Kurt Von Eschen on creating moments in services for people to engage and have an authentic encounter with Jesus
We want people to engage in the worship services at our church and have a real encounter with Jesus, and part of the puzzle is creating moments within our services for that to happen. Kurt Von Eschen is the Experience Leader at Battlecreek Church in Tulsa, OK where he leads the worship, production and creative teams to craft services with intentionally that lead people through a journey. We talk about how to have the end in mind when you’re planning a service. We talk about their process from the moment the senior pastor has a sermon topic idea to the day everything hits the stage, and how to evaluate a service and how to give and receive feedback.
Find Kurt Von Eschen online:
Instagram: instagram.com/kvoneschen
Twitter: twitter.com/kurtvoneschen
Web: battlecreekchurch.com
One of the books that Kurt mentioned was How To Worship A King by Zach Neese. This is where he got the illustration that worship leaders are like a waiter where Jesus and His bride are on a date. We don’t want to talk too much or get in the way of the conversation they are having, but we want to facilitate and anticipate needs.
Another book he mentioned in the bonus round is Replenish: Leading From A Healthy Soul by Lance Witt.
Both Kurt and I currently live in Oklahoma (him in Tulsa and me in Oklahoma City), but we both also lived in the suburbs of Chicago. When I was in Chicago last year for the FILO Conference, I created a vlog about the experience—including visiting my old childhood home.
The product of the month is the Chauvet COLORband T3 BT. These are the fixtures we use for our stage backdrops. One of my favorite features is that you can create three separate zones of color that can be controlled independently, which allows for some nice gradients of color across the backdrop. I’ve been impressed with the colors they can produce and that they don’t seem to flicker on video. You can control them by standard DMX or using an mobile phone app.
If you want to see them in action, the last few videos I’ve created for the YouTube channel have been about our stage design and lighting:
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