[0:02]
LifeWay Leadership Podcast Network. G'day, I'm Scott Sanders. Welcome to The One Thing, a podcast designed to give you one solid practical tip for gospel center ministry every week. Now The One Thing is brought to you by Reach Australia. We want to see thousands of healthy evangelistic multiplying churches across Australia. And today we've got a special guest with us, Matt Stevens, who works with Tarahumura Music.

[0:36]
And he's here to talk with us about the Ministry of Sound. Now as I got to hear that title I thought, the Ministry of Sound, isn't that, that's a popular dance band from London and a place in London. But you're talking about the Ministry of Sound in our church. That's correct. Thanks, Scott. I wish I was here to talk about electronic music in London. I'm not quite that cool, but I'm very happy to be here to talk about the Ministry of Sound in churches. Excellent. Most of the time, Sound Ministry is one of those ministries that people only notice when it goes wrong.

[1:10]
You know, when you've heard someone feedback into the system or the mic hasn't worked, someone's got to turn it on or the batteries have run out. We've all seen the problem with a PowerPoint or something in church. It's only when it goes wrong that you notice. But it is important. We are people of the word and we want to worship God in music. So good sound matters. But most ministers are not sound engineers. So how do they help the sound guys in church? Well, hopefully Matt's going to help us think into that.

[1:41]
And this episode is for gospel workers in churches who don't know about sound, but it's also for all those unsung heroes who stand behind a sound desk and want their pastor to know how to support them as well. For now, you press play on another episode of The One Thing, the Ministry of Sound. Today's podcast is brought to you by EA Insurance Services. Need insurance for your church or charity? Contact EA Insurance Services for the best cover and a competitive price. Head over to eainsurance.com.au. And now back to the podcast.

[2:13]
Now, Matt, there's nothing quite like the sound of feedback or the microphone on mute to distract people away from what's happening out the front. Why is Sound Ministry so important? Great question, Scott. Now, sound ministry is incredibly important for churches. I think there's three key reasons why it's important to have good sound in church. Firstly, the word. I don't have to explain why it's so important for people to hear God's word at church. And good sound actually plays a very important role in our ability not just to hear that in terms of is it loud enough for everyone to hear,

[2:51]
but in terms of how well is that sound being translated by our brain and how can we actually comprehend the message that we're hearing? There's been a fair bit of research done into good quality sound versus bad quality sound and how that affects our ability to process and interpret that information. There's a recent study done by the University of Southern California. And they played a good quality piece of audio of some scientists giving a presentation to a sample group.

[3:23]
And they played the same exact same message to another sample group, but edited the quality to make the sound not as good. And what they found was that even though they were hearing the same words, the same message, the viewers responded to the worst quality version. Their feedback was that the talk was worse. The speaker was less intelligent and less likable and that the message that they were saying was less important than the audience of the good quality one. Okay. So that's the first thing.

[3:54]
Yeah. Second. Second thing is worship. And again, it's probably easy to say why good sound really matters when it comes to music and having an engaging sort of worship experience in a church in terms of the music. We need to have a good quality sound mix that's well balanced, that delivers enough energy where you can hear the right amount of the right things. And to be able to hear the elements in the band clearly, you can have a fantastic worship band that are well rehearsed, have everything dialed in perfectly.

[4:28]
But if there's a terrible mix, you know, if you can't hear the worship leader clearly enough, if you can't hear what the keywords and the bass are doing, that experience really can be affected just by not having a great mix. Great. Great. So really helpful. Sounds important as we respond to the spoken word. The mix and getting the mix is really helpful for corporate worship. What's the third thing? The third thing that I think is another important reason why it's important to focus on sound gear is the workers within your church.

[5:03]
So to me, that includes ministry staff as well as your volunteer team. Bad quality sound is stressful for everybody and it can really affect, you know, the people that are serving at the church. If you're a senior pastor getting up to preach every week, you want to be focused on that. You've got enough stuff on your mind to worry about and to think about rather than worrying about if your headset mic's going to cut out, whether it's going to feed back again or whether it's going to crackle.

[5:35]
If you're a worship leader, you want to be focusing on leading the congregation in worship. You don't want to be worrying about your microphone. You don't want to be worrying about anything that's happening with the mix. I mentioned before bands who are rehearsing, getting everything within their songs dialed in. It can be, you know, disheartening for a band to know that they've put all that work in. They were sounding great and they were let down because the gear failed or the mix was terrible. And all of that hard work that went into that didn't have the impact that they were hoping that it would have.

