Catalyst 2008

The past few days have been phenomenal. Doug, Mark, Dick and I got a chance to travel up to the ATL and go to the Catalyst Conference. This is one of the best leadership conferences in the country and I was super blessed to have had the opportunity to go. We along with another 12,000 people got to experience this. We heard wonderful leadership from guys like Matt Chandler, Steven Furtick, Dave Ramsey and Andy “Freakin” Stanley. We also got to worship with some phenomenal worship leaders like Kristian Stanfill and Steve Fee. Of course, the production team nailed everything. (I had to give props to those guys because it wouldn’t happen without them). On the way home yesterday we talked about some things we took away. There was so much I took away, but only a few touched me and hit me pretty hard. Well, here is my one thing I learned.

“To reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing.” Wow. That means we can build a church and worship together, but there will still people that don’t and won’t go to church. So, to reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing. As Andy Stanley pointed out, not his words, that might piss some people off. This one saying has challenged me. I’m always thinking, how can we make things better so that we can reach people for Christ? It’s simple, do things no one else is doing. What is “normal” now, is not going to be “normal” 5 or 10 years from now. “The Next Generation product almost never comes from the previous generation.” So, “to reach people no one else is reaching, we have to do things no one else is doing.” I’m challenged.

There is my one thing. There were other things that challenged my leadership and challenged to me to think and grow. More than anything that I heard, learned or saw, here is the biggest. God BROKE me this weekend. I was very emotional. I really felt God pulling at my heart this weekend. During worship and during some of the messages I really felt God tugging at me. He was tugging at me in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever felt. At some points I felt overwhelmed with emotion. When I thought about this, the word that came to my mind was “break.” I’m not speaking in the sense that I’m not saved, because I am, but I am speaking in the sense of something that Craig Groeschel brought. I felt God pulling my heart so that my heart would break for him. It was almost as if God said, “pay attention to me.” It felt good. In order to acheive what he wants to achieve, he needs me to focus on him. I often put up a wall around my heart when it comes to deep emotional things. God was breaking down that wall and told me to pay attention to him. That was the greatest thing I took away.

Of course, the experience itself was awesome. I’m a technical guy and those guys just knocked it out of the park. Kickin’ audio probably around 112 db, lighting that looked amazing, and sweet video team. Overall, Catalyst stretched me in more areas than one.

Few Things I’ve Learned

Over the past few days and weeks I’ve been doing LOTS of reading on just about everything. I’ve been getting in God’s word, leadership books, marriage books and even volunteer books. Now, I’m not a reader at all, I actually hate it. For some strange reason I have had my face in the books this week and there a few things that hit me:

-What do I believe is impossible to do in my field, but if it could be done, would fundamentally change my business? (Stanley)

-God does not respond to what we do, we respond to what God does. (Romans)

-I must not just do things for April, I must learn to meet her EMOTIONAL needs. (Harley Jr.)

-80% of people’s time should be spent doing what God has created them to do. (Stevens)

-If we feel that we have enough volunteers, money, staff, space and time to accomplish everything, then what does that say about our vision? (Stevens)

One Shot at Excellence

I read a post of Mark’s the other day about excellence (highest level of quality) in the kids area and how people sell kids short. I was talking with him yesterday about that and it’s just so refreshing to know that not only do Mark and I see eye-to-eye on excellence, but all of us at Canvas. If it can’t be done with excellence, then it just won’t be done. If we are to transform a city by transforming lives by showing people who Christ is, then it requires a level of excellence. Excellence is something that we will not swerve for when that squirrel runs out in front of us. As Mark has said, we only get ONE shot…ONE!

Unleash

WOW!! NewSpring is amazing. God has put that community on fire and it shines through the people of that church. The guys and I (and Shelly) all took a trip up to NewSpring to the Unleash Conference. To be honest, I was worried it was going to be a repeat, but it was amazing. Perry Noble brought it! The people of NewSpring Church are awesome! That church is complete crap without them (and of course God…). That church would not operate without that amazing team of volunteers and only God can receive glory for what HE has done up there.

I took tons of notes. I have lots regarding technical and services, but perhaps a technical post later. I want to share the biggest thing I took. Perry stressed the importance of something this afternoon. The church doesn’t lean on the pastor, but the pastor leans on the church (from T.D. Jakes). Doug needs to know that we support him. No matter what comes our way, we got Doug’s back. I think it is equally important that Shelly knows this. We support not only her husband, but she too.

God moves in weird ways and spoke to me about some things today. I think that this is the one important thing that I took from Unleash this year. Whatever it’s worth. Anyone who is interested, you should check it out next year. If you get a big enough team, someone gets an Xbox…maybe…or just a CD and t-shirt.

dB Levels

I’ve been asked in the past this general question about worship services: “Why is it ‘loud’?” I figured I would explain that one considering it’s my area.

