Blog | Healthy Church Tech Director to Worship Pastor Communication Tips

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Communication is everything in ministry. Good communication practices can help a ministry to operate ats fullest potential, while poor communication (or a complete lack of communication altogether) can cause a ministry to crumble. The same is absolutely true for worship ministries.

More specifically, the communication practices between a tech director/media director and the worship pastor are super important. A worship leader can’t take care of all the details related to lyrics, church videos, sermon notes, lighting, and all other tech responsibilities on their own, nor can a church tech director properly work without being informed on service flow, song selection, transitions, Bible verses being read, and other service-specific plans.

Simply put, bridging the communication gap between church tech directors and worship pastors is of utmost importance.

Healthy Communication Tips: Tech Directors and Worship Pastors

Healthy communication isn’t going to magically “happen”. It takes effort. It takes a process. And most importantly, it is a mutual activity. You can’t have healthy communication practices if your church tech director is only receiving info when prying for it.

Communication should be organized, directed and focused, efficient, scheduled, and contain all details necessary for both tech directors and worship pastors to operate seamlessly during rehearsals and Sunday mornings.

Here are some tips for establishing health communication between church tech or media directors and worship pastors:

Scheduling Weekly Meetings

We’ve said it in past blog posts, but we can’t emphasize this enough. You absolutely need to schedule weekly meetings. And don’t just work to schedule something each week – pick a time, say 4:30pm every Tuesday – and then stick to it! This helps with a few things:

Firstly, having a scheduled meeting every week means that details don’t fall through the cracks on some weeks and not others. Instead, you’ll maintain the same production consistency every week. You each know what needs to be discussed at the meeting, and as time goes on the meetings will get more efficient.

Also, if you have a consistent set weekly time in place for the tech director and worship pastor to meet, you’ll both be informed on what you need to come prepared with to each meeting. You’ll have your materials, questions, and suggestions ready before the meeting even starts. This is in sharp contrast to, say, setting up the meeting by texting on random days each week to see if each other has 15 minutes for a call that day. Set a time and stick to it.

Open Feedback Channel

First of all, understand that you both care for each other and want each other to succeed (awe, isn’t that nice?) Now that you know that, be honest with each other. For some reason, ministry is infamous for tiptoeing around issues while communicating for the sake of not “hurting people’s feelings”.

In a group setting, that’s great. Be careful with how you talk. But when it’s just the two of you, make it clear that you both wish to be honest and open with each other for the sake of having productive meetings. It’s a cliché, but communication needs to be a two-way street, and it needs to be direct, concise, and efficient to be helpful by any means.

The worship pastor has to be open to what the tech director thinks, and vice versa.

DTR – Define The Releationship

As a worship pastor, don’t overpromise a volunteer tech director the final say if you don’t mean it. Also, don’t tell them you can do lyrics each week and then drop the ball on them a month later and ask them to do it.

DTR – Define The Relationship.

Who is responsible for what? Is the worship pastor or tech director going to put in lyrics and/or Bible verses? Who designs the slides? Who selects the appropriate motion backgrounds? Don’t tell your tech director they have the final say and then step in take control of decisions. If the worship pastor wants the final say, make that clear immediately.

Establishing roles is so important for operating effectively and efficiently without getting on each other’s nerves.

To Sum It Up

Communication is everything in worship ministry. Tech directors and worship pastors need to speak openly and honestly with each other without worrying about hurting each other’s feelings. Set up weekly meetings, come prepared, and know that it’s a place to hash out ideas for the sake of improvement. You’re not insulting each other – you’re there to discuss weekly tasks, as well as ideas on how your ministry can improve.

Tech directors – listen to your worship pastor. Worship pastors – listen to your tech directors. You both have to be open to accepting constructive criticism and new ideas if you plan on improving your worship ministry.