by the workload, and I knew that if I drove him away, I would not survive myself. Maybe the mix wasn’t so bad after all. I owed it to myself to back off. I owed it to my family to back off. And most importantly, I owed it to my team member to back off.
Remember when I said our only experience in leading was just not doing it the way my boss leads me? How many of us have had bosses who were always in our business and not letting us make our own decisions? How many times did we wish they would just give us some space and some actual decision making power? If you aren’t letting go of your favorite tasks so that others can do them, you are just like your boss.
Learning to let go is one of the first challenges to overcome when you start leading people. Then learning the difference between your preference and something being wrong is also a key factor when letting go. It will definitely not be done the way you did it, but that doesn’t automatically make it wrong.
This whole letting go conundrum is just the beginning of figuring out what it means to lead a team.
FIGURE OUT THE WHY, NOT THE HOWUp until this point, you’ve been the “get it done” person. Your job has been to figure out the “how” of most situations. As you start to delegate and lead others, it is important to shift your thinking away from the exact way something will be accomplished and to think at a higher level. The whole idea of leading a team is to empower them to figure stuff out within their sphere of responsibility. This is one step beyond letting go, this is empowering someone to take it to the next level.
What was once you doing everything, now you’ve got a team maximizing each area, bringing their personalities and skills to the table. With all the extra work getting done comes the reality that while each person is bringing their best to the table, and each individual has a different idea of what should be done. With all those different ideas, it is important for someone to provide a framework for everyone to work inside of. This is less about the details of each person’s job and more about the direction everyone needs to take together.
Honestly, this was another one of the more difficult parts about becoming a leader for me. I was so used to doing the tasks, that I didn’t really know what it meant to think beyond that. What my team needed was an overarching mission and values that helped us make decisions for the overall direction of production. We needed some guardrails to determine what was inbounds and what was out of bounds; a road map of where we were going, and more importantly where we weren’t going.
As I began working with my team on what those guardrails should be, we developed some statements that helped to inform the decisions we each had to make in a given situation. Statements that didn’t tell us what to do specifically, but why we do it.
While we borrowed ideas from different churches and different production environments, it was important that we developed something that was true to our team and our church. Here are a few such statements that could be a starting point for your journey towards developing your own:
People over product; excellence = doing the best with what you have; be prepared; seek to understand; safety second (or the no dying rule); how does this advance the church’s mission?, etc
There are many different ways to set up guide posts for you and your team to follow, without needing to be micromanaged.
This is work that feels unimportant when there are so many other urgent tasks to accomplish. However, if you don’t spend the time now, in the long run there will be a bottleneck on what your team can accomplish.
In the story of your leadership journey, making the leap from doing tasks to leading people will be defined by how willing you are to let go and to develop a framework for the why of production, not just the how.
NO ONE ELSE IS GOING TO LEAD THEMAs a production person, I was so used to being led, to having someone point the way. What are we doing? When is it due? Why are we doing it? Once I became the leader of a team, I realized that I was that person. I needed to answer all those questions for my own people. That wasn’t quite enough of a realization at first. It took me even longer to figure out that if I didn’t lead them, no one else was going to. At least not in the way production people need to be led.
As a production person, you know what it takes to do the work. You know when something could be better. You understand the difference between an unexpected gear failure and operator laziness. You know when someone on the team knocks it out of the park. No other leader understands your team like you do. So if they are to be led, it’s up to you.
I spent a bunch of my time as a tech person feeling like nobody understood me: what I did, how I spent my time, what was really involved in pulling off the impossible each week. The people on your team might possibly feel the same way. As their leader, you know what it is like to be in their shoes unlike anyone else at your church. Step into the role of leader with the confidence that you can help bridge the gap between your team and the church. Not only helping others understand what your team does, but helping your team understand more what the church is about.
For your team to take the next step, it is important for you to step fully into your leadership role. Let go of the tasks you were so good at and let others bring themselves to those jobs. Develop a framework to help your team understand the why behind the tasks they’re performing. Lead.
Our Leadership Breakouts at FILO 2023 can help you hone your leadership skills, check out the lineup of leadership breakout teachers that will be joining us this year. Don’t forget to sign up to join us for FILO 2023 on May 2-3!
Testimonial videos, story videos, mini-documentaries…whatever you call it, many tech people and worship leaders are familiar with this type of video. You have probably made them before, and will likely make them again. Producing these types of videos requires a wide range of skills, some of which you may possess, and some of which you may not, depending on your role and expertise. As a creative video content creator who makes my living producing videos, below are 5 simple tips when making a story video for a worship service.
TIP 1: Beginning, Middle, End
Regardless of your subject, every story has one thing in common. It has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. While this is a simple truth, I have found this helpful for creative decision-making. This structure allows you to creatively think, “How would I like to treat the beginning?” Isolate that part just for a minute, and you can start the video in many different ways, whether it be text on screen, a hook line of something compelling your subject said, a broad introduction to the subject the story tackles, stats, animation, etc. etc.
Next comes the middle, which is typically the bulk of the story journey, and finally is the ending.
The ending is usually something that was learned from the journey, what has changed in the person’s life, or what has happened as a result of this story. Similar to the beginning, if you isolate the ending and ask “How would I like to treat the ending?”, you could potentially come up with some creative ways to end the video that are different than before.
It’s helpful to think of your beginning/middle/end before filming, because it can inform what you would shoot and how you would shoot it. And even if you decide not to be creative with your beginning/middle/end, realize that it still exists in your story, and make sure that each section is flushed out appropriately so the viewer travels the journey you want them to travel.
TIP 2: Tell the Story Visually
I made my living in the theater world before crossing over to video full-time, and I had a rule of thumb when I would direct musicals or plays. The rule was this: I want my staging to tell the story in such a way that a deaf person could understand it. In other words, I want to tell the story visually, and not rely on audio to tell it.
Video is a visual medium, like photography, and like theater. We should take advantage of that. For interview videos I want to watch them talking as little as possible. Which means I need to figure out what visuals I can use to cover up their interview. B-roll footage, stock footage, animated text, photos, drawings…there are many visual options available to tell the story visually.
TIP 3: Switch Your Music Track
This tip is very tactical, but there are so many story videos that only use one music track for the whole video. Music is the tool in your story video that evokes the mood, feel, and emotion of the story. If you want the entire video to have one emotion or feeling, by all means use one music track. But I have found that many stories involve struggle or conflict of some kind, and using music can amplify that struggle. I’ve also found that many story videos have happy endings, which would potentially call for a different music track. As you think of your beginning/middle/end, consider the idea of switching your music track to help tell your story musically.
TIP 4: Know Your Gear
Alrighty tech people, this is your section. The tip here is to KNOW your gear. We all want more gear. We all love gear. And there’s always new gear coming out that can replace the gear we’re using. So let’s just get that out of the way.
With that said, it is important to know the gear you do have. Do you know how the camera works? How to shoot in manual mode? Where to place the microphone? What types of microphones are good in what situations? The color temperature of your light? Where to place the light or lights? How you would light the subject with 2 lights vs 3 lights? We live in a great time where YouTube can help us learn just about anything we need technically. So next time you have a shoot, spend 15 minutes learning something new about your gear, or how to light a subject, or what codec or frame rate to use. There’s always more to learn.
Here’s my gear and workflow for a typical video: Sony FX9 and A7s3 cameras, Zeiss Batis & Sony G-Master prime lenses, F&V Z800s and Z400s lights, Light and Motion Stella Pro CLx for lighting backgrounds, Sennheiser MKH-416 boom mic, Sanken COS-11D XLR wired lav mic, capture footage through Finder to Mac computer, use Renamer to retitle the clips, drag into Adobe Premiere Pro CC, and edit. I use Music Vine for copyright free music and Storyblocks for stock footage.
TIP 5: Find a Truth-Teller
We all have someone in our lives, whether at work or personally, who will shoot straight with us and tell us the truth. For me, it’s my wife, and often I will show her one of my videos to get her honest feedback, which is sometimes good and sometimes not so good. But she’s never cruel. It’s so helpful for me to have her perspective, because she hasn’t spent days working on this project, she doesn’t know the story, and she’s coming to it with fresh eyes. Which is basically like everyone who will view your video. It takes a little bit of humility to put your work in front of someone and receive constructive feedback, but it always makes it better. And if you care about your work, you want it to be the best it can be. Hopefully these 5 tips will help.
Join us for FILO 2023 to learn more about telling stories well! Early Bird pricing is available through March 27th.
Todd gets to chat with Jon Jorgenson, Creative and Teaching Pastor at Soul City Church, and FILO 2023 Main Session speaker. They talk about Jon’s journey with FILO and about the things he’s learned going from a lone creative person to working with a team to execute a service.
Show Notes:
FILO 2023 Conference: The Conference is right around the corner on May 2nd and 3rd! Be sure to take advantage of the Early Bird registration rates that are available through March 27th. Learn more at filo.org/filo2023. We hope you join us and today’s podcast guest, Jon Jorgenson, at FILO 2023.
Bonus Learning Opportunities at FILO 2023: If you’re attending the conference In-Person, consider attending one of our pre-conference Tuesday Intensives or Wednesday Lunch & Learn events. Registration required. (Lunch & Learn events are available to Live-Stream participants and do not require registration.)
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
It is my honor and privilege to serve on the FILO Core Team as the Technical Producer for the FILO Conference. From the very beginning, before FILO even had its name, this role has brought with it a deep sense of belonging for my career and to my walk with God. Dreaming of what this conference could provide for others and how to execute that vision continues to stretch and strengthen our team.
The FILO Conference has been shaped and adapted over the years and has brought many lessons, amazing memories, and mountain-top spiritual experiences to our community. The FILO community has grown from a few hundred, gathering at a local church, to include both a virtual and international community of thousands. As the reach has expanded, our focus remains the same. The conference exists to provide a one-of-a-kind experience of community, skill development and inspiration for technical artists in the local church.
The production team for the main sessions at the conference is driven to deliver this vision. We are a team of fellow technicians, coming together to provide a conference FOR our fellow technicians. There is a responsibility to give back, provide an actual space specifically for our colleagues, to be a blessing to them and to offer a place of respite from the grind. Ministry work is non-stop. Sunday comes every week. This team is here to provide an experience that will help refuel, re engage, reconnect, and equip our friends in Christ. We offer a sacrifice to God – to further his kingdom here, among our peers. We acknowledge that this sacrifice requires a surrender of comfort for our team. The call times are early, the hours are long, we are truly first in and last out – FOR other leaders. When a leader gets better, our churches get better.
This team becomes the backbone of the main sessions. Chelsea, our executive producer and I often find ourselves saying “the team is everything”. What we mean is that our team members are incredibly important and vital to the overall success of the conference. More than the skills that they provide, more than the tasks that they complete, more than the amount of time that they dedicate towards serving. Who they are as individuals, as brothers and sisters in Christ, and as friends – is what makes the team stronger and better equipped for the next challenge. Our combined efforts are stronger than what we bring as individuals. To stand shoulder to shoulder and work together towards our common vision is what creates the atmosphere for the main sessions.
There are a handful of values that have helped to define our team, ways of working towards being healthier and sustaining success. Our team is committed to these few concepts and moving towards these truths with our actions and our words. In no particular order…
The first value can be said in many different ways, I like the meaning when said this way: Quality is never an accident. Perfection isn’t the goal. Preparation is. We will deliver high quality in all aspects of our work. We will strive for excellence and prepare like it’s going out of style. This value can be seen in our production meetings, in our huddles before starting each day of the conference, in our rehearsals and run-throughs, and in the conversations between tasks – all striving to become better prepared. Questions help the team learn and communication is open and honest. We will rely on each other to steward the gifts that God has given us.
The next value is fun. We value laughter and joy. If we aren’t having fun, we will lose sight of the “why”. Humor brings a sense of ease and comfort to our time together. If we can keep a sharp focus, with high energy and light spirits, our tasks will remain fresh and our execution will become more natural. Our value for having fun is tied closely to caring for each other. We know that times will get tough and we when they do – we will keep calm spirits and give grace to one another. Without it, our conversations can become clipped and pointed instead of clear-minded and understanding. We will strive to listen, and to be heard. During these pressing times, I would also hope to enact the heart behind this bit of knowledge from Todd Elliott’s book, “wait five minutes, then freak out”. To put this another way – we can choose whether or not we freak out at all. This choice takes practice and I am a student in training. I can coach myself ahead of the struggles. I can come to the conference with a servant’s posture and a humble heart. We can all choose to have faith over fear. If we take a breath, before reacting, we can reflect on the truth that when God calls us to advance, we lead with a deep belief of who Christ is in us and what He will accomplish through us. He has gone before us and continues to be our guide.
When gaps are created we fill them with grace and trust instead of suspicion. Crucial conversations and consistent feedback are how we show up for one another with love. Showing up means treating each other with respect and professionalism. This value can be seen in the ways that we honor each other by arriving on time, coming prepared, and ensuring that our “yes” means “yes”. These actions strengthen the trust on the team and allow us to do incredibly more than we could ever do alone.
God is calling us to more. More surrender, more sacrifice, more leading, and more love for our brothers and sisters. Our goal is to continue to remain steadfast in our work and steward our time, resources, energy and talent all for the glory of God.
Join us for FILO 2023 to see the team in action! Early Bird pricing is available through March 27th.
Todd talks with Pete Wright from Sun Grove Church, or as you probably know him @sweetpete.w on Instagram. They talk about how important it is to take care of ourselves if we hope to last long term.
Show Notes:
FILO 2023 Conference: The Conference website has been updated! Check out the schedule, discounted hotels, faculty, Intensives and Lunch and Learn events and more at filo.org/filo2023.