When people hear ANY kind of music that they like, they usually sing along. They usually have to be alone where no one can hear them. For instance, in the shower, the car, etc. When they hear that music, it’s usually loud enough to where they sing freely and don’t have to worry about people hearing them. There is a certain environment that has to be created in order for people to sing and that “principle” (is what I’m calling it) applies to the experience in a worship service. If the music isn’t “loud” enough, people won’t sing. If they’re standing there and they know their neighbor can hear them, they’ll wimp out or just mouth the words (watch next time, it’s pretty funny). God called us to be LOUD and make a joyful noise, even if you do suck at singing.

We have to create an environment where people can feel that ‘freeness’ to sing. Let me break down some technical “geekieness.” At the CATR, we run our FOH audio around 95 dB. dB or decibel level is basically a way to measure volume. It’s also known as SPL or sound pressure level. We measure that with a dB meter, a tool no audio tech should be without. The human ear can begin to hear a difference of 2 dB. 95 dB is about equal to a subway train 200 ft. away. Your phone’s dial tone is around 80 dB. Your lawn mower runs at about 107 dB, so if you cut grass, you can handle a worship service (at least if I’m behind the board….haha).  I know some churches who run their dB levels around 100 and 105. There are many factors that go in to what effects dB levels such as what the leadership decides is appropriate, acoustics, equipment, etc. At CATR, we are in a brick walled, tiled floor and awkwardly designed room that’s horrible when mixing audio. By the way, it also helps when people come around and try to tell you, with their inexperience, how they would run audio. If they try to tell you that it changed this week, you can just say that it’s been the same, we always run 95 dB. So, 95 dB does us just fine.

We ran our dB level a little lower not too long ago and we didn’t tell anyone we did it. It’s funny, I got stopped the other night in a store and was told, “it was really different the other day. It was really quiet.” To be stopped in a store and told that is pretty crazy, but there were more instances from people I knew who said the exact same thing. They said that they didn’t enjoy it and that “it was hard to worship.” No lie. That tells me that the dB level is important. People won’t sing, or worship, if they can’t hear the music. There must be a decent dB level at which the FOH audio runs at, if not, people won’t worship. If they’re like me, they’re too busy thinking about how bad the sound sucks and won’t let if go until the service ends or the dB level changes. People will stand there with their hands in their pockets, mouthing the words as they see them. This whole dB level thing is all apart of the environment. The average non-Christian doesn’t sit there and sing worship songs for one thing, but won’t sing anything unless it’s loud. Just go to a concert and see that. There is a reason concerts are loud. It’s engaging.

So, “why is it loud?” because people won’t sing if it’s not. It’s apart of the environment we are trying to create. Besides, if it’s too loud, you’re too old…….just kidding.

10% of….

I was talking with a friend today and he got me thinking quite a bit. Biblically, God has called us to tithe (tenth). It talks on how we should give to His church, a tithe. Everyone has heard how we as Christians should give 10% of our income to the church, it’s just biblical.

As I was talking with this friend, he brought up something interesting. There are about 168 hours in a week. Giving 10% of our income is great and needs to be done, but what if we were to tithe (10%) God our time each week. When you break that down, it’s about 17 hours a week, or about 2.5 hours a day. How much time do we give God when you look at it from that perspective? 10% of our time is alot, but do we give God that time? I sure as heck don’t! What in the world do I do with those hours, watch TV, blog? I’ll spend 15 minutes in the morning, worship in the car and then there is church on Sundays, but I don’t think it is anywhere near a “tithe.” My mind was boggled when I thought about this.

It would be cool if we were to tithe our time to God. Imagine what the possibilities could be. Imagine how many lives could be reached. Imagine being the church to a community besides serving ourselves on a Sunday morning. Sunday morning is only 2 hours or so; there is still 15 hours left. Being a Christian is more than being a Sunday morning ritual, it’s a lifestyle. We could be the church during the week too. That’s exciting. Just the thought of tithing our time is crazy to think about. Tithe our time?

Systems

Last week I stopped by the CATR office to see what was up. I noticed Doug had sticky notes on the white board, which is a system we learned at GBC Basic Training. On these “mileposts” were lots of systems that needed to be documented. I signed my initials on some of them notating that I would take that away and complete that task.

This past week I documented about four systems that we use at CATR. With these, Doug and I created a new general guidelines for CATR also. I’ve already taken all of these and revamped them for Canvas, so we now have systems in place before we even launch; that’s exciting. Once we get them the way we like, we’ll get all the appropriate leadership to sign off on it and approve it. I’m really excited. I think the coolest thing is that we were able to get some of these systems documented already for Canvas, so we’re that much more ahead (actually I think we’re right on time, but you get the idea). We will soon have a way to come up with creative elements for services to dealing with discipline problems.

Systems are really exciting! Working in public safety, I’m surrounded by policies and procedures (systems) to protect us and I took lots of ideas away from that. Any church that wants to keep people around and continuously growing needs to have systems, besides the obvious God factor. Systems can make or break a church. It can determine how long volunteers will stick around. It can determine how you make a decision fairly. It can determine so much in a church. I’m just really excited that we’re not only getting these at CATR, but Canvas too. Canvas is going along pretty well right now and we’re really starting to move along.