Technical Arts

Troubleshooting People

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 4 Comments

As techs we are good at troubleshooting. It’s what makes us good at our jobs. Fixing problems and making it work is our speciality. We’re gear-heads, after all. People are something different. Often an enigma. While no one would question our IQ, some have doubts about our EQ. The very qualities that make us so good at technical tasks can be the very things that make it hard for us to work with people. This is no secret.

But what if we could use our technical prowess to unlock the power in relationships?
Keep thinking! Continue reading.

A Test of the Spirit’s Presence

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 2 Comments

Truth is a big deal.

It is all too common, in my experience, for church people to hide behind carefully constructed phrases and partial revelations. Under the guise of grace, we withhold truth—which means we choose darkness and Satan’s M.O which ultimately nullifies our goodwill.

Truthfulness requires us to speak-all. To shade meaning is to literally bring the darkness of the enemy into our words.

This should not be.

Those of us who work behind the scenes have a role to play in this. We are not passive conduits passing on information without responsibility. There is no heavenly sanctioned Nuremberg defense that will let us off the hook if we use deceptive methods to communicate the Gospel. Indeed, it is impossible to do so. We cannot serve two masters. We cannot use the enemies tactics to advance the Kingdom of God.

Keep thinking! Continue reading.

Addicted to Novelty

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ 1 Comment

We’ve all seen them – lives destroyed by addiction. Promising young people burnt out like matchsticks. Ensnared loved ones exchanging their families for another fix.
It’s a harsh reality and not something I mention flippantly. It’s grievous, in the full weight of the word.

Yet that’s the image in my mind as I ponder a growing dependency in our ministries: addiction to novelty. Addiction is a monster. Just to be clear, addiction is defined as becoming physically and mentally dependent on something so that you cannot stop without incurring adverse effects. And that is our present condition in many churches: if we don’t keep juicing up, cranking up the experiences, we could lose everything we’ve worked so hard to build. What a shame where true (on many levels).

Keep thinking! Continue reading…

The Project Recipe: 3 Key Ingredients

~ Mike Schwiebert ~ Leave a comment
Photo credit: Barnaby Norwood http://www.barnabynorwood.co.uk

I have come to realize, almost every task I do as a Church Technical Leader is a project – from a video shoot to a room remodel to implementing a new initiative. Good project management is like a recipe. If you start with great ingredients and combine them in the proper way, you will get good results.

The basic ingredients of successful projects are three-fold:

  • effective project management
  • well executed individual contributions
  • seamless communication

This post is going to be more about tasks – the doing part of the job. Just knowing you are responsible for the outcome is not where the secret lies. The secret, if there is one, is in the ingredients. And, for all my church techies out there, these principles mirror the way God leads, and that’s how you know you are getting it right.

Keep thinking! Continue reading…