Planting Seeds...

Anyone in ministry knows that you can't play the "Lone Ranger" when it comes to purchasing those "big ticket" items like a digital console, a new line array, IEM's, or wireless microphones. You shouldn't make the decision by yourself to go get that "big ticket" piece of gear, pay for it with the church credit card, and then ask for forgiveness later. I mean, you could, but it wouldn't be long until the finance chairperson came to you and took your spending privileges away. Trust me, this does happen, it happened to me early on in my ministry.

I don't operate as the "Lone Ranger" anymore. I view myself more as a farmer now. I plant "seeds" or ideas, water and nurture them, and then collect the harvest. Let me help you to understand what I mean.

We all have a laundry list of "big ticket" items we need to purchase. The church I work at desperately needs a technical "face-lift." We've got a great Yamaha M7CL digital console, and some great audio accessories, but we need a speaker and acoustic system/design overhaul. We have what I call "coverage and clarity" issues. We have big holes in our speaker coverage and a terrible flutter echo which degrades the clarity and intelligibility of the spoken word and music. What this translates to is bad sound. Also, it makes it very hard for the FOH sound person to make it sound great, in every spot of the room, every Sunday. It also makes my job much more stressful due to the number of complaints that I, as the worship pastor, receive on a weekly basis.

Recently, I had an opportunity to plant some serious seeds. My fiance and I took our finance chairman, Rod, and his wife out to dinner and also to see Chris Tomlin and Israel Houghton in concert at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles, CA. At dinner I spent time planting those seeds by casting the vision of what kind of audio we could have at our church and providing solutions to our sound problems. As we were finishing dinner I encouraged everyone at the dinner table to really listen to how great it would sound during the concert. I told them to pay attention to the volume, and the clarity of the sound. During the concert Rod kept giving me a thumbs up and nodding his head in approval. During intermission, while the women went to the powder room, Rod and I spent time getting excited about the possibility of our church experiencing, every Sunday, this level of excellent audio. At the end of the concert Chris Tomlin asked every pastor and worship leader, that was there in attendance, to raise their hands. Over fifty percent of the audience was filled with my fellow "farmers." I know that some of them were there at the concert doing the same exact thing I was doing, planting seeds.

Tonight, I spent time with Rod and his finance team planting new seeds and watering the ones I had already planted. We are now talking about how we might raise the capital, to hire an acoustician and sound system designer, fix our worship center's acoustic problems and buy our new line array that will provide better coverage.

The concert was quintessential in helping me to move forward in the process. I can talk all day about gear, but when I can set it up and let some one see and hear it, then they become believers. Rod, has become a believer and a fellow seed planter.