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Aiming for excellence has become a church tech mantra and it has to stop! This post will attract many comments on both sides but, I’ve never been one to shy away from a good, rousing discussion so here goes!

I’m guilty. I’ve written about constantly improving your knowledge and skill at audio engineering. I’ve talked about aiming for excellence, both with equipment and with your skill level. Numerous church tech blogs talk about the same thing, to the point where I’m beginning to get a little tired of hearing it. It’s become a church tech mantra.

We’ve become so focused on the “doing” that we’re forgetting about the “being.”

I live and breathe the church tech stuff. I’m happy when I’m learning something new or trying a new technique or playing with a new piece of gear. I like the technology side of what I’m fortunate to be able to do for a living. You’ll notice I didn’t say happiest or that I love it. There’s a reason for that.

I’m happiest when I’m in the booth and the worship team is belting it out, the congregation is fully engaged, the Holy Spirit is in the house, and the tech team is feeling it. I love the worship aspect and how God uses that to reach unreachable people. I’m constantly striving to better the experience. But that’s me and folks like Chris and the other folks that talk about it.

I sense a BIG problem.

I get the feeling the majority of techs in small churches feel inadequate. The reason being that you can agree on “excellence,” in principle, but you can’t make it into reality for a number of reasons. This goes for yourself or for your tech crew.

I’m here to say it’s okay to be okay or mediocre (as compared to the hotshots.) Relax and let the stress of keeping up with the Joneses disappear for a few minutes and let me ease your concerns.

First, not everyone in the church tech position has a desire or ability to learn more than they currently know. Learning audio production is a time-consuming and brain-intensive skill. Factor in the artistic feel needed for creating a really good sound and you’re narrowing down the amount of people that are truly able to get to that level.

Second, if you’re in the majority of audio volunteers who’ve been thrown into the deep end, PLEASE learn as much as you can. Don’t stress out if you hit a plateau. I’d rather have you enjoying worshiping God than feel less than adequate because you can’t do or understand half the things we talk about.

Know the basics

Having a basic knowledge of how the equipment works is pretty necessary. Having basic equipment that works satisfactorily is pretty necessary. Everything else is optional and nice-to-haves. The only thing that is required is that you try your best for Him and if your best is okay then that’s okay.

If excellence was easy to achieve then everyone would be excellent which would then make everyone average. It can become a vicious mistress when you are never satisfied with what you’ve accomplished. Don’t let this happen to you or your church.

Your equipment may not be the latest and greatest. Heck, the stuff you’re working on may have been built before you were even born! (Don’t laugh. I’m 55 and I’ve gone into churches that have equipment that was old 30 years ago!). But use what skills and equipment you have with pride and joy. After all, we’re serving a great big God who has never needed the best of anything to make Him happy!

Why you’re in the audio tech role

In the end, it’s not about doing audio in a church. It’s about being the church. God has you in the role that you’re in for reasons known only to Him. He put you into this situation for you to grow and enjoy it, not to be beat down and envious. Isn’t that great news? God wants you to enjoy yourself! Let go of the stress and the fear and go and worship Him!

[Note from Chris: Brian makes an excellent point about avoiding the mentality of never being satisfied with your accomplishments.  Last week, my worship leader forwarded a bunch of positive comments about a recent church service.  And guess what? I was never 100% satisfied with my mix that day. ]

QUESTION: How do you view the Excellence mantra?  Any other thoughts on this post?

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Comments

  1. As you mentioned many of us are dealing with old marginal equipment. I view excellence as doing the best with what you have to work with that you can. Not being satisfied with less than the best you can do. Then giving it to the Spirit, so He can use it the way only He can. Remember, it is his job to convict, convince and empower. So He can use every word just like we were told He would.

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  3. I have been running sound in a Indonesian language church in Darwin Australia for 6 years… The average Indonesian person will accept a very low standard of sound production without complaint…. as they are used to very low standards…. if it is loud enough to hear most of the time… it is ok…
    When I took on the job 6 years ago… I took on the job on the provision that any job done in God’s house must be done in pursuit of excellence…. it has taken several years for the song leaders and singers (and congregation) to appreciate a professional level of equipment (which I purchased myself) and a professional level of live sound production, video and audio recording.
    I personally will accept nothing less than the pursuit of excellence for myself… that is a sound guy/girls job… If it is not 100% the best you can do on the day, it is not good enough…. doesn’t mean that you contemplate suicide every time you make a mistake….. but if you start to personally accept as ok, a standard less than the very best you can do….it is simply not good enough…. for yourself…. or for God’s service.

