Biggest Frustrations for a Media Minister

[Pastor Ryan]

Let me preface my post and the rest of the posts on this topic with this:

I started this thread as a means for us to share situations, events, or circumstances we find frustrating to get them off our chests and hopefully illicit some suggestions from the rest of the body here on how to get through or past these situations.

My largest frustration tends to be conveying the work load on my shoulders. We here all know the hours and time it takes to make a video, set up a sound system, set the lighting cues for a 15 scene Christmas or Easter production, managing a website with over 100 pages, managing all the IT for our church, or even burning 150 copies of a drama to DVD...but the majority of the time the congregation as well as the rest of the staff generally have a very loose comprehension of the man hours as well as stress and brain power these kind of tasks take.

That is tough for me because I never want to be the one who comes off as complaining about "How hard my job is" or "How tired I am" or "How I feel under appreciated" none of the normal cliche complaints.

How have others here dealt with similar situations, and pelase chime in with frustrations of your own.

[Paris MkVI]

The most effective way I have found to deal with this issue is to communicate process early on in the project at hand.

Often this simplifies things at the beginning when those in authority understand what is truly being asked of us, as opposed to what they thought they were asking of us.

Another key issue for volunteers is setting boundaries and limits. As a volunteer it is my responsibility to let those in authority know what I will and will not, or can and cannot, do.

Many of us enter into volunteering without allowing for margin in our lives. I have been there. Our lives end up with no spare moments. In fact,we may find ourselves taking away from higher priorities (family) and giving to lower priorities (volunteering). This is OK for brief periods. When it becomes the norm, however, we have placed ourselves out of balance.

This can happen because I failed to set boundaries and limits at the beginning. Then I must go to the person in authority and apologize for failing to do that. I then let them know I must make changes in order to bring a God-honoring balance back to my life. Any mature leader will understand and accept that.

I agree with you, Ryan, about not complaining. In fact, one of my key points in a teaching I deliver is, "Don't complain about lack of time. Communicate process, and set limits."

Then, if leadership still says, "I really do need this" - I do everything I can do make it happen for them.

If the above were to become routine, I would then have to ask God if I was really serving Him where and how He wanted me to serve. I would also ask God to teach me if I was failing to use the "Jethro" principle.

Moses father-in-law pulled up alongside him and said, "Moses, you're killing yourself trying to be the judge for everything. Pick wise men with leadership skills and appoint them over 1000's, 100's, 50's and 10's."

Am I supposed to be praying for, seeking and training team leaders to take over some tasks, and work myself out of many of these jobs? In my eagerness to serve, am I depriving others of the opportunity to use the gifts and abilities God gave them in order to glorify His name?

[petereit]

Start keeping metrics on your projects. Treat them as if you're a paid consultant and provide your pastor, board, deacons with project estimates before doing projects. Include your time budget so they know why 8 man-hours may actually take you 4 real days. Follow up each project with a detailed accounting of time spent.

You want to be treated like a pro, right? Then do what the pros do.

[waynehoskins]

I suppose my biggest frustration is lack of volunteers.

Second would be that nobody else understands the time and money involved in these things. We don't have to spend much money, which is good, but the flip side is that when I wanted to spend about $8K to upgrade our dimmers a year ago, it was met with the "that's a lot of money" ignorance, even though I know it's nothing and would solve several problems at once. Never did do that, and at this point I have bigger fish to fry, like the lack of somebody to run the lights sometimes.

According to the schedule, I'm flying solo this Sunday. Yippee.

[tedanderson]

Many things frustrate me and I am likely to chime in on this thread several times as I think of them. But two things that cause me the most grief is when I am expected to deliver on a promise that someone else makes and when people are not very clear about their expectations until I fail to deliver.

An example of the first problem is when I find out that I have been volunteered to do a particular task, yet nobody spoke to me about it. Then then day before or the day of the event, I get a call saying, "Hey, Ted! They said you were supposed to turn the stage lights for the daycare graduation. Where are you?!?" But when I ask who "they" are, nobody seems to know. Secondly, it frustrates me when I am expected to be a mind reader. Different departments within the church will make the time to speak with the maintenance staff, the ushers, the greeters, to tell them everything that is going on so that they can be prepared to serve effectively. Yet the audio/visual crew is expected to be there and we are expected to know what to do without any kind of pre-briefing or preliminary meeting. And when we miss mic cues or don't have the camera aiming where it is supposed to be, then when it gets back around to the Pastor, the official story is that the Media people were neglectful and that we were uncooperative. When I ask the people involved what they need/want/expect from us, they don't ever have a straight answer or they don't think that my questions are significant enough for a response. But when things fall apart and go down the drain, I am quickly informed of everything that I didn't do and should have done.

