the Roundtable & the Network

original post April 27, 2010

I don’t have hobbies like some people have.  A lot of my free time is put into leading/maintaining/developing a few resources for the local church tech and the local church tech ministry leader.  The Church Technical Directors Roundtable and the Church Technical Artists Network have developed out of a vision I had to help resource the full time technical ministry leader.

CTDRT   http://ctdrt.com

In the end of July 2009, I hooked up with about seven church Technical Directors from across the country on Tokbox.com.  The handful of us connected up after I threw out a few posts on Twitter asking any full time church TD’s interested in connecting.  That August, the Church Technical Director’s Roundtable was formed.

The Church Technical Director’s Roundtable is a targeted group for paid, full time technical/production/media ministry directors of the local church.  The Roundtable was founded in the vacuum of such resources focused on the full time ministry Technical Director.  There are currently over 220 members and continued growth is assured as we gain media (print and internet) attention from industry publications and word of mouth.

The Roundtable members impact over 700,000 lives a weekend with their weekly church attendance.  65% of those churches have attendance between1,000-4,000. 17% of those churches have a weekend attendance of 5,000-10,000.  Twelve percent of churches have under 1,000 in weekend attendance while 6% of churches represented in CTDRT have more that 10,000 in weekend attendance.

It has been a blast watching this group of brilliant technical leaders grow and form into something very valuable in each of its members lives and ministries. 

CTAN   http://ctanonline.com

CTANonline grew out of a vision that established CTDRT.  As the Church Technical Director Roundtable has grown and gained momentum in the short eight months of its existence we have seen a growing need and desire in the local church for a resource like CTDRT.  The vision for CTDRT meant that part time and volunteer TD’s along with other full time Tech staff such as Associate/Assistant TD’s, Video, Audio or Lighting staff could not take part, let alone any volunteer technical artist.   And, to their credit, they told me – they showed me- that they needed and wanted a valuable resource like CTDRT.

So, you will see much of the same vision for CTAN as we have for CTDRT.  But, Network is opened to anyone.   Oh, we have asked CTDRT members to be an active part in CTAN and they are.  See, while we all need our place to connect people in similar ministry environments like ours, it is also important to connect with people who serve in different ministry environments and capacities.

The Church Technical Artists Network is a resource that is open to anyone serving in any capacity on their local church technical team.  The Network exists to equip those serving on technical ministry teams by fostering relationships amongst its members, facilitating peer learning, and encouraging synergy through the sharing of ideas.  We hope to accomplish this primarily via the web utilizing the online community.  

The value of this community is the gathering of the technical brilliance and experience in today’s Church in place to share ideas, information and build relationships.  The actual online structure probably won’t be found to be groundbreaking but those individual members visiting CTANonline contributing to the online experience will benefit through seeing the vision of CTAN fleshed out.