Evaluating A System Budget For House Of Worship Clients

Rental Gear

There is wisdom in renting the gear you need just on occasion.

For example, a great many churches find themselves in need of extra wireless mics now and then, especially for those Christmas pageants. Some can’t yet afford to install subwoofers, but want to add some extra weight to their sound for their Easter drama pageant.

Extra stage lighting fixtures and special effects devices are good rental items to consider. And who needs to buy a phone hybrid? I can only recall two times in the last 20-plus years of working with churches that I needed to feed the house system with a live phone conversation between someone on stage holding a mic and a missionary overseas talking on a phone. It just makes no sense to buy something like that.

A well-stocked, reasonably priced rental company provides an excellent service for churches with these kinds of occasional equipment needs. It pays to shop around, though. Several years ago I paid as much as $4,000 to rent a few high quality wireless mic systems for several weeks.

A few years ago, I found a company that would rent me the exact same units for the same time period for about $1,400. As you’re filling out your next annual budget, remember to include a line item for general rental needs.

Usually there is a separate budget for major productions. Renting wireless mics for your Christmas pageant, for example, should come out of the Christmas pageant budget, not your annual operating budget.

Capital Expenditures

This is where you put more expensive gear that you know you’re really going to need in the near future. For example, if the FOH mixing desk is really showing its age, and it’s past due for a replacement, be sure that a reasonable price for a suitable replacement is tagged in the church capital budget.

Try to think well into the future. If you can project that high ticket items under your command such as mixing consoles, video projectors, computers, etc. ­ should be replaced within the next five years, then get those items on the capital budget list now.

Let the senior pastor, administrator and especially the finance officer get used to the idea. Give them time to develop a plan that will ensure that the money is there when you say you’re going to need it. Don’t forget to remind them on occasion, and be sure to ask for it when the time comes.

If you don’t, they just might decide that they want to replace the carpet in the foyer instead of buying your new console! Trust me on this.

At one point, my signing power as the Audio Director of a reasonably large church was $500. A couple of years later, they dropped that to $250. At first, I felt insulted. Later, as I thought about it, I realized my diminished purchase authorization was a blessing in disguise.

This meant that any purchases that I needed to make for the sound systems that were over $250 apiece didn’t come out of my $25,000 operating budget. As such, funds for a desperately needed wireless mic didn’t come out of my supplies budget.

Time Is Priceless

I’d like to add one more item to the list, and that is time. I know very few people who aren’t going through this life racing to meet one deadline or another. Not that it’s right, or even good, but certainly common.

Some of those time goals are self-imposed, while much of that activity is directed toward putting out fires that other people have created for us.

People usually want their problems to be your problems, and some are especially good at delegating. I would consider time to be the most valuable category on the list.

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