A few days ago, I told a story where a Production Director was dealing with a mid-service gear breakdown, and was overwhelmed with input, inquiries, and direction from those “up the chain.” In my story, the Worship Pastor was the boss of the Production Director.
I am of the opinion that the Production Director of a church should be a peer of the Worship Pastor, as opposed to a direct report. The best setup that I have seen is having both of the two positions report to a Creative Arts or Weekend Service Pastor, who acts as a producer. Part of the issue, as I wrote in my story, is that the Worship Pastor is often on the platform if an issue occurs, and is unable to give direction. The Worship Pastor can only give feedback on what he or she thought, heard, or imagined happened. Watching video after the fact is certainly an option (and better than nothing), but only gives a very limited sense of what occurred.
The bigger issue in my mind is that Worship Pastors are rarely qualified to lead production staffers or volunteers. Their expertise is generally musical, not technical. I was a Worship Pastor myself back in the day, and I know that there are exceptions to the above rule – however, it holds true in most of the cases I’ve seen, and a lack of understanding of what it takes to get production jobs done can cause a lot of grief…
I know that the ideal staffing scenario described above only works for larger churches. You may only have a paid worship leader [or no paid staff at all]. If so, whoever is in charge of the services needs to put in the time it takes to understand the production world. You don’t have to be an expert, but you do need to have a basic understanding of the issues and “speak the language.” More in the days to come… #creativeworshipideas
A few days ago, I told a story where a Production Director was dealing with a mid-service gear breakdown, and was overwhelmed with input, inquiries, and direction from those “up the chain.” In my story, the Worship Pastor was the boss of the Production Director.
I am of the opinion that the Production Director of a church should be a peer of the Worship Pastor, as opposed to a direct report. The best setup that I have seen is having both of the two positions report to a Creative Arts or Weekend Service Pastor, who acts as a producer. Part of the issue, as I wrote in my story, is that the Worship Pastor is often on the platform if an issue occurs, and is unable to give direction. The Worship Pastor can only give feedback on what he or she thought, heard, or imagined happened. Watching video after the fact is certainly an option (and better than nothing), but only gives a very limited sense of what occurred.
The bigger issue in my mind is that Worship Pastors are rarely qualified to lead production staffers or volunteers. Their expertise is generally musical, not technical. I was a Worship Pastor myself back in the day, and I know that there are exceptions to the above rule – however, it holds true in most of the cases I’ve seen, and a lack of understanding of what it takes to get production jobs done can cause a lot of grief…
I know that the ideal staffing scenario described above only works for larger churches. You may only have a paid worship leader [or no paid staff at all]. If so, whoever is in charge of the services needs to put in the time it takes to understand the production world. You don’t have to be an expert, but you do need to have a basic understanding of the issues and “speak the language.” More in the days to come…
creativeworshipideas 