My crappy Petra concert experience!

[PetraFan007]

alright now you guys are being insensitive towards him. quit the tough love and be a little kinder.

[executioner]

Shell,

I think you said what I've been trying to say for a long time about this individual, but alot of people around say just look at it as nobody's perfect or almost made it look like it was our fault he was acting that way towards us or telling Tim to grow up and get on with your life really shows how some people can be so abrasive towards a brother or sister in Christ.

[theartist]

Did you notice the " " after my statement

[Michael]

Sarcasm doesn't always work well on the Internet, especially when the people you're talking to don't know you. A smiley doesn't go very far to change that... we can't see your body language or hear the tone of your voice, which makes it difficult to guess what your REAL attitude may have been.

Perhaps it wasn't the BEST strategy to make your first post on a new message board a slam against someone, even with a smiley.

[Mountain Man]

I personally think there are a few that should get their heads out of the sand and into the bible. How can your tour manager say mean things to people and then petra sing on the stage.."God Loves you".

But God does love you. Does Wayne's hurting someone's feelings change that fact? Of course not.

Look, my advice to timserdynski is very simple: don't take it personally. I've worked in the television industry for over 10 years, 5 of in it the cut-throat world of TV news, and I'll tell you right now, if you want to work any where in the performing arts where huge egos are par for the course then you need to learn 1) have confidence in yourself; and 2) don't take anything personally. Start taking things personally and you're going to have a very short and miserable career.

Live events are inherently pressure cooker environments, and often times it's easier to just say what needs to be said to get the job done rather than trying to be diplomatic about it. If your lights weren't adequate for the job then they weren't adequate for the job, and you needed to be told so that you could stike them as quickly as possible to make way for a bigger set-up.

I once worked with an audio engineer at a Christian station who was setting up sound on a very tight deadline for a live musical broadcast. The guitarist came over to him and started offering advice about how things should be mic'd which prompted my friend to cut him short with "Look, that's wrong, but I don't have time to explain to you why it's wrong, so please stay out of my way" and quickly finished his job--which was his number one priority--without further interruptions.

If you want to do this for a living then you need to get used to things like this. Frankly, I'm surprised that in your 7 year career something like it hasn't happened already.

[executioner]

Mountain Man,

Don't you think it should be different Christian brother is talking to another Christian brother?

[Mountain Man]

Don't you think it should be different Christian brother is talking to another Christian brother?

Trust me, compared to some non-Christians I've worked with in the media world, what Wayne allegedly said is the very model of humility and tact.

[executioner]

Maybe compared to others in the market, but it still doesn't make it right does it?

[Mountain Man]

Maybe compared to others in the market, but it still doesn't make it right does it?

Personally, I'm not even under the impression that what he did was wrong.

[Michael]

Personally, I'm not even under the impression that what he did was wrong.

I don't understand why anyone even has to "prove" that it was "wrong." Of course it wasn't against the law; it may have even been par for the course. But hopefully in the case of a band that calls itself a ministry, there is a bigger goal than status quo. What's wrong with "Tim, I'm sorry, but that light rig isn't what's in the tech rider, so you'll have to take it down" instead of "Tim, I'm gonna make this easy for you. I need you to take all that down. We can't use it. I mean, we have bigger merchandise displays than that"? Shouldn't a "Christian" at least make an effort to be kind to someone who obviously is out of sync with what's going on? Those two sentences take just about the same amount of time to say, and one hurts feelings and the other doesn't. In fact, take away "I'm gonna make this easy for you." (which implies that he is an idiot and needs to be talked down to) and "I mean, we have bigger merchandise displays than that" (which implies that he is a tiny little bug on Petra's great big windshield) and you get "Tim, I need you to take all that down. We can't use it," which is much less hurtful.

"Look, that's wrong, but I don't have time to explain to you why it's wrong, so please stay out of my way" is actually MUCH kinder, in my opinion, than "I'm gonna make this easy for you. We have bigger merchandise displays than that."

If you're walking down the street and someone is blocking the sidewalk, which is wrong: to physically push him out of your way, or to say "Excuse me?" NEITHER. Either way you reach the desired goal, and as long as you don't push him in front of a car, pushing your way past is not a crime. But it's not nice. It's not polite. It wouldn't be a picture of Christ to people who saw it happen. Now, if you were running to save someone from a fire, or if you were escaping someone trying to kill you, or some other emergency, that's something else entirely... but this is entertainment. It's not a life or death emergency. Tact and kindness to others are allowed, even for fancy-pants rock-and-roll managers.

