The MxU Podcast

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:22:06
Unknown
I think churches should stop hiring so many people. As a senior leader who's casting vision for serving in the church, is the disconnect simply because of skill that's required for worship and production. And if it is, then it needs to be about training. Why should we not hire those positions? Like why? If we can get the budget, let's get the budget.

00:00:22:07 - 00:00:34:03
Unknown
Just make it easier and we don't have to use volunteers like it's it's simply because they do not understand the power of serving in the local church.

00:00:34:05 - 00:00:55:08
Unknown
I think churches should stop hiring so many people. That's how we're starting this off. Yeah, I love it. What are you suggesting to do? Train their volunteers. All the people in there. I mean, if they have people showing up on Sunday, like if they're a church, they probably have people saying, yeah, I think we gotta go. We gotta back way up.

00:00:55:10 - 00:01:01:10
Unknown
Take me where we need to go. Because you just jumped right into training.

00:01:01:11 - 00:01:19:21
Unknown
What if I don't have people to train and it's easier for me to hire? Well, if they're a church, if they're a church with a budget to be able to hire somebody, certainly they got people in their church. How do I tithe so they can hire people? How do I get those people to get off the bench, out of the pew, off the soft chair and get into serving?

00:01:19:23 - 00:01:36:11
Unknown
Because I think most people, not most people, I think some people would look at that and go, it's just easier for me to pay somebody 250 a day. But what you just said is just like so many churches who just have poor leadership and are not. When did I say that? No, I'm just saying. You're saying, how can I get these people off the soft seats?

00:01:36:12 - 00:02:00:12
Unknown
Like, that phrase in itself is it's a leadership issue. It's a leadership issue that you actually think your people just want to sit in their soft seats and do nothing. Yeah, but that's the excuse that churches are we gonna be able to get the right people? Are they even going to want to give their time? Because at one time, five years ago, when I tried to take that one volunteer out to coffee and I invested in them, they burned me and left.

00:02:00:12 - 00:02:16:05
Unknown
And so I don't want to do that anymore. Yeah, I don't have time to do that, let alone do I want to do it and be told, no, no one wants to be told no. No one wants to be getting the cold shoulder. And I don't have time to do that. I'm working, I say I work for 50 hours a week.

00:02:16:07 - 00:02:39:02
Unknown
Realistically, it's about 15. But I say, well, you got to be able to take your contract gigs. True. You got to be able to get outside of the church and make your devil's advocate over here, because this is a common thing. This is a con, common conversation that all of us have all the time with churches who pay people to contract on the weekend experience in any form, fashion, shape.

00:02:39:02 - 00:02:59:15
Unknown
And I'm not against either. I'm not against contracting people. I'm not against obviously focusing on volunteer culture. Okay. But if you had to pick, if you had to pick what side we might need to maybe do more of, what would you pick? Because I'm not against either either. Obviously I started by saying we should stop hiring people, but my opinion is I think there's a couple positions.

00:02:59:15 - 00:03:31:01
Unknown
If you're at a spot inside of your ministry that you can pay that person. I think I would, I think I would pay a couple positions on the weekend. Yeah. Majority of our positions and even in most cases, the couple I'm even thinking about can be volunteers. It can be done. Well, if I'm willing to, as a leader, shift my focus and pour it into development and take my focus off what I think is important with my role.

00:03:31:03 - 00:04:00:04
Unknown
Okay. So Jeff, welcome back to the podcast. No it's fine. Like, I'm I'm here for this conversation because I, I've been on both sides. I volunteer at my church now. I've been a contractor in a lot of churches. Still do contract with some churches from time to time. My whole career has been as a freelancer, so I like I get living the contract life.

00:04:00:06 - 00:04:38:00
Unknown
We all know what that is for a church. They don't contract people who serve as small group leaders and children's ministry. They don't contract people who change diapers in preschool ministry. So as a senior leader who's casting vision for serving in the church is the disconnect simply because of skill that's required for worship and production. And if it is, then it needs to be about training.

00:04:38:01 - 00:05:05:23
Unknown
If it's something different than just skill, what is it? Because we have in a in a big church, we have, let's say, 200 people who are serving this weekend between parking, guest services, children, students, small group leaders, whatever. We've got hundreds of people who are here to serve, who are willing to serve, who feel like serving is part of their discipleship and their spiritual growth.

