FILO Podcast

Kaleb Wilcox, the executive producer for the weekend service at Willow Creek's North Shore campus talks with Todd about their relatively new building project and the challenges that went along with it.

Kaleb Wilcox, the executive producer for the weekend service at Willow Creek's North Shore campus talks with Todd about their relatively new building project and the challenges that went along with it.

Easter is coming up pretty quick. For most of us, it is the event that tends to sneak up on you if you aren't careful! In this episode, Todd talks with Chris Thomas, the Technical Arts Director at Cherry Hills Church about how they have been preparing for Easter this year. There are some great leadership lessons in this one! (and some random thoughts on Easter candy)

Easter is coming up pretty quick. For most of us, it is the event that tends to sneak up on you if you aren't careful! In this episode, Todd talks with Chris Thomas, the Technical Arts Director at Cherry Hills Church about how they have been preparing for Easter this year. There are some great leadership lessons in this one! (and some random thoughts on Easter candy)

Dennis Choy is responsible for many production teams across many venues and several campuses at North Coast Church. Todd and Dennis have a great conversation about what success looks like when you've got people of different abilities scattered all over the place. With so many opportunities for things to go wrong, they talk about doing the best with what you have.

Dennis Choy is responsible for many production teams across many venues and several campuses at North Coast Church. Todd and Dennis have a great conversation about what success looks like when you've got people of different abilities scattered all over the place. With so many opportunities for things to go wrong, they talk about doing the best with what you have.

Andrew Starke, the audio director at North Point Community Church, talks with Todd about the journey many of us take to becoming a fully developed tech person. We hear Andrew's own story and his learnings about being defined by more than just the task you are doing for church. We all need to realize that we are more than our last service and that we are more than just a great mix or an amazingly edited video.

Andrew Starke, the audio director at North Point Community Church, talks with Todd about the journey many of us take to becoming a fully developed tech person. We hear Andrew's own story and his learnings about being defined by more than just the task you are doing for church. We all need to realize that we are more than our last service and that we are more than just a great mix or an amazingly edited video.

Todd talks with Stef Cassetto, the weekend producer at Saddleback Church, about the reality of working through competing values to accomplish a weekend service. What's best for the creative team, isn't always best for the production team, and vice versa. Now add what the pastor needs...and then there's the question of what's best for our church.

Todd talks with Stef Cassetto, the weekend producer at Saddleback Church, about the reality of working through competing values to accomplish a weekend service. What's best for the creative team, isn't always best for the production team, and vice versa. Now add what the pastor needs...and then there's the question of what's best for our church.

As technical artists in the local church, we all have to figure out the relationship with our team and the team on the stage...the band. Todd talks with Delwin Eiland, a worship leader at Willow Creek, about ways to develop this relationship so that our services can be the best possible.

As technical artists in the local church, we all have to figure out the relationship with our team and the team on the stage...the band. Todd talks with Delwin Eiland, a worship leader at Willow Creek, about ways to develop this relationship so that our services can be the best possible.

Where did FILO come from? Listen. You'll find out.  

Where did FILO come from? Listen. You'll find out.  

Coming up with the perfect Christmas program seems really simple when you see what churches all over the world are doing. It all looks so easy and magical. The reality is much different. First off, there is probably nothing even close to a perfect program. Second, developing an effective Christmas service (or any event for that matter) requires tons of work, lots of collaboration, and probably even more compromise. Easy isn't one of the options. For the Willow team this year, we had our share of ups and downs to get to where our program ended up. Is it perfect? No. But it is a product of our best effort, given our abilities, given our limitations, given our resources. And with all of that, it is a really good Christmas program. Without question, there are things I would do differently. There are things I wish others had done differently. If we were going to take this show on the road, then we'd be able to make some more tweaks and turn it into a "better" version of itself…but we aren't. However, as Seth Godin talks about quite a bit, there is a time for planning and tweaking, but there is also a time to ship; a time to stop adjusting and get your product out there. All along the way, we tried to make the best decisions we could, based on the information of the moment. Looking back is easy. Knowing what I would do differently is the easy part. Living in the moment and making decisions along the way is not easy to do. You can only do your best. Wishing the last event was better doesn't really solve the problem. Looking towards the next big event, the goal will be to build on the successes of this event and to learn from our "mistakes". I'm really proud of the work our team has done to make this Christmas amazing. Hardworking, highly creative people, creating in community for the benefit of our congregation and their friends. In spite of whatever could have gone better, this is a Christmas to remember.   Photo by Mourad Saadi on Unsplash