[6:11]
And likewise for, as you mentioned, our unsung heroes, the sound desk operators up the back, if they're battling week in, week out with gear that doesn't work properly or they haven't been given the skills and the training that they need to do a good job, that can really lead to people burning out over time. I think sound people are particularly prone to that. But they're often few in number. There are a lot of demands placed on them. And it's a role where, you know, they're often not seen and not thanked.

[6:42]
Like you mentioned, they're often only noticed when things go wrong and they tend to get the negative feedback without getting the positive reinforcement. So anything we can be doing to help and support them through providing the right gear, the right training and support, that's really helping to encourage and support them as workers as well. Well, quick shout out to Luke and Jeremy from MyChurch. They do a fantastic job of sounding our church. I think one of the other things that's happened, you know, sort of post-COVID is they're almost becoming like a TV producer now.

[7:14]
So you've not only got to do the sound, now you've got lighting rigs and you've now got a live stream. And now these guys have got Black Magics and they're playing around with multiple cameras and different views. And they've also got to be a TV producer during the service as well. So again, our guys do a fantastic job. But that's just a whole other level of knowledge and skill and stress as well on a Sunday. Absolutely. During lockdown, obviously, everyone swapped over to pretty much just live streaming.

[7:46]
Now that we're all back in person, most churches are continuing live streaming. But at the same time, we've got all the original elements of being in person going on as well. And our poor sound operators are generally finding themselves doing both. So kind of carrying double the workload that they had before and occasionally without much additional resourcing in terms of the team happening. So they've got an extra hard job at the moment. So can you help us out? What does a ministry worker need to know about supporting the sound and the AV team in church?

[8:23]
I think the first thing is to make sure that there's the right gear in place for them to be able to do their jobs properly. If they're fighting with gear that doesn't work properly or cheap and nasty gear that's not going to give a great sound, that really makes it hard for them to do what they're there to do. So investing in the right kind of gear and making sure that everything's working and maintained well. I think that's the first important step. And the second step would be to ensure that they're getting the training and support that they need.

[8:53]
Often our sound operators at churches are kind of just thrown in the deep end when they volunteer. Occasionally, they'll get a little bit of training for another sound operator who may or may not have had good training themselves. And there generally isn't much in terms of ongoing learning and development that they have access to when it comes to improving their skills. I like to think of them compared with the musicians. If you were to learn keyboard for the first time, for example, you'd probably get some lessons.

[9:23]
You'd have plenty of practice. And only after you became very competent in what you were doing would you step up and start serving at church. And then you'd continue to have lessons and practice and get feedback throughout your musical journey. Our sound operators get thrown in the deep end. There's not much ongoing stuff for them. And they're often doing their best but with limited training and resourcing to help them in their craft. What about the importance of a ministry worker kind of explaining purpose of gathering, what we're trying to do and achieve,

[10:01]
actually understanding, I guess, the ministry philosophy behind where we're at. Because I think often that's where a lot of the tension comes. You know, a ministry worker or minister's got in their mind, here's what we're wanting to see. But they actually don't do the hard work of communicating, getting them on board, casting the vision for what and where they're at. Yeah, that's so important as well. The sound operators need to feel like they're part of the vision and part of the team. Often they can just feel like, you know, an isolated person at the back that's just there to push the buttons.

[10:33]
And occasionally they don't even feel like they're part of the band that they're mixing every week. Getting them established in that team and on board with the vision. And in a way that they feel like they can also provide input and feedback into elements of their role and how that ties in with things. I think that's incredibly important. But something that's so simple yet is often overlooked is even including the person that's mixing in the pre-service meetings or getting them to pray with the team. Often we'll see the sound person still doing stuff at the desk at the back and the rest of the whole team is praying together.

[11:06]
Involving them in prayer, I think, is important in involving them in the team as well. Great. Well, let's talk about equipment. And there's no doubt loads of sound AV guys there wanting to hear you say, spend lots and lots of money. Get the best. So I want to give a few scenarios. If you're a church planner or someone who's building a new building or just upgrading your sound equipment, what do you need to know? And I just want to remind you, Matt, that I'm a treasurer. So I'm going to put that hat on every now and again.

