8 AM, I’m dead tired; I was still at work just hours before I decided to head to a new “awesome” Church all my friends are attending. I have been toying with the idea of going but it was difficult because I did sound jobs until 2AM on Saturdays. 9 AM I’m up and getting ready. I’m really hoping this new church is everything everyone was talking about.
I left the house around 9:30AM, stopped and grabbed some coffee then headed towards the church. The directions were easy and much to my surprise there were signs all along the road side pointing me to the local high school. I’m thinking to myself, this is a high school, and not even a Christian high school…what’s the deal. I pulled into the school parking lot and noticed there was special parking for first time visitor’s right next to the entry doors. “Don’t mind if I do” I was thinking as I pulled into one of those coveted easy access spots. As I got out of my car I notice some contemporary Christian music playing from a strategically placed self powered speaker on side of the building…I’m thinking yea! This place rocks! And I haven’t even walked through the doors. First impressions….good!
The main hallway of the school was the churches foyer. Young and hip was the apparent theme which worked for me…I considered myself young and somewhat hip. Not a detail was missed! Coffee, sugar, non-sugar sweeteners, every type of creamer, special stirring sticks, napkins, kids wipes, donuts, bagels and high top tables all laid out in an atmosphere anyone could feel comfortable in. Walking towards the God’s 8th day creation, the donut, I passed three kiosks. The signs on the kiosks read, 1st time, 2nd time & 3rd time visitors and on the kiosks counter were what appeared to be gifts. I thought to myself “ok, I could use one more coffee mug”. Next to those kiosks were information tables with small group sign up lists & CDs from previous services. When I saw the CDs I felt what most people fell….O boy, another church that sells everything they could get their hands on. But, nope…they were free. Glad I didn’t think outloud…Again the atmosphere, the well thought out plan made me want to stay and see more. The further I walked down the hallway the more I was impressed. The closer you get to kids world the smaller the tables got. You could get there early, grab some breakfast and sit with your family and eat before church.
The kid’s church even had its own feel. A system was clearly in place. You would check in at a set of doors that were the only way in and out. If you went back into the kid’s area you needed a pass or a kid’s check out ticket. You could leave with a calm feeling knowing they were safe. The classes were setup for the age groups and looked nothing like a high school facility. I didn’t see how they could pull of such a feat every Sunday. But they did.
While looking lost I was greeted by a couple of members who seemed very interested in who I was and was happy I was able to come to Church. This broke the ice and made me feel very welcome. I talked for awhile and noticed they let me do most of the talking. They must have been trained to listen because if I was in their position and I knew the person I was talking to was new, I’d be talking a mile a minute about how awesome we are.
It was almost time for service to start so I began to head to the sanctuary. Walking into the sanctuary, AKA the school theater, I was again greeted by another welcoming smile and a bulletin. In my mind I was thinking this is the friendliest place I have ever been to. Up until then I had never experienced such a complete well thought out environment. They thought of everything!
The lights were dimmed a bit accenting the animated countdown screen and a pre recorded sound track was playing with intermittent announcements notifying everyone service was about to start.
When the Worship started you knew right away this was not your ordinary church. You could feel the kick of the drums and the bass guitar while the electric guitars ripped through your entire sole. The sound was amazing! You could tell no expense was spared on the audio equipment. The mixing console was very impressive and the flickering lights of the system outboard DSP reminded me of Christmas time. The projection screens were filled with live scenic scenes with the words of the songs overlaid. The two main screens were position clearly for the rear of the church so two additional smaller screens were at the front of the stage making it easy to interact with the worship leader.
The house lights at this point were completely off and your focus was on the performers. The stage lighting was full of color starting with the backlighting. Accent lighting was on the move with brilliant gobos and stage fills. I felt this was some of the best production around. Production, a funny word to describe your church isn’t it? Yet it was flawless and not distracting.
After the worship was done you felt emotional and moved. The band began to exit the stage, house lights came up and the announcement team got into position. It was a two man announcement show, sometime serious but always entertaining. As the announcements ended the house lights went down and a video was played to introduce the series the Pastor was preaching on. You kind of had a hint of what the sermon was going to be about because of the enormous 30 foot long banner on the backlight scrim. When the house lights came back up the pastor was sitting at a small high top table with a ear to ear smile.
The Pastor was not of this world. I’d admit, I’ve had some of my best sleep in the walls of a church, but not here. From the moment He opened his mouth I was hooked. I laughed, I though, and I questioned my life. After the message was done the band came up and played one last song and we were dismissed.
At that point I decided this was my church. It felt right. I knew I needed something and this was it. It impressed me so much that I found myself talking about the church all the time. People thought I was crazy and church should be that good. My excitement made people want to go.
After about a month the media director caught wind that I played drums and offered a position on the worship team. It was a good feeling to be asked but I knew there was a commitment so I had to think about it. Over the next few weeks I met so many Christians and began making new friends. I really started to feel like fit in. It was like a family.
At that time there was only one worship team so I heard they were looking to grow depth not to burn out any volunteers. So I decided to join. We had practice on Thursday nights and were at the Church at 7AM to setup for the early service. The team had a pre production meeting before the service to go over ques and the order of worship. A quick prayer and we were off. Every Sunday we setup, did two services, and tore down all out of a trailer.
Being on stage and being a part of the Church was an experience I needed. I learned a lot about the ins and outs of a mobile church. The time restraints of load in and load out was probably the most stressful to us volunteers. Having to be careful with someone else’s building was another. We started to come up new and faster ways to setup and consolidate our equipment. Putting the drums on a rolling stage and having them already miced saved about 15 minutes. Putting the mixing console on a rack that held all the pre-wired DSP saved about 10 minutes and using a multi-pin splitter snake saved us from patching in the mixing console every morning. We were a well oiled machine setting up a full production in under 30 minutes with sound check. This helped us not feel so burned out every Sunday.
Months pasted and I felt I needed more. Playing on the worship team was great but I needed to be fed as well. Sometimes we forget while were ministering we still need to be ministered to. One Sunday we finished setting up early so I went to go grab some coffee from the foyer. I passed the small group table like I did every morning but this time I felt something. I Stopped and looked at the different groups but nothing jumped out at me. I just figured I’d join when some of my friends join one. Just then one of the small group leaders stopped at the table and introduced himself. That was good enough for me. I joined his group and was in his living room that Wednesday night.
It was kind of awkward; I wasn’t big on going to strangers houses, especially with other strangers. The group was compiled of mostly new comers seeking more of what they get on Sunday. Much to my surprise, the leader has only been going to the church himself for a month! I asked if he had to do any special classes or become a member to lead a small group and evidently you don’t. This was the first time I felt the church that thinks of everything missed something. If they only knew the leader of my small group was planning on starting his own church and felt like asking us to be his first recruits. I never went back.
The Pastor and I became friends in church and professionally. See, I had always had a heart for church planters and this pastor wrote the book on church planting. Still to this day there is no one I would trust more to train a new pastor then him. He had me start helping him train the new pastors in Audio, Video & Lighting. I began to travel the country training and setting up systems for new mobile churches. From that my story continues.
This is great so far! If you need any help let me know, I truly believe in this book as a helpful resource for churches all over the country.
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