The AVL Production Perspective: A How-to Guide for Serving on the Audio, Video, and Lighting Teams at Your Local Church

By M.T. Losey

Author M.T. Losey provides a thought-provoking perspective on how the truth of the gospel and your relationship with Christ impacts how you lead and serve on the production team. He encourages you to not let fear, doubt, or your lack of experience get in the way of what God has called you to do. Instead

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lost Rock Publishing
• Release date: May 17, 2023
• ISBN: 9798987695517

M.T. Losey

Matthew Losey has served on the production team in the local church for the past 17 years. He specializes in audio engineering for both live, and broadcast environments. Formerly the Director of Production at Emmanuel Church in Indianapolis, he wrote "The AVL Production Perspective" to help others who serve in production environments be the best that God has intended them to be. In his free time, he enjoys traveling to visit his family in New York, and fixing things that were never actually broken. Matthew and his wife, Diana, live in Indianapolis. They have two kids, an RV, and a very old house.

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Introduction

Do people treat you differently because you serve on the technology and production team? There seems to be an unspoken rule that people should just leave the production team alone. I haven’t minded it for the most part. I enjoy sitting by myself and pouring over manuals and sorting a nest of cables. That’s not sarcasm … and neither was that.

I think it comes down to people feeling intimidated by those of us who know a lot about a topic they’ve never thought much about. Someone has to think about it, though. Otherwise we’ll find ourselves in quite a mess when something inevitably breaks. The technology in production environments is complicated and constantly evolving. Did I mention it keeps breaking? The lead pastor is not going to fix it, and because we are willing, we put our heads down and get to work. It sounds as if I’m complaining, but I’m not. I’m thankful for the privilege of doing something that intimidates most people. It sets me apart. Doing whatever it takes to keep a church service running, along with preparing and setting up production environments, makes me feel valued and significant.

But what if I told you none of this matters in heaven? Yes, you are valued in heaven, but your eternal value doesn’t depend on what technology you can put together and fix on this Earth. Your value is separate from your ability to engineer audio, record videos, or program lighting. Your value lies in your ability to posture your heart to serve humbly and reach those far from Christ. In this book, we’ll talk through what we should and shouldn’t focus on while serving on production teams.

I wrote this book because I felt alone in my walk with God a lot of the time while working in production. Some of you feel alone too. I hope you can learn from my mistakes and spare yourselves the aggravation of valuing the wrong things while walking alone. I pray you’ll find value in the encouragement I have for you and the occasional self-deprecation I share.

I intentionally wrote this in such a way that you can read it in small chunks while you wait for church to start. Perhaps you, like me, prefer to rest quietly before the stress of hitting marks, catching lighting cues, and timing graphics and slides consumes your mind. Maybe you picked up this book hoping to develop some new strategies for audio engineering. Maybe you picked up this book looking to find some pointers on how to remodel your auditorium. Or perhaps you need to troubleshoot some technology gremlin you have yet to pin down. Unfortunately, this book won’t help you with that.

However, I do promise that, if you read and pray through this book, you’ll become a better production servant to your church and community. We’re nothing if we’re not growing in Christ and sharing the good news that salvation is available to all of humanity through faith in Jesus. You may also be surprised to learn that the most effective production people I’ve served with were not all that proficient in technology or production. Rather, they had an eternal mindset, knowing they worked for Jesus, not for people sitting in the audience.

Lastly, I realize some of you call yourselves a tech team, while others call yourselves a production team. As far as this book goes, there’s no differentiation between them, and I’ll refer to all of you as members of the production team. There also may be some specific perspective differences between the experiences of a volunteer and the experiences of a staff member. I’ll address all parties serving in any production capacity, staff and volunteers alike.

That said, it is occasionally necessary to provide perspectives from both sides to illustrate the ideas in this book. So please don’t be surprised when I ask you, a volunteer, to consider the perspective of a staff member or vice versa.

1: Setting the Stage

A Team Effort

The phone rang at 6:30 one Sunday morning. It was our main broadcast campus, and they wanted a shop vac.

Yes, of course. Do you need it? Then I reminded myself that, if someone calls me at 6:30 a.m. and asks for a shop vac, they probably need it. So I blurted, What happened?