[11:40]
So it's important for churches to spend the right amount of money for what they're trying to achieve and to think about that in terms of not just saving money now, but something that's going to be value over the years ahead. We never like to see churches just buying the absolute cheapest piece of gear that they can, given that often that'll be used, you know, week in, week out for ministry. But some very important things up the front, very cheap gear often can give you challenges and give you grief and create extra stress like we talked about before.

[12:13]
So churches need to be buying gear that's good enough for them. And does that mean that you need to spend, you know, $200,000 on fitting out your 100-person building? Definitely not. So that's really helpful to hear. You've put the $200,000 with the 100-person building. The $200,000 might be completely appropriate for a church that has 1,000 seats in it or an auditorium with 500. You know, you might need to spend that amount for a larger gathering and also a gathering that requires a different level of excellence.

[12:48]
I hate using that word, but it's the word you need to use in this. You know, as a gathering gets past 120, 150 in size, there's a different level of excellence required from everything in the service, including the sound. Yeah, the bigger your venue, the bigger your congregation and the more complex the activities that you're trying to do, whether that's in terms of streaming, sending into multiple rooms, you know, multiple things going on, that's when you need to put more budget towards doing that well.

[13:20]
The simpler your church, the smaller the setup, the less you'll need to invest to get a good result. It's important to think about the long term as well. When you're doing an upgrade, are you focusing on, okay, what do we need right here and right now? But thinking about, okay, what's our church going to look like in five years or longer? Good quality gear probably should last you at least 10 years or thereabouts. So you don't want to go two years down the track and then realize, okay, we need to get rid of this gear we just bought and buy new stuff.

[13:52]
So have a bit of a view towards the future. That's really helpful, Matt. Just in terms of thinking for a church plant, you know, you could invest in a real, you know, bog standard cheap gear that allows you to do your guitar and maybe another instrument. Keep it simple for some front of house speakers, but actually investing a little bit more money, knowing that you could actually then have the same equipment to move into a bigger building, into a larger space and have more equipment attached to it, you know, it might be helpful. And it might be $2,000 or $3,000, you know, or maybe five to 10.

[14:22]
I'm looking at your eyes, Matt, to see if you're going up or down or higher or lower. But actually spending that money earlier with the long term in mind is helpful. How do you know who to trust? You know, because often like I get, you know, often when I see things across the desk, I'm seeing it from a worship pastor or I'm seeing it from the minister or I'm seeing it from the sound guy. How do I know as a treasurer or just as someone who's trying to work out financially whether we can afford this,

[14:54]
you know, who to trust and who to go with? I think it's important when you're doing any kind of upgrade and buying new gear to be getting advice from an expert. Treasurers, ministry staff generally aren't unfortunately trained specialists. I'm happy to say that I'm not a trained specialist in sound gear. And even if you're good at mixing, good with sound gear, also probably not necessarily a specialist in system design, you know, acoustics, wireless technology, all the complicated stuff that really no one should be expected to know all that much about.

[15:31]
You need to find places that can give you good advice on complicated stuff like that and, you know, give you trustworthy support, reliability, good value and other things like that. So as a treasurer, how do I, you know, what's a helpful decision rubric as they, you know, bring the soundboard, for example. We just invested in a, I think, a fairly expensive soundboard. I'm sure you could buy cheaper ones. How do I ask the right questions of my ministry team or my sound guys to say, is this really worth investing in?

[16:03]
I think it's important to think about how much is this piece of equipment that's being recommended? What does it do? Is there a cheaper alternative that will potentially do the same thing without being on the cheap and nasty side? Is there another solution that will, you know, last as long, be as easy to use, as reliable and as good a quality, but not necessarily as expensive? Now, with that in mind, good quality gear requires an investment in it.

[16:36]
It's not all about finding the very cheapest that you can find. But at the same time, if you're spending $50,000 on a mixer for a small church where you don't necessarily have the team that knows how to drive that equipment well, maybe something, you know, closer to $5,000, $6,000 could give you just as good a result. If you're avoiding buying the $1,200 no-name brand one on Amazon, that's probably something to avoid. So it's really helpful. You've talked about the training, the ability of people to, the sound team to actually use the gear.