But in all of my frustration I know that we frustrate each other on both sides of the fence. In light of that, I have a story that I like to share:

A man fell asleep on his rowboat after forgetting to tie it to the dock. He wakes up a few hours later to find himself in the middle of the river going downstream at a very quick pace. He notices another man on the shoreline so he paddles he way in that direction. He yells out "Excuse me, sir! Do you know where I am?" The guy on the shoreline says, "You are in the middle of the river on a rowboat!" Frustrated, the man in the rowboat says, "You probably work in tech support, right?" Stunned, the man on the shore says, "Yes, but how did you know?" The man in the rowboat replies, "What you told me, even though technically correct is information that is completely useless!" So the man on the shore gets a little angry and says, "Well I guess you work in management!" Inquisitively, the man in the rowboat asks, "How did you guess? As a matter of fact I do work in management." The man on the shore says, "Because you don't know where you are, you surely don't know where you are going. Before you met me you were completely lost. And now that I am here trying to help you, somehow everything is my fault."

[Gracetech]

I came to the realization a long time ago that only my peers would ever have a clue what was going on and if a few others along the way really understand and appreciate what we do that is just icing on the cake. It's so awesome to have a community like this to share with one another for both criticism(constructive) and encouragement.

On the topic of frustrations i would have to say the single most anoying thing is getting blamed for equipment failures. I'm talking random failures on equipment like body packs cutting out, amps dying, Lights going out...all of which decide to happen right in the middle of the service. People react sometimes and point the finger and at that point your scratching your head wondering how is it my fault that this happened? With the limited budgets we have and limited time to do an end to end inspection every week it's amazing that we do what we do with as little issues as we do. I know God is taking care of the details but in the end gear only last so long and sooner or later wireless is going to bite you.

Be encouraged that at the many levels i have worked in the industry from multi hundred dollar sound systems to half a million dollar sound systems gear still eventually fails and gremlins will always show up at the most inopportune time.

I praise you all for your commitment to God and your willingness to serve. As a peer i know and appreciate your works for the kingdom!

crt

[amd25]

Hello,

not to be the negative part of this discussion. But after 4 yrs of being a FT Media person at a 2000 person church and trying to please everyone, I was let go. The reason was I could not get done everything asked of me. I did IT, Video, Lighting, Installs, everything. Well that was in July, since then the Church has hired a FT IT guy, A FT sound guy, and a FT Video Guy. They are all young guys. For the first few months they called me for advice and help, due to all the issues and problems they could not handle. Which I did cause I am a nice guy. So I am not sure what the answer is.

If I sound bitter I am not, I am working IT and helping a young church get off the ground and I am so much happier. The finances are not there like they were but we are making it.

Just some advice, I let it go to the point that my whole life was effected including my family, cause I was trying to do anything to make them happy.

It's tough!

[tedanderson]

I would have to say the single most anoying thing is getting blamed for equipment failures. With the limited budgets we have and limited time to do an end to end inspection every week it's amazing that we do what we do with as little issues as we do

What's also amazing is how we do what we do BETTER than the professionals! Equipment problems and technical difficulties happen everywhere. It is acceptable industry wide to have a couple of problems during a show. That is why you have technicians in the first place. They don't understand that we are here to fix problems. Not prevent them. The last time I was dismissed from a church gig, it was because I wouldn't guarantee that the problems would be eliminated completely. So essentially they would rather have someone lie to them now and apologize later than to be forthright.

After 4 yrs of being a FT Media person at a 2000 person church and trying to please everyone, I was let go. The reason was I could not get done everything asked of me. For the first few months they called me for advice and help. I did cause I am a nice guy.

As much as I don't like using the word "victim" it is apparent that you are a victim of your own success. Essentially when you do everything and do most of it very well, it is easy to nit-pick at the areas where you fail. As an example, I knew a guy who had to fill in for his co-worker who was taking maternity leave for 3 months. He did a pretty good holding down the responsibilities of both positions for no extra pay. Well eventually they fired him because there were times when he forgot to put the trash out and forgot to forward the receptionist phone at night to voicemail. His supervisor (who was not a very good supervisor to begin with) exclaimed about how the guy messed up two very simple tasks and decided that he wasn't doing a good job.

Personally I think that I would have offered the church a compensation deal to train your replacements. It's one thing to be a blessing to your church, however, when you were fired, it was a business decision on their part. IMHO in situations like this you have to make a business decision regarding how much help and support that you can provide in exchange for compensation. This may sound harsh and I don't think I would express it this way towards the church but if my work performance was not up to par, then why am I being asked for my advice? I mean I understand that these new guys don't have anything to do with you being fired and it's a very smart thing on their part so I can't fault them for it but because this happened to you, then it's just a matter of time before it happens to them too.

