Posts Tagged ‘leadership’

To Make a Difference

Sunday, May 4th, 2008

I had drill this weekend for the military. Usually, at least this past year of being home, I dislike going to this training weekends. One weekend a month — nothing happens. It sucks…

But this weekend was different. I absolutely love being completely exhausted after these training weekends. I’m in the infantry and love kicking in doors and shooting stuff all day. It’s fun and gets the adrenaline pumping. This weekend we didn’t kick in doors but we worked hard and shot a lot. Good times.

But I came to a strange realization though…

I want to go back to Afghanistan…? Not sure why this came up but it did. While I was overseas, I met a lot of Afghans and definitely had an impact on them, attempting to spread some sort of Christian love as appropriately as possible. Making a difference on the other side of the world was a huge thing for me.

In the next year or two, I’m slated to go back overseas again so mentally I’m already prepared for it considering I’ve done it once before. But there is something exhilarating about the danger of combat patrols. Yeah it sucks a lot but I had a great time overseas. Meeting those people and providing them with safety from Taliban forces meant something.

Who knows if this is just a phase but if my future has me going back overseas, I can’t wait. I’m moving up in the leadership and now am in control of my own fire-team *insert sinister laugh here* so I would certainly be promoted on that deployment. That sort of leadership makes a huge difference in my liking/disliking of the military.

Deployment or no, I definitely want to make a difference in the world. Only God knows what is in my future and I absolutely trust that He will use me to better the world.

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Posted in leadership, risk, trust, vision | No Comments »

What Tech Directors Wished Worship Leaders Knew

Tuesday, April 15th, 2008

As one of the Atmosphere (tech ministry) coordinators at St. Paul’s, I receive the brunt of most of the criticism of what went wrong during a service. For good reason though — something bad happens, it is usually tech-related and thus my fault. I don’t mind it, however, there are certain things that would be helpful to me if the worship leader simply knew about them. Here’s a list of things on my plate that I’m willing to admit.

—We (tech guys) don’t always know what you (leaders) mean when you point to something on stage. Come up with hand signals i.e. pointing at monitor and then pointing up = monitor too quiet, raise volume. Simply pointing at the monitor does nothing for us.
—Ask for what you want (sound quality, balance, monitor levels) when you want it! Don’t expect us to know what you want simply because we are the tech director. We are super, but not supermen.
—Don’t be afraid to give us constructive criticism …. just because we work with buttons and computers all day doesn’t mean we don’t have people skills. Pick and choose your time though. If it is during the service and we are pulling our hair out, bad timing. An after-service email or follow-up is appropriate.
—We know what we are doing (most of the time). Unless we are completely screwing things up, let us work and we will let you work :)
—Continue to build up your team, reminding them that we are all on the same team. By having other band members getting upset at us during rehearsal or the service does not benefit anyone. Keep communication lines open so that problems can be fixed ASAP!
—This is as prideless as I can say it but don’t take us for granted. You will never sound good without us. Yes you can make plenty of noise but angry tech members don’t serve well. Keep in check with us, making sure that yes we are on the same page and still glorifying God with our work, not making each other go crazy.

Well that’s about all I can think of off the top of my head. Be sure to check out my worship leaders blog for his thoughts on worship too!

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Posted in church, leadership, serving, sound, technology | 2 Comments »