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    • Brad,

      I agree with you 100% and my heart goes out to you when you say that you used your own money and that you fronted the necessary equipment. That speaks volumes about your pursuit to the extent of the glory of God and that our God is worthy of the highest praise. But what I think that the author is after here is that, before you can even get to that level, it starts at the heart. I really hate that I said that, because I deal with musicians that are wishy-washy-feeley-gooey-emotionally based and always tell me to just “relax”, but sometimes, I think that they’re right. I went into this ministry because I wanted to be used by God to bring his people to him and be used to usher the Holy Spirit to his people. I don’t think that the author of this article would disagree with you at all, in fact I think you are both on the same page, but just expressing what you guys both mean in slightly different terms, and that’s something that I struggle with myself, really being able to put into the words what I am feeling and thinking and communicating to others who don;t have the same level of understanding of technical details as I do, and it’s created serious rifts in my relationships with people as well. I appreciate you sharing Brad, its comforting that God’s people are fighting for his kingdom in ways that sometimes only few of us can really see :)

      God Bless,

      Daniel

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  4. As someone who comes from a small church but has an interest in sound stuff. I cannot agree more with this article and am glad that as much as I enjoy doing the sound at the church with the equipment we have I know that it is not the only reason that I am there. Thanks for the reminder

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  5. You give such excellent opinion and advice! What is more important than practicing and feeling the presence of God within the sound ministry!

    The pressure’s on, I suppose in a number of areas and, forgive if I am repeating (I didn’t see this comment in the replies), but there’s an all-important part to being the church sound guy or woman: they are a member of the band! Of the worship team! That should be shared with them so they know just how much they are a key in the machine and so they feel both welcomed, a part of the family as well as responsible. But this also takes the pressure off so they can just have fun and worship, too!

    The whole ‘excellence’ thing has always had my mind thinking how ethereal these statements are without any meat on the bone, so-to-speak. Thanks for helping to clarify this in my mind.

    Steve

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  6. I have slipped into this comparison trap in the past. We use a Yamaha MX32 and loads of older analog equipment. I often thaught that we “needed” better equipment in order to get the best results. I was humbled when what I thaught was a bad mix got compliments from our Wednesday senior bible study class I have the privlage to lead. These seniors hold nothing back in regards to their ears (or style of music) so I was shocked to get such good comments. Don’t get me wrong, I would still love me some new equipment, but for different reasons. Now my focus is on how to simplify the process for our volunteers so we all can get the most the easiest, thus allowing us to do our best.

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  7. Interesting thoughts. My goal in being excellent is to do the best I can with what I have. Excellence from one congregation to the next will probably look totally different because I’m using different equipment depending on which location I’m serving at. Regardless, excellence to me looks like getting out of the way so that the Holy Spirit can move more freely, realizing that God is going to show up no matter what I do or don’t do.

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  8. I’ve enjoyed the article and the comments. It has brought up some understanding after reading the past article on big church envy.

    A few months ago I attended a youth service that was held outside in the Houston hot and humid weather (at least it was at night). I wasn’t involved in the production, so I had it easy, but almost anything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. Nothing was coming out from the mics, the electrical instruments had a list of issues. They never got the computer and projector up and running. The lights we not completely working. Worse yet, power failure didn’t happen once, but twice for everything on stage. All these issues were happening during service. In the end, it’s was a successful service because the Holy Spirit was present.

    So in the past few months, I have been humbled in this ministry. As much as I would like to have smooth services everytime, without God’s presence, it’s nothing. I will take that rough service with the Holy Spirit over a smooth one without the Holy Spirit.

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  9. Hi all. Great points from everyone. The thing that I see in some places is that the plan takes precedence over everything else that may happen. The church I was at previously had elevated vision and planning above worship. There was never any flexibility allowed and the whole thing ended up feeling like a shell that was never any fun to facilitate.

    I too have found that the services that I am kicking myself for are normally the ones that the congregation (our customers so to speak) really liked and got in to.

    One last thought. If you aren’t doing this as a ministry, it can only be a sterile and unfeeling thing, and you end up doing just what is being cautioned about above. The pursuit of excellence and not God.

