I am really excited to introduce to you someone I have followed on Twitter for a few months. He is a tech volunteer at his church and has been for quite some time and he struck me as someone who has a story to tell. To begin this story, I thought I would interview him, so here goes!
What is your name?
Chase Livingston, aka @chaselivingston
I realize you are a tech volunteer at your church, as many of us are, what do you do fulltime?
I’m a college student at Clemson University, studying Electrical Engineering. That basically means I study all the time, and tweet about how boring or hard my classes are.
What is the name of your church?
Mountain Creek Baptist Church
What is Mountain Creek’s average attendance each weekend?
I don’t know the exact number, and I’m glad I’m not the guy who has to count, but I think it’s between 200 and 300.
How long have you been involved with sound and media with your church?
I’ve been doing it at Mountain Creek pretty much since I started going there about 4 or 5 years ago.
So, you started when you were how old?
I really started with church media when I was about 13. There was a wedding at my grandparents church, and they didn’t have anyone to run sound. My grandfather knew I was into computers, and technical stuff, so he asked if I would be willing to help out. Being a true techie, I of course agreed. That was my first experience behind a sound board, and what really sparked my interest in everything I’m into now.
Describe a typical Sunday morning (What time do you arrive, routines you have, number of people that are involved etc)
I normally arrive about 8:30am for the service that starts at 10:30am. First things first, I get everything powered up and ready to go for the worship team to have a run through/sound check. They normally arrive about 9:00am to do that, then by the time they’re finished, the other guy who runs the projection PC is ready to pull up the song lyrics we’ll need, announcement slides, sermon slides, etc. We normally do some editing to the announcement slides and sermon slides to make them look as good as possible. By the time all that is done it’s about time for the service to start, and from then on, I’m pretty much behind the sound board.
How closely do you work with your worship pastor and what is his role in the sound/media/tech side of things?
Well, first of all my worship pastor is a she. Just thought we should clear that up. I work pretty closely with her, she is the person on staff who is responsible for the tech side of things. Basically that means she’s in charge of letting me and the other guys know what needs to be done, and we do our best to make it happen. She’s also very helpful in giving us the lyrics for the songs we’ll be doing in worship to make sure we have the right lyrics in our database, and also the right order. She’s also responsible for the basic programming of the service, which is the order of service, where each service element goes, etc.
In all that you are involved in, is there a single thing that just really gets you going?
I get really annoyed when someone brings me a video or something at the last minute and wants to show it in the service. I haven’t had time to preview it or sound check it. Really just not having enough preparation time in general really gets on my nerves. Many of my friends make fun of me because I’m usually super early everywhere I go, but to me, it gives me plenty of time to prepare for anything that could go wrong, or at least prevent the preventable things from going wrong.
What are you passionate about?
I am passionate about using technology in church to enhance the worship experience of everyone there. I know that my generation is especially drawn to anything to do with technology, so if they see a church that uses tech in cool and innovative ways, they are drawn to it. I also believe that if done wrong, it can be a detriment to the worship experience. There is a very fine line and I am constantly reading and trying to learn from other people who are definitely better than me about how they utilize technology in their church.
I have heard rumors that you are moonlighting at a little church called New Spring. What’s that about?
Well, I think New Spring is a great church, and I have been visiting there recently since I’m back at school and it’s pretty close. I have followed a lot of their staff on Twitter for a while, so I’m constantly trying to learn from them, because they’re really good at what they do. Who knows, maybe I’ll end up working with them someday.
What is something about New Spring‘s A/V/L and production that surprises you?
Well, the obvious is that there’s so much of it. I feel they use technology very well in their services. Everything works together well, and like I talked about in one of the previous questions, it enhances the worship experience. But beyond the cool factor of all the technology, they work really hard to get it to the level that it’s at. I had the opportunity to sit in the control room with some of the volunteers a couple weeks back, and their preparation and execution of the service is amazing. You can tell they work hard to minimize mistakes, but when they do happen (and they are going to in any church), they do the best they can to minimize the impact on the service. I believe their attitude of “we can always make it better,” is something all churches and tech guys could learn from, including myself.
