We have all heard, “Men are from mars, women are from Venus.” This explanation of communication challenges is not just true of men and women, but of church techs and the financial leadership of the church. Tech people speak, “tech” language and financial leadership speaks the “stewardship” language.
When a sound system begins to show early signs of needing an upgrade, most of the church has no clue. There are very few that see it as early as those in the booth. Yet, if upgrades wait until it’s obviously a problem, it’s too late.
Part of helping them understand the urgency can be accomplished by asking questions like, “Do we feel like it’s appropriate for the issue to get worse?” Or “Is it appropriate to allow the sound system to stop working entirely before something is done?
The challenge for most tech people is being able to articulate to those in charge of finances that the sound system needs an upgrade. Maybe it’s a total overhaul or maybe it’s simply a new console or replacing speakers that have been blown. Regardless of the type of need for upgrading, the odds of the board or committee having enough knowledge to understand a tech’s reasons for it are fairly slim.
Believe it or not, the financial leadership of the church doesn’t need to know everything the sound engineer knows about the situation. They simply need information that leads them to a healthy, stewarding decision. So this is an article dedicated to help anyone articulate what a committee needs to know about an audio upgrade.
1. Committees need the most basic understanding of the situation.
Committees need to feel like they understand the situation, but they don’t need to understand every minute detail of the situation. For example, maybe a church’s worship team has grown to a place where they don’t have enough outputs to provide everyone with in-ear mixes. There might be enough auxes but not enough physical outputs. Let’s pretend there is no way to add outputs with an additional stage box. The committee making a financial decision doesn’t need a specific explanation with all of the technical language. They just need to understand the problem and solution. It could be more basically said like this: “Hey, we all know our worship team is growing. For the team to continue to lead worship at the quality our church expects, we need an audio mixer that allows us more space. In short, the mixer we have now only allows us eight people to hear what they need to, but we need something that would allow us up to 24 for growing room. This is how much the fix for the problem costs. It can be paid for in cash or be financed.” In this explanation, the committee has the problem, the solution, the cost of the solution and payment options. Handling it like this empowers them to make a quality decision without weighing them down with specifics that don’t help them make a better decision.
2. Help the committee understand the “Why Now” question.
When an average committee member can’t see or experience a technical issue on Sunday, a major upgrade might seem pointless or ancillary. The “why now” question helps them understand they are avoiding major disruptions in the future. For example, let’s say there are signs that the current speaker system is having significant problems. The obvious move in this situation is to present the need and cost of a new speaker system. In this meeting, the committee needs to have the problem explained as simply as possible to help them understand that if it’s left like this, there will come a Sunday where it stops working entirely. Help them understand this isn’t a scare tactic, but a reality of the situation.
Part of helping them understand the urgency can be accomplished by asking questions like, “Do we feel like it’s appropriate for the issue to get worse?” Or “Is it appropriate to allow the sound system to stop working entirely before something is done? At what point does the board feel like they need to act?” This puts the power back in the hands of the committee and allows them to make the best decisions possible for the church.
Give committee members a “Band-Aid” option that will fix the issue in the short term, a moderate option that gives a longer-term fix and the highest quality option that will show them a significant upgrade in experience.
3. Committees need homework done and options presented.
It can be easy to make one recommendation (the one you want) to the board. However, that is rarely the best strategy for financing the fix. Healthy committees will make the best decision based on the financial position of the church if presented with quality options. However, many committees will struggle to make the obvious decision if they feel forced into a specific direction. Give them a “Band-Aid” option that will fix the issue in the short term, a moderate option that gives a longer-term fix and the highest quality option that will show them a significant upgrade in experience.
In order to do this, it requires the person responsible for presenting to do the homework. Figure out the exact issue. If speakers are going out, is it the amps, is it the speakers or is it bad wiring? Know the problem and present options. Do the homework.
Ultimately, the church and the tech department both want the same thing: they want what is best for the church. Yet, tech people and committees speak two different languages. The tech speaks “tech” and “AVL” languages and the financial leadership speaks “stewardship” languages. When there is an issue that crosses over from tech people to financial people, it requires a little bit of translation work. If there seems to be a significant conflict, most likely it’s not because they don’t want the best for the church, but because there’s something wrong in the translation. So techs need to take time to communicate in a way that expresses the need in a healthy manner. When that happens, the best decisions can be made.
