Alligator Bunnies and the Joy of Iced Tea: Surviving Leadership and Finding Worth in Church Tech

Based on Kent Morris’s Conference Talk

After 45 years in church ministry, Kent Morris has learned some hard truths about serving in tech ministry. The most important? How to have alligator skin on the outside and a bunny heart on the inside—tough enough to handle criticism, tender enough to serve with love.

If you’ve been in church tech for more than five minutes, you’ve been hurt. You’ve had your work criticized, your preparations ignored, and your expertise questioned. The question isn’t whether it will happen—it’s how you’ll respond when it does.

The Alligator Bunny Principle

The alligator bunny concept is simple but profound: develop thick skin like an alligator while maintaining the soft, gentle heart of a bunny rabbit. This isn’t about becoming callous or uncaring. It’s about creating healthy boundaries that allow criticism and misunderstanding to roll off your back while keeping your heart tender toward both leadership and your team.

Why is this necessary? Because church tech exists in a uniquely vulnerable position where you’re responsible for making magic happen, but most people have no idea how complex that magic actually is.

Then vs. Now: The Complexity Explosion

Fifty years ago, church sound was simple—six knobs on a mixer, an organ, and stained glass windows that served as the “video wall.” Today’s churches have millions of dollars in audio, video, and lighting equipment creating what those stained glass windows used to provide naturally.

The buildings have changed, but the expectations haven’t adjusted accordingly. A hundred years ago, Billy Sunday could preach unamplified to 5,000 people because his building was designed acoustically for his voice. Today’s churches are designed to look cool, not to function acoustically, creating the need for complex technical systems to make worship work.

This creates a fundamental disconnect: leadership often expects elevation-level production with two volunteers, one of whom is 80 years old.

The Reality of Leadership Interactions

Church leaders exist in high-vulnerability positions. They face attacks and pressures that most church members never experience. When they interact with tech teams, it’s usually brief, often stressful, and rarely pleasant. Common scenarios include:

• “I’ve decided to change this” (three minutes before service)
• Handing you their phone with 3,000 photos, asking you to “use some of these” as they walk on stage
• Expecting instant solutions to complex technical problems
• Focusing on the three seconds of feedback instead of 59 minutes and 57 seconds of perfect sound

Here’s the crucial insight: their hurtful actions are not intentional. They’re not trying to hurt you—they simply don’t understand the complexity of what you do. They’re focused on not failing in their ministry moment, and everything else becomes secondary.

The Pain is Real, But So is the Purpose

Church tech ministry involves genuine suffering. You’re first in, last out. You wear black and stay in the back. The equipment is heavy, expensive, and difficult. It never behaves exactly as it should, and there’s always pressure because “Sunday’s always coming.”

But there’s purpose in the pain. Worth is a function of being, not doing. You’re not just someone who happens to run gear—you’re a minister serving the church. Nothing done for Christ is in vain, even when it goes unnoticed or unappreciated.

The key is understanding that God comforts us in our troubles so we can comfort others. When something goes wrong with audio, lighting doesn’t think “glad it’s not me.” You suffer together as a team, supporting each other rather than throwing anyone under the bus.

Don’t Internalize Leadership’s Lack of Understanding

When pastors make seemingly unreasonable demands or offer harsh criticism, remember: they have no concept of what you do, and they’re not supposed to. Just as you don’t need to break down Greek text to serve effectively, they don’t need to understand signal flow or color temperature.

Don’t internalize their misunderstanding. Be the alligator—let it roll off. If you played back video of their harsh interaction to them later, they’d likely have no memory of it. Meanwhile, they think you’ve done wonderful work while you’re walking away with a crushed spirit.

The enemy wants that opening. Don’t give it to him. Be a sealed chamber when it comes to taking leadership misunderstanding personally.

The Iced Tea Principle: Everyone Brings Value

Everyone has a preferred version of iced tea—sweet or unsweetened, strong or weak, hot or cold, with lemon or lime or nothing at all. Every version is valuable to someone. Your team is like that collection of teas.

Everyone on your team is there for a reason, even the ones you don’t like. Here’s a hard truth Kent learned over 45 years: most of the people you don’t like are very much like you. When you think “I would never do that,” your spouse might remind you that you do exactly that quite often.

Each person has received gifts that they use to minister to others