This past week I got to help with the Incite conference that was hosted at New Hope Church. I was invited to help out by one of my new friends Dave Bookhout (), who is the production director there. It’s funny; we met when my church hosted a conference a few months ago that he was attending. Regardless, he asked me to come in and help set up some environmental projection, which they did with a standard propresenter, Matrox triple head 2 go set up. The picture I snapped with my phone doesn’t do this stage design justice. When it was all done it looked awesome, the content they utilized for the environmental was very tastefully selected and really well used. While talking about the stage design, I would like to also give a shout out to the lighting guy at New Hope, who is a super talented young man, and I want to emphasize that entire description, and say he did an awesome job.

I can’t tell you how cool it was to spend time with a tech/worship/creative department from another church. It was great to see how differently things were done, as far as processes, procedures, and application of everything. To see another group have the same problems we had, but handle them in a totally different way was really informative. I want to point out, I tried very hard to stay away from comparison for its own sake. I was less concerned about what they did better or worse than we did. I was far more interested in how/why it was different. I enjoyed getting to watch another team and honor their process as “theirs” and look at what they did differently and take a step back and say, “wow I really liked they way they…” and see if there isn’t room to implement something like that in our space. I gathered a lot of insight just by watching, and it was pretty cool. I would encourage you tech/worship/creative types to seek out other local churches. Get to know your counterparts. These people aren’t the competition. Usually they are the only other people who can really appreciate what you are going through and can be a sympathetic ear, and if you are lucky, an experienced adviser. It just shouldn’t be so hard to swallow your pride a do a little KINGDOM building with your brothers and sisters in minstry… ok, I am breaking in to a sweat while I am typing this… off my soapbox.

While I am talking about the tech/worship/creative team at New Hope, I want to go on record saying they have a great team of Godly people, who sincerely enjoy working with each other and are just plain fun to be around. Please, quote me on that.

The conference itself was a big hit. Kevin Meyers ( ) from 12 Stone was one of the keynote speakers, as well as Dr. Benji Kelly( ). I was very impressed by both these pastors. They were both excellent communicators with a great message. I would love to tell you all about it, but you should have been there.  If you have some free time next year in August, I suggest coming to this conference.

All in all it was a great experience. While I did get to contribute in a small way, between attending the conference and watching another team work, I gleaned a lot of information.  When you put my contribution up against what I took away, I really feel like I came out ahead on this deal.