I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas: This book by Todd Elliott is an owner’s manual for how to live the abundant life of a technical artist in the local church. Learn more about it and order yours today at filo.org/book.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Do you ever find yourself in the middle of a more than usual busy week full of meetings, emails, and task lists, and yet, you feel isolated and alone? So often we get into our “to-do” list – heads down, making changes happen, moving projects forward – but we miss out on connecting with the team of people that we get to do it with. Then, for some of us, the team of people that we are partnered with is dysfunctional, hard to get along with, and triggers us at every turn. When we pause long enough to take a breath and check in with our tired soul, we find that what we really crave is to be seen, known and valued.
The truth is (and we have all probably heard this at some point in time if we have been part of a church for any length of time), we are not created to move about life alone. We were created for community – to work together, play together and yes, – even struggle together.
Jesus prays for us in John 17 saying:
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
When was the last time you felt unity with other people, connected to a common purpose, like all of you were pulling on the same rope in the same direction? As leaders, one of our main roles is to foster connection and community for those that we lead. Multiple times in scripture we see the importance of togetherness – Adam and Eve in the garden, Ruth and Esther journeying to a foreign land, Jesus and his disciples at the passover table, Paul and Timothy as the leadership baton was passed – and so many more. When we journey alone, we actually miss out on the full expression of who God is – the togetherness that Jesus prays for us in John 17.
The Risk of Being KnownFor the past 15 years of ministry, I have seen healthy versions of community and toxic versions of community. I have seen relationships strengthened through conflict that then pursued reconciliation and I have seen teams torn apart by conflict that was ignored or pushed to the bottom of an inbox.
A few years ago, the staff team that I was a part of decided to get a bit more intentional about developing community. We met weekly with an executive coach and he began to give us language to express our emotional needs (sounds super fun and not uncomfortable at all right?!). At first our team was not too sure; the truth was that I didn’t really want the guys on my team to know that sometimes I felt inadequate and that I didn’t ever let anyone come close to seeing it because I was worried about being judged. I had put in a lot of effort to make sure I knew how to minimize tears in meetings and hold it together. With all that effort came a lot of loneliness, isolation, and a feeling of suffocation at times that no one knew just how overwhelmed I was at the growing lists of tasks and the organizational dysfunction.
One day in our lovely, totally comfortable (if you haven’t picked up on the sarcasm here, please do) emotional needs group, it was my turn to share. All I had to do was look at a list of 10 emotional needs and name the one I needed. As I looked at the list, I saw one that stuck out: “containment”. Containment is the emotional need that just asks for a safe space to say the ugly things; to cry and be upset and for it to just be held and left there – not fixed or strategized upon. I needed that. My body needed an emotional pressure release if I was going to be able to keep doing all that I was doing.
So I took a risk and I shared.
I talked about the pressure I felt to hold it all together and the microscope that I felt the congregation had me under. I cried…big ugly tears…then I took a deep breath and waited for what was next. Silence…more silence…and then our Operations Director spoke up. With tears in his eyes he thanked me for being willing to be so vulnerable and then shared that my honesty was so refreshing and that he never would have known how I felt. “You are just always so happy and put together.” He said that if I felt that way, then he felt more free to embrace and share the pressures that he was feeling and how it impacted his mood and leadership. Through his tears he thanked me and held such beautiful space for my loneliness and pain.
What I couldn’t have known then is that this particular colleague and I would go on to have quite a few moments of conflict – BUT – because of that moment where we made space to move towards each other in friendship and express what is often too hard to let people see, we were able to move through the conflict and actually still really like working with each other.
Moving Towards Each OtherCurrently, I have the absolute honor of facilitating cohorts throughout the FILO Community. I am specifically passionate about creating space for female technical artists – women who find themselves doing really meaningful work in a male dominated field. The goal of the cohorts is to create a space for these women to be seen, known, valued, and developed. It is often one of the few places where they can be honest about what it is like to be the gender minority and still fully embrace what God is calling them to. The community that is formed has put breath back in their lungs.
The first week we talk about relationships and our community. We get honest about how our current relationship is with the leaders above us and the leaders next to us. The homework assignment then is to move towards a leader that you have a tense relationship with and offer a bit of an olive branch. The goal is to actually acknowledge that you know it is hard between the two of you and that your desire is to have a good relationship, and then, you show up with their favorite drink or coffee etc. One of the women from our cohort community decided to totally take me up on the homework challenge. She had a colleague that she was constantly at odds with. She knew he really liked Diet Coke, so on her way into work one day she ran through a drive through to grab one, stopped by his office to drop it off, and expressed her desire to do better together. Then the best part was that she got to come back to our cohort the following week and share how it was going as we cheered her on and encouraged her.
When I think about the role of a leader in the development of and nurturing of community, I think about those verses in John – that Jesus wanted the same unity for us that He has with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. As leaders, our role is to hit our knees in prayer the same way Jesus did and then to lead by example in vulnerability and to creative safe spaces for our people to show up as their whole selves and not be judged. So I am curious, what is one way that you could create safer, more authentic spaces for yourself and the teams you lead?
Interested in joining a community of other technical artists working together to create healthy relationships and community? Check out FILO Coaching! You can even sign up for our Cohort Waitlist if you want to be the first to know when a new coaching cohort is coming soon!
I’ve been slowly making my way through the book of Romans. Did I mention slowly? This morning I read Romans 12, a chapter we all know pretty well. In fact, as I started reading it, I thought to myself…I know this…do I really need to read it again? My next thought was that I should read it again. If nothing else, I’m filling my mind with excellent thoughts.
Then I got to the end of the verse…Practice Hospitality.
Like most moments of revelation while reading the Bible, this one struck me in a profound way.
This is a command. It is for all of us, not just for the people who have the gift of hospitality, which Paul talks about later. We are all called to practice hospitality with each other…to everyone.
The more interesting word in this sentence is “practice”. Meaning it isn’t an automatic response for most of us, that it takes work to be hospitable to each other. We need to practice it.
When I think of practicing something, it is usually about rehearsing a service so that we can execute it without creating a distraction. Or one step before this, working through lighting cues before people are waiting on me so that I know that they will work; checking the graphics for typos before the service starts.
In the world of church production, creating a distraction-free environment takes practice. It doesn’t just happen by itself. This is something all of us technical artists don’t take for granted. If we want the service to be amazing, it takes work. It takes practice.
Maybe Paul simply meant that we needed to open up our houses to people or learn how to cook for a large group. But I think the word hospitality applies to all of us for a reason. It is other-focused. It is an opportunity for us to not just fixate on ourselves…to think about someone else and what they might need in a situation.
I don’t know about you, but so often I’m trying to cover my own stuff. I don’t care about anyone else’s issues, I just don’t want my stuff to fail.
I was talking with someone who is now a friend, but around 10 years ago we didn’t know each other and were working on a project together. At the time, he had some idea that I thought was crazy, but I figured that it didn’t really affect me and that if he wanted to do something crazy, knock yourself out.
After reading this verse, I remembered this moment. I was only worried about getting my work done, and I didn’t care about my now friend’s work, or anyone else’s. You make sure you pull together your crazy idea and I’ll worry about my own stuff.
This is my natural instinct. Do your job and I’ll do mine. I’m definitely not thinking about how I can be hospitable to others.
How can I move toward thinking of others more often? What does it really mean to practice hospitality in my world?
When I practice the piano, it is usually painful and frustrating. Everything sounds bad and I hit the wrong keys a lot. Practicing anything at first can be this way. So I’m guessing that includes practicing hospitality.
Just because it is awkward and frustrating doesn’t mean we shouldn’t keep practicing it. Each time we show hospitality to someone it will get easier. Each time we think of others, it will become more of a natural reaction.
What can I do to practice the act of being hospitable to someone this week? What does it look like to think of someone else first?
Whether in your production setting at church or at your job or with your family, practice hospitality.
Interested in joining a community of other technical artists trying to create healthy environments where we can work together and make ideas happen? Check out FILO Coaching!
Todd is joined by Megan Fate Marshman, Teaching Pastor at Willow Creek Church and Main Session Speaker at the upcoming FILO 2023 Conference. They talk about the importance of humility and not just understanding who God is, but who we are.
Show Notes:
FILO 2023 Conference: Prices go up on February 15th, 2023 on all tickets for the upcoming FILO 2023 Conference in Chicago, IL. Learn more at FILO.ORG/FILO2023. We hope you join us and today’s podcast guest, Megan Fate Marshman, at FILO 2023.
FILO Coaching Cohorts: Join the waitlist so that you’re the first to hear when they launch. Head to filo.org/coaching to learn more.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Todd has a conversation with Lyndsey Van Wyk, the Service & Event Producer at Soul City Church in Chicago. They talk about producing events, volunteering at church and working through change with the whole team.
Show Notes:
FILO Advent: Recenter yourself after the heavy lift of Christmas by revisiting our Advent devotional series. You can access all of the devotionals on YouVersion, our YouTube Channel or our Blog.
FILO 2023 Conference: Prices go up on February 15th, 2023 on all tickets for the upcoming FILO 2023 Conference in Chicago, IL. Learn more at FILO.ORG/FILO2023.
Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss an episode! Subscribe to the FILO Podcast on your favorite podcast platform and be alerted any time we launch a new episode.
Leave a review of the FILO Podcast: Your ratings and reviews help spread the word about the FILO Podcast to others. We’d appreciate your help! Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
Have ideas for the FILO Podcast? Email your feedback, send us your topic ideas or names of people you think we should interview! filopodcast@filo.org
FILO Emails: The best way to stay in the loop with what FILO is up to, is to sign up to receive our emails.
Follow FILO on Social Media: Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your teams, and receive daily reminders.Today we are looking at a passage from Luke, chapter 2, verses 25-33.
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts. When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you may now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.
Have you ever waited for something? I don’t mean waiting on your coffee or for the update to ProPresenter. I mean something with significant life implications.
In Luke 2, we meet a man named Simeon. He was a great guy, “righteous and devout.” He was one of the Israelites who was waiting on the Messiah. They were waiting on Him to free them from bondage. See, they had been torn down, divided, and destroyed by the Assyrians and were now ruled by the Romans. They had hope, though. The Old Testament foretold of a messiah who would come and free them. The problem was that no one knew when He would come. Well, no one but Simeon. Simeon had been promised by the Holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen this Messiah. Can you imagine going every day wondering, “Will this be the day?” He had a promise, but he had to wait. And talk about a promise; this is the savior of all humankind we’re talking about here!
Luke writes that Simeon felt moved by the spirit to head into the temple courts one day – the day Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple to make the required sacrifice. It says that Simeon took Jesus in his arms and knew that he was holding the Savior. Simeon knew he had seen what God had promised, and that hope had come. I can only imagine his excitement as he praised God at that moment.
God’s fulfillment of His promises doesn’t always look like we expect. Simeon was waiting on the Messiah, but I don’t know that He was expecting it to come as a baby. Similarly, the Israelites expected a messiah to overthrow Roman rule and establish a new kingdom. They didn’t realize that Jesus would instead come and free us from the bondage of sin and establish a kingdom that supersedes the governments of the day.
I remember years ago waiting on God to fulfill a calling He had in my life. After five years of waiting, during a time I wasn’t looking for God to show up, He led me to a place that was better than I could have ever expected. The way God presented it in my life made me doubtless that it was God-ordained.
I don’t know what promises you may be waiting for during this season. Maybe it’s the promise of rest or a renewed purpose. No matter what it is, my prayer would be that this Christmas season, you find peace because God shows up to those who wait on His promises. It’s not always easy waiting, but He always delivers what He promises in His time.
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.Today we are looking at a passage from Romans, chapter 8, verses 18-25.
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
To birth something (a human, art, an idea, a sermon, a book) takes great effort. Often, though, before the birth or breakthrough, we hit a wall. We hit that “will it ever change, ever move, ever start?” wall, and then when we least expect it, there is a breakthrough.
At age 15, I was determined to learn how to play guitar. Singing came naturally, as did making up songs to Jesus from scratch. Once I mastered that acoustic guitar, there was no stopping this next singer-songwriter for Jesus. But first, the guitar. Finger-picking came pretty naturally. I printed out all the tablatures to my favorite songs and devoted hours to learning the plucking rhythm and placements for each finger on the fretboard.
Strumming was another matter. I could only strum in a 6/8 waltz-like time pattern. It took deep, labor-intensive work as I forced my hand into a clunky 4/4 time signature strum.
I hit the wall one night after about a month of daily practice.
For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, (Romans 8:20)
I went to bed, bummed out and down on myself. And then the breakthrough came. The next afternoon I went right back at it, working on my strumming, and something clicked. The practice had finally sunk into the memory of my muscles, and with ease, grace, and flow, I strummed that guitar in 4/4 like nobody’s business!
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. (Romans 8:22-25)
What are you waiting for?
What have you been working so hard to see realized?
What do you hope and pray for?
Jesus, the Light of the world, is the One we celebrate not only in the Christmas season but every day. We waited in hope for Him. We needed salvation, reconciliation, and direction. We cried aloud, “how long, oh Lord?”. At other times we waited patiently with quiet, expectant prayers for His coming. We toiled and worked and waited, and then, Christmas. The Light of the world came down to us. The breakthrough. The incarnate One.
We waited. We longed. We toiled. We prayed. We cried. We sang. He came and will come again in all of His glory. Hope is realized. Hope is here.
In this time leading up to Christmas, may we, God’s creation, wait in eager expectation for the incarnate one. Light of the world, who makes all things possible. Amen.
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.Today we are looking at a passage from John, chapter 9, verses 1-7.
As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes. “Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.