00:05:06:01 - 00:05:33:05
Unknown
So why is it so much harder for worship and production to be all in with volunteers? Yeah. Well, I mean, I was Mr. Service producer. Like, what's your. Yeah, I was giving a tour of our of our church with an American airline as captain of American Airlines and I walked I took him in front of house and I showed him our console and he looked at me and goes, that is so overwhelming to me.

00:05:33:05 - 00:05:54:02
Unknown
I could never do that. I'm like, you fly Boeing 700 for a living? Yeah. And I walked into your instrument panel. I would feel the same way. You got trained. Exactly. But if I was to take him to the kid's ministry and say, this is how you change a diaper, it wouldn't be overwhelming to him. It's not a it's not a it's not a it's a heart to be in that ministry.

00:05:54:02 - 00:06:11:12
Unknown
It's a heart to be passionate about kids. It's a heart to want to change those dollars. Because let's be honest, and all people out there that want to do that, but it doesn't take a lot of skill to change a diaper, right? I'm not saying they're less less valued. Where the pushback is, is that I have to now to be able to mix the weekend.

00:06:11:14 - 00:06:39:18
Unknown
First of all, I'm showing thousands of people, thousands. Pastor gets 30 minutes, worship gets 30 minutes. I get 60 for 60 minutes. People have to listen to the my abilities of my gifting. That's a lot of pressure. And then and then addition to that, I have to now learn this crazy, overwhelming platform that is not easy as a as, you know, more than anybody to learn and then take that board and make good out of that.

00:06:39:20 - 00:07:05:23
Unknown
A lot of people would say that's worth to be paid, that's worth, that's a skill set worth. So and I don't disagree with that. I mean, I think, I think audio like mixing front of house audio is maybe the, the most of the outliers because it is it is a highly skilled position. It is something that it's a it's a long game, very rare, requires a ton of reps I get that, but.

00:07:06:01 - 00:07:26:23
Unknown
No offense to our friends or renewed vision, but they've made a software tool that's relatively easy to operate in proper center. So I'm talking I'm not talking about mixing front house audio. I'm talking about other areas of worship and production. Like, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say, okay, we're going to we're going to train somebody with zero knowledge how to be our drummer next weekend.

00:07:27:00 - 00:08:04:19
Unknown
Right. That's not feasible. Right. But we could train them how to operate proper, enter next weekend, how to run a camera, how to start to learn about shading, how to learn about how to call a service, how to be a producer. Like those things are things that are pretty accessible. Yeah, but pretty attainable. But take also a very intentional leader, because if I come to you as a drummer and say, I want to play drums and use my skill sets for this church, and then I go to that leader, and that leader says, obviously later can take this several different ways.

00:08:04:19 - 00:08:29:06
Unknown
That leader says, well, you know, that's that's good, we'll audition you. But but today we do have other needs. Would you be willing to do those needs that that individual come to you saying, I want to do this would have to submit to what vision. And that vision cannot be accomplished in one conversation. It takes a very intentional leader to put that person on a journey, for them to fully understand the vision of this church, that we're all heading in one direction.

00:08:29:06 - 00:08:46:23
Unknown
We have needs. Today. We want to get you playing drums. Today. We have four drummers in rotation. When we tell you where we don't have volunteers, we don't have volunteers in purpose in our world, or shading or video directing or backstage or kids ministry. Like we don't have people in those positions, and that's what we need to accomplish.

00:08:46:23 - 00:09:07:05
Unknown
The vision that you said you bought, that you are fully bought on to, that takes a very intentional leadership. And it doesn't happen just 11111 meeting. Unfortunately, what I'm used to seeing is leaders just saying, hey, we don't need you today. And that person goes, okay, then I'll go somewhere else or I won't serve where they stay in the seats.

00:09:07:07 - 00:09:25:19
Unknown
And so yeah, so it just takes Intentional Leader to shift their focus yet again to make, make the priority of that person and not the need. This conversation isn't going to make sense to anybody if they've already been lost at the statement. We should stop because contractors, we've had a lot of conversations about contractors. That's part of this discussion.

