Remunerating and valuing the work of technicians should be an important item in your church's budget, whether small or large, whether you have a budget or not, but it should not necessarily be money.
Juan Tamayo*
If you read the title and do not know much about the market of churches or houses of worship you will tell me that I am being very exaggerated. The sad reality is that generally in small or medium-sized churches the vast majority of "audiovisual technicians" have no training, do not receive remuneration and most difficult of all, they have to deal with "talents" such as musicians, pastors or others that they will demand as if they were professionals.
But don't worry, this opinion column is not about judging churches, but about providing tools for audio, video and control systems to operate correctly.
In these audiovisual spaces prayers abound, but budgets are limited. Each dollar, peso or other currency depending on the place, must be cared for and invested with technical criteria that solve the specific needs, which serves to buy the equipment you really need. Even, the appropriate investment can be made, but if the operator does not have the knowledge he could damage these equipment and the entire investment would be lost. And remember, the secret is not in the equipment, the most important thing in an audiovisual system is the human resource, the operators.
I hope that the following tips will serve so that people who visit your church or see it online feel the connection with that spiritual being that motivates them, I invite our readers to open debates if they do not agree, or if they want to know more about the subject write us in the comments.
Remunerating and valuing the work of technicians should be an important item in your church's budget, whether small or large, whether you have a budget or not, but it should not necessarily be money. Many of the people who work in technical production are young, who do not work and who want to be useful in the congregation, so I invite the people who are in charge of the budget to invest in the audiovisual education of these people, audio, video, mixing, editing, connectivity, among others, can be valuable for your worship and will make you constantly improve audiovisual production, Not only are they investing for their church, they may also be transforming a life.
Generate training chains within audiovisual production, similar to how spiritual formation courses are held. A young leader who is in an advanced learning process should take people who are starting to be their leader, and thus transmit knowledge, but those who are starting attend formal training. Formation always requires experience, so both worlds are combined and will make continuous improvement processes within your church.
Although generally music or praise teams work independently of audiovisual production, try to unite them in the same work team. Avoid that musicians only dedicate themselves to asking, invite them to have technical dialogues, where the operators give their opinion and are taken into account in the development of the musical production. For example, if the praise band wants an acoustic drum kit and the technician suggests an electronic drum kit better because of the architecture of the space, listen to him, since he knows that it will not work well, sometimes we get carried away by the heart, but we despise the reason.
Pastor, congregation leader, priest or other similar title, have technical meetings with your production team, listen to them when they give you advice on how to use your microphone. This element is the bridge of communication between you and the parishioners to make a divine connection, so it is the operators who have a technical background who will tell you if you are using that resource well or not, and most likely help you to constantly improve.
It is important to know that an audiovisual system has several pillars, the vast majority of houses of worship focus on buying equipment. In this column we talk about how important it is to educate staff and make continuous improvement processes, and a third pillar, but no less important is the preventive maintenance of equipment.
Equipment, wiring, electrical installations must be constantly checked to prevent small failures from becoming major damages, when you buy equipment generate plans where preventive maintenance is performed within the warranty period, and after this period constant maintenance you should know the value and include it in the annual budget of the church. By generating equipment resumes, they will be able to calculate periods of change of these and be forewarned and prepared for the acquisition of new equipment.
The last recommendation I can offer you, before buying any equipment, generating any action plan hire an advisor who can guide you, an advisor is different from a seller, advisors do not seek to sell a project, we seek to understand the needs of the project, mold a work plan and help it execute, so you will have a third participant to help you acquire the best for your congregation.
*Juan Tamayo, CTS-D, is an electronic engineer and currently serves as Manager of T-Árbol Audiovisuales SAS, Product Applications Engineer for Latin America of International Sales and Support Engineer for Synthax Inc.
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