My Church Gig

My posts have been sparse lately.  Been too busy working to write.  If you work in church arts, media and production then you know what most others don’t.  A big part of the church gig is the side gig. I’ve been strip-mining a seven-year mountain of rolled-over, unused PTO hours and trading them for some supplementary goodness.  I can see over the crest of the hill now.

The three main church tech guys I follow in blogs and on Twitter all talk about taking on side contract work specing systems or training.  (Check out Tim, Mike, and Dave.)  I don’t know many graphic artists, web designers/programmers, video editors/directors, who don’t do side work.  All the good ones do and I’ve done a lot of wondering why lately.  Is it that we’re broke?  Most of us aren’t.  Is it that we’re high profile and easy to find?  Maybe, but we actually try to hide from the general public.  The person who exclaims, “Hey! I’ll just ask that video guy at church if he can make a video for my kid’s birthday party!” or “I need a website for my business and I bet that church webmaster could use a little cash,” have no idea how much work goes into it and what the real market value is.  They are enemies, not friends.  Thankfully, people don’t ask me to DJ weddings any more.  Finally.  By the way, any decent audio engineer would rather peel off his or her fingernails than DJ anything.  Don’t ask us.  Get a DJ.

Here’s why I think good church-working artists take on side work.

Our type of work has Freelance in its DNA. A lot of great programmers, graphic artists, FOH engineers, and video directors primarily do freelance work.  We do one-off shows, single tours, web projects, or media projects that start and end.  Starting new things is like breathing clean autumn air.

The best artists I know thrive on learning as a lifestyle and die without it. Once we get into a groove the comfort wears through to boredom and burnout.

Our work at a church is often limited by boundaries we dislike, and that’s fine.  That’s standard production.  A good side job or personal project allows you to push yourself to do something great as you define it.  I’d rather mix a concert than a church service any day.  That doesn’t mean I dislike church services.  That means I find more opportunity to do great work mixing a concert than mixing for a 1500-person group sing.

Sometimes the side gig is different than our day job.  Cross-train the brain.  That’s what I say.  Some church gig folks take on other interests, or offer training in their field.  Teaching is different than doing and becoming a good teacher is a challenge.  We thrive on growing in new areas.

What gets you out of bed in the morning? Here’s where the pastoral staff and the art/tech staff part ways.  Sure, we want people to come to Christ too but let’s be honest.  You pastor people are out there with people (that’s your thing) while we dream up creative ways to reach and communicate. Most of us hate getting up early for anything except the idea that we’re going to create something great today.  My coffee pot will fire up early any morning for that.

If you take the side gig away from the church arts employee, you risk burning them out.  You might even want to give them some extra space.  I’ve seen positions in our field reveal themselves to be simple stepping stones more often than satisfying roles and that’s kind of a shame.

Ironically, my side gig has become programming, not audio, and I’ve found that I love it as much if not more than the other.  I’m excited about my current project and if you are a church musician you might be too when it’s released.  For now, mums the word.  The coffee pot is going off early tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 11:41 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.