[17:09]
So training, what does it look like? Where does a ministry worker go to get good training of their people? That's a challenge. There's not many good avenues for training for sound in general and especially sound within a church context. At one end, you can do an audio engineering degree at a university or a private college. That's definitely one end. Yeah. And the only other common avenue is looking up videos on YouTube or reading articles on the web.

[17:41]
Or doing a master class or something like that. Yeah. So we've, at Taramara Music, we've seen that that's a huge gap where there's not many places you can go for practical hands-on training. So we've started to run some training courses specifically for churches where they can get a hands-on approach to using sound equipment, specifically within a church context. Also, the guys at Emu Music, we work quite closely with them. And they offer some good training as part of their wording song conference that they run around the country.

[18:13]
And there are occasionally other master classes and things like that that come up from time to time. We've just moved into a new building. I've got a vine church in Sydney and we've got an upgrade of the system as well. One of the things I've found helpful is there's just a, there's a booklet at the back with pictures, you know, how to turn this on, you know, step one, step two, how to turn this off. And so Nick, Nick at Open Box, they did the work for us. They've left us with, you know, some training, but even just having this little handbook that you can go to with nice, simple, easy to read pictures, I think has been, you know, a real blessing to the team.

[18:50]
Yeah, having tools like handbooks and even things as simple as labelling inputs, labelling cables, so that if someone walks onto the desk, especially if they're new to the team, they can very quickly figure out how everything works and how it fits together. Investing time in working out your processes, having things like cheat sheets and booklets and guides and stuff to help people, that can go a long way to reducing the burden on new operators and making the whole thing an easier experience. Yeah, in terms of finding the right people to run AV music, you know, do they need to have, they don't obviously need to have a sound engineering degree, but what should someone be looking for when they're looking to recruit someone for sound and AV ministry in church?

[19:38]
If you've got anyone with an audio engineering degree in your church, you're very, very lucky and make sure you look after them very well. Yeah. I think it's important to be able to listen well and listen musically so that you know what a good, well-balanced mix sounds like and how to achieve that. Technical skills can all be taught and trained when it comes to knowing what buttons to push and things like that. Being able to listen is important. Being able to communicate with others is very important, especially in terms of communicating with the band and the musicians and being able to work as part of a team.

[20:12]
Yeah, I've got a couple more questions. What about ongoing upkeep? Because one of the things I regularly see in churches, you've got a whole bunch of disused cords, you've got stuff everywhere, things are going into disrepair. How can a church do upkeep really simply? Great question. When it comes to investing in gear, it's not just about the one-off big upgrade of the building. You've got to think about a bit of a budget for the regular ongoing wear and tear and upkeep. I see so many churches where they've got the broken music stand in the corner that every week they continue to use and it drives them crazy, but they'll keep using that stand potentially for years.

[20:51]
Invest a small amount of money and just upkeep and replacing regular things like that to keep the burden on the team low and to keep everything working well. So I know for treasurers out there, put some regular ongoing maintenance and new equipment in your budget every year because you're going to need to replace mics, you're going to need to replace certain parts of equipment, cables and things like that. They wear out, they're getting used regularly. And the church is an open space often and so people are kind of always jumping into it. Yeah, important to budget for that. And that also comes back to buying good quality gear as well that you're not going to need to replace every year.

[21:23]
If you buy, you know, the $100 mic stand versus the $50 mic stand, the $100 stand might last you for 10 years, whereas the $50 stand you'll probably be replacing in the next year. Now, Matt, what's the one thing you want to say about sound in church? Sound is important. So invest in people and invest in equipment to do it well. Beautiful. Okay, I'm just going to go to the toolbox. There are a few things around that can help gospel workers in sound ministry. Matt's helpfully made us aware of a Facebook group, Church Sound Australia, a really good place to go to ask your questions and get impact.

[22:04]
Also, you've recommended the Church Sound podcast. We'll put a link to that on the show notes. As you said, EMU have some great resources. Get along to one of their music training days that they run around the country. They also are not only for musos, but they're also for the AV team. And I think they have a real emphasis on the relationship between the two and the importance of them working well together. And, of course, get in contact with Taramurra Music, www.taramurramusic.com.au. Matt, it's been really good talking with you.

[22:35]
I can clearly see you've got a passion for not only the local church, but also for good sound. Thanks for your wisdom. Thanks, Scott. It's a pleasure. I'm Scott Sanders. Go to Torea. Let's talk to you. We'll have a great time. We'll have a great time. We'll have a great time.