Notes from the Editor

by Carol Padgett

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I’ll tell you what they have in common. I was blessed to experience all three today at WFX in Houston. If you’re not here, I wish you were. Because I would like to meet you and find out your thoughts about all three of these and so much more that I saw and heard today. Here’s a little recap for you.

8:00 a.m. The IMAG Debate: Make an Informed Decision – This education conference was led by Anthony Coppedge of Anthony Coppedge Consulting, a WFX advisory board member and contributor to sister publication Church Production Magazine. Alongside Anthony was Bruce Smith, former technical director of Willow Creek who sends a fond hello to WFM Website Editor Jim Kumorek. You may ask yourself, what was the editor of Worship Facilities doing at this session? I was gleaning all the knowledge that I can. Because church tech needs and choices directly affect building design. Here I learned that if anyone in your sanctuary will sit 60 feet back from the speaker, you could most definitely benefit from image magnification. If you don’t know what IMAG is, ask your tech guy or girl, they’ll gladly tell you and it will start up a good dialogue.

11:30 a.m. Expo Floor Opens – I could feel the energy as people poured through the entrance. The first church attendees I met had driven all the way from Juneau, Alaska, to attend their first-ever WFX. They were Robert and Joy Reierson of Valley Chapel, and this is what Robert had to say: “All the education sessions have tons of information I’ll be able to use in our facilities. Joy is going to the people ones; I’m going to the tech ones.”

1:30 p.m. Disaster Recovery Session – This was a special session for churches recently hit by hurricanes Ike and Hannah. But it went beyond how to get prepared for a natural disaster into the urgent need to be prepared for a variety of scenarios—natural and man-made. Here I learned that it’s wise to cultivate relationships with the Red Cross and FEMA, and to make sure your insurance adequately covers your most recent building renovation or addition. The session’s expert panelists were former pastor Robert Bingham, director of the Mississippi District Disaster Response Team; Don Allensworth, president of The NewGround Group and former executive pastor of a Florida church that was hit by three hurricanes in five weeks; and Rodney Marshall, director of marketing and safety for All Star Church Restoration and Reconstruction.

5:30 p.m. The Lakewood Experience – The absolute cap on top of a mind-spinning day. Here I heard Joel Osteen talk about his rise into the ministry founded by his father. And then members of the Lakewood team that make the giant broadcast ministry function and bring God’s word to so many people in so many countries each week shared about their roles, their challenges, their day-to-day operations. And they graciously took a multitude of questions from WFX attendees before the behind-the-scenes tours began.

See you tomorrow on the Expo floor.

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