[Shell]

Yeah, good one MJ. You can make your point without being nasty about it.

[Mountain Man]

I don't understand why anyone even has to "prove" that it was "wrong." Of course it wasn't against the law; it may have even been par for the course. But hopefully in the case of a band that calls itself a ministry, there is a bigger goal than status quo.

Maybe I just have thicker skin than most, or maybe my professional experience gives me a different perspective, but I don't think what Wayne allegedly did is wrong on any level.

Shouldn't a "Christian" at least make an effort to be kind to someone who obviously is out of sync with what's going on?

Why put "Christian" in quotes? What is your implication?

Anyway, people in different environments speak a different language. In the media, we have a way of talking and behaving that the uninitiated might consider coarse, but it's how we do our jobs, and given the demands of our profession, it's how we need to do our jobs.

"Look, that's wrong, but I don't have time to explain to you why it's wrong, so please stay out of my way" is actually MUCH kinder, in my opinion, than "I'm gonna make this easy for you. We have bigger merchandise displays than that."

I don't think the guitarist I mentioned earlier would agree. ;) But it's what my friend had to do to get his job done. If he had taken the time to be "nice" and "courteous" it would have burned up valuable time and introduced the risk of missing the deadline.

Tact and kindness to others are allowed, even for fancy-pants rock-and-roll managers.

But have you considered Wayne's side of the story? As told by the original poster, he didn't immediately acquiesce when told that his lights would have to be moved. Instead, he suggested that the drummer find a shorter platform(!). Now picture a roadie reporting to Wayne: "Hey, this guy on stage put his lighting rig in the drummer's way, he won't move it, and now he's hassling the drummer about using a shorter platform instead. We don't have time to deal with this kind of nonsense. Can you take care of it?"

Remember, there's two sides to every story.

[charl]

I'm with ya, Mountain Man. It sounds to me like previous ill feelings about this man have coloured the way people are taking what seems to be a forthright and direct statement. The scriptures don't tell us to be nice all the time; they tell us to be righteous. They're not necessarily the same.

What is this like my 50th post today? Man I gotta go find something to do.

[executioner]

Can you be righteous and rude at the same time? Tim was offended and hurt by what was said. Jesus talks about bringing discouragment to a brother/sister and that it is wrong and it is a sin. I'm with Tim and MJ on this.

[Michael]

Shouldn't a "Christian" at least make an effort to be kind to someone who obviously is out of sync with what's going on?

Why put "Christian" in quotes? What is your implication?

I'm sorry... I didn't mean to "imply" anything. I meant, and should probably have said in so many words, that I think this is how someone who calls himself a Christian should act. Thanks for calling me on that... it could have been misinterpreted that I thought Wayne is not a real Christian. That's not my call to make, and I have no reason to believe he is not.

Anyway, people in different environments speak a different language. In the media, we have a way of talking and behaving that the uninitiated might consider coarse, but it's how we do our jobs, and given the demands of our profession, it's how we need to do our jobs.

I can't say I've been in the secular media world, but I actually have worked in TV myself, albeit in a church TV ministry. I worked on a daily talk show (generally on the air live, though sometimes tape-delayed), with the pastor and his wife M-F and then directed church service shoots on Sunday, for two years. I don't remember anyone being rude like that, although we were a small department. Again, a bit of a sheltered environment... then again, if Petra is a ministry, shouldn't it resemble a church environment at least as much as a mainstream media environment?

But have you considered Wayne's side of the story? As told by the original poster, he didn't immediately acquiesce when told that his lights would have to be moved. Instead, he suggested that the drummer find a shorter platform(!). Now picture a roadie reporting to Wayne: "Hey, this guy on stage put his lighting rig in the drummer's way, he won't move it, and now he's hassling the drummer about using a shorter platform instead. We don't have time to deal with this kind of nonsense. Can you take care of it?"

Remember, there's two sides to every story.

Very true, very true (although you are extrapolating another person into the story--the roadie--and also assuming that the drummer is resistant to changing his own setup when he found out a different riser was available). The problem is that this is obviously not an isolated incident... this seems to be a pattern of snappish interactions with people. I think that's why people here on the Zone reacted the way they did; it seems like there's a pattern there. But if we consider this as an isolated incident, it could be a "I'm having a bad day and said things more bluntly than I could have" scenario. And I guess it could also be said that the way Petra's been treated by CCM in the past 5-8 years, Wayne may well have had a LOT of bad days. <shrug>