Have you ever had a bad day? I’m a commuter, so this kind of day usually starts in morning traffic on I-90 in Chicago. On a bad day, it seems every other driver has a vendetta against me and my sanity. Then maybe you finally arrive at work and realize you forgot your lunch, so you’ll have to overpay for some bad delivery food that will probably arrive cold.
As the day goes on, you realize your co-workers are in cahoots with the drivers on the interstate because they have nothing but bad news, frustrating last-minute requests, and any other number of things that feel like a waste of what little time you have. Because of the backup of new requests, you make a last-minute decision to stay late again so you can get the work done that you were supposed to do in the first place. Then finally, you sit in more traffic only to arrive home to a family that is frustrated that you once again missed dinner.
It’s the Christmas season in the church production world, which leads me to believe that you have had more than one of these types of days recently. While the Christmas season is supposed to be defined by joy, for many of us, this season feels like it’s characterized by problems. Not enough money. Not enough volunteers. Not enough time. Too many crazy ideas. Too many events. Too many to-dos. I know I’ve had Christmas seasons in church work where it feels like my job is just to put out fire after fire after fire. But sometimes, I wonder what we might miss by focusing only on the fires and the problems.
Today, we’re looking at the story from John, chapter 9, in which Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind. And similar to you and me at Christmastime, Jesus’ disciples are preoccupied with diagnosing the problem. They’re asking questions about who’s at fault or who’s to blame.
And Jesus’ response is so telling here because he couldn’t be less interested in playing the blame game. In fact, Jesus doesn’t see this man’s blindness as a problem. Or at least, it is not ONLY a problem. Jesus replies, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned…but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in his life.”
While the disciples could only see and focus on the problem, Jesus saw an opportunity within the problem for God to showcase his power. Interestingly, the blind man wasn’t the only one in the story who couldn’t see. Because the disciples were so fixated on the man’s obstacle, they could not see the opportunity for the miraculous right in front of their eyes. And the same is true for us. We’re completely blind to God’s power when we only focus on the problem.
And I wonder how that simple idea might change the way you approach this Christmas. When problems, issues, and the un-ideal pop up, what if you saw the problem as a call to prayer? When it doesn’t go your way, you open yourself up and say, “God, have your way.” If you’re willing to open your eyes to the possibility, I wonder how God might use the problems you’re facing as an opportunity to show his power and faithfulness to you and your team in a fresh way this Christmas.
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.Today we are looking at a passage from 1 John, chapter 1, verses 4-7.
And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.
This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
Technical artists are well-acquainted with light and darkness.
We wake up early. Drive to work in the dark. Occasionally, we catch the first light of day as the sun rises.
We work in a dark room and illuminate it with beautiful light to create an atmosphere of worship.
We direct focus with light. If a singer stands in the dark, we move them into the light so that we can see them.
We even hang lights on our houses to celebrate the season and proclaim joy to the world!
Light always serves a purpose, but what does it mean for us, the FILO Community, to walk in the light? To understand that, we need to understand the darkness.
What is darkness?
Darkness is simply the absence of light.
If God is light, then darkness is the absence of God.
To walk in darkness is to live as if God does not exist.
You might think, “Oh, that’s not me. I work for a church; I’m good.”
Our presence in the church building does not equate to us walking in the light of God. If we’re not intentional, we can let the pressures of this season dim our light and allow sin to steer our behavior.
Gear fails.
Our pastor asks for a last-minute change.
A particular element doesn’t work as planned.
We’re unfriendly with volunteers because we’re too focused on the tasks.
We miss meaningful moments with our families because we’ve been working overtime.
Then we lose our tempers with our families when we finally see them.
If we aren’t careful, we can live as if God hasn’t done life-changing work for us and in us.
The first verse of our passage says, “And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.” (1 John 1:4 ESV) John wrote this letter so that others would know Christ and have fellowship with the Father and his Son. He wrote so that others could share in his joy in Christ. As technical artists in the local church, we do what we do for that exact purpose. We run cables, build mixes, focus lights, and operate cameras to communicate the joy of the Gospel.
Amid the busy Christmas season, I pray we walk purposefully in the light.
Let us boldly invite others to share our joy and shine a light in the darkness with words of encouragement, grace, and love.
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.In my house, we have night lights all over! We have motion-activated lights in stairwells and bathrooms. We have nightlights that change color. My kids love picking colors. I’m a low light or cool blue guy, but my boys prefer the dance party setting. There’s nothing like getting up for a glass of water and seeing a rainbow underneath the door!
Why all the lights? Finding your way at night is essential in a home occupied by young boys. Stepping on a rogue LEGO is a powerful experience. The ability to navigate a clear and trusted path is something everyone desires.
I resonate with the psalmist, asking God to send light and truth to help guide him. After years of ministry, I still find myself in moments with more questions than answers. Figuring out how to pull off the new vision for the Christmas season can put many of us in that spot! On the one hand, these moments are an answer to prayer. New dreams and projects stretch us and bring us to unknown territory. But the unknown can feel uncertain and even discouraging at times.
I’m thankful for seasons like Christmas, though. Busy as it can be for many of us, if done correctly, it can serve as a great reminder of why we do what we do!
We have the privilege of knowing God sent the light that the psalmist requested! We get to read about God’s son, Jesus! How he lived and how he treated people. We know that as he left the earth, we gained the ultimate guide, the Holy Spirit!
“Send out your light and your truth;
let them guide me.
Let them lead me to your holy mountain,
to the place where you live.
There I will go to the altar of God,
to God—the source of all my joy.
I will praise you with my harp,
O God, my God!” – Psalm 43:3 – 4 NLT
To do the Christmas season effectively, we must tuck away and spend time with the Lord, “The source of my joy.” Outside of our work, don’t forget to step aside and spend time on your own with Him. Yes, use your “harp” or whatever skill you bring to the experience, and offer it back to God every time! But don’t let that be the only time!
“Why am I discouraged?
Why is my heart so sad?
I will put my hope in God!
I will praise him again—
my Savior and my God!” – Psalm 43:5
In this season, put your hope in God. He’s the reason we got into all this! If you’re like me, I can drift and quickly get discouraged depending on the success or difficulties coming from the experience I help facilitate. When I prioritize stepping away, even just to fast and pray over a lunch hour, I find myself refreshed and reminded why we’re doing it all. Let those times be the source of your joy and use your skills to the best of your ability to share God’s story this season!
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.Today, we are looking at a passage from Isaiah, chapter 2, verses 1-5.
This is what Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem:
In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.
I don’t know about you, but do you ever find yourself in a place where you put technology over God? Sometimes, even if we have the sincerest of hearts, we can make technology an idol. I serve in a place with a lot of resources and a lot of gear. I have sometimes thought, ”Man, when these JDCs hit, everyone is going to get saved.” Or “This L’Acoustics PA has to be what Jesus uses in Heaven.”
But the reality is that all the gear, all the sweet reverb, and all the crazy, incredible reverse camera shots will save no one. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save. Verse 2 says: “The mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.” The Lord reigns over all. Our role in production is to use audio, video, and lighting to point people to Jesus. The Gospel of Jesus doesn’t need a clever chase or perfectly wet reverb. It stands on its own.
As you enter this second week of Advent, ask the Lord, is production your mountain or is the Gospel?
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Our Advent content is available on YouVersion this year as a Plan! Check it out, read along with your team, and receive daily reminders.Much of the work we do is unseen in the realm of technical artistry. And the work that is seen – the gatherings that we produce, design, or lead – only reflect a fraction of the actual work that goes into what we do. In those unseen moments, I fall into the trap of minimizing the work God has called me to. I may spend countless hours and late nights building a landing page, programming lights, and crafting artistic service elements, and all I can think is, “What’s the point?” “Will anyone even notice?” “Will this ever measure up to what >>insert church name<< is doing?” Questions like these plague my mind and I’m left wandering through the ever-familiar halls of self-doubt, comparison, and discouragement. It’s a place I’ve been to many times, and perhaps it’s a place that feels familiar to you as well. In these seasons, I’m reminded of and blessed by God’s track record of revealing His glory in the humble, the lowly, and the unexpected. Today’s reading is a beautiful example of this.
Micah 5:2 reads, “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me One who is to be ruler over Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” Whether young David with a sling, Rahab with her hospitality, or Joseph with a dream, the Bible is full of examples of God’s glory, favor, and plan revealed in the unlikeliest places. This passage brings yet another character into the fold, and that is the city of Bethlehem. The scripture even articulates its perceived insignificance, referring to it as “small among the clans of Judah.” For years God’s people expected the coming of the long-awaited Messiah, and I’m sure that many had already built up how they saw it playing out – a grand entrance, one befitting the promised Savior of the world. But as we often find, time and time again, God likes to work outside the realm of the expected. Not only did Jesus come into the world in the small, helpless, vulnerable form of a newborn baby, but He did so in perhaps the most unlikely place of all – in a feeding trough, in a barn, in the insignificant city of Bethlehem.
As you press on, be encouraged by His faithfulness to bless you in the little things. He will use a technical artist’s small, overlooked, often-undervalued work to reveal His glory to the world and declare His good news to all the ends of the earth. Be humble, be faithful, and God will show up. He always does.
Need some community and prayer during this time? Reach out to us and let us know how we can pray for you, your family, your team, and your church this holiday season!
Now we’re in it! The big idea has stuck and now we’re rolling down the tracks to get this idea off the ground. At this point in the journey, there is still a bunch of stuff to figure out, but one thing is for sure, we’re doing something! In my experience, this is where the […]
Todd sits down with FILO Podcast Alumni, Rusty Anderson. They talk about video production in the local church and how Rusty approaches directing whatever the event. Show Notes: Connect with Rusty: Reach out with any questions or to chat about the coaching he offers on his Instagram: @RustyAnderson_ FILO Advent: To make sure that you […]
Todd sits down with Toby Walters of Church Gear and they talk about gear in church. Show Notes: FILO Cohorts: FILO recently launched our last Cohort of 2022. Sign up on the Cohort Waitlist and be the first to know when we launch new ones at the turn of the year. FILO 2023: We are looking forward […]
Todd is joined by Christina Reid, worship leader at Forest City Church. They talk about the differences between worship leaders and tech people and what we can do to work toegether better. Show Notes: FILO Book: “I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas” by Todd Elliott is a great resource for you and your teams to […]
There is a point in every creative process when an idea stops being just an idea and it needs to turn into an actual thing. This is where most ideas stall. It is one thing to have an idea. It is another thing entirely to actually turn the idea into something. Starting the process of […]
Ryan Loche from The Church Collective and the acedemic director of The Belonging Co. College joins Todd on the FILO podcast. Ryan has a really unique perspective as someone who has done everything: Worship Leading, Audio, Lighting, Communications…all of it. And they talk about all of it! Show Notes: Christmas Spotify Playlist: Need a playlist for […]
Todd sits down with Jeremy Bagwell from the Worship Production division at Ross Video. They talk a lot about vacations, hobbies and community, as well as what Ross Video has to offer those of us doing production work in the local church. We are grateful for Ross’ support of this podcast episode. Visit rossvideo.com to start a conversation today! […]
Jesse O’Brien talks with Todd about broadcast audio, creating a consistent sound across all campuses and all the other cushy parts of being an audio person in the local church today. Show Notes: Willow Creek Message by Albert Tate: Todd references a recent message titled “How We Love Matters”. Check it out on Willow Creek’s YouTube […]
At the FILO Conference back in May, we did an exercise to remind ourselves how important it is to take care of ourselves. As part of that exercise, we had each person make a calendar invite to themselves, in order to carve out time just for themselves. After about 6 weeks went by, we were […]
Todd has a conversation with Cassandra Langton, the Global Worship and Creative Pastor at Hillsong. They talk about how to create culture in a multi-site church model and well has how to keep your faith personal and not just a requirement for your job. Show Notes: Cassandra Langton’s Main Session Talk: In 2021, Cassandra taught […]
Joshua Hoegh joins Todd on the FILO Podcast to talk about staying connected to who we were created to be, not just going through the motions or mindlessly copying what other people are doing. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohorts: Todd is leading a new Coaching Cohort that launches next week! Spots are still open. Register […]
Todd sits down with Alex Sawyer, TD at Third Church in Richmond, VA and FILO Cohort Leader to talk about what church production looks like in a smaller, more traditional setting. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohorts: Registration for our next round of Cohorts is live! Check out all of the options at filo.org/coaching. Today’s podcast guest […]
FILO Cohost Aubrey Wentz joins Todd on the podcast to talk about working through change. Big change. Little change. All the change. Show Notes: FILO 2022 Chicago Conference: The Conference is NEXT WEEK! Today’s guest, Aubrey Wentz, is a Stream Session speaker and host of the Conference. Get 10% off your ticket purchases by using […]
Todd is joined by Andreas Pantli, the founding pastor of ICF Hamburg in Germany and main session speaker at this year’s FILO Conference. From his experience as the arts and production pastor at ICF Church in Zürich, Switzerland, one of the most influential churches in Europe, he and Todd talk about production and creativity from […]
Clay Scroggins joins Todd and they talk about leaving their jobs with no plan for the future. They ask the question of when to stay or when to leave a place, when God is really calling us to larger questions. Show Notes: FILO 2022 Chicago Conference: We are just a couple months away! Today’s guest, […]
Todd sits down with Ashlee Eiland one of the main session speakers for the FILO Conference this year. They talk about her journey from service producer to co-lead Pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids, MI. Show Notes: FILO 2022 Chicago Conference: We are just a couple months away! Today’s guest, Ashlee Eiland, is […]
