After doing the podcast earlier this week Duke DeJong said something that has kinda been sticking with me.  He said sometimes he struggles with IMAG.  I couldn’t agree more, I struggle with it as well…. and just to be clear IMAG is my job.  The good news in our building is that 1500 seats pretty much requires it, so it’s gunna get done one way or another.  However, in an effort to do these things it’s real easy to loose sight of the goal, eliminate distractions. 

It’s very easy to say IMAG creates distractions, I think my team does an awesome job, but it’s a live environment and that means mistakes WILL HAPPEN.  When they do they WILL be distracting.

That said I choose to push hard to make our IMAG good, or atleast as good as I can make it.  Does is sometimes cause a distraction? YES sometimes is does.  That said I like to think that the way we do IMAG is an accurate portrayal of our churches culture.  We do IMAG the way we do because it fits our worship. If you have never seen IMAG in a church before, ours would probably qualify VERY distracting. Why would I do that? I think Jim Rayburn the founder of younglife said it best “It’s a sin to bore a kid with the Gospel.”  I think that goes for adults as well.  I think is is a sin to bore anyone with church.  While the way we do things may be a little distracting, I can pretty much promise you, you will not be bored.

But where do you draw the line between distraction and enhancement?  How does you view change when you look at it like this: “every single thing you add tech wise can fail and cause a distraction”?  That cost always has to be weighed against “what is it eliminating/how is it helping us accomplish our vision.” I think TD’s should push to keep from being boring but always temper that drive with a passion for eliminating distractions, this will probably cause some internal struggle.  However if you aren’t thinking that way, if you aren’t struggling with creating distractions versus eliminating them then you probably aren’t doing your job very well.

I don’t think you have to have the answer about where the line is because I would say in most cases it’s a moving target.  I think finding “the line” is less important then knowing there is one, and trying to keep to this side of it.