by Peter Blue
With the constant, non-stop “news” that we’re barraged with, often times significant stories come and go almost in a blink of an eye. The problem with this is that before we’ve had time to think about what occurred that caused the story, we’re whisked off in the news cycle to whatever the next big, dramatic story is they want to draw our attention to next.
However, if we stop for a moment, and use our God-given minds with intentionality, we can squelch the dramatic noise. It’s at this point we can think about lessons we should take note of, and possibly spend time to prevent stressful situations or outright catastrophic failure ourselves.
One of those stories that caused me to pause and think happened recently in the news cycles back at the end of February in the United States. It happened on Thursday the 22nd. It was regarding failure with regional cell service that the US based AT&T service customers, and others experienced.
If you didn’t know about it, here’s a brief write-up about the incident in ARS Technica with the details.
My point is not to draw your attention to this story in particular, but to use it as an example of one we should take note of and take it even a step further and consider what your organization, campuses, and even the network, in your community should pay attention to. How can you find applicable warnings to help you avoid failure points with the teams and technology you use? I’m specifically talking about technology that may be more than just setting the mood for a worship song. More importantly, it may be the vital equipment your ministry relies on to thrive and divert shut-downs, or critical failures when least expected.
Not sure how to start? See below!
The Necessities
Here are a few core questions to help you begin to consider where your failure points might be, and how to improve them.
Does the communications infrastructure for your ministry rely on staff, and volunteer’s personal, mobile devices?
If so, what happens when their phones go dead (i.e. dead battery, etc.)?
What happens if cell providers have a drop out in their coverage area where you worship? Do your ministry departments/teams KNOW what their backup plan is for communicating, or continuing their work?
No matter if you have security and parking lot attendants, or your church has just a few ministries, communications is needed everywhere. With the many facets of needs that a ministry has, both an internal messaging and multi-channel commercial radio infrastructures are extremely sound investments – ones that will help equip your teams with being able to provide consistency in ministering, when they need it most.
Let’s take it a step further:
If you stream your service, what is your backup plan if there is an accidental failure of your primary ISP (Internet Service Provider)?
Do you have a backup service plan to keep your stream live (i.e. bonded service equipment to stream via 4G, 5G, etc.)?
Do you have presets and settings already setup in devices if needed to downscale? Have you practiced using them so that you know that they work with bandwidth restrictions of that backup service provider (if needed)?
If your streaming service is a core ministry component you should consider these and other failure points, and how to work around and resolve them well before you would ever need them.
Since we’re talking video, let’s go full nuclear here with an example that is the “unthinkable” but one that I actually have seen happen more than just a few times: what happens if your primary camera/screen switcher goes down?
Do you have basic tools or a plan to put replacements, or redundancy in service to avoid “all stops” in a service?
I’ve kept this line of thought to video, but the same is applicable for lighting with backup sACN network infrastructure, redundant opto-splitters, etc., and audio, with redundancy options with Dante, console fail-overs, etc.
Failure points can happen more frequently than we want to admit. Whether it’s a firmware/software upgrade for that console, or system software, or simply a drop or spike in voltage of power. Simple things can cause problems so thinking through potential failure points before they have a potential to happen, while also communicating to everyone involved what to do if they happen, is important.
So, do you have a plan to communicate while everyone walks through a failure? Here are a few things to ask to determine how to think through emergencies or failures on a team or ministry wide level.
What is the protocol you and your pastor have to follow should you have a failure during his message?
Does your team know exactly how to engage and work with the backup strategy when it happens?
Have you practiced so that you know how much time it will take to change over from your primary to a backup technology setup if/when the need happens?
How will you communicate with your pastor when you’re good to continue, or keep him informed through the process of change to your backup solution?
I hope that some of these questions help you think about the technology and how to chart the waters around avoidable failure points.
Even if we have fail-over equipment in place, if our people do not know what to do or how to engage when issues arise all of the redundancy will be…redundant.
But what if communications and emergency planning for our worship is needed to protect and guard those who come to connect with God? What if evil walks in the door of our church? Are we prepared for that? What do we do, and how do we mitigate that?
A Bit More Critical
For the next questions, you may not have considered them, but from personal experience I have found the need is more persistent than we may realize at first glance.
If you are a multi-site ministry or your services are located on a large campus, do you have communications strategies in place for all of your departments and locations to talk with each other?
For example, do you have a multi-site security and comms system with exclusive talk-channel?
How about a resource or logistics channel if a campus across town is running short on something? Can they put an all call out on a comms channel where others are listening to help from your other ministry locations? Do you have runners in place to help with strategic and immediate needs to get something from one campus to another asap?
Do you frequently have briefs and debriefs, as well as communications meetings? Do you regularly invest in informing your volunteers and staff so they know what to do, and where they need to be for situations (i.e. overflow attendance, A/V support for a pop-up in a Sunday school presentation, security for children, and security for overall campus(es), short-staffed/volunteer strategies, etc.)?
If “just a couple of bro’s are in the know and are going to cover it,” then you don’t have a plan. Taking the time to invest in your volunteers is essential in showing that you value them. They need to effectively know how they should communicate, and when is important.
But here’s a couple of questions I doubt few have considered:
Do you have a city or local-area communications network between churches?
Do all of those churches have a plan of knowing how to stay alert, and when to notify other churches if/when there is a need?
Church leadership has a propensity towards the mentality of fiefdoms. For any of you that have worked in churches, I’m not telling you anything new. The irony is that most pastors in communities will get together and have some sort of a mutual “pastors network” meeting on a frequent basis to support and keep in touch. It’s awesome to see when networks like this work together on community wide events.
However, the problem with that is that we’re living in a day and age where what may impact one church, may move down the street to another quicker than anyone can realize it’s occurring. A disruption that was prevented one place by a church, may completely catch a second church off guard. Yet, that second church, if properly warned has a chance to be prepared and mitigate a problem.
Look for part two of this article in next month’s issue, where I share a personal story about the importance of reacting quickly, and we look at some solutions to the questions posed above.
Peter Blue is the owner of Evident Productions. His professional life provides him the opportunity to develop innovative, global-scale productions. As a devout Christ-follower, his heart though is still where he started – with the church.
Find out more about Peter Blue by visiting his website.