00:09:25:19 - 00:09:53:19
Unknown
But also just we're making like full time hires in our ministry, like 200 person churches out there that are trying to advocate for two full time salaries on their worship and tech team, sometimes three. I'd just talk to a church they've got there. They're less than 2000 people, and they have across creative worship and tech, they have nine full time positions.

00:09:53:21 - 00:10:21:22
Unknown
Wow. And they have less than, I think, next gen entire next gen like cradle to college. They have four. So some would say, yeah, there's just no issue with that. And that person probably I want to try to maybe we can spend some time here talking about that. Like why if it's not obvious to somebody, why should we not hire those positions.

00:10:22:00 - 00:10:37:00
Unknown
Like why if we can get the budget, let's get the budget. Just make it easier. Then we don't have to use volunteers like some people just don't get that. They're like, why? Pastor has high expectations. We have high expectations. We want to sound good. We want to look at it like if the money is there, then we want to hire it.

00:10:37:01 - 00:10:58:11
Unknown
It's it's simply because they do not understand the power of serving in the local church. That's what it boils down to. It changes your routine. Everything about it changes your routine. It changes your your, your weekly schedule. So you're in a rut and you just feel like you're just you live the same boring life every day. Go serving local church because as soon as you get Ahold of something, it's going to change.

00:10:58:12 - 00:11:17:09
Unknown
The ministry is going to change. Position is going to change. You're now relied on by a team. You're relied on by a leader outside of your day to day job, to it changes who you become. You're surrounding yourself with people that are fired up for the Lord. Going to church weekly. You're now invested into a small group. You're you're now changing who you become.

00:11:17:12 - 00:11:38:01
Unknown
And then they've they've completely lost the track. That or they don't know that not only serving changes your routine changes who you become, but it changes those around you. We can name 10 to 15 stories. I could right now of people who sacrificed or serving the church and marriages were marriages were restored. Mom and dad came to church for the first time in 20 years to see me.

00:11:38:02 - 00:11:56:17
Unknown
Sir, come watch. Watch me do what I do in the weekend. You know, dad got involved. Serving shifted his attitude at home. Like it just it changes those around you. And that is the power of serving inside the local church. It has nothing to do. I'm gonna say it again about making the weekend better. Me serve the Lord.

00:11:56:17 - 00:12:19:23
Unknown
He serve the church. I believe that he. He blesses you. And he. Ultimately you were going to experience that change. The power of serving is is far greater than a roller task. We totally agree with that. And we would we would all say yes and amen to everything. Everything about that. The problem is getting the leader to be willing to call people to that.

00:12:20:00 - 00:12:43:07
Unknown
Yeah, I think people people who have ever served in anything. If you serve at the YMCA, if you volunteer for Boys and Girls Club, if you anytime you've been in any kind of service, you understand the power of being a volunteer. So I don't think I don't think we have to convince people necessarily of the power of volunteering.

00:12:43:09 - 00:13:07:00
Unknown
I think we have to convince the leader the power of recruiting those volunteers. Yeah, and I agree, humans, if they don't want to do something, if it's just not something that's genuinely like on their heart, it's not something they genuinely want to do. Probably just not going to do it. And that's what I'm finding more often than not.

00:13:07:04 - 00:13:34:08
Unknown
And I will say, and I, I do have some sympathy for those who and I see this often in the like thousand person three, to be more specific, thousand to 3000 person church where they've got this like pretty high bar for excellence in pastor really actually doesn't care if there's volunteers serving in the tech team. Worship ministry is a kind of different thing.

00:13:34:09 - 00:13:52:14
Unknown
Like, I can't remember the last time every single position on stage was paid, but like sometimes like, they're like, we're tech team. Like, I don't care. You are janitors. Oh, yeah. I do not care if you have volunteers. We pay people to clean toilets. We pay people to mix audio and run camera around here because we're not screwing that up.

00:13:52:14 - 00:14:09:21
Unknown
I'm tired of feedback. I dealt with that at my last church. We got budget. In this church I do feel for for you. Those of you listening who are in that church, because that church is very real. There are pastors who don't care and they will give them the budget. Just be like, make it great. Yeah, right. Yeah.