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  10. Permission to add one more point to the article. I’m of the opinion that I’d rather work with broken, unskilled and teachable people who have a genuine love and and heart for God. Skill and excellence are good but if that persons resides on a self imposed pedestal, well……….any good thing starts with a proper heart attitude.

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  11. Excellence is an attitude, not an outcome. We live in a “fallen” creation, and make noises we feel are glorifying to God. Yet His heavenly place and presence far exceed any earthly copy. We’re told to “make a joyful noise” – emphasis on the word noise. The sound of a young child singing out of tune in the congregation is more pleasing than a professional singer on stage. And, we know we have to be as children to enter in.

    “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.” (1 Corinthians 1)

    Children (generally) sing out without a care for their surroundings. This is a reflection of their attitude; the attitude God loves. Excellence is an attitude, not an outcome.

    Here, perspective might be a better choice (than abandonment)…

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  13. Thanks for the great comments folks! I love hearing your opinions and it helps me clarify my points. In this case please don’t misunderstand my saying that the excellence mantra has to stop with me saying that doing mediocre work because you don’t care is the same thing. It’s not okay to do that. I’m just worried that a lot of well-meaning tech team members may feel that they can’t attain the level of excellence that we all talk about or that they are trying to achieve excellence for the sake of excellence. I will always stand by my mission statement that “We should be the best that we can be for the glory of Jesus, not for us but for Him”. So keep trying your best!

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  14. I agree that we shouldn’t get caught up in what we’re doing but stay focused on why we’re doing what we’re doing. I also think we can place the wordage a little differently and say that instead of trying to be excellent, we just need to approach the media role(s) we do with excellence and always do the best we can, which means coming into to each service with adequate planning and just pray constantly that God will work through us. I generally pray each Sunday that we, as a media team, won’t be a distraction to anyone in that we won’t do so poorly that we hinder worship and also that we don’t do so much over the top that people leave talking about the media and not Christ.

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  15. I guess I am lucky in my small church… I am the guy who supplies the gear and operates the gear. I fervently believe in the pursuit of excellence in Gods house…. but this is slightly limited to the standard of equipment I can afford… which is pretty good, but not high end. My fist priority is to look after the singers and musicians on stage….. make these folks happy and comfortable on stage and you get a great performance… Church gear is almost always a permanent install and with Digital consoles life is pretty easy for a tech in this situation…. that is why we must pursue excellence…. too easy to sit back and put the rig on auto pilot….

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    • Brad, I agree. And Brian isn’t one to say, “run on auto pilot.” He and I have seen the excellence mantra discourage folks because they become so focused on doing great work that they forget where they are. And then you get the rookies who feel overly pressured. I believe we need to balance out the “excellence mantra” with a reminder of the place in which they are running sound. I might not be expressing that very well.

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  16. Point well made. I’ve always pursued excellence. I think that the challenge is in the definition. I do the best that I can with the equipment that I have available. Some days it’s mixing on a Meyer rig, others it’s a 25 year old EAW speakers that really need to disappear. But I need to bring excellence… I do my best, I prepare just like the band does, and work hard to eliminate distractions during the service or event that I’m running. That’s where I have to leave the pursuit of excellence and trust God with the rest. Ultimatly, He draws and changes people – and frankly I’m thankful for that!

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  17. Right on, Brian!
    I wrote about this very thing: Why I Kissed a Excellence Goodbye.
    http://technicallythinking.org/2013/02/01/why-i-kissed-excellence-goodbye/

    My bottom line is: focusing on worship as service and creating a culture of development not perfection.
    We must allow people to not get it right to allow them to grow. But growing also means we aren’t satisfied with today’s abilities.
    A great Christian word for it is discipleship. ;-)

    Love the push back against a culture of comparison.

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  18. Hands up, I’m sometimes guilty of the “it’ll do fine” attitude, but I also sometimes beat myself up because I can’t get the mix exactly the way I want it. Maybe that shows that most of the time I’m ok somewhere in the middle. But the point is well made, and we’d do well to remember it, that we’re doing this for the Lord and it’s as much a part of church service as teaching Sunday school or leading the prayer meeting. With that servant perspective it’s easier to seek to do our best while resisting the temptation of big church envy and unnecessary pursuit of unachievable excellence mentioned elsewhere on this site. #Col3:23

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  19. Some good points here, and well balanced too.
    In our church were just replacing the projector. The old one is way past its sell-by date

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