[Esoteric]

Originally Posted by tedanderson

What's also amazing is how we do what we do BETTER than the professionals! Equipment problems and technical difficulties happen everywhere. It is acceptable industry wide to have a couple of problems during a show. That is why you have technicians in the first place. They don't understand that we are here to fix problems. Not prevent them. The last time I was dismissed from a church gig, it was because I wouldn't guarantee that the problems would be eliminated completely. So essentially they would rather have someone lie to them now and apologize later than to be forthright.



As much as I don't like using the word "victim" it is apparent that you are a victim of your own success. Essentially when you do everything and do most of it very well, it is easy to nit-pick at the areas where you fail. As an example, I knew a guy who had to fill in for his co-worker who was taking maternity leave for 3 months. He did a pretty good holding down the responsibilities of both positions for no extra pay. Well eventually they fired him because there were times when he forgot to put the trash out and forgot to forward the receptionist phone at night to voicemail. His supervisor (who was not a very good supervisor to begin with) exclaimed about how the guy messed up two very simple tasks and decided that he wasn't doing a good job.

Personally I think that I would have offered the church a compensation deal to train your replacements. It's one thing to be a blessing to your church, however, when you were fired, it was a business decision on their part. IMHO in situations like this you have to make a business decision regarding how much help and support that you can provide in exchange for compensation. This may sound harsh and I don't think I would express it this way towards the church but if my work performance was not up to par, then why am I being asked for my advice? I mean I understand that these new guys don't have anything to do with you being fired and it's a very smart thing on their part so I can't fault them for it but because this happened to you, then it's just a matter of time before it happens to them too.

I also had a church let me go (they wanted someone to work 80 hours for 40 hours pay and that is not me) and they wanted me to train my replacement as well (young kid just out of college with enough knowledge to be dangerous) for free. I said no way.

Mike

[Paris MkVI]

Some of the stories I am seeing expressed here are, quite frankly, more than a little heartbreaking.

Originally Posted by amd25

I let it go to the point that my whole life was effected including my family, cause I was trying to do anything to make them happy.

It's tough!

I've been there regarding the quote above. One day I came to a (for me) startling realization.

My job was to provide accurate, truthful information and service to my leadership and quality leadership and training to those under my authority. I needed to treat them all with the respect I also desired.

My job was not to make any of them happy. When I let that go, a lot of wrinkles smoothed out.

Don't misunderstand, I always hope I get to play a role in the happiness and joy of those who lead me, and those I lead. I just resigned as "general manager of the universe" and ceased assuming responsibility for that.

I am very fortunate. I have leadership who listens, and always makes sure authority and responsibility go hand in hand. If I have a responsibility for something, I am given authority in how it is carried out.

One of the myriad items on my senior pastor's office walls is a simple plaque. It reads, "Dare to Fail." I have discovered my church home is a safe place to fail.

Apparently that is more rare than I thought. I feel doubly blessed!

[tedanderson]

My job was not to make any of them happy. When I let that go, a lot of wrinkles smoothed out.

I think that sometimes we believe that there is honor in taking responsibility for the things that are beyond our control. If I were to keep score, I would have to say that I was reprimanded more times as a result of trying to save someone's situation than I was commended. Likewise, in times when I stood on the sidelines while chaos was breaking out, I usually ended up walking away looking like the "good guy".

Or at least in situations where I have had a leader ask, "Why are you standing there with your hands in your pocket while we are having technical issues?? What's the matter with you, Ted?" but then they quickly forget that I couldn't offer any help when they identify someone else as the culprit.

[Aldersgate UMC]

Wow - what storiees you shared. I am a volunteer and coordinate my team of 3. Congregation 400 + with three services and we are moving into a new builidng in January and taking on MS 4.

My biggest frustration is letting go and letting someone else create the script for a
sunday. No one seems to want to go to praise team practice to get the lyrics synced correctly, so I go and do the songs at practice each week, and building the script on 1/2 the weeks, while one of the 3 volunteers will build her own scripts, the others need more training.

I also dislike the recognition from the people on the mcirophones that say to the congregation, we are having technical difficulties. I would rather them say technical challenges! Most times we don't have something because they didn't tell us. Lilke a change in lyrics, additional chorus three times, an additional scripture or members joining, etc.

But I love what I do and am part of helping to make worship more meaningful. Praise God He still lets me do what I can and that I am willing.

Dors, Nixa, Mo