The Purpose of Production
In my experience as a ministry leader, I can say that audio-visual production is one of the most polarizing topics throughout the modern church. Everyone has an opinion about the level of the music or the pastor’s microphone, the color and direction of the lighting, and even the type of font used on the screens! This makes the job of a worship and production leader quite challenging to navigate at times. In times of difficulty, I find it helpful to take a step back and reflect on the purpose of what we are doing.
The job of the worship leader and production is to cut out distractions. We can use production elements to help people focus or create compelling ways to engage people, cutting out inhibitions. If we do too much, we create a distraction. In many ways, production is a game of mediums. Let me explain:
If the worship leader sings monotone with no inflection or spirit, it will seem like they don’t even care about the words they are singing. That is distracting. If, instead, they sing with way too many runs, vibrato, and high notes, it is distracting because nobody can keep up with them!
If the house lights are up all the way and everyone can see the people around them, every cobweb in the corners of the ceiling, and wonder why the drummer’s shoes are muddy. In contrast, If the lights are too dark or flashing in people’s eyes, nobody can see what’s happening and they may miss the point of the service.
If the audio is too quiet, people get lost in the music and can’t hear the worship leader over the ex-choir member belting out the wrong lyrics behind them. While if the audio is too loud, it can hurt people.
If the cameras don’t move, your livestream will lack interest and not be engaging. The camera’s moving too much could make people nauseaous.
If there are no visual graphics on the screens, you may miss out on a way to further engage your congregants, but backgrounds can quickly become distracting with flashing lights. One time, I hastily loaded backgrounds into the setlist on ProPreserter, and halfway through the song, I noticed that every 30 seconds, a face that was supposed to be Jesus would fade onto the screen and make the lyrics hard to read. Now, that was a distraction!
I have found that effective church production requires you to know your church well to know how much is too much or too little. That is why there is no “one size fits all” approach to worship production. Not every church needs a big LED wall or extra subwoofers. This is why evaluating your needs with a third party can be helpful in designing an effective worship space for your church. If any of this resonates with you, give us a shout, and we would love to discuss how you can use production elements to enhance your church’s worship experience.