to come away and get refreshed , inspired , encouraged . It ’ s not just for musicians , but there are lots of musicians that will come . It ’ s not just for production people , but there ’ s a lot of production people that will come . It ’ s really for anyone that loves Jesus . It ’ s a great place for them to be . And even for those that don ’ t yet know Jesus , it ’ s a great place for them to experience what He ’ s doing . It is a place where I know that people will get encouraged .
And honestly , a time of refreshing is our goal . Because a lot of people , especially in the worship space and in the production space … spent a lot of time pouring out , giving of their resource , giving of their time , giving of their energy ( and I ’ m guilty of this myself ), but we oftentimes don ’ t spend enough time getting recharged and refueled . And as much as it is effort and energy for us to put a conference on , the conference is refreshing for me . The conference is life giving for me . I ’ m sure that other people if they come , they ’ ll experience that same thing .
[ WM ] Now I co-produce the Christian Musician Summit Conferences . We ’ ve done 36 conferences over the last 20 years . And I see what happens when people come and are changed . I ’ ve had worship leaders come in saying that they ’ re just about to quit and then the Lord refreshes them , and they are leave ready to return and continue on in ministry .
[ Henry ] Come on man .
[ WM ] So it ’ s pretty amazing to see that . And I get blessed too . When I see that happen , I get a front row seat just like you do .
[ Henry ] Yes .
[ WM ] My role is to prepare the stage for these artists and worship leaders to do what they are called to do . And then get out of the way .
[ Henry ] I love that .
[ WM ] I ’ m sure your conference is the same way . I would like to focus this conversation on your live stream . I ’ ve been watching it . I love the production . Are you doing a four camera shoot with also a rover or two ?
[ Henry ] We generally run about six cameras . But again , we ’ re using volunteers for all of those positions . Sometimes we don ’ t have enough people there . Sometimes people call in sick . So , generally the goal is six , maybe seven cameras . We have a couple of cameras on stands , one on a dolly , one on a jib and then a couple handheld cameras .
[ WM ] I love the visuals of your drum set . You ’ ve got the coolest drum set I think in America . And sonically , the drums are sitting in the mix really well . I know you probably use separate monitors just to mix for the live stream and a different volunteer probably mixing for live stream . Tell us about how you set up that production and how important the drum feel is in your whole presentation ?
[ Henry ] I mean honestly , I grew up playing drums , so drums are everything . When I listen to a record , if the drums are not good , then it ’ s hard for me to listen to the record . So I ’ ve just always been that person that ’ s gone after good drum tones , I ’ ve not always succeeded , but it has always been the goal .
We actually made some changes to our live stream setup during the COVID shutdown season . As I said earlier , I ’ ve mixed records for a lot of years . We had been mixing through a small console in a separate room for our live stream in the space that we were renting before we owned our building . During the COVID shutdown , we moved into a space that we ’ d purchased and renovated as a church building .
We were able to set up a dedicated live stream mix room there . We shifted away from mixing on a console to mixing on Pro Tools because that ’ s what I was familiar with mixing in . A lot of our team are familiar with mixing in Pro Tools as well . During that time , I got to spend some time actually just setting up a session for our team to be able to mix from . They worked on it , developed it , added to it , but that really was the foundation that we got to set up during those couple of months . I was mixing our stream every week for church because we were prerecording it .
That helped us kind of set a good foundation , a good session for them to come in and work with every week . Sometimes it ’ s living on the edge of your seat , mixing , hoping that the computer doesn ’ t crash . We ’ ve had very few issues with it over the years , but that ’ s part of the risk , but I also think it ’ s really helped us step our game with the live stream sound .
[ WM ] Last question , what is your vision and your wife ’ s vision , from this vantage point , as you steer The Belonging Co forward into the future ?
[ Henry ] Yeah , I mean , I feel like our mission and our vision never changed . We felt God in the early days speak to us from a particular scripture in 2nd Kings that talks about the cleaning of the waters . And that really for us is our mandate , to clean the spiritual waters of our city . There are a lot of very talented people , but the water of their soul was sick . It had grown dry and cold and weary . We really feel , as a church , that ’ s part of our mission . And our mandate is to refresh people , to bring them back to the living water of Jesus . To help them experience the rivers of living water that He has for us . And that ’ s our prayer … that we ’ re going to keep doing that .
[ WM ] Well said Pastor Henry . I loved getting this chance to know you better . Thank you for your time .
[ Henry ] Oh man . Yeah , it ’ s great to chat . Thank you . Appreciate it !
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