Are there any production similarities between New Spring and Mountain Creek?
No, there really aren’t too many. Mountain Creek is a very traditional church, while NewSpring is obviously very contemporary. Many of the people at Mountain Creek aren’t as receptive to technology in the service as they are at NewSpring. We have a lot of older members, so we try to respect them as much as we can, while not compromising our goal of reaching the lost.
When you are not in school or serving at church, what other things occupy your time?
I am a self professed computer nerd. I love learning about the newest thing, or reading about the newest releases when it comes to technology. I always want to try out the latest and greatest things before anyone else. Also, along these lines, I’m always trying to get ideas from other people in the church tech/media field. I read a lot of blogs and watch some podcasts, always trying to sharpen my skills. I also really love cars. I’ve been fascinated by them ever since I was a kid, so whenever I get the chance to go to a car show, or work on a car, I always take it.
What church leaders do you read and/or follow?
This is quite a long list. It would probably be easier for anyone who wants to know to look through my Twitter followers or find me on Google Reader. But to name a few, I read pretty much everyone from NewSpring, Ed Stetzer, Alvin Reid, Thom Rainer, Steven Furtick, Pete Wilson, Tim Stevens, etc. I’m sure I’m leaving a lot of really cool people out, so if you have any recommendations, please let me know.
Any thoughts on how to build community among church tech volunteers?
Well, to build community anywhere, the first thing I would recommend is just spending time with the people you are trying to build community with. Get to know them, and their stories. Everyone likes to eat, so get everyone together and go out to eat, or find something that everyone likes to do, and go do that. Invest in each other.
Any conferences in your future?
Well, by the grace of God I’m going to Catalyst in October. I’m so excited, I can’t even explain it. Everyone keeps telling me what an awesome experience it is, so I’m really looking forward to it. I’m going to try and blog as much as I can about it, so stay tuned for that, maybe Jim will post some of it on CTM. Also in January I’m going to Passion 2010. It’s basically a huge conference for young adults, started by Louie Giglio. I’ve also heard many great things about it, including the face that Hillsong United will be playing, so I am super excited about that. Again, hopefully I will be able to blog a little about my experiences.
Do you ever get burned out on serving in the church? What have you done to deal with that?
Yeah, I definitely do, I think everyone does at some point. I’m sure everyone involved with church tech loves what they do, but sometimes it just gets tiring. I try and take a step back, maybe take a week or two off from it, and just be a regular church member for a while. By regular church member, I mean just sit and enjoy the service, rather than working during it.
So, join me in welcoming Chase! I think he will definitely add an interesting perspective and there’s even a good chance we can all learn a thing or two from him.
Thanks for this post. It was great reading on what others do in this exciting role. Hope Chase settles into his new role @ CTM.
What I liked to read especially is how Chase runs the show @ Mountain Creek Baptist while at the same time checking out all the big gun churches and how they do things.
I come from a similar background. Not so much conservative – but more technology naive. I look after all things technology – apart from the sound – at http://www.citywestchurch.com.au I also look after the website and all podcasting etc – voluntarily as I also work full time – not in the tech industry I may add.
It’s a thoroughly great role but one that burns you out greatly – especially all the editing and updating behind the scenes that no-one ever gets to see.
So when I read stories like the above, it gives me a great sense kinship with the silent thousands of people doing the same around the world.
Great to hear from another church tech volunteer. It’s great to be able to connect with each other to offer support and exchange ideas. CTM is an awesome platform for that. Stay tuned, I hope to become more active here. Great connecting with you, and thanks for the well wishes!
Glad to see you contributing, Chase. We need more passion in the younger generation like this.
I come from a similar sized congregation, and I think there is a tremendous value in seeing what the larger churches are doing in terms of professionalism.
Small to mid-size churches should always pursue excellence, and there are lots of resources available to help them be professional and polished. Keep up the good work, Chase.