Selling the idea of buying a DMX Hazer

[Paris MkVI]

In my experience, everything lives or dies on leadership.

What is the vision God has directed your leadership to follow? If they have prayerfully concluded that God is leading your church to begin reaching, say, Gen Y, then you consider using the elements that generation relates to in order to point them to the God who lovingly created them and the Son who purchased their salvation.

BTW, I agree with doing a few rentals too. You may find all the concerns are a "tempest in a teapot". There may in fact be few complaints.

And on that note - there will always be complaints. That isn't the issue. If I get A LOT of complaints about a lesser facet of service, I take note of that, of course.

But if they're complaining that "the rock band has to go" and that sort of thing, I lovingly and gently tell them this is how we worship; this is our style. I share with them our belief that God doesn't care too much about style; He cares a great deal about what is inside our hearts.

[Fxguy]

Sabian,
We're in Champaign, IL and we rent things on a regular basis from a local shop. F and G Sound / Topper Lights located on Cunningham Ave in Champaign. The guys are nice and we rented an LED rig from them to "show" the congregation some lights for our first Childrens Ministry Family Worship Experience. Our board met shortly after to approve the purchase of an LED kit. I agree that renting is sometimes the best option. It allows you to check out some things without a full purchase and I know F and G will allow you to put the rental price towards purchase if you decide to purchase from them.
Hope this helps! We also work with Corson Music in Champaign quite a bit for our audio needs.

Tim

[2cool]

Yep! I do the Youth group services and we try to do as much as possible to draw the kids in. And yes with out the haze the lasers and LEDs are not as crisp. When the lights pop via the haze with the right music blend its like watching an awesome sunset.

[EmilBarnabas]

When you rent the hazer, be sure to try it out on a day when you can afford to accidently set off the fire alarm system. Newer smoke detectors think the haze is smoke, so most venues I work in do not allow haze or fog machines.

An option is to hire a fireman for the event who will let you turn off the smoke detectors since the fireman is doing a real-time visual inspection of the premises.