They took a deep breath. Well …

That was the beginning of a long morning. As it turned out, someone had left the baptismal water running overnight. We shall not name any names. But it flooded the baptismal, stage, and auditorium. The flood in the auditorium included subwoofers, backstage rooms, electrical boxes, patch bays on the ground, baptism changing rooms, bathrooms, and the green room. Through a colossal feat of coordination and teamwork, we temporarily remediated the situation, band-aiding it well enough to run two fully packed services. It was as if Jesus himself blessed us. Yet somehow, despite our best efforts after we almost sabotaged the service, people were still baptized in a very chilly pool, and others began their relationship with Christ.

This is just one of the many mistakes our teams and I have overcome during my time serving in production. Maybe you can relate to this story, but I hope you stayed dry. We seem to have a fresh challenge, new obstacle, or tense relationship to work through each week before we can put on a great production. I used to find it difficult to manage the competing expectations and varying personalities, but now it comes naturally. Maybe it’s just how life is, but serving in the production and technology world can be overwhelming at first. Finding your footing can take considerable time and effort.

The baptism story is a glimpse of what it looks like when the team is unified through serving others. Everyone serving that weekend was more concerned with solving the problem than they were in placing blame. No one pointed fingers or discouraged others with negative talk. They all saw an opportunity to reach others for Christ, and they put that mindset above their problem.

This is a great example of our team succeeding in Christ’s mission, but it easily could have gone the other way. No matter the preparation, people make mistakes, such as leaving the baptism water running. A great team will still mess up, but the posture of their hearts while they serve will determine how they handle the mistakes amid the chaos.

Am I Alone?

Sometimes, all a volunteer needs to do is show up on time and serve. Our response that day might make you think I was blessed with a perfect team. Honestly, it’s usually more like Matthew 22:1–14. If you’re not familiar with this verse, pick up your favorite translation and read it. I use the New International Version (NIV) and the New Living Translation (NLT).

This passage tells the violent story of a king who wants to have a big wedding feast for his son. However, no one comes, so the king invites anyone willing. Then, if they come unprepared for the wedding, he throws them out. It’s a bit strange, but the point is that God welcomes everyone into the kingdom of heaven. But we’re not guaranteed entry just because we’re invited.

The last time I read this parable, I didn’t think at all about its eternal implications. It just felt a lot like scheduling volunteers for the weekend service. I’ll change some of the words around to help you see the parable as I did:

My pastor prepared the Easter weekend service and told me to fill the necessary positions with our best volunteers.

I said, Of course, boss! and got to work.

I opened Planning Center to schedule the best of the best volunteers. I’d already sent out my block-out requests and, to my surprise, our volunteers had already shared the weekends they weren’t available. I sent out the invitations, but no one accepted the positions. Some said they were going out of town; others said they needed a break from serving. Even more just never responded.

So, I did what every sensible person in my position would do. I sent out a second, third, and finally the fourth round of invitations. This was a last-ditch effort to schedule any warm body that was willing to sit in a production seat. It’s Easter, after all, and time was running out. The week leading up to the big day, I called old friends and volunteers who have since retired or have been unwillingly retired from production.

Easter came at last, and a few volunteers brought their A-game. These were the underdogs—the people I expected the least from. They were ready to go and well-prepared. Others kept falling asleep or played games on their phones. So, I sent them out into the early morning, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Many are invited, but few are chosen. (Matt Losey 22:1–14)

My story might be melodramatic, but days like this happen. I’ve run multiple positions at a time on a weekend, both as a volunteer and a production director. Hasn’t everybody run lighting, audio, and lyrics/sermon slides at the same time? Managing all the technology, volunteers, relationships, unexpected problems, and unsolicited feedback from various people while trying to maintain our integrity can seem impossible. Luckily, I’ve never sent anyone into the early morning, where there was weeping and gnashing of teeth. Lord knows there were times when I could have, and no one would have blamed me.

To remain sane while serving, I continually remind myself of the truth of Colossians 3:23: Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people.

Paul addressed slaves in part of his letter, but I felt he was talking directly to me as a slave in the production world. I’m required to get to church first and leave last. I lose countless hours to troubleshooting and preparation during the week. Almost no one outside our AVL teams realizes all I do, like calls with manufacturers, testing and re-testing equipment, and designing and quoting solutions for our churches. I face these challenges regularly enough that I sometimes want to quit.

But if Paul is talking to slaves, then I can be less dramatic. Surely, I can persevere in leading and being led by others in production with the common mission of reaching others for Christ.