Todd talks with Wes Harris, TD of Radiant Bible Church outside of Indianapolis. They chat it up about the importance of being in community with other church technical artists, whether that is through the FILO Conference experience, FILO Cohorts or the network of Chruch TD’s in the Indianapolis area. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohorts: 2 […]
Todd has a conversation with Worship Leader and Coach, Becky Ykema. They talk about their time together working at Willow Creek and how technical artists and their counterparts can work more effectively together. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohorts: We recently launched a new Cohort and have 2 new Cohorts launching soon! To learn more and register, […]
Todd talks with Jeremy Van Valkenberg, the Production Director at Transformation Church in Tulsa, OK. They talk about all the cool production stuff they are doing at Transformation, only to realize that it is more about Jesus than what new gear they need to get it done. Show Notes: FILO Advent Devotionals: It’s not ever too […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Luke 2:8-20 to prepare your heart for Justin’s message. Luke 2:8-20 8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Matthew 1:18-25 to prepare your heart for Todd’s message. Matthew 1:18-25 24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. As we approach Christmas Day, Advent becomes about experiencing a […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Isaiah 60:1-3 to prepare your heart for Todd’s message. Isaiah 60:1 1“Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.” In a dark world, Christ arrives to shine a light in the darkness. As technical artists […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 to prepare your heart for Chelsea’s message. Our Advent scripture for today is Ecclesiastes 3:1-8: 1There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: 2a time to be born and a time to die, a time to […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Psalms 27:1-4 to prepare your heart for Dennis’ message. Swimming in the ocean can be a lot of fun, but occasionally a set of waves come in and it can be a little scary. I feel like Christmas for the Tech Artist can […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Romans 15:4-13 to prepare your heart for Todd’s message. That’s how we roll over here in the world of local church technical arts! This part of advent should be easy! For us to be successful as technical artists, we need to be really […]
Todd had the chance to fill in as TD for friend Alan Riggs and was inspired by the ownership of the people on Alan’s team. So they sat down to talk about what secrets Alan could share about how to build a team full of owners. Show Notes: FILO Book: “I Love Jesus But I […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Luke 1:26-38 to prepare your heart for Delwin’s message. There’s a classic philosophical concept that comes up in movies like “The Dark Knight”, or in songs like “Something’s Gotta Give” and even the great American cultural phenomenon of 1987…WrestleMania 3. It’s called the Irresistible […]
Before participating in our Advent video or reading the blog, consider reading Mark 13:33-37 to prepare your heart for Dennis’ message. It seems like every year as a production person, you start to tense up and a little bit of anxiety starts to creep in. Christmas is coming and you’re thinking, how are we ever […]
Todd sits down with FILO Faculty Alumni Pete Richardson of the Paterson Center. They talk about bringing clarity, strategy and a plan to the situations we face, not only in our work as technical artists, but also as people created by God to bring a unique contribution to the world. Show Notes: Christmas gift idea: […]
The FILO Podcast’s editor joins Todd on the other side of the mic for this episode. They talk about the practicalities of audio post-production for video. How much time to spend, where to start, tools to use, all the good stuff. Show Notes: FILO 2022 Chicago Conference: Tickets are the cheapest they’ll ever be right […]
Todd talks with Jeremy Bagwell from Ross Video about his journey through production in the local church. They touch on burnout…or perceived burnout, career advancement and living in a camper while your house gets worked on. We are grateful for Ross’ support of this podcast episode. Visit rossvideo.com to start a conversation today! Show […]
Todd welcomes Sara back to talk about the importance of personal core values and how they impact your purpose. Show Notes: FILO Book: “I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas” by Todd Elliott FILO Coaching: One-On-One Coaching, Service Evaluation, Team Development and Cohorts. Learn more and explore the opportunities at FILO.ORG/COACHING. Subscribe to the FILO Podcast: Never miss […]
Todd finally has Jacob Cody on the podcast! What took so long?! From Jacob’s role at Bayside Church in Northern, CA, they talk about creating boundaries, building trust and eating good food with your team after a long day. Show Notes: Book: “Winning” by Jack Welsh Book: “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Victor Frankl Connect with […]
There is nothing quite so daunting as an empty page when you are the one responsible for filling it with something meaningful. What if my ideas are bad? What if nobody likes it? Heck, what if I don’t like it? For me, I notice that I try to fill the blank page in one pass. To […]
Todd sits down with Nate Anderson from Resi. They talk about the history of Resi, some of the secret sauce and where things are headed for church streaming. We are grateful for Resi’s support of this podcast episode. Visit resi.io to start a conversation today! Show Notes: Book: “Painting As A Pastime” by Winston Churchill […]
Kinda like the one staring at me right now… Any time we need an idea, there exists a blank page. That moment before there are any ideas. It is nothingness. Empty. Whatever creative endeavor you’re attempting to undertake, you have to confront this void. At the beginning of any creative process, the creative person has […]
Todd and Chad Vegas sit down to talk about excellence in production, following God’s call in our lives and how many office moves he’s had at Transformation Church. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohort: So often as technical artists, it can be easy to forget to look after yourself. To help with that, FILO offers Virtual […]
Greg Atkinson joins Todd on the FILO Podcast to talk about how to develop volunteers, how to engage people and the inside scoop on his life as a secret church shopper. Show Notes: Learn more about Greg: Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | Social Media Church Conference | First Impressions Conference FILO Book: Looking […]
It has been a few weeks since we hosted FILO 2021 Chicago, and I’ve been reflecting on what an amazing experience it was. And along with that, wondering why it was such an amazing experience. Like any good event producer, I like to analyze why something went well or why it didn’t go as planned. […]
Todd hangs out with Lighting Designer Tony Fransen. They talk about details, earning trust, lighting for the room vs. lighting for TV, and the mayhem that is traveling evangelistic revivals. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohorts: 2 Cohort Groups are starting soon! Join the Women’s Cohort, lead by Aubrey. Or the Cohort lead by Todd. Can’t […]
Todd gets to hang out with Chelsea! As one of the original FILO Core Team members, Chelsea brings a deep love of process to help make FILO happen. They talk about the need to develop systems to help keep things on track, building relationships to build trust and how making cupcakes is a type of […]
Stephen Brewster joins the FILO podcast to talk about developing a creative culture, showing honor to one another, and brainstorming with a “yes, and” mentality. Show Notes: Seth Godin’s Book: The Practice, Shipping Creative Work Jackie Brewster’s Enneagram Devotional: Hearing God Speak Contact Stephen Brewster: Text him at 615.492.2342. Follow him on Instagram @b_rewster. Listen to his […]
Todd sits down with Brian Tabor of Worship Leader Probs fame. They talk about how the Instagram account started and how it lead to launching a podcast. They talk about all the humor as well as the deep conversations that have resulted from people feeling seen and understood. Show Notes: FILO 2021 Chicago Conference: Visit […]
Todd sits down with Caleb Loeppky from FILO Staffing and Stan Endicott from Slingshot Group to talk about the challenges of being a technical artist on staff at a local church when trying to figure out whether you need to buckle down or decide that your season is done. Show Notes: FILO Staffing: Interested in learning […]
Todd sits down with author, professor and consultant Dr. Andrew Johnston, who is one of the FILO 2021 Chicago main session speakers. They talk about creating a team culture that activates individual and collective creativity. Show Notes: Dr. Andrew Johnston’s Book: Purchase Fired Up: Kindling and Keeping the Spark in Creative Teams on Amazon today. FILO Coaching […]
Todd sits down with YouTuber and Teaching Pastor from Soul City Church in Chicago, Jon Jorgenson. They talk about being creative for yourself, creating for others, along with what it means to be a “team player”. Show Notes: FILO Coaching Cohort: Sign Up on the Waitlist to be notified when the next Cohort launches! FILO […]
Todd sits down with Practical Worship YouTuber and worship leader Dave Dolphin to talk about important details to consider when streaming your services, including how to handle copyright. Show Notes: Dave Dolphin’s YouTube Channel: Practical Worship Dave Dolphin’s Website: PracticalWorshipBlog.Com Copyright Resources: Christian Copyright Solutions, CCLI, EasySongLicensing.Com “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl: Purchase […]
Alec Takahashi is a FILO Faculty Alumni and a touring LD that Todd got to sit down with and talk about collaboration, details and Disney’s obsession with both. Show Notes: Advent: Looking to catch up on the FILO Advent Series? Join Todd on a four-week journey to center your heart this season. Read or watch […]
Todd sits down with Lee Fields from MxU and Bayside Church to talk about the importance of having a life outside of work. Whatever your occupation, it is key to have interests and hobbies that have nothing to do with your job. The rejuvenation that comes from having a hobby makes us better humans. Show […]
It’s the week of Thanksgiving in the United States. Be honest now, how many of you have put up your Christmas tree already? It’s OK if you’ve put up your outdoor Christmas lights because you definitely need to take advantage of any warm weather you can. But your Christmas tree? You’ve got to wait. In […]
Good friend to FILO, Dennis Choy shares his story of burnout with Todd. They work through how we can sometimes let burnout creep up on us by doing really good things, but by saying yes to too much, we end up saying no to things that matter. Show Notes: Book Recommendation: Leading On Empty: Refilling […]
Nick and Todd have a conversation about the creative process, storytelling, creative risk, and being dependant on each other. A good conversation to listen together with your creative person. We are grateful for Ross’ support of this podcast episode. Ross has included a Worship Production episode in their webinar series: Ross Live Season 2. Jeremy […]
Todd sits down with Amplio co-founder, Nate Krause to talk about multi-site churches, understanding the why behind a decision and firetrucks. We are grateful for Amplio’s support of this podcast episode. Visit ampliosystems.com to start a conversation today!
Wes Hartley, former TD of Lakepointe Church in Dallas, sits down with Todd to talk about how we communicate with our teams to accomplish excellent services. We are grateful for Haivision’s support of this podcast episode. Enter for a chance to win an Apple TV, learn more about streaming or chat with their team by […]
I think it is safe to say that we are all ready to return to normal. We’ve done the covid thing, we’ve learned a few new skills, but we’re tired of editing our services together and watching them online like everyone else. Unfortunately, normal is not coming back. At least not in the way we […]
Todd has a chat with good friend Van Metschke, former local church TD and current Church Relations Advocate with CCI Solutions. They talk about pretty much everything. We are grateful for CCI Solution’s support of this podcast episode. Interested in learning more or chatting with their team? Head to their website and fill out the […]
Todd gets the tables turned on him and is interviewed by Jon Jorgenson about the newest FILO Resource, Todd’s book: “I Love Jesus But I Hate Christmas”. We are grateful for Living As One’s support of this podcast episode. Interested in learning more or chatting with their team? Head to their website and fill out […]
Todd sits down with Tres Cozad, the Systems Engineering Manager for Yamaha and Nexo. As a former church technical director, Tres shares from his experiences trying to figure out production needs for all the multi-use spaces at his church. We are grateful for Yamaha’s support of this podcast episode. Interested in learning more or chatting […]
Todd sits down with FILO 2020 Main Session speaker Liz Bohannon to talk about her book Beginner’s Pluck. Many of the concepts she discovered along the way to founding her own company are super applicable to the world of the technical arts in the local church and they dig through them! We are grateful for […]
A few months ago, I volunteered to provide production support for an event at one of my kid’s school. For me, it doesn’t matter where I’m doing production or for whom, I want to do great work. I don’t want people thinking about production, but about the content of the program. I want to be […]
Todd talks with Kaleb Wilcox, associate pastor at Willow Creek’s North Shore Campus and one of the people at the very first FILO brainstorming meeting all those years ago. They talk about how everyone executing the services are also worshippers and how that should affect how we pull off services. We are grateful for Adamson’s […]
Todd and Daniel talk about the responsibility that we all have to be a pastor for the people on our team. We shouldn’t just need volunteers to fill a position but to be involved in and care about their lives. Liz Forkin Bohannon’s Book: Beginner’s Pluck Rick Warren’s Leadership Values: Lead, Feed, Understand the Needs, […]
Todd talks with Sabrina Joseph, Owner of Roya Productions in Atlanta and Project Manager for Local Engagement at Passion City Church. They talk about how she started in production and how it led to helping churches and organizations realize their ideas. Getting to the heart of the story, figuring out what we want people to […]
Todd sits down with friend and former co-worker from the Willow days, Andrew Schuurmann to talk about visual storytelling. Not only from the perspective of shooting and editing, but into why use video at all. It was a good time.
Change happens. This has become very apparent in our world these days. The thing that is interesting about change is that you really can’t prepare for it exactly. Take the Covid-19 situation we find ourselves in. I’m sure we could have done some things differently to prepare had we known it was coming, but the […]
Todd sits down with one of his favorite people, TC Furlong, to talk about the barriers to a great production. These barriers aren’t just about better technology, but about our processes and even the relationships we have with our team.
Mike Sessler shares his story and how each experience has helped to shape how he approaches production in the local church. We talk about ad agencies, portable churches and tanning beds!
Caleb and Todd talk about the idea of FILO Staffing. What skills are churches looking for and what types of technical people churches are actually going to find. How can we help make the local church more effective through being the type of technical artists the church needs?
Todd sits down with old friend and FOH mixer Scott Ragsdale to talk about mixing audio in church, on the road, or for local bands at the VFW.
Todd talks with Justin Firesheets about the transition from doing production to leading people doing production. To expand the reach of our ministries requires us to let go and to empower others. There is some good stuff in here!
In this advent time of year, I have opened up one of my favorite advent readings to help me get ready for the coming of the Messiah and what it means in my life today. Right from the very first day’s reading, I was struck by the fact that one of the major themes of […]
Todd sits down with Robert Scovill to talk about the Scovill origin story and explore some of the lessons Robert has learned along the way. Some of those lessons related to audio, but many are just very insightful live skills. Learn more about Robert on his website: robertscovill.com
Todd talks with Muchiri Gateri, Head of Creative Technologies for Hillsong Church in Australia. They talk about leading teams, leading up and leading yourself.
