Production Blog- The Last Minute Musical Chair Phenomenon

So you have worked all week to put together a great lineup for your Sunday morning service. You have worked out song order with the worship leader, videos and everything else. You have everything on a nice little sheet of paper with notes for all of the production staff. You have practised the order with the band and its only the night before the service. You go to bed knowing that in the morning the chances are 50/50 that everything you have scheduled will actually take place. We have all been there. Some one will have last minute changes that require you to pull off some serious musical chairs. Now I must first say at my church we are really good at pulling things off at the last minute, we have had a lot of practice. I most say also that my guys are good about not trying to do too much at the last minute (mostly because of my griping) but that was not always the case.

I think people who try to change things at the last minute have 2 mind sets.

1. They think that moving things around 1 hour before the service starts is easy

or 2. They think you are so good at you job that you can pull it off.

Please do not misunderstand me I want the service to be the best it can be. If some one comes along with a last minute idea that would make the service rock and it can be done well in a short amount of time. I will do flips to get it done.

So some simple things I have done to change the mindsets of my pastor and worship leaders (who are both close friends).

1. The biggest thing is to say no! Make whoever it is understand that putting some thing together at the last minute can ruin a service. It could be distracting. It could be responsible for someone not hearing what they need to hear from God. Say no but do it with respect and tact.

2. Teach people to plan. Let them know your planning schedule. Some people are not planers. If they can;t plan on there own help them plan. I know I drive my pastor crazy with emails sometimes trying to get answers but most of the time, in the end, I know he is thankful for it.

3.Teach them how all of the graphic art, videos, stage design and whatever else you handle are done so they know how much time you and your staff put into the work. There is nothing worse to me then having to tell a volunteer that we can't use his work because someone decided to show another video and your got bumped. That can be real discouraging


4. Make service change deadlines and stick to them unless you just can't. Sometimes you have to do things at the last minute. It just should not be a habit

So these are a few of my ideas. Any thoughts?

Next week I am writing about Worship music vs the Rock Concert