The Great Production Commission

On our big flood day, we all focused on the Great Commission. This solidified our unified mission and kept wayward thoughts from our minds while we focused on bringing a piece of God’s kingdom to Earth. The Great Commission is Jesus’s last words to His disciples before He ascended to heaven. From a production perspective, the ascension was one heck of a special element, which is probably why so many churches rig up a winch in the attic for the Easter play every year, but anyway, here it is …

Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:18–20 NLT)

How do we fit into this? How does production fit into this? I firmly believe production is essential to ministry in our technology age. So let’s think of production tools in their most practical nature.

First, if someone stands in the middle of a field, screaming a sermon for forty-five minutes, they’ll get tired and lose their voice. If a few thousand people are standing in that field, the people in the middle and back won’t hear most of the message. Jesus was no stranger to the physics of sound. I believe that’s why in Luke 5, Jesus sat in Peter’s boat and let him paddle Him to the middle of a lake. That way, He could preach to the large crowd along the shoreline. Sound travels well over water. But since few modern churches meet near or on a large body of water, this method’s not practical.

Enter the microphone. With this game changer, the person in the field doesn’t have to scream to be heard or understood. They don’t have to hold several smaller services to reach the same number of people.

What if they’re in a building instead of a field? Most buildings have only a couple of windows and a lot of rooms. Enter the camera and lighting teams. And what if people can’t get to church because they’re too poor to own a car, can’t walk, are too sick to travel, or there’s a pandemic going on? Enter the internet.

Preparing, implementing, and maintaining each of these environments requires droves of people. The Christian church needs people who are passionate about gracefully using their God-given gifts to help communicators present their testimonies and the gospel.

I’m not attempting to argue for or against the necessity of a modern and relevant church experience. But unless your pastor’s sermons involve yelling at one end of a field or standing in a boat on a large body of water, some level of production will be involved. Therefore, we need production people like us to help maintain the methods of communication in our churches, no matter the size.

Go All In

Before you get too far into reading this book, I want to clarify my intentions and my hope for you. My goal is to remind you that the Bible is the source of truth and that God regularly speaks to us through those words. In Joshua 1:8–9, the Lord reminded Joshua what He’d given him. He’s reminding us too. God’s book of instruction is for everyone and should be shared.

Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. (Joshua 1:8–9 NLT)

I believe we sometimes forget we have this book of instruction called the Bible to help us. Some people think that book contains a lot of uncertainties. Others are left with open-ended questions. Still others feel overwhelmed by the idea of reading a book as long as the Bible. I happen to be one of those last people. Even so, I’m here to walk you through a bit of what God has revealed to me over my years of production service and how it relates to biblical matters.

I’m no dummy; I don’t think I’m Joshua. Nor do I feel my words carry any authority or weight on their own. However, I do believe the Holy Spirit has led me to lead others in church production to the best of my ability. Because of this, I have compiled this book of biblical concepts, ideas, and perspectives that can help others who may feel burned out, lost, or frustrated with their current circumstances. They may even feel unsatisfied with their ability to influence, change, and affect production and its teams in their church. We’ll go over various Bible passages that I personally have found to be encouraging and insightful. Many of them are funny and some are sad. Many are humbling. But they all have the potential to change our lives if we embrace their truth.

In moments of deep thought while taking a shower or staying up too late, I often remember verses God reminded me of, and I wonder what would happen if everyone who read this took it seriously. How might life be different if we thought this way? How would our ministry change, and how would our church respond to hardships? How would the people in our churches reach out to the lost and lead them to the light of Jesus?

It’s ambitious to think everyone who hears and reads the words God inspired would take them seriously enough to change our world. But that’s what Jesus came to do—change us and our world. Besides, what better thing could we devote our lives to? If Jesus is right and we are lost (and He is right), there’s no better way to spend our time than to invest ourselves in His mission. For us here on Earth, our mission is to reach as many people as possible so they can be reconciled back to the Father. Then we’ll find eternal value in being a part of something that lasts longer than we will. The best way to do that is to be part of His kingdom. If all Christians worked toward God’s will with complete confidence that He has a plan for our lives to affect eternity, what would be different about our churches and our world? I doubt we’d recognize them.

2: Recognizing the Need for Change

When I lived in New York City, I trained with my bodybuilder friend, Wes, now and again. Wow, that was a humbling experience. He was around five feet, three inches tall, and when I looked at his social media later, I realized he weighed maybe 110 pounds when he started lifting. By the time I met Wes, he was at least 180 pounds of pure muscle. He went on to win a few local competitions in the couple of years I knew him.

I couldn’t help but admire Wes’s dedication. Before each competition, he spent a couple of months on an incredibly strict regimen of food, water, exercise, and sleep. During