00:14:10:03 - 00:14:35:22
Unknown
We've had they're doing that. They're doing their team a disservice by doing that. I mean, I yeah, you know, the the pastor is the pastor says, yeah, the pastor is doing their people and their team a disservice because exactly what you said the the power of a team that has people who are bought in to the point where they're going to give their time because of what it does for them in their discipleship.

00:14:36:00 - 00:15:18:07
Unknown
Like, I believe that serving is on par with attendance, tithing, small group membership, any of those other aspects of the things that we see as keys to discipleship in the church? Serving is one of those pillars. And serving on a on a well functioning production team is the most fun place to serve in the church. Yeah, because you get to be a part of the group of people who creates this experience for people to encounter the God of the universe, like you're you're helping to fulfill what in the Old Testament would have been a priestly role.

00:15:18:08 - 00:15:46:07
Unknown
You're preparing the place of God for the people of God to experience his presence. Yeah. Who would not want to sign up for that? And for a senior pastor to just offload that and not give people the opportunity to participate in that is it's really frustrating for me. Yeah. It's really it's bordering on like it gets me going.

00:15:46:08 - 00:16:05:20
Unknown
Yeah. It's disgusting too. Yeah. Well, I would ask that person if you're listening and you're in that if you were the the church, that's like, no, we we pay these positions. They're so important. We try to pay as many positions as possible. Just be really honest. What makes you different than the business down the street, like the church is called to be set apart.

00:16:05:20 - 00:16:26:02
Unknown
So what makes you different? That you're. The Bible doesn't say all the believers they got together and they put their money in a bucket and then paid other people to serve them. But that's not what Scripture tells us. That's not the point when we talk about tithes and offerings, like, because we also just need to be really real to about where this money is coming from.

00:16:26:03 - 00:16:46:07
Unknown
It's not just like falling out of the sky. I know some like treat it like that, but it's like, no, it's coming from this fellowship of believers that we are a part of. And what we are saying as a body is that we don't want to. What the Bible says about the gifts and talents that we've been given by God.

00:16:46:08 - 00:17:01:09
Unknown
That's not true. Actually, we don't have that. As body believers. We ought to go higher other people to do that, because we don't have that here in this fellowship. God hasn't provided that to us here. It's like, oh, well, that's going to require a little bit of molding. That's going to require a coffee meeting, that's going to require some training.

00:17:01:09 - 00:17:25:10
Unknown
That's going to be that's going to require systems. And we don't have any of that. The reason churches are hiring people like say, oh, church is under resource. No church actually has a pretty good amount of resources these days. We're hiring because it's the easier solution. It's just easier. Yeah. That's my that's 100%. It is very easy to pay somebody and talk to them once a week.

00:17:25:11 - 00:17:42:12
Unknown
Hey can you do. Can you do Sunday. Yep. Great. Done. I don't have to worry about that again. I won't think about it again. I won't think about who's mixing. It won't be a thought on my mind. I'll think about something else. We should take pride in how we train people in the church. You know, we'd say. Oh, businesses.

00:17:42:12 - 00:18:11:15
Unknown
Yeah. They pay people to do jobs because they're businesses. It's transactional. There's a consumer who provides us the funds to be able to feed that wheel. That's a business. We're different. We're the church. Are people sacrifice their time, their gifts? I mean, this is going to really bother some people, but those of you out there, you're like, how dare this place ask me to give my time for free when I get paid to do this for a living?

00:18:11:16 - 00:18:32:14
Unknown
Yeah, that's the point, bro. Like, I'm sorry, I. They're friends of mine that I just probably made angry if they heard that, but it's like it's. Understand this is your livelihood, Jeff. This was your livelihood for many years. You're not going to grace like. Well, guys, my day rate is this. And for me to step foot in this building, I actually take offense.

00:18:32:14 - 00:18:52:22
Unknown
If you expect me to give this for free. Because Chris Tomlin paid me for a decade to do this for him. Great. Well, go serve in the kids ministry. Go serve somewhere. Yeah. Well, and it's you know, I don't just I don't agree with that. They have the skills and the ability I'm saying they feel called to serving and they come into the front doors of your church and they expect to get paid because that's what they do.

