With the Christmas season quickly approaching, church tech leaders are gearing up for one of the busiest and most meaningful times of the year. From planning Christmas Eve services to coordinating Christmas productions, this season offers incredible opportunities to engage and inspire your congregation. However, alongside the excitement and festive energy, there’s a critical challenge to address: preventing team burnout during this demanding time.

The Challenge of Christmas in Ministry

Christmas services often require an all-hands-on-deck approach. As a tech leader, you’re tasked with creating visually stunning environments, flawless audio experiences, and smooth event execution—all while juggling limited resources, high expectations, and tight timelines. While pastors may have a vision for professionalism and excellence (as they should!), it's essential to set realistic expectations to protect yourself and your team from burnout.

The key lies in communication, planning, and prioritizing balance for everyone involved.

1. Start with Transparent Conversations

Open communication with your pastor is crucial. Early in the planning process, schedule a meeting to discuss the vision for Christmas services.

• Ask Questions: What’s the big picture? Is this year’s focus on storytelling, musical elements, or community engagement?
• Be Honest: Share what’s possible with the time, budget, and team you have. If their vision exceeds your capacity, propose alternative ideas to achieve the same goal without overextending, or readjust the goalposts if necessary. 
• Define “Wins”: Agree on what success looks like for the production—whether it’s seamless transitions, a powerful lighting design, or creating a welcoming environment for visitors through tech/music.

When expectations are clear from the outset, you avoid surprises and last-minute stress.

Jake Aseltine, Consultant, CCI Solutions

When I first started serving as a worship leader, I quickly realized just how wide the gap can feel between the platform and the sound booth. If you've ever been in either position, you probably know what I'm talking about. Worship leaders are out front, delivering (what they feel to be) heartfelt performances, while those behind the scenes on the tech team work tirelessly to ensure everything works and audio levels please everyone listening. But tension often arises when these two departments don't see eye to eye.

Why the Tension?

Once I began serving off the platform, behind the audio console, I quickly learned how often those on the tech side would only get noticed when something went wrong. Not many are thinking about how wonderful their audio engineer must be when worship sounds amazing, and the entire congregation is engaged, nor should they be. It can feel like a thankless job at times, and I’ve seen this dynamic lead to frustration, and burnout. On the flip side, those who are leading worship often feel the pressure of the entire room looking at them to lead, while they expose their vocal or musical talent, which can be a vulnerable, sensitive position. A few harsh words during a rehearsal or an uncaring exchange can quickly bring down the energy and enthusiasm of either team, and that’s not good for anyone.

So, How Do We Bridge the Gap?

It starts with mutual respect and a willingness to communicate. I encourage those on the platform to take the time to understand what’s going on behind the sound booth. Step into the audio engineer’s space and get a feel for what they’re working with, and the challenges they may be having from week to week. Recognize that their job is complex—they’re often getting feedback from every “expert” in the room on how “loud” the audio should be during any given service.   

I would encourage those on the tech team to not stay hidden in your box. Get out from behind the booth and get onto the platform. Stand where your instrumentalists and singers are, listen to what they’re hearing, and meet them where they are. You might be surprised at how much clarity this brings to the situation.

Pro Tip: A little encouragement before diving into constructive feedback goes a long way.

Church Expansion while Enhancing the Worship Experience

International Christian Center (ICC) is a vibrant church community with locations in Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Mexico. Led by their current pastor since 2020, ICC serves both English and Spanish-speaking congregations. However, as both communities grew, they began competing for the prime time Sunday morning service, creating a logistical challenge. To address this, ICC decided to expand their previously unused North Brownsville satellite campus to better serve the English-speaking congregation, while continuing to modernize their central campus for the Spanish congregation.

The Challenge

With their English congregation at full capacity, ICC needed to expand without compromising the quality of their worship services. Their goal was to create a space where congregants could gather and watch a live video feed of the service being broadcasted from the Brownsville campus. But ICC’s needs went beyond just a screen and a few speakers; they wanted a system that could grow with them—a future-proof setup capable of evolving with the church’s needs.

Their objectives included:

• Creating an audio system that could deliver full, immersive sound without overwhelming the space.
• Developing a video infrastructure that would allow seamless broadcasting between campuses.
• Ensuring the equipment would be easy to use for a volunteer-based tech team, with minimal ongoing support needed.
• Staying on budget while completing the project on a tight timeline.

In short, they needed a comprehensive solution that would keep both volunteers and congregants happy, while being flexible enough for future upgrades.

The Solution 

To bring ICC’s vision to life, they partnered with CCI Solutions for the design and installation of their new church AV system. The process kicked off with a collaborative design workshop where the CCI team sat down with ICC’s worship leaders, production director, and pastors. These discussions helped clarify the church’s needs and goals, for which CCI presented a plan that balanced ICC’s immediate priorities with room for future enhancements.

Spencer Clem, Consultant, CCI Solutions

As a consultant specializing in church AVL (audio, video, lighting) system integration, my goal is to help clients and partners enhance their knowledge and confidence in operating these systems effectively. Two of the most powerful yet often underutilized features I regularly encounter are Scene Safe and Focus Recall. By optimizing these functions, churches can significantly improve their worship experience and overall AVL system efficiency.

Scene Safes: What You Don’t Want to Recall

Let's start with Scene Safes. Essentially, Scene Safes are the parameters or settings you want to protect when loading the next scene. Imagine you've dialed in the perfect microphone gain or monitor mix. The last thing you want is for those settings to change when you switch scenes. That's where Scene Safes come into play. You can lock in those critical settings, ensuring consistency throughout the service, no matter how many scenes you load.

For example, if your vocal channels are set just right, you can make sure they stay that way even as other aspects of the mix adapt. It's all about preserving what’s essential and letting the rest of the mix work its magic. This is especially useful in live performances where consistency is key, and you don't want to risk messing up something as crucial as microphone levels.

Focus Recall: What You Do Want to Recall

Related, Focus Recall allows you to zero in on specific elements of a scene—just the parts you want to change. Instead of loading every parameter within a scene, you can recall specific parameters of specific channels, like a group of channels, effects, or fader levels. Once you’ve dialed in your Focus Recall settings, it can be a lifesaver when you need to make quick adjustments during live events.

For instance, say you need to fade in and out of pre-service music. Instead of manually adjusting multiple channels, you can simply put it all in a scene that only recalls the fader positions. Everything else remains unaffected. This targeted recall not only simplifies the process but also keeps things running smoothly without interrupting the flow of the service.