Will Doggett, certified Ableton Live Certified trainer and founder of “From Studio to Stage” takes a few minutes to talk with Todd about his story, using tracks in church and TDs and worship leaders living in harmony. From Studio to Stage is an online community that helps you get from the studio to stage, and […]
Todd sits down with Jeff VanderGiessen from Amplio Group and talks about the joys and challenges of being a TD in the local church.
Erin Meyer is the production manager at Grace Church in the Indianapolis area and she sat down to talk with Todd about the challenges associated with being a female leader in a male-heavy industry. They also talked about many of the challenges we all face as tech people, regardless of our gender.
Todd sits down with Luke McElroy and talks about Luke’s book “Creative Potential” and the Salt Conferences.
The day after Andrew Stone’s passing, Todd sat down with Justin Firesheets for a future podcast episode, and they ended up talking about memories of their times with Andrew. Justin had the idea of talking to more of Andrew’s friends to collect more stories. This podcast is a combination of conversations between Todd and several […]
Todd and Jeff talk about MxU and FILO, along with topics such as balancing family and work, how to stay true to who we are as Christ Followers and what it means to thrive as a technical artist in the local church.
No. Not that big as*. The big ask. Every one of us who leads teams of volunteers knows about the big ask because, for most of us, it is something we stay away from. We have all these people who are giving up their valuable time to serve in the church and we know their […]
Freelance filmmaker Blaine Hogan sits down with Todd to talk about making ideas a reality. From their almost 10 years of working together at Willow Creek, they talk through budget and time constraints, collaboration and mutual empathy.
Todd sits down with Mike Foster to dive deeper into the topics of relationships and handling failure.
Brad Zimmerman, Creative Director at Watermark Church in Western Michigan, sits down with Todd to talk about doing production ministry, boundaries and innovation.
This episode features FILO 2019 main session speaker Ryan Howell, the Director of Production at Watermark Church in Dallas. Todd and Ryan hit all kinds of topics including team values, Easter and Top Golf. Watermark’s Production Values: Create Collaborate Cultivate Circulate One Team Mentality Be a Host, Not a Guest Monday Conversations (feedback) Solution Oriented […]
The FILO crew went to Minsk, Belarus to interview Ola Melzig, the head of production for the Eurovision Song Contest for one of the main sessions for FILO 2019. We talk about our great experience with the Eurovision crew, Belarusian food, and riding in the Minskerbus! JON AND DAVE ON THE PLANE MINSK AIRPORT […]
Todd chats with Reid Wall, one of the production managers for Hillsong Church in Australia. Their discussion ranges from how Hillsong production builds teams to building the foundation of your ministry on mission and values.
In this episode of the FILO Podcast, Todd talks with Debbie Keough. She is a freelance technical artist, specializing in audio. Debbie shares her insights on how to recruit with inclusivity, how to serve with a heart to train, and the challenges and benefits of Virtual Soundcheck.
In this episode of the FILO Podcast, Todd talks team culture with John Cassetto, leader of the worship ministry at Saddleback Church.
Todd talks with former Willow Creek co-worker, Jim Sippel about color temperature, camera aperture settings, and everything to do with lighting for video. It’s basically a bunch of science, which we could all use a little more of!
Todd talks with Chris Wheat, the operations director at Soul City Church in Chicago, about project managing a new building program. They talk about dreams early in the process and figuring out what was most important for the new space, as well as lessons learned along the way. Juggling the new building project with your […]
Christmas is coming! Are you ready? Have you been preparing all the details? Have you prepared yourself? Your family? Todd goes back to Christmas pasts to talk to one of the OG crew at Kensington Church Kristin Twilla, about the journey from less than healthy Christmas processes to the version it is today.
I’ve been working my way through the New Testament and came across a verse that I had highlighted in an earlier reading: “Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously.” – 2 Cor. 9:6 I’m sure I’ve read this verse countless times, and each time I’ve viewed it […]
From the outside looking in, it seems like Church on the Move has unlimited funds to do whatever they want. In this conversation with Andrew Stone, we look at how to work with limited resources.
The cobbler praises God every time he makes a decent pair of shoes. I read this quote a few weeks ago. It is attributed to Martin Luther…you know, the guy who helped kickstart the reformation. Using the interwebs, I went looking to see if he actually said this, and I only found anecdotal evidence. Instead […]
If you’ve been to the FILO Conference, you know Todd’s guest Dave Hunter as the MC of FILO and the leader of Green Room Improv, who performed at FILO in 2016. Dave and Todd talk about all kinds of things, some interesting and some not so interesting, but mainly about storytelling through the medium of […]
I have been struck again this week by the fact that the world of church production is a mystery to non-production people. This isn’t a bad thing or something to try to solve. Andy Stanley would say “it is a tension to be managed” (he would actually say it twice for emphasis, but I’ll just […]
On this episode, Todd sits down with Sara Emmerson, the Creative Pastor at Soul City Church in Chicago, to talk about pretty much everything. Soul City Church just finished a new 800 seat auditorium, so Sara and Todd talked about the challenges and excitement that comes from leading a team into that new space, collaborating […]
This is a guest post by Chelsea Pribyl, FILO Chief Operations Officer. One of the final items that I discovered on a big closet re-org project recently was this shirt. Just as the production swag items in your closet can probably relate, it’s a t-shirt I’ve had in my collection for a really long time. […]
Probably my favorite part about my Facebook feed is the Memories feature. Especially with kids, it is amazing to see how things have changed over the years. Am I really getting that old? Today, this was my memory: 4 years ago on this day, it was my last day as a staff member at Willow Creek […]
I should probably just do a blog post from each of the episodes of Netflix’s show Abstract. It is so good. If you haven’t watched it yet, I can’t recommend it any higher, especially if you’re a technical artist in the local church. There is so much great content from all the artists featured. One […]
On this episode, we get to talk to the MxU guys! Jeff Sandstrom, Lee Fields, and Andrew Stone talk about how MxU came about and we look ahead to all the ways they are investing in the local church technical arts community through MxU Live, MxU Coaching, and MxU Live.
Production in the local church lives in the tension between developing people & excellence. Our ministries run on the expertise and dedication of volunteers. Creating services with excellence requires a level of consistency that can make leveraging volunteers difficult. Is there a way to develop new people without having to sacrifice quality? In this episode […]
Earlier this month, we asked the FILO community on Instagram what questions they had for us. One of our followers wrote back: “Need info on the simple way to pixel map with 5050 LED tape. RGBW. Controllers, software, etc.” We headed straight to an expert for an answer. Check out what Willow Creek’s Lighting Engineer, […]
Balancing work with the rest of your life can sometimes feel impossible. In this episode, Todd sits down with Matt and Aubrey Wentz. Matt works on the systems team at Willow Creek and Aubrey is the executive producer for the Willow Creek Crystal Lake Campus (you also might know her as the co-host from the […]
I’ve been watching the documentary “Abstract”. It follows the lives and careers of artists from very different fields…an architect, a photographer, a set designer, even the Air Jordan shoe designer. As a technical artist, it has been so great to watch and learn from other types of artists, so as someone who loves a good […]
If lighting is done well, it helps to enhance a service. If it isn’t, then chances are it is distracting people from worshiping. Todd talks with Alex Fuller the lighting designer from Bethel Church on how they go about programming lighting so it’s not distracting and invites people into an experience with God rather than […]
I love to read. And I love reading non-fiction. History. Biographies. You know, all the stuff your dad reads and you think he’s weird…those books. I’m that guy. Recently I read a dual biography of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, the partnership that created some of the most popular musicals in the middle of the […]
FILO 2018 main session speaker Chris Brown, along with Dennis Choy, have a conversation about how senior pastors and technical directors can well work together. Kaleb Wilcox and Aubrey Wentz guest host the FILO Podcast that was recorded in front of a live audience at FILO 2018.
The FILO Podcast went live this week! We took some time at FILO2018 to talk to people about their experience at the conference. Guest hosts Aubrey Wentz and Kaleb Wilcox talk with FILO attendees on the Amplio Lounge stage about their favorite things.
Nate Parker, Technical Producer for the FILO2018 main sessions joins Todd to talk about FILO prep why he loves serving the FILO community.
Todd talks with Rusty Anderson from Passion City Church about live video and making sure that it is not distracting but instead invites people into an experience with God, rather than a show.
Kaleb Wilcox, the executive producer for the weekend service at Willow Creek’s North Shore campus talks with Todd about their relatively new building project and the challenges that went along with it.
I had the pleasure of working an event that Horst Schultz was one of the main speakers. Not only is he a wonderful individual, but he has built a few successful businesses in his lifetime. Most specifically The Ritz Carlton Hotel chain. He was giving a talk about how to create a great service organization, […]
Easter is coming up pretty quick. For most of us, it is the event that tends to sneak up on you if you aren’t careful! In this episode, Todd talks with Chris Thomas, the Technical Arts Director at Cherry Hills Church about how they have been preparing for Easter this year. There are some great […]
Over the Christmas break, my daughter was home from college. It was amazing to have her back in the house. While she was home, she was driving one of our vehicles that don’t heat up very well. Because of that, I bought a heated pad that sits between the driver and the actual seat. The […]
Dennis Choy is responsible for many production teams across many venues and several campuses at North Coast Church. Todd and Dennis have a great conversation about what success looks like when you’ve got people of different abilities scattered all over the place. With so many opportunities for things to go wrong, they talk about doing […]
I was looking for something to watch on Netflix the other day and landed on a documentary about Foo Fighters. I didn’t know much about the band, except that Dave Grohl used to be the drummer in Nirvana and that Foo Fighters were one of the only real hard rock bands still out there. The documentary […]
Andrew Starke, the audio director at North Point Community Church, talks with Todd about the journey many of us take to becoming a fully developed tech person. We hear Andrew’s own story and his learnings about being defined by more than just the task you are doing for church. We all need to realize that […]
Todd talks with Stef Cassetto, the weekend producer at Saddleback Church, about the reality of working through competing values to accomplish a weekend service. What’s best for the creative team, isn’t always best for the production team, and vice versa. Now add what the pastor needs…and then there’s the question of what’s best for our […]
As technical artists in the local church, we all have to figure out the relationship with our team and the team on the stage…the band. Todd talks with Delwin Eiland, a worship leader at Willow Creek, about ways to develop this relationship so that our services can be the best possible.
