Joseph Cottle* is like a ministry one-man band. He is production director, a minister and a worship leader at LifeMission Church, a community of four campuses across greater Kansas City. Is that even humanly possible? Well on top of that, Cottle is a network consultant for AV Coalition, advising houses of worship and other production venues concerning AVL repair, upgrades, team management and team leadership. And to top it all off, he also works as a contributing writer for Church Production Magazine and regularly publishes essays, poems and meditations at Seraphim, his personal substack. When does he sleep? We’ll find out in this issue’s Five Minutes.
CPM: How can one man be a pastor, a worship leader and production director?
Cottle: To clarify, I'm not a staff pastor. I am a licensed minister here at LifeMission, which means I can perform weddings and funerals among a few other things. Our lead pastor is Clint Sprague. I report to Zac Dinsmore, our worship pastor. I lead worship monthly at our Tuesday night prayer gatherings, and I sometimes lead on weekends as needed.
That being said, Sundays are actually pretty chill, and I've designed our production to work that way. Kaden (our production tech) and myself have a well-oiled system worked out and we have a team of about 40 highly competent volunteers that make Sundays easy. Additionally, Zac and I share a vision for simple production, so we're not running a very complicated flow on Sundays, not unlike what you would see at UpperRoom Dallas. It's our sweet spot and we love it.
Now, when I was at Reslife, I wore multiple hats at one time. For a while there, I was the college pastor, worship pastor, and production director. It was a lot and I don't miss that pace, nor would I recommend it for anyone else.
I once received great advice for starting and growing ministries from my former executive pastor at Reslife, who said, “Think big, start small, adapt quickly.”
CPM: When did you first become interested in AVL technology and how did that grow into a passion?
Cottle: My dad was a singer-songwriter who landed a single on Family Life Radio back in the 90s. He booked shows at denominational churches around Michigan and I was his roadie. So, at seven and 8 years old, I was helping him load-in and load-out, mixing and recording his shows and running his merch booth. He was also a pastor at a variety of small churches, and so I was the natural go-to for help with AVL tech.
Later on in my 20s, I took an internship at Reslife Church in Big Rapids, Michigan where I really sunk my teeth into audio engineering, stage design and video production. I was promoted to worship pastor and AVL director once I graduated college and I served there for a total of 10 years, helping them build their teams, worship culture, and production system.
My time at Reslife deeply formed my outlook on production systems, execution, and teams because I was on a really tight budget, so I had to get creative about bang-for-buck solutions that elevated our production excellence at little cost. We also had a small staff, so I really had to lean into my worship and production team to pull off some of the more ambitious projects we accomplished. I’m really proud of what I was able to do there.
CPM: Tell us about your decision to become a pastor.
Cottle: In 2012, our church was at a crossroads and so was I. Reslife had just lost their lead pastor to a catastrophic moral failure. I and the worship pastor at the time were writing songs together and had leveraged our contacts to get in front of some serious country producers in Nashville. They had just offered us a recording opportunity when our lead pastor was removed from leadership. The worship pastor was moved up into the interim lead pastor role, and I became the worship director sort of by default. Getting to Nashville was a bust, but I held on to that dream of song-writing and touring for a year or two until the Lord finally asked me to fully set it down and pastor. I’m genuinely happy for the years I was able to pastor there and the work the Lord was able to do in hearts through our ministry.
I don’t write songs anymore, but that’s OK. I like what I’m doing now.
CPM: Why did you decide to start helping other churches solve tech issues through consulting and writing for Church Production?
Cottle: Well, I love to write. It’s a life-long passion of mine, but something I also set aside for pastoring and growing my family. When I graduated college, I moonlighted (often quite literally at night) as a stringer for our local paper for about six months, but the pay didn’t make enough sense for me to be away from my family as much as I was required to be. So, I resigned. I was able to contribute to their religion column from time to time, but that fizzled out after a year or two.
I am a self-taught production leader. I’ve read, asked advice from people smarter than me and spent countless hours on YouTube just figuring stuff out. I want to help equip and educate other leaders with resources I didn’t have, and CP offers a great hub for that kind of equipping. It’s a privilege to be able to combine these three passions I carry: production, writing, and equipping. I hope leaders and techs are helped by what I do.
Being near and listening to the Holy Spirit is the most important part of ministry. His will and work are our ultimate goals.
CPM: What advice would you give churches that want to grow their AVL and streaming ministries?
Cottle: I once received great advice for starting and growing ministries from my former executive pastor at Reslife, who said, “Think big, start small, adapt quickly.”
It’s important to have some idea about where you want to end up, so think big. Dream a big dream and write it down, but then you have to consider, how do I get there? This is cheesy, but any big journey starts with one small step. What do your budget and teams allow for right now? Do what you can right now. Don’t burn yourself out. Just do what you can. If it’s good, it will grow and when it grows, you can adapt. Always be ready to change plans and adjust. The end of the journey might look different from what you had in mind, but if you value faithfulness over drivenness, you’ll find that God did something better than you could ever do on your own.
Being near and listening to the Holy Spirit is the most important part of ministry. His will and work are our ultimate goals.
CPM: What’s your all-time favorite piece of gear and why?
Cottle: Sorry; I can’t give you just one. I’ll go with my top 3, but I’ll keep it short.
First, for my current production flow, it’s the Elgato Streamdeck Mk.2. When paired with Bitfocus Companion, it controls functions and macros in our Blackmagic 1 M/E [switcher], Hyperdeck and ProPresenter, all at the same time from one device. It’s made directing broadcasts seamless.
Second, while we have live amps in isolation boxes behind our stage for tone purists who prefer them, we mostly use the Strymon Iridium for amp modeling during all of our live sets. I can believe how good those things sound for how small they are.
Third, but not last, I love love love the Kemper Profiler. I’m a causal amp gear head, and I am always flabbergasted by how good Kempers sound. I’m not in the place in life to build out an intricate electric guitar rig, but when I am, I will build it around a Kemper. While I am deeply in love with tube amps, I just can’t get over the versatility and absolute perfect tone reproduction Kempers put out. They have to have a sorcerer in their basement making that stuff work because it’s too good.
*Cottle is a Michigan expat, where he grew up as the son of a pastor, learning early how to lead worship and production ministries and also earning a degree in music business and journalism at Ferris State University. He’s passionate about leading church ministry, loving his wife and children, and all sorts of outdoors things like hiking and flyfishing.
