One of the real privileges I have at OBC is working with an incredible group of people who are dedicated and passionate for our worship ministry. Our teams are committed to leading people in worship, to developing their own ability and are always willing to try new things. This isn’t limited only to our musicians – we have some of the most dedicated and talented people serving on our AV/tech teams.

I asked Peter Bruce to put together a couple of blog posts that I could share with you. Peter is unique in that he’s one of the guys who heads up our tech teams but he’s also one of our acoustic guitar players, so he has some insight on the worship team experience from both sides of the stage.

Today he’s written some thoughts  about what your sound team wishes you knew and tomorrow we’ll post some things that the worship team wishes the sound team knew. Some of you have great relationships with your tech team, some of you do not. Hopefully this is helpful for you.

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A while back Chris asked me to give some suggestions for Worship Teams and Sound Teams. As a sound person and guitar player I have been on both sides of the board. My wife who also takes part in both and I talked about some of the things that each team would benefit from knowing about the other.

Things the sound team wish the worship team knew:

1. We are a team,  we process every sound that comes off the stage and send it to the speakers. We are all working together to produce the best audio mix that we can. Invite us to join you during your pre-service/practice prayer times etc. If you need something just ask, we will do what we can to help, but remember we don’t like last minute surprises. Think of it like being handed a new song that you have not practiced two minutes before the service.
2. Know what you need not want in your monitor. If you have too many instruments or vocals you will have a hard time hearing yourself. Less is more. As a guide, pick 3 things that you must have and a couple more that would be nice but not necessary. Until we get levels set don’t keep stopping and asking for adjustments, once you have gone through a song and we have set our levels we can then make any adjustments you need.
3. Trust your sound person to do the mixing, Things sound different for you on stage especially if you are using in-ear montiors. We are in the congregation ( or we should be, but that is a whole other topic for sound booth position) and will be mixing for what sounds best out there.
4. Please be aware of your monitor or amp level.  You may like to “feel” the music and want your monitor loud but that noise bleeds out into the room and deminishes the quality of the mix for the congregation.
5. Please be on time. We will do our best to have everything ready for you to start the sound check so we ask you show up on time especially if you need time to set up your own gear.
6. Please use proper mic technique and hold your mic close, where we tell you to and not keep dropping it lower because of your own insecurities and issues.

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There is some good stuff here. What do you think? Any thoughts to add? Tech guys, what do you wish your worship team members knew?