Josh Anders: You know, a church like ours, we’re a church of about 1100 on Sunday mornings. You got a lot of preferences. I mean, a lot. You do. You have a lot of preferences. You just have to learn, you have to have a foundation first of all, that you’re never going to be able to please everybody 100%. It’s just not going to happen. But second of all, it helps to have a support structure, a leadership structure that will not throw you to the wolves, so to speak. I’ve been there in the past and it’s not fun. Where you try to do the right thing and you’re not supported and it’s very, very difficult. But I think being in a healthy environment and healthy functional leadership structure in a church, it really helps. Our pastor just has this call like, “Listen, we know who God has called us to reach and that’s who we’re reaching.”
We have a particular vision on how we’re going to implement things, and there’s a reason for it. We’re reaching people that no one else is reaching in our city, and so there are things that we’re going to do that’s going to be very specific. And we’re not going to stray from those things. I remember there was a time where, and this was really difficult for me, there was a lady who used to be a part of the worship team before I came, but by the time I’d come, she’d been off the team for a while. But her daughter had brain cancer and eventually, unfortunately passed from it. And her daughter was just in her early twenties. Well, she came up to me one day and she was like, “Listen, the lights are giving my daughter seizures.”
And I’m like, “Really?” And she was like, “Yes.” She’s like, “We can’t even come into after the worship.” And so I said, “They’re really giving her seizures, man, I don’t definitely don’t want that to happen.” And she went on to explain and as she explained she backed up a little bit and she’s like, “Well, you know, just giving her headaches.” And so it got to the point where I understood she was just being really over cautious with her. And so I went to my pastor and I was just like, “How do I address this because I don’t want to seem insensitive to this family?” And he kind of coached me what to say.
So the next time I saw her, I said, “Listen, I understand that this may be a problem for you guys, so let me help you find a solution.” And I gave them several options of where they could sit in the worship center, that it would not be an issue for them and even some extra out of the box suggestions. And, you know, at first it was just like, “Well, we love sitting down towards the front.” And I’m like, “I know.” But I know scientifically that what we were doing wasn’t causing anybody any health issues because we’re not operating those devices that would do that, but I didn’t want to just come out and tell her that she was wrong, but I offered a solution to help the problem.
And so they really appreciated that and they took the advice and just thanked me for it from then on. So it could have been something where I could have gotten … Because at the time I was programming the lighting and I could have gotten really defensive about it but I chose not to, and it was just one of those situations where that happens. Every once in a while you’ll get the comment on the connection card, “The music’s too loud.” Or, “Why don’t you do this song?” If you ever have someone tell you that in person, just say, “You know what? I really appreciate your input. Thank you so much.