It’s Christmas time! Rehearsals. Christmas parties. Rehearsals.Christmas shopping. Rehearsals. Baking cookies. Did I mention rehearsals? Initially, when starting to write an email to the FILO tribe, I wanted to suggest that you should sign up for FILO2018 using your leftover budget money from 2017…that is if you haven’t already spent it on those extra Christmas […]
As tech people, we are often asked to do crazy stuff by our creative counterparts. As crazy as these ideas might seem, the balance between creative ideas and technical realities is the name of the game. We are the executors of ideas. They imagine ideas that need to be executed. Without each other, nothing happens. […]
In the world of church production, the phrase “Good Enough” is used far too often, and even typing it, it sends chills up my spine. There are some people that say it out of ignorance of what it really takes to make things happen. They will generally never stop saying it. Then there are some […]
I met with a couple of technical artists the other day, to talk about their worship space and figure out ways we could make it better. Even though they had a long way to go, they were doing the best they could with what they had. It was excellent. For the most part, this was […]
“I’m always surprised how pastoral being a church TD is!” This is a text I got from one of my friends who is a technical artist in the local church. It couldn’t be more true…in two ways: That being a TD is pastoral and how surprised we are by it. For many of us, we […]
There is so much work to do! Who’s with me? New ideas from creative types tend to get in the way of all the work already on my giant list of “To do’s”! Things keep breaking, which means the list keeps getting longer all by itself. When the pile of work that needs to get […]
History Nerd alert! I just finished watching “The Roosevelts” on Netflix. It is the story of the Roosevelt family, told through the lives of Theodore, Franklin, and Mrs. Roosevelt, whose maiden name was Roosevelt, by the way. They were fifth cousins, so no big deal. It was a fascinating story, but the thing that stood […]
There are times when I get annoyed by people complaining about how early the call time is. Or how late a rehearsal goes. Not to feed into too much of a stereotype, but most of the people I’m thinking about aren’t tech people. For me, getting there in enough time to make sure everything is […]
I was getting for a flight to Germany recently, and I happen to be sitting in the airport right next to the plane I was about to get on. While I was sitting there, I noticed the pilot walking around, checking various systems around the plane. As a passenger on that plane, it made me […]
I’m working with some great people right now that are some of the hardest working people I know. Super responsible. Striving for excellence in every area. Kicking butt and taking names. Unfortunately, they are all overworked. System upgrades, routine maintenance, volunteer recruiting, set changes…the list could go on forever. And it tends to. There is […]
Having worked at Willow Creek for over 10 years, I would often talk to people who were visiting from other churches. As I was giving people tours of the production spaces, I would often get comments about how “easy” it must be to do production at Willow, since we had everything we could ever want. […]
My wife used to work for a guy who would always ask the question “What can you do for me?” The context was generally in a situation where he was paying for a service…a rental car, hotel room, plane ticket, you get the idea. It would usually make me uncomfortable when he would do it, […]
The other day, I had to put my troubleshooting skills to the test. I have to say that it is one of my favorite parts about being involved in production. Having a problem and needing to solve it. I don’t know that I love the pressure of a service about to start while I’m trying to […]
I’m pretty sure you’ve figured out by now that I love history. I can’t get enough of it! There are so many lessons from the events of the past that can be learned from and I like thinking about ways to apply these lessons to my own situation. I just finished reading an account of […]
I just had a conversation with my friend and fellow technical artist Joy about an event coming up that we are both working on. She asked me what I was looking forward to most about it. My first thought was all the things that I’m worried about that could go wrong. How unfortunate, but how […]
One of my favorite verses in the Bible is Job 5:7 “As the sparks fly upward, man is born to trouble.” Now that I see it in writing, it seems kind of depressing; my favorite verse is about how inevitable trouble is. I like to think of it as being realistic. There will be pain. […]
The worst. Right? You’ve just given everything you have to the giant production called Christmas Eve services, and now it’s the weekend again. Give me a break! As I was reflecting on this familiar feeling, it dawned on me that church production people everywhere are in the same boat here. Maybe your church canceled Saturday […]
I had the privilege to speak at the Tech Arts Conferenz in Karlsruhe Germany. There were about 600 creative and technical artists gathered together to learn from each other and to be inspired to keep doing ministry at our local churches. As I was standing up on the stage having each word I was speaking […]
For some reason, I’ve been thinking about the barricade scene from Les Misérables. You know, when the guy climbs to the top of the pile of crap and waves a giant flag. Part of me is thinking, “Are you crazy?! You’re going to get shot!”. The other part of me feels like I wish I […]
I live in Chicago. OK, if you’re from Chicago, I basically live in Iowa, but if you aren’t from here, I live in Chicago. One of the things I love about this city is the architecture and its history. The home of the first skyscraper. Frank Lloyd Wright. The International School and Mies van der Rohe. One of the […]
I just finished reading “The Wright Brothers” by David McCullough. What a great story of hard work and perseverance.Also of what can be accomplished regardless of the resources at your disposal. At a certain point in the book, Mr. McCullough notes that at the same time the Wright Brothers were solving the challenges of flight, […]
Growing up, music was part of my family heritage. As a little kid, it seemed like everyone was heavily into playing some instrument, usually really well. There was a piano in everyone’s house, and with that piano was an expectation that you would learn to play it. Today I have a piano in my house. […]
As technical artists in the local church, if we are doing our jobs properly, what we do is invisible. It should go unseen. The technical arts should be so seamlessly integrated with the creative arts that nobody can tell where one begins and the other ends. Invisible is what we do. What we do is […]
When I was at Willow Creek and even before that at Kensington, we talked a lot about “the last 2%”. That part of any project when you just want to walk away, but if you stick to it, it will make whatever you’re trying to accomplish even better. This goes along with the idea of excellence […]
I’ve been married 22 years today. I can’t even believe that so much time has gone by. On my wedding day 22 years ago, I had been working at my first full-time job out of college for about 9 months. It had been quite a roller coaster. I loved what I got to do. As a […]
Many months ago, I was feeling like God was calling me to the next thing. The only problem for me was that I had no idea what that “next thing” was. I’m excited to announce the beginnings of that next thing. Remember Gurus of Tech? After attending an amazing event in Louisville, KY back in […]
As engineering students, we were all required to take the class Thermodynamics. By itself, this is a tough subject matter, but the professor we all had was a cross between a fire and brimstone style preacher, and a drill sergeant. While he made the course fairly entertaining, it was even more intense than just the […]
What is it about the date January 1st? In some ways, it feels like such an arbitrary moment in time, yet it gets everybody looking back on the year that just happened and looking forward to the year ahead. I’ve been sitting here reflecting on some of the years that have gone by…with relief that […]
I’m a sucker for documentaries. I could watch one after another. It doesn’t even matter what the subject matter is. I love to learn about everything. As a result, I know a little bit about a ton of different things. The other day, I watched a film entitled A Year in Burgundy. It is the […]
When I was a few years into the lighting part of my life, moving lights started to become a big deal. There were quite a few people on the team, my boss included, who wanted us to look into buying some moving lights. This sounds like a dream come true! My boss is asking me […]
I’m leaving for Sweden this week. I’ve never been to Sweden before. Other than the $1 vanilla cone at IKEA, I don’t have any experience with things Swedish. (I never leave IKEA without one of those cones! It’s only $1!) I’m super excited because I get to be a part of a gathering of Swedish […]
Recently, I was leading a team to handle the production needs for a concert tour and for those of you who have worked something like this know that it is a ton of work. There was someone on the team who isn’t really a production person and that doesn’t normally serve with us. He kept […]
To build a solid foundation for production at your church requires gobs of tenacity. If you think about the foundation of a building, most of it is underground and will never be seen. But without it, the building couldn’t stand. Even though nobody sees what goes on down there, if corners are cut, the building […]
If you haven’t picked it up by now, creative artists and technical artists are very different. We think differently. We are interested in different things. We come at the same problem from two totally different vantage points. The nice part is that both groups want to solve the same problem; we’re at least on the […]
I’m a huge proponent of becoming more acquainted with the creative process. As someone who is usually executing other people’s ideas, I don’t fully understand what is involved in coming up with those ideas. I just need to make them happen. From my limited perspective, the creative process can seem very black and white. The […]
In my early days of work at a church full time, I was the technical director of a church that met in a high school theater. It was a brand new facility and the theater was state-of-the-art, so it was a pretty sweet setup. On the downside, we had 3 semi-trailers full of gear to […]
The GLS (Global Leadership Summit) is over…at least in North America. It is one of my favorite events to work, for many reasons. One of those reasons is that I get a chance to have a front-row seat to hear some pretty amazing messages. In the season I’m in right now, which involves much future […]
It’s my favorite time of year. I have the privilege to work with an amazing team to pull off the Global Leadership Summit, which is broadcast around North America to close to 100,000 people live, and then rebroadcast throughout the rest of this year to another 100,000 in cities around the globe. As we ramp […]
The pace of doing production in the local church can be crazy fast. Every week, a new service needs to be planned and executed. It is relentless. Sometimes this pace catches up with us in bad ways. If we are running so fast that we don’t have time to think things through, we can start […]
Remember when you were in math class, and your teacher would take points off your test if you didn’t show your work…where your answer came from? You couldn’t just write the answer down, he wanted to see your tough process and how you got there. It was a way for him to know that you […]
One of my favorite, yet cheesy bits that David Letterman does on his show is “Will It Float?” Basically, something is chosen, like, say, a cheese log. Dave and Paul Schafer vote on whether it will float or not, then they drop the object into a tank of water. That’s pretty much it. (BTW, a […]
I don’t know about you, but the closer rehearsal gets, I tend to get busier. Cleaning up messes, correcting typos, doing that thing I forgot to do on Thursday. Typically these are things on my list, things that I want to get done. I’m generally not doing things that are on other people’s lists, because […]
I love to read. When I was a kid, I would devour books. I can remember getting to the end of just about every chapter and not being able to stop. Now that I’ve been reading my whole life, I know that not all books are written in such a way that the chapters end […]
I like to be a team player. I don’t like to let people down. Many times, something can’t be done simply because you or your team don’t have any more time…at least not a normal amount of time. I’ve noticed that it is easy for me to sacrifice my time for an idea, that I […]
I don’t think it is a stretch to say that most of us don’t make the final decision. As a technical artist in the local church, much of the time we’re facilitating someone else’s idea. Whether it is the worship leader or the youth director or the senior pastor, we all have people that are […]
[This is a guest post from my friend Jonathan Malm. While we have only met once in person for about 30 seconds, we have done a lot of work together in the cause of making the process of doing church better. He is the curator at churchstagedesignideas.com, Sundaymag.tv, a blog about the creative process, and […]
By pushing ourselves from time to time, we increase our capacity. Looking at a running analogy, if I increase my pace a little at certain intervals, pretty soon my whole pace has increased. In the world of production, once you try something for the first time, it now has the potential to be a part […]
Keeping things simple eliminates the possibility of failure. When something has tons of moving parts, we are opening ourselves up to those moving parts ceasing to move. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve gone to the copy machine and something is jammed or broken. Considering how sophisticated they are, it isn’t a huge […]
I’ve been doing some writing on the idea of backup plans, and along the way, I’ve also been reading a book about the admirals who led the Navy during WWII, oddly enough called The Admirals by Walter R. Borneman. For the most part, the names Leahy, King, Nimitz, and Halsey are not well known to the history of […]
To be a technical artist in the local church, you need to become really good at asking questions. Not only are there details we need, so that the right gear is set up, but a key reason for asking questions is to get a better understanding of what we are actually trying to do. I have been […]
Easter is coming, and for some crazy reason, you and your spouse decided it would be a good idea to host the family Easter dinner. Don’t you know you have some huge Easter production going on? One of the things I love about having people over is that it causes a flurry of activity to […]
As the technical artists at your church who stewards the resources that have been entrusted to you, you are responsible to get the most out of every piece of equipment. Sometimes we might not have the exact right piece of equipment to accomplish someone’s creative idea, but don’t wait on new gear to try something […]
This is a guest post by my friend David Leuschner, the Executive Director of the Technical Arts at Gateway Church in the Dallas area. It was late. I walked into my house and sat down with a lot on my mind. As I sat there and thought about the day’s events, some good, some bad, […]
In an earlier blog post Tools Don’t Make the Craftsman, I mentioned that I was reading Neptune’s Inferno by James Hornfischer. I really loved this book and learn all kinds of new things about the amazing effort of the US Navy in the Pacific during World War II. While what we do as technical artists […]
I don’t subscribe to many magazines, only because they just pile up on my desk. Lately, for whatever reason, a small stack has developed, so I took the time to go through them the other day. One article that caught my attention was about Elton John’s Diving Board Tour, especially since it was one of […]
I like it loud. I like lots of top light on the band. I like san serif fonts. I like to feel the kick drum in my chest. These are my preferences and are just the tip of the iceberg. I’m only one person on a team of people with preferences of their own. So…whose […]
I am currently listening to a recorded book called Neptune’s Inferno, which is about the US Navy’s battle with the Japanese over the island of Guadalcanal. As I have been going through the book, the author, James Hornfischer has done a masterful job of writing the narrative of all the different ships and the people […]
Based on my last 2 posts about what we do and how we do it, let’s say you and your team and doing amazing work, and you are treating each other the way Christ commands us. Is that all there is? If I do those two things, God will bless everything we do? Not necessarily. […]
In my last post, I talked about how being excellent in each tiny detail adds up to overall excellence. You can’t have a great event without taking care of all the small things. If you look around at many live events or events on TV, you’ll notice that these things happen all the time. There […]
There are some days that I really love my job. I am currently in a run of days that are generally some of my best experiences in production, the Germany Leadership Summit. It happens every other year, and I have had the pleasure of leading these trips since 2005. I can’t even believe it. I […]
Lately, I have noticed a difference in thinking between senior leaders and tech people. Senior leaders don’t really notice technology issues until they are issues, and they want them fixed immediately. Tech people on the other hand are always trying to plan for the issues but really can’t do all the work of figuring things […]
Today’s post is by an old friend of mine. Steve Norman is currently the Lead Pastor at Kensington Community Church’s Troy Campus and we both started working at Kensington in the same era. The era when your office was in the copy room, or the warehouse area. Our paths have crossed and recrossed over the years, and I thought it would be […]
I was just thinking about this past Christmas production, and my initial thoughts have been focused on how well the service turned out and how many great comments I’ve received. If I think a little longer, I start remembering all the things that didn’t go well. All the long days, all the delayed decisions, all […]
I don’t know about you, but I’ve noticed that tech people tend to like things louder than most. How else can you get the drums to sound as amazing as your new micing technique requires? Worship leaders also like the energy that comes from a louder mix. For senior pastors, the volume can be a […]
