When Your Pastor Sees You, How Do They Feel?
When I was 16 and serving in my church, I loved being back at front of house making the music sound amazing. As a teenage volunteer, I wasn’t there every week and in the summertime there were a bunch of weekends that I was on vacation. When I would get back behind the console after being gone for a while, I had so many people come up to me and say “Thank God you’re back!” It didn’t make a ton of sense to me at the time, and I would just wonder what happened last week that could have been so bad that you’re so glad to see me?
One thing I thought was that maybe the other people on the team weren’t up to the task. I was just so much better than them. But upon reflection, I was pretty confident that that wasn’t the case. I was good, but not that much better than anyone else. And problems were happening on the weekends I was there, so it wasn’t like my weekends were flawless.
The more I thought about it and have reflected on it over the years, it was more about how I responded to the problems that came up. When the people on the platform looked back at FOH, they had a sense of relief that things were going to be OK, that I would be able to take care of whatever was going on. It didn’t mean that bad things wouldn’t happen, but that they would be handled.
When your pastor looks back and sees you in the booth, what are they thinking about you? Are they relieved to see you or are they wondering if everything will be OK?
One of the best ways we can support our leaders on the platform is a sense that you have stuff covered. The question is, how can we do that?
Be Visible
When something unplanned happens in a service, become visible so that the person on stage can see you and that you know something happened. When someone is on the platform and they know something isn’t happening correctly, it is helpful to see that someone else noticed and that they can stop wondering about it. It has become my knee jerk reaction to stand up as soon as I know that something just happened to become visible.
The other helpful time to be visible is when there is a transition or a question on what’s going to happen next. If someone is about to call for a video, I stand. If someone is confused about what’s next, I stand up. I want to be the focal point for people on stage who have questions. If they can see me dialed into what is going on, then they can know they aren’t alone on stage.
Follow Up
After the service, communicate about what happened and what you plan to do about it. This shouldn’t involve shrugging your shoulders or pointing out why you need new gear. This should be about immediate solutions…what are we going to do before the next service.
Even if you don’t know exactly what happened or what you’re going to do about it, it is important to let people know that you know something didn’t work and that you’re going to do your best to figure it out before the next service. I used to have the luxury of having a Saturday night service, so I had 12 hours or more to figure out a solution. For many, there is only 30 minutes to work something out until the next service, so it is important to have a work-around plan until there is time to really dig into the long term fix. Communicate all this.
It is so important to get everybody on the same page, and agree on how to move forward. It might mean an easy solution. It could also mean a compromise. But one that everyone agrees to and adjusts to. Everybody understanding the plan going into the next service is key.
Remain Calm
As adjustments are made and solutions figured out, it is important to remain calm. Nobody needs to see you panic. That’s not helping anything. Especially if you’re visible, watching you lose your bananas doesn’t help build confidence. Very rarely is panic the right solution to any problem. It isn’t going to speed things up or help you solve the problem sooner. It is also vital to solve problems with intensity. It is key for people to feel the reality of how important it is to come up with a solution. But it is also important to show calmness. Calm intensity will help to build trust between the people on the platform and you as a leader at the back of the room.
And frankly trust is the correct answer for what your pastor feels when they see you at the back of the room. If you answered the question differently, it is important to develop a new way to begin to establish a trusting relationship.
Learn more about this through the FILO Podcast Episode 109: Alex Sawyer “Building Trust”.
