Five Qualities of a Top-Notch Church Tech Director by PushPay

Your church tech director has a lot of responsibility. They’re the point person for all your tech-related questions, and the first person everyone looks to when things go wrong.

Church tech directors must coordinate sound, lighting, software, and all the various tech your church uses to make your service and events run smoothly. They may need to train and work with several teams of volunteers; and they weigh in on (or have the final say on) all your tech-related purchasing decisions. It’s a highly specialized position, requiring a mix of tech expertise and an ability to work closely with others. If you’re looking to hire (or become) a top-notch church tech director, here are five qualities you should seek.

Your tech director doesn’t operate in a bubble. Throughout the week, they need to coordinate with your worship team, your teaching pastor, and everyone else who has an active role during the service. At times, they also need to work with your finance team to negotiate how your church’s tech needs fit into your budget and relate to your church’s mission and vision. They don’t just need to be able to play nice with others. To do their job effectively, your tech director needs to proactively work with other teams and leaders in your church to ensure that every piece of your service has what it needs and fits into the big picture.

In any role, it’s easy to slip into the groove of doing things the same way simply because “this is how we’ve always done this.” Routine and consistency make any job more comfortable, but it can also stifle your church’s ability to innovate and grow.

Your tech director should encourage experimentation with new tech and opportunities—especially if those experiments align with your larger vision and could lead to growth. Maybe your church wants to start live streaming your services so that people can participate when they can’t attend in person (or when they aren’t quite ready to show up). Also, if your software or tech is creating issues for your staff or disrupting your service, you want your tech director to be proactive about finding new solutions.

Tech directors often specialize in specific areas of tech, such as sound, lighting, software, or video. But you need to count on your tech director to handle all those areas. If they aren’t well-rounded, it increases the likelihood that you’ll run into basic problems they can’t solve, and while volunteers may be able to fill in gaps in expertise, your tech director is your point person.

While you want your tech director to focus on trends within church technology, ideally, they’ll also keep a pulse on broader technology-related trends, so they can spot unique opportunities for your church and plan further down the road. You want someone who’s curiosity about new tech will compel them to develop new expertise. It’s great to have specialized expertise. But the more well-rounded your tech director is, the better equipped they’ll be to serve your church.

Any time you put someone in charge of other people, you need to know that they can handle that authority. Your tech director can’t do everything themselves. And if they’re leading volunteers, you want to trust that they are leading with grace and developing those volunteers with the same intentional, thoughtful approach you’d expect from any other leader.

A good leader is a good delegator. You want your church tech director to take your members who are willing and able to serve and help them find a place on the team. They should be comfortable training volunteers and giving them opportunities to develop new skills and expertise.

While your tech director’s success doesn’t depend as much on their relationships with their team, you want your tech director to recognize the opportunities they have to minister to their team members.

How do you decide when it’s time to replace old equipment or outdated tech? Who should be involved in the process? How do you decide if an investment in technology is “worth it”? What does your church need? How do you evaluate new equipment?

These are all questions your tech director needs to be prepared to answer, so they can make wise choices that efficiently use your church’s resources.

GET THE CHURCH TECHNOLOGY BUYER’S GUIDE

A lot of the qualities you want in a church tech director can be developed with training, education, and experience, but when it comes to buying new equipment and technology, you don’t want to rely on trial and error. In The Church Technology Buyer’s Guide, we give you a method for calculating the return on investment (ROI) on any piece of tech your church wants to buy. We also walk you through the best practices of purchasing tech, so your tech director and other decision makers can be confident in all your tech-related choices.

Get your free copy of The Church Technology Buyer’s Guide.