LEADERSHIP
PEOPLE VS PRODUCTION | Kristian Ponsford
Years back while traveling home from leading worship at a conference , a colleague of mine asked me a question that ended up troubling me for months .
This had been our third conference event in a row , it was a Friday afternoon , and I was due to lead worship at my home church on Sunday morning . Dipping into my backpack , I pulled out my MacBook and set up my mobile office in the back seat of the car . I had just under an hour left of the journey to set up everything needed for Sunday and , after a quick check of the Planning Center set list which had been set weeks earlier , I started to craft my Ableton set . Somewhere between creating locators , formatting tracks , dragging in MIDI clips , and setting the transitions , Richard asked me the question , " Kristian , what is your job title ?" Being one of the church leaders , I knew he knew the answer , but I humoured him anyway . I replied , " Last time I checked , Worship Pastor ."
" When you write that ," he asked , " Do you capitalize the W or the P ?"
Honestly , I was annoyed by the question , firstly because it was breaking my focus on the setlist , but secondly , because I knew the answer required attention . In essence , Richard was asking where my focus was and whether it was invested wisely .
Having joined the staff team on a short-term contract with a very tight set of goals around elevating the " worship experience ," my week was primarily focused on Sunday morning . Everything flowed to and from that 90 minutes . I could easily spend hours , if not days , crafting songs and moments . Like many Worship
Pastors , Worship pastors or worship Pastors , I found myself caught in the tension of balancing quality and inclusion , the tyranny of the urgent versus the important . Or to put it a different way ; People vs . Production .
There appeared to be an unspoken rule that you cannot be a Worship Pastor with both a capital W and P . I had assumed that somehow , I needed to choose where to slide my focus on the spectrum between excellent production and effectively pastoring people . To onboard new developing musicians , we had to be prepared to sacrifice a little quality . Or , to have a well-produced program , we may have to turn our entire focus to the production elements , which can come at the cost of the people we were leading .
A few years and many conversations later , this tension still seems like a familiar balancing act for many of us . But most of those conversations reveal a common thread . We know people matter . In fact , we know our teams ' pastoral care and development matter more than excellent production . That ' s probably one of the most impactful lessons many of us have learned through this COVID season . For many churches during this season , high-level production wasn ' t an option . Connecting with people was a clear priority .
Maybe it ' s all a matter of perspective . Another question that helped me understand this was , " Which is the method and which is the mission ?" If production becomes our mission , do our teams and our people become the method ? Conversely , if people become the mission , does that place production correctly as a method or tool ?
Years of living in that tension might now explain why I ' m so passionate about my role here at MultiTracks . com - Our mission is to create digital resources that save the worship leader ’ s time so they can focus on what really matters .
Hundreds of little tasks that once swallowed up a worship leader ' s week can now be taken care of by innovative technology . Communication , resourcing , and planning can now be completed much more quickly , freeing up valuable time . Hours once spent in an office inside Ableton can now be exchanged for a few simple taps on Playback ’ s iPad screen . Charting is now a thing of the past too as ChartBuilder gives my team access to over 14,000 chord charts which accurately match the original recording . Paired with RehearsalMix , my team can arrive fully prepared having learned all their parts directly from the original artist . And all I had to do was thoughtfully prepare the setlist and send it to my team .
Our team here at MultiTracks . com continues to innovate so that each release reduces the tension between the urgent and the important . The stories that we get to share , and love to hear , are the ones from our users who no longer have to choose between Production vs . People .
As you plan , resource , and prepare , ask yourself , in my role as Worship Pastor this week , which letter was capitalized ?
Kristian Ponsford Director of Products & Market Development at MultiTracks . com , and he is passionate about helping worship leaders lead worship well .
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