If you could easily prevent permanent damage to your portable church system, wouldn’t you? Preventative maintenance is a great habit to form, and will ultimately prolong the life of your system, saving you time, stress, and money. So, whether you are the executive pastor or the technology volunteer, we think it is a good idea to understand the how of maintaining your system by first understanding the why.

Why?

• Maintenance Is Easy – It does not take much effort to properly care for and perform maintenance on your system. And, everyone will agree that it is easier to prevent a problem before it happens than having to deal with it on a stressful Sunday morning.
• Provide Longevity – There is no reason to allow gear or systems to be neglected and abused. Make it last as long as you can, and be a good steward of what you have been given.
• Respect Your Budget – Yes, the cost of a system has gone down dramatically in recent years, but that does not mean that you should treat it like expendable gear. Honoring your budget by maintaining your system shows good stewardship, both to God and the financial gifts provided by your members.
• Increase Familiarity – Being confident with your gear is really only developed by using it. Using your system looks a lot like troubleshooting and when you are in the troubleshooting mode, familiarity will be your best friend.

Routine maintenance generally is not difficult, but it does become necessary over time. It is a good practice to make sure that things are tight, well oiled, and traveling well. If you are seeing abnormal wearing or if you hear rattling where you didn’t before, it may be a good idea to unload your system and attempt to find the problem. This practice speaks to ease, longevity, budget and familiarity.

How?

As much as you try to prevent system wear and tear, there will always be the possibility of something breaking on a Sunday morning during set-up or takedown. It’s a good idea to have some tools ready and available to help with a quick fix. Here are a few of the tools that we think you should have on hand:

• Gaff Tape – We know this may make us sound a lot like a roadie blog. But, in all seriousness, gaff tape is incredibly useful across all systems in your church. Gaff tape has come in handy many times in portable church environments…everywhere from a tricky coffee machine to a broken sign stand. Gaff tape is also very useful in keeping your stage wiring safe and looking good. Be prepared in this area too, you do NOT want to end up using Duct tape.

• Ground Lift Plug – Yep, we said it. This is the cheapest way to solve a ground problem with your audio, video, or lighting system. They do not provide a permanent solution, but they do often work. They cost about $0.70/ea at your local hardware store. It’s a great idea to keep 3 or 4 of these in an accessible drawer somewhere in your system. It’s also good to note that most direct boxes have a ground lift switch on them as well.

• Compressed Air – It always surprises us how dusty everything gets! Sometimes having a can of this in the drawer really is the best fix.

• A Small Set of Tools – I carried a set of tools with me every Sunday morning. In my kit there was a Leatherman Multi-tool, a flashlight, black and silver Sharpies and usually a lighting wrench. Then there was a Brother labeler, a Bosch laser tape measure and my iPhone running an RTA app. This kit allowed me to tighten, cut, mark, label and measure just about everything that needed fixing – or at least take a picture of what had me stumped so that I could reach out for help later. I can’t even recall how many times this simple set of tools solved the problem…from the auditorium to the kid’s wing and everywhere in between.

• A Plan – Some things, unfortunately, cannot be fixed on the spot. When this happens, come up with a plan that has action steps and a realistic timeline.

It is easy to prevent damage on a good system, but we understand that things sometimes go wrong. We have been in your shoes and we are here to help. We want you to get the most out of your Portable Church system, so please don’t hesitate to reach out and ask questions.

Now, over to you…do you have any first-hand advice on maintaining a system? Have you come up with an awesome fix we haven’t thought of yet? Let us know in the comments below.

This post was written by Tim Boyer, who serves as a  Portable Church Consultant.