I’m sure many of you are familiar with John Saddington, aka the TentBlogger. He’s been a great inspiration to me in revamping this blog and publishing new content regularly. His site offers a ton of great advice for every blogger from the novice to the advanced. I had a few questions that I’d always wanted to ask him, so what better way to publish the answers than right here on my blog! Here we go:
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There are many apps that I like and use occasionally, but there are only a few that I absolutely love and couldn’t live without. Evernote is one of those apps. It’s useful for so many things, which I won’t be able to fit into this post, though I do hope to write about it again soon. In this post, I want to focus on how I use it for blogging, and what impact it’s had on my workflow.
When talking about church websites, just like any other type of website, there are a wide range of them. Some are really nice looking and easy to navigate, others, not so much. While there are a number of factors that determine how good or bad a website might be, I think there are a few big ones.
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Have you ever been in a situation where you think you know what’s best for your church or organization tech wise, but your pastor or other leader seems to disagree? I know I’ve been there in the past, and it can be extremely frustrating. I’m lucky to currently serve under a pastor who really understands and gets technology, and constantly pushes me to learn and develop my skills. In the past, I’ve had some drastically different experiences, and I hope I can share a little bit of what I’ve learned so you can avoid some of the frustration and hard feelings.
The problem with the relationship between many technical folks and their leaders is a lack of understanding. Many times the leaders simply don’t understand what we do, and have a hard time making a decision about something they don’t understand. Take the time to walk them through your idea or proposal in plain English. They will appreciate it.
Other times, it helps to try and look at the big picture the way your pastor or leader sees it. Many times what you think is worthy of spending a little money may not be so necessary in the big picture or scheme of things. When someone is responsible for an entire organization, they have to field requests for spending money not only from you, the technical director, but from the personnel folks, building maintenance, music, etc… I think you see my point, that many times it’s better to try and understand your leader’s decision rather than change it.
What are your thoughts? Any more insight you could offer?
[Image via Times Union Blogs]
I’ve written previously about churches using technology effectively, but haven’t really defined what I think that means. Bear with me, and I’m going to make an attempt at doing that.
I believe technology should be used to enhance a church service, but not get in the way and cause attendees to focus on the technology rather than the message. The more complicated and advanced you decide to go, the more time you should spend on making sure equipment is functioning correctly, volunteers are trained, and everyone knows what to do in case something does fail so that it doesn’t cause a distraction, and the service can continue without interruption.
Of course there will always be times when something catastrophic happens, and things may go haywire, but being able to minimize the distraction caused by such an event is something I believe we all, as technical directors, should strive to be better at.
There are many other aspects of technology that can be used to further the message outside of a normal service. Things such as social media, podcasting, live streaming, etc. These are all things I want to spend some more time talking about here in the future.
Would you add anything to this definition of effective use of technology in church?