00:18:53:00 - 00:19:10:12
Unknown
Yeah. Did I respect that? You came to me saying that you wanted to serve. Yeah. Go serve. We have plenty of places in our ministry that that need godly men like you who are a great dad at home. We need that in our kids. Why is it why is it that you just want to serve in the ministry that you could get compensated for?

00:19:10:13 - 00:19:17:15
Unknown
Yeah, go serve somewhere else. Well, there's a need. Yeah, that's what I would say.

00:19:17:17 - 00:19:46:02
Unknown
That's good. I will say it. It has taken me a while to get to the point where I'm not only comfortable, but actually look forward to doing that. Yeah. In other words, it I'll be the first to acknowledge it's it's it's a challenge. It's tough, especially with mixing front of house. To your point earlier. It's like it it is a to to do it.

00:19:46:02 - 00:20:23:08
Unknown
Well it is a very demanding skill. But I'm in a church where we have 4 or 5 people who volunteer, who've only ever been volunteers, who've never done it vocationally, who built pretty darn good mixes because of just experience and their willingness to be trained. Senior leadership is willingness to not expect a CD quality mix every time, because of what it means to that person to be able to serve.

00:20:23:11 - 00:20:45:00
Unknown
Yeah, because of what it means to the church to have people serving. It's like, and let's be honest, 90% of the people in the seats don't know the difference anyway. It's not feeding back the vocal. I can hear what the vocal singing, I can sing along.

00:20:45:02 - 00:21:09:03
Unknown
Yeah. They don't care what the bottom snare drum mic is doing. Yeah. It's like, yeah, let's be real about some things now. Do I love a great mix? Absolutely. Of course I mean that's yeah, we're called to be excellent. To be excellent. All those things are true. But at what point are we giving up the opportunity for somebody to experience what God has for them?

00:21:09:03 - 00:21:35:02
Unknown
Because we want to replace it with somebody who might do it 10% better, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I would say like, hey, we have, you know, pastor comes to me and says, hey, Dylan, you have 500 bucks a weekend to to hire an audio engineer. Come for you. What's 500 bucks for the whole year?

00:21:35:02 - 00:22:07:06
Unknown
What's that a week? What's that out for the year? Math was what's my overall budget for that? 525 grand 2025? Yeah. So I'm like, what if I what if I took five of that and countered my leadership and said, hey, I really appreciate that budget. That's some good that's some good cash for for budget. If we have budget available for this, how would you feel about if I brought in somebody once a quarter to pour into our 3 or 4 audio engineers, and I paid them 2500 bucks plus hotel plus flight.

00:22:07:08 - 00:22:28:17
Unknown
And what you're doing is you're, you're you're you're meeting that middle, right? We're not saying don't pay do pay. All volunteers, not all volunteers. What I'm suggesting is, hey, there might be a middle ground here to bring in someone who is better, who has more experience, do some coaching, spend eight grand of that 26, pour the remaining budget into.

00:22:28:22 - 00:22:46:09
Unknown
You could have Jeff come build you a show file and spend a weekend with your team 100% like he'll do a 500 bucks. Yeah, I mean free basically. You heard it from him first, Jeff. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's you know what I'm saying? Like, there is a there is a middle ground here. Like, you don't have to pay somebody every weekend.

00:22:46:09 - 00:23:21:10
Unknown
If you truly do care about volunteers and you think volunteers can do it, bring in someone. But to that point, to help, there is a way to create systems so that people can be set up for success so they have some minimal knowledge. The guys at our church we mix on waves LV one classic. Nobody on our team knows everything about what's going on in the background with all those plug ins, but they all know that if I set my gain to this level so the input is hitting this meter and I push faders in a musical way, I'm going to walk away with a great result.

00:23:21:11 - 00:23:40:08
Unknown
Yep. Did that happen overnight? No, but it took somebody building a system that says this is the way it works. And then over time, we can learn some of those things that are going on in the background, you know, learn about why we chose this compressor versus this compressor. Why does this EQ sound different than this EQ? That's fine.

00:23:40:08 - 00:24:11:05
Unknown
But that's that's a long game. That stuff you learn over time. But the short term success is if you do these 3 or 4 things in this specific way and you have some sort of musical sensibility, you can get great results. Yeah, and that's an awesome feeling for leadership, for senior pastor, for the tech leaders, for the volunteers themselves, because everybody has set this up to be a win for everybody.