I had a conversation with a co-worker a few weeks back and we talked about whether or not perfection was the goal of any production. After writing a blog post, then thinking some more about it, I have another idea. If making things distraction-free is just another way of saying perfect, how can we avoid […]
Coming up with the perfect Christmas program seems really simple when you see what churches all over the world are doing. It all looks so easy and magical. The reality is much different. First off, there is probably nothing even close to a perfect program. Second, developing an effective Christmas service (or any event for […]
I’m pretty sure it only happens at my church, but from time to time someone complains about it being too loud. I’ve written a few posts already about how loud is too loud, which addresses the philosophies around volume at church but having values around why your volume doesn’t stop some people from thinking it’s […]
Something that I shared with the Willow production team at our Christmas party… This year, I decided to participate in an advent experience. It is nothing more than reading every day from John Piper’s Good News of Great Joy (BTW, it’s free). While reading through this, it struck me that it is probably the first time […]
Here it comes. Christmas production time. I was going through the calendar and marking off all the nights that I am going to be at rehearsal this month. Needless to say, it was a sobering exercise. For those of us in the technical arts of the local church, this is our busy season. Preparing a […]
One of the values we have on the Willow Production team is to create a distraction-free environment. We are trying to be transparent, so that people in the congregation don’t notice the production, and can therefore focus on God. Does this mean that perfection is the goal? Maybe it is splitting hairs, but I’m a […]
At many churches today, the level of production value rivals many other live shows. The bar has been raised over the years to the point where the types of equipment and the people operating them can play in just about any arena. If our gear is the same, and the quality of people’s ability is […]
Given the title, it shouldn’t be a shock that there is a part 1 and a part 2 to this. In part 3, we’ll look at a more subtle way that I can say someone’s “no” for them. When a pastor asks me for something that seems undoable, my knee-jerk reaction is to NOT tell […]
Yet another post about saying “no” for other people. (check out part 1 here) This one is based on a stereotype of tech people everywhere: We always say “no”. Usually, we say it with attitude. Many times we don’t even hesitate; it just comes right out of us. “Hey, I have this idea to…” “NO!” […]
Bill Hybels wrote a book called Axiom. It is a collection of leadership values that he uses to help make decisions. From a leadership standpoint, I have found it to be invaluable. I say it is a must-read. He does a great job of distilling leadership principles into easy-to-remember phrases. Don’t say someone’s “no” for […]
I really enjoyed the book “Influencers” by Joseph Grenny, who was a speaker at this past year’s Leadership Summit at Willow Creek. Here’s another great quote from the book: Make the right behavior easier and the wrong behavior more difficult When I think about what separates great production from bad, much of it can be […]
“Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.” – Isaiah 57:14 I love this verse. Even though it was written thousands of years ago, it feels like a rallying cry for technical artists in the local church. It is why we are the first […]
I have been working in production and serving in the local church for most of my life…like 3/4 of it. Whether it has been as a volunteer or a staff member, I have spent quite a bit of time in church. Last week, Pastor Eugene Cho came to speak to the Willow Creek staff. He […]
I have been a tech person in the local church for the majority of my life. Can I really be that old? Yes, that is the answer. When I look back into the dim early years of existence, I remember a time when I used to get pretty frustrated with people. I mean really frustrated. […]
I’m a technical artist. I want the execution of the service to be flawless. You see me as an uptight, perfectionistic, idea crusher. You are a creative artist. You want to keep things loose and organic. I see you as lazy with a lack of regard for what it really takes. These are pretty severe […]
When was the last time you heard from God? When was the last time you were listening for God’s voice? As a tech person, I tend to find myself back in the booth just trying to facilitate what other people have heard from God. Hearing from God is something that happens to other people. I […]
I am continually amazed at how expensive production equipment can be…I can only imagine what non-technical people think of the prices! We have been in the process of upgrading a space here, and we are choosing to not go for the best long-term solution, but rather a really solid intermediate step. In other words, we […]
I just read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a guy who took a trip through Europe using the EuroRail pass. It turns out he was reliving a trip he took 30 years ago, just to see if he could do it now that he was 20 pounds heavier and had gotten used to […]
I’m coming down off the Summit experience, and have a brain full of stuff to process. For those of you who were a part of pulling off the experience at sites all over North America, thanks for your partnership and your commitment to excellence. I always love the way we can come together to technically […]
Clarity and accuracy of statement are mutually exclusive. – Niels Bohr Niels Bohr won the noble prize in 1922 for his work in atomic structure and quantum mechanics. To simplify: he was a rocket scientist before there were rockets. Here’s a guy that understands the mysteries and complexities that most normal humans can’t even begin […]
Such similar words with potentially different meanings. I have been reading the book Multipliers, by Liz Wiseman. I have been amazed at how familiar the content feels to many of my blog posts, especially the most recent set about responding to mistakes. Along the way, Liz asks the question, Do you create a tense work […]
Maybe there aren’t actually 3 parts to responding to mistakes, but there is one more big idea: Relax. It is so easy to think that a mistake is the end of the world. Worse things have happened. I think it is great that we care deeply about creating environments that are distraction-free, allowing people to […]
As I have been thinking more about how to respond to mistakes, (check out part 1 here) one of the challenges that I face is knowing when to jump in and take control and when to let things play themselves out. For many of us, working with volunteers each week, it can be really easy […]
After the last 2 posts, “Don’t screw up” and “Don’t, Don’t screw up”, it seemed like there was another dimension to the idea of creating a culture of people doing their best out of fear of failure or because they are freed up to bring their best to the table. As a leader, much of […]
In the last post, I talked about people being motivated to do great work through the fear of failure. This post will talk about motivating people to bring their best work to the table. A few years ago, an audio engineer I used to work with came to the booth at Willow Creek. He started […]
Why do you do a good job? What motivates you? In the realm of live production, different things drive different people. In the church setting, you have people who are motivated by the chance to help spread the Gospel through the use of technology. Some people want to fly under the radar and not take […]
My friend Dennis Choy is not only a pretty awesome person, but he has a saying that I have been hearing in my head lately. Dennis points out that the baseline for what we do as technical artists in the local church is perfection; that we are expected to not make any mistakes while executing […]
This is the second of two posts based on reading Daniel Pink’s book “To Sell is Human”. In the first post, I talked about Dell’s consulting practice value of having a bias for action. Their second value is: Be Easy to Work with. This is like a serious one-two punch. Being motivated to get stuff […]
I really enjoyed listening to Daniel Pink’s newest book “To Sell is Human”, about the idea that most of us spend significant amounts of time doing non-sales selling. Or in other words, we are all in the business of pitching our ideas to those around us, trying to convince them of the merits. One of […]
The death of Roger Ebert struck me harder than I thought. I am not a huge movie-going person, so I didn’t really pay attention to his reviews. At most, he was just always in the background, and if I wondered if a movie was good or not, I would see what he thought. Living in […]
Not just two words that end in -vity. The work that we do as technical artists in the local church, tends to fall in the category of intense. Not only is there a level of intensity around doing live events, but there is something about doing something different every week, that makes a lot of […]
Remember that one time your monitor mix wasn’t perfect, but you just gave up trying to ask for changes. “I can deal with this.”? Or that other time when you got graphics late on Saturday night, even though you keep asking for them on Friday afternoon and you just decided that since you always get […]
Over part 1 & part 2 of “what is the perfect volume?”, we have talked about knowing what you are trying to achieve in your services and how volume plays into that, and we have talked about the appropriate volume for each part of your service. In this post we’ll be talking about being responsible […]
I am amazed at what a change of venue can do to my outlook. No, not the Avid Venue, and no, not my calendar, but my actual outlook. I am sitting at a Starbucks that I have never been to before, and will probably never come again. I am having new thoughts and brainstorming new […]
This week has been pretty interesting. Much of it comes from recovering from Easter. We are a little outside of our normal routine, especially with a hefty load out, and we are working hard to make sure members of the team can have some recovery time. Vacation or an extra day off, whatever. As a […]
Back in the summer of 1940, Britain was getting severely bombed. As a way to keep people moving forward with their lives amid the ruin of their surroundings, the British government developed a series of posters to put around London to help solidify the resolve of the British people to face each day. Many of […]
Here’s a quick encouragement from a leader of my church, that I think can apply to all of you who are killing it this weekend: You guys have a heavy lift and make it look easy to the rest of us who get to simply enjoy it. What you guys do contributes so critically to […]
I was at a rehearsal for Easter the other night and noticed that there was a meeting happening in a room nearby. Without staring through the window in the door, I could tell that it was our Elder board meeting. Throughout the night, I kept passing this room and they were still in there, meeting. […]
OK, I promise this is the last post about 37signals.com’s values, mostly because it is their last value…long-term contracts are obscene. Check this out: No one likes being locked into something they don’t want anymore. Our customers can cancel at any time, no questions asked. No setup/termination fees either. While those of us involved in […]
In part one of this post, I talked about making sure you know what you are trying to do in your services and how volume fits into that. This is a leadership question, more than a dB question. As a church, what is your goal for the service? How loud it gets will be a […]
I get a lot of questions about how loud we run our services at Willow Creek. I always find it difficult to give a standard answer. Much of that comes from the fact that I think in terms of grey, as opposed to black and white. Each situation is different, so I tend to give […]
37signals.com, the makers of project management software Basecamp, have some pretty cool values that help determine the kind of company they want to be. After a short break from looking at these values, we are back to check out value #7, Software should be easy: Our products are intuitive. You’ll pick them up in seconds […]
I have the privilege of working in Germany from time to time. I also have the privilege of having family who lives in Germany that I get to stay with. Along with those privileges, I get the chance to go and see things that tend to blow my mind. I am flying back to Chicago […]
Value #6 of 37signals reads like this: No hidden fees or secret prices – We believe everyone is entitled to the best price we can offer. Our prices are public, published right on our site, and the same no matter who you are. There is a lot here that I really love and that applies […]
I’m not sure what this even has to do with production in the local church, but I was so moved this morning listening to one of my favorite musically pieces by Mozart, the 3rd movement of his “Gran Partita” Serenade, that I felt like there was something to write about. I am a fairly even-keeled […]
A clean stage. No feedback. Production team waiting for rehearsal to start, not running around. Cameras pointed at the right thing at the right time. Lights pointed to the right spot. Graphics up at the moment we need them, gone the moment we don’t. Ah…the basics. They are beautiful. So often, in the world of […]
[part 4 of a series of blog posts about the values of the company 37signals] This isn’t exactly how the value reads on the 37signals website, simply replace the word “congregation” with “customer” and there’s your difference. Here’s more of the meat behind this value: Our customers fund our daily operations by paying for our […]
We’re back to it. That darn 37signals.com is just cranking out the value hits. “Clarity is king” is up next: Buzzwords, lingo, and sensationalized sales-and-marketing-speak have no place at 37signals. We communicate clearly and honestly. I love this. I also have a really hard time with clarity. I want clarity from the people I work […]
I’m still living in the values for doing business expressed by the company 37signals. They are just that good. Here is value #2: We’re famous for fast and friendly customer service. We work hard to make sure we live up to that reputation every day. Now, I have never done any business with 37signals to […]
I enjoy the magazine Fast Company. They do a great job of highlighting innovations in all different kinds of industries, and I usually find something useful to my own situation. Earlier this month, there was an article about the CEO of 37Signals that drew me in. As it turned out, the interview was good, but […]
At Christmas time, more than for any other production I am a part of, I am reminded how it takes people of all types, talents, and abilities to pull off what we do. On one side, you have the content, without which we wouldn’t have anything to apply our technical art toward. Having a great […]
Most of us are in full tilt mode about Christmas. Either you started set construction weeks ago or you are just loading in rental lighting for your living Christmas tree program. Regardless of the size of your Christmas service, it’s crunch time in the world of church technical arts. Late nights, last-minute changes, sleep deprivation. […]
In the last post, I talked about the two kids who fought over an orange and eventually figured out that one wanted the peel and the other wanted the fruit inside. In a similar way creatives and technical artists want two different parts of the same whole: a great process or an amazing end result. […]
There are two sides to any large event. There is the event itself and then there is how we get to the event. For many production-minded people, the process of getting to the event matters more than the event itself. Without great processes, chances are high that excellence in production will have to be sacrificed. […]
Excellence is such an interesting word. In my last post, I talked about being the best versus being your best. I also talked about “secular” excellence being self-focused, while “sacred” is other-focused. I have been thinking about being other-focused, and I think there are a few more points to be made here. I was talking […]
In my last post, I started the conversation about the difference between secular and sacred production, and that in my opinion it really boils down to the intent of the person doing the production. The WHAT of the production might have content that could potentially be defined as sacred or secular, but the HOW of […]
I have a really difficult time with the idea of something being sacred or secular. Whether it is a painting, or a piece of music, or a story, it feels very shallow to think of something be either all sacred or all secular. For me personally, what defines something as either sacred or secular is […]
No, not Moses. Momentum. It’s that thing you can feel, and everybody wants, but is so elusive, that nobody knows for sure how to get it and keep it. One night while watching the Chicago Bulls try really hard to close the gap with the Miami Heat is a great example. Of course the Bulls […]
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 Honestly, I want to apply this to other people. “Hey, you! Carry my burdens!” I want the benefits of other people fulfilling the law of Christ, without having to stretch myself. Many times, other people’s burdens have the […]
I run into fellow TDs who wish things were different. That they had different people on their teams, or a different soundboard, or a different drummer on the 3rd rotation of bands. If I only had “____”, then things would be great. I recently wrote an article about this idea for Sundaymag.tv, a free online […]
I go to events at my kids’ school quite often, and quite often (always) there are problems with the production. Mics not working, lights turning on and off randomly, switching between the desktop and PowerPoint while it is live to the screen. For a long time, I have been able to sit idly by and […]
One of the joys of being the parent of teenagers is homework. Nothing could have prepared me for the joys associated with getting my kids to care, and the thrills of helping them figure out how to even do the stuff. I consider myself a patient man, but homework can send me spinning out of […]
I was watching “The Two Towers” with my kids the other day, when I realized that they will always think of The Lord of the Rings as a movie and not a book. As someone who saw the movies as a culmination of my love of the books, this seems very wrong. One of the […]
Based on my last post, let’s say you’ve done your darnedest to communicate the value of production and it still falls at the bottom of the list of things that matter at your church. The easy thing to do is to wish it were different and hunker down and complain about how bad it is. […]
So let’s pretend that you are an amazing production person. That you are able to do amazing things through the use of technology. Not only are you an incredible technician, but you are an artist. In a word, genius. Now let’s say that you are at a church that has a low priority on production […]
I like to think of myself as an artist. More than just a tech person, who happens to push buttons at just the right moment, but someone who can create with the tools in front of me. My team and I have talked quite a bit about various levels of production, the baseline being tech […]
It has been a nice couple of months to have this amazing content to work from. Here is an overview of all 13 rules in one place with a link to each of my posts about them. General Colin Powell’s Thirteen Rules in review: It ain’t as bad as you think. It will look better […]
I think that General Powell’s 13th and final rule is my favorite, yet one of the most difficult ones to carry out. Come on, “Perpetual optimism” are you kidding? Obviously, Colin was never involved in production in the local church. Given the reality that it is very easy for most production people to descend into […]
Colin Powell’s Rule #12 Continued: Don’t take counsel from your fears or naysayers. In the last post, I talked about not taking counsel of your fears. Now onto the second group not to take counsel from…naysayers. No matter what church you are a part of, or whether you are an audio, video, or lighting person, […]
I’m guessing that Colin Powell had to deal with Rule #12 quite a bit over the years. Between being in the military and then in government work, there are no shortages of things to be afraid of or people telling you that you are doing it all wrong. In the world of church production, there […]
Colin Powell’s rule #11. I am privileged to work with some pretty amazing people. When I stop and think about it, I can’t believe that I am counted among them. A couple of these people, we’ll call them Scarren and Dott, produce, direct and lead an all-volunteer live video team and they embody these rules […]
Colin Powell’s Rule #10: Remain calm. Be kind. A few years ago, I ran into an audio engineer that I used to work with. After introducing him to the people around me, he started to tell a story that began with, “My biggest memory of Todd was…”. I remember thinking, “Oh, crap. What is he […]
General Powell’s rule #9: Share Credit If you are a TD in the local church, this can be difficult. If you are leading groups of technical artists to create life-changing moments through the fusion of the technical and creative arts, you spend most of your time setting people up to win, rather than doing something […]
Colin Powell’s rule #8: Check the small things. At a certain point, I assumed that someone else would do this. Checking small things feels like something that eventually I wouldn’t have to deal with. I have learned just the opposite, over and over again. During the first building project I was ever a part of, […]
I had a vision the other day. I’m not really a vision kind of a person, but I am still thinking about it a week later, so I figured it was worth writing down. My vision had a big funnel in it. Like the kind my dad used when we put gas in the tractor. […]
CP’s Rule #7 – You can’t make someone else’s choices. You shouldn’t let someone else make yours. This is an interesting one for me. I have been a production person for most of my life now, and much of that time has been about responding to other people’s ideas and then making them awesome. In […]
General Powell’s Rule #6: Don’t let adverse facts stand in the way of a good decision. In my last post, I talked about how I can tend to not make a decision based on my own worst imagination. What about the good decision that needs to get made, yet you know that some not great […]
Colin Powell’s Rule # 5 – Be careful what you choose. You may get it. It seems like a “grass-is-always-greener” type of statement. This rule also feels like a double-edged sword to me. Wishing for more My first thought is that generally speaking, most tech people are looking for a new piece of equipment that […]
Colin Powell’s rule #4: It can be done! This past weekend, one of the producers would ask me if we could change something technically. Each time they asked, I hesitated. I then gave a very lukewarm, middle-of-the-road, “maybe” kind of answer. At one point in the day, this producer remarked that I kept saying “no” […]
Colin Powell’s rule #3: Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. Ouch! How many times have I not lived out this rule? As someone who is passionate about what I do, it is easy to believe deeply in my ideas. It is also […]
This is part 2 in the series of blog posts about Colin Powell’s 13 rules. In the last post, we talked about Colin Powell’s rule #1, which was “It ain’t as bad as you think.” The title of this post is rule #2: “Get mad, then get over it.” For those of you who know […]
I’ve been listening to Colin Powell’s new book, “It Worked for Me”. There is quite a bit of great stuff in there. Besides the fact that I love it when the author reads their own book, General Powell’s 13 rules are amazing. He has written about them before, and he even did a Leadership Summit […]
I can tell the Global Leadership Summit is about to happen. The nightmares have started. Anytime a big event rolls around, I start having trouble sleeping and my dreams take some pretty interesting twists. One of the bigger names at this year’s Summit is former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. I just read her book, […]
After months of putting Tina Fey’s book “Bossypants” on hold at the library, and forgetting to pick it up, I finally got around to reading it. Hilarious and insightful and if you can handle a few F-bombs, I would recommend it. Anyway, I was reminded of the rules of improv and how much I thought […]
I have just started listening to the book Imagine. It talks about how creativity works. I’m pretty sure I would recommend it to everyone I know to read, but I only just started. The author, Jonah Lehrer talks about how helpful constraints are to creativity. Actually not just helpful, but essential. The roadblocks help our […]
Writing a blog has been good for me…for a few reasons. Probably even a few I don’t know about yet. It causes me to sit down and focus on putting into words, all the things that are floating around in my head. Writing down what I think, feel, and believe helps remind me of what […]
Production leadership…in some ways, it is an oxymoron. You know, like jumbo shrimp and the tech person’s favorite passive-aggressive. Let me explain. Most people in the world of production, whether it is in the church or not, like to be behind the scenes. Most of our jobs revolve around not being in the spotlight. Even […]
My dad was an engineer at GM for 32 years. He is one of the smartest people I know, a brilliant engineer, and when I was a kid, I thought what my dad got to do was the coolest. I remember we used to start every family vacation by picking him up from work and […]
This is the first foray into having a guest post. I have asked Mike Sessler, a friend of mine and the Technical Director at Coast Hills Community Church, to add his voice to this blog, hoping that it helps you become a better technical artist. He writes regularly for Church Production Mag and Live Sound as […]
When I have a lot going on, it is easy for me to get depleted and sick of what I do and the people I am around, both my co-workers and my family. To be running around, not taking any time to fill myself up with good things. I don’t read my Bible. I don’t […]
A few months ago, I received this photo of one of the pioneers of technology at Willow Creek. It is circa 1976, or thereabouts. I was struck by several things in this picture. How many audio consoles are side-carred together? Is that duct tape holding stuff down? I wonder if you could still get that […]
Every now and then I get caught up in what I am doing, in what my job title is or the amazing productions I am a part of pulling off. Sometimes these are going well and I am flying high. When things are going less well, I am faced with the question of where I […]
Looking back through some old blog posts, I came across the one entitled “to lead or be led”, which was a reflection on the leadership style of Dwight D. Eisenhower while he was the POTUS. In the process, I got distracted by the possibilities of the internet and started looking up quotes by my man […]
I have been reflecting on a post I had written a couple of years ago, that talked about how Dwight Eisenhower would take the initiative to lead, instead of just being manipulated by events as they came at him. The challenge here is that, for those of us in production, so much of what we […]
Many of us are very protective of our equipment. We can also be very protective of how that equipment gets used. This becomes evident when someone from the outside wants to use “our” equipment, or “our” room. This could be a guest artist, or it could be the children’s ministry. They have a certain way […]
I have been absent for so long from blogging, I hardly know where to pick it up again. Not only have I forgotten how to be disciplined and just write, but I have lost the spark, or my brain is empty, or I am not sure what I think at the moment. For a few […]
I love to read. Unfortunately, I have discovered that as I get older, I have trouble staying awake while reading. I’m not really that old, and in reality, I have had this problem for at least 15 years…ok since college. As a result, I have been reading the same book for 8 months. (it is […]
I’m sure this isn’t an actual disease, but I have found the reality of it to be true in my own life. Leading up to a big event, I spend every spare moment thinking, planning, then executing the event. In the most recent case, Easter. After it is all over, the adrenaline is gone, the […]
How many of you are working crazy long hours to pull off a Good Friday or an Easter service or both? How is it going? Are you having the time of your life? Or are you frustrated? I have a theory that holiday services are an exaggerated form of our weekly experience. The things that […]
I gave an interview for a local magazine the other day. Being interviewed always makes me a little uncomfortable, but I agreed to it, so I gave it. It was a local magazine highlighting local businesses, and they were interested in knowing more about the Global Leadership Summit, hosted every year at Willow Creek Church. […]
I hate this idea. I hate using it as a title for this post. It goes against everything in me as a technical artist. I don’t consider myself to be a perfectionist, far from it. You can ask anyone who has helped me with a home improvement project. I want things to be done the […]
I struggle with this…being everywhere at the same time. Running from meeting to meeting. I am usually on time for the first one, but then late to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. I feel like everyone is waiting for answers from me and can’t do their jobs well. I am a bottleneck. Am I crazy? […]
The other day, my team and I participated in a thought exercise that Steven Sample, author of the book “The Contrarian’s Guide to Leadership”, talks about. When he was faced with a particularly difficult challenge, he would try to imagine how a ladybug would solve the problem, or even how a dishwasher might think about […]
Ever notice how production people don’t completely fit in anywhere? In a creative brainstorming meeting, we are the ones trying to figure out how to make something happen. In an operations meeting, we are thinking creatively about how to get something done. On our team, we have been talking quite a bit about the operation […]
As a technical artist, I sit in a lot of meetings where seemingly impossible ideas are flying all over the place. In those situations, I have to work at letting the sky be the limit for as long as possible. This isn’t easy. I immediately start going into “figure it out” mode, and since many […]
I believe that every situation is a chance to either gain trust or lose trust. I have had many conversations with technical artists at churches all over and trust seems like a common topic of conversation. Can you trust a volunteer to do a particular task? Can you trust a band member to be prepared […]
Since last year’s Grammys, my kids have started engaging with current music. Everyone has their own iPod, with the choice to listen to whatever music they feel like. I feel like I haven’t been this aware of what is happening with music since the ’80s. We all sat down to watch and cheer for our […]
In my last post, I talked about an event to celebrate our amazing volunteer production teams at Willow. One of my key learnings was that we needed to put stuff on the calendar for it to happen. As production people, we are so used to others determining our schedule of events, and it is important […]
We had a volunteer celebration for the entire Willow production team the other night. It included production teams from all the ministries at our South Barrington campus as well as all of our regional campuses. It was amazing to see such a wide age range of like-minded people together in one place. From the minute […]
I have written about this before, so I’ll try not to sound like a broken record. Going into any big event, as a production person, I would like to nail down every detail and then execute those details exactly. Having been at this for a while, I have come to appreciate the reality: we can […]
What is it about January 1st that gets people reevaluating their lives? I’m doing it. Why? It is just one more day on the calendar, but there is something about the beginning of something that makes me want to take a hard look at my life and figure out how to make it better. Without […]
I love what I do. I could be at it 24/7. As a result, I probably spend more time at it than I should. If you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know that my wife is always saying “come home early”, which helps quite a bit in the pursuit of […]
I have been thinking about the need to post something new. It turns out, thinking and doing are two different things. While I have been starring at the blank page in front of me, it occurred to me, why I haven’t been able to come up with any new thoughts…I’m empty. I have nothing to […]
Each year at the Elliott house, the Christmas season doesn’t officially start until we blast the Bing Crosby classic “Mele Kalikimaka” through the house. My kids get completely embarrassed by this, but I have to believe that they will carry on the tradition nonetheless. For whatever reason, this year, I have been putting off kicking off […]
I can definitely tell that I am starting to wear down. I am a big-time morning person, not only because I do my best work in the morning, but the life of a dad with 3 kids who need to get to school, requires that I wake up early. I told someone the other night […]
I love Christmas time. You know, when you are working crazy hours and your body starts shouting back at you to slow down, but because the show must go on, you push through until you collapse at the finish line, with nothing but a heap underneath the Christmas tree for your family to workaround? (I […]
I have a friend who was a TD of a local church and when he started, he noticed that the volunteer team would talk over the intercom negatively about the people on stage and the content coming from said stage. As a result, the whole production team had a negative view of the creative arts […]
After being at WFX last week, I talked with many technical artists about the concept of leading up. How do you help your leadership understand what production in the local church is all about? For my ministry and your ministry to survive, it rises and falls on how well you and I educate the decision-makers […]
I spent an entire day with technical artists from around the world yesterday during the Technical Director’s Retreat Day hosted by the WFX Conference in Dallas. It was inspiring and reassuring; sobering and sad, all at the same time. It is great to see so many churches working hard to make a difference in the […]
In my last post, I mentioned that we are getting ready to replace the sound system in one of our venues at Willow. We have been looking forward to this for so long and we have been placing so many of our hopes and dreams on getting something new and shining that will solve all […]
I am working in Willow Creek’s Lakeside Auditorium. It used to be the main space where crazy productions have happened over the years. Christmas programs. Outreach events. Conferences. All these are great, but the most important thing that has happened over the years is that people’s lives have been changed for eternity. God has met […]
As a tech person, I love to go to concerts and shows to see how people are using technology. A couple of things usually happen. I’m inspired, then depressed. They have way more money than me, they have tons of great content to make better through technology and they have months of time to rehearse […]
I am on a flight back from an event where I facilitated a table of TDs from local churches. It was an amazing time to connect with people who are in similar situations and have similar challenges. We spent a lot of time talking about what is working well, what isn’t, and there was a […]
I was on a flight recently where I watched the movie “Midnight in Paris”. The basic idea is that the main character is unhappy with his current situation and dreams about a time in the past that seems more like a golden age. People were more interesting, amazing things were happening, it was basically more […]
The other night, I woke up at 1:30 and couldn’t sleep, which is not normal for me. When this happens, the thing that usually puts me back to sleep is reading. It doesn’t matter what the book is. It could be amazing or boring. Both kinds will put me to sleep. So I picked up […]
My last post talked about applying the rules of improv to how we behave as technical artists in the church. Since then, I have thought more about the idea of cynicism and negative responses. It is so easy to get cynical and negative, as the things that I care about are undermined or disregarded, or […]
We have been having some great conversations on our team about the role of production at our church and it has reminded me of a conversation I had over 10 years ago…probably more like 15, where we were talking about how the technical artist fits into what our church is doing. In a meeting all […]
I only remember one thing from my Psych class in college. It is this concept called the tragedy of the commons. It basically speaks to a herd mentality that happens when I assume that my little contribution won’t matter; that I look out for my own self-interest at the expense of the whole. An example […]
I have the privilege to work closely with some amazing speakers during the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit. For those of you who don’t know me, I am an introvert and a type 9 on the Enneagram scale. These things combined, make it a challenge to work up the extrovert in me to engage with people I […]
When I was younger (which is longer ago than I care to admit), I used to feel like the victim in the following scenario: work out the details in the production meeting; work the plan like crazy; show up on Sunday morning with someone changing the plan; starting rehearsal late; getting slammed in debrief later […]