00:24:11:06 - 00:24:14:20
Unknown
Yeah, yeah.

00:24:14:22 - 00:24:39:11
Unknown
That leads me to a it's off topic, but I really want one of the biggest issues we find that's keeping folks from helping their volunteers be successful is like you just mentioned it, show file. Like they just don't even have like a safe working space for their volunteers to show up in audio. Other point. But like, we need to talk about I don't ever want to sell show files.

00:24:39:11 - 00:24:55:18
Unknown
I'm just not really about that. But I want to have like a bunch of free show files we can give churches because that's something that like churches, I continue to hear from churches like, hey, they learned how to mix. But like, we can't expect a volunteer to be able to build and manage a show file. Most staff people struggle to do that.

00:24:55:18 - 00:25:14:00
Unknown
Well, yeah. And so anyways, there are some practical things in the way that like there are companies like MQ and other resources out there that you can utilize to to help in some of those gaps. Because that is one of the tensions. Some people are like, well, I want to train my volunteers, but I don't even know personally how to do these things.

00:25:14:02 - 00:25:38:02
Unknown
We see that all the time. Yeah, worship pastors who are like, I don't know, video. I need a video director because that's my weakness. So I get some of that too. I know that you're reluctant to talk about it because of whatever. I don't understand it. But yeah, you're unwilling. But get MQ, for crying out loud. Oh, yeah, we should talk about us.

00:25:38:04 - 00:26:20:02
Unknown
We have we have a platform that we've spent countless dollars and countless hours building to make this easier for you and your team. Like especially now with integrations like having planning center integrated, having pro presenter integrated, having other things that are coming that are going to be making your life so much easier. It's like and not to mention over a thousand videos along any number of topics, pieces of gear, ways of working, leadership, worship, leading, playing an instrument like so many things at your disposal that you can give to your volunteers to help them get better.

00:26:20:03 - 00:26:41:22
Unknown
Like we do want to help people level up in their skill. We want to give you the tools to be able to create systems that make this impactful and effective for your team. Yeah, I pay them to say that, so I do. We are shameless about it because it is $1,500 a year. We're not asking for your right arm here.

00:26:41:23 - 00:27:05:08
Unknown
Like, this is something that we are so passionate about. Every church of every size, being able to have a system to do this because that dollar amount gets access to every one of your volunteers at every one of your campuses. Yeah. It's like, for crying out loud. Yeah. And I think that's something that, you know, those of you listening to this podcast and you listen to conversations like this and they're like, yeah, that all makes sense.

00:27:05:08 - 00:27:35:14
Unknown
But like how to get there? I need a system. We always talk about systems here. We need systems. We don't just need videos. We don't just need a software tool, we need a system. And that's why we've specifically built a tool for worship and tech ministry in this area to help volunteers be successful, help you develop those volunteers plan services, get those volunteers in those roles, and then execute with that team of volunteers communication, all of that so you can go to learn more about it.

00:27:35:14 - 00:27:53:12
Unknown
We put a link in the description below. Tons of free resources to like. I was just mentioning. I want to get some more free resources out there for show files. I think we have one for the X32 and a few other consoles, but we just want to arm you with with tools and resources that can help you actually take this conversation and put it into action.

00:27:53:13 - 00:28:10:20
Unknown
So yeah, Denton is just trying to figure out where he's going to go eat lunch. He's he's board at this point. So I am listening. I like to listen. It's good. And none of this is to say that you shouldn't hire anybody. Obviously you need to hire staff when that's appropriate. You need to hire contractors when it's appropriate.

00:28:10:20 - 00:28:14:17
Unknown
It's just don't.

00:28:14:19 - 00:28:40:13
Unknown
Don't steal the opportunity that a potential volunteer could have to change their life in ministry, through ministry, at the at the expense of just it's easier to pay somebody. The fact that it's easier should not be a reason right. Excuse. Yeah. I'm sorry at the beginning. Sorry I said churches stop hiring people, but you're still here listening, so I guess it worked.

00:28:40:15 - 00:28:43:11
Unknown
Thanks for joining us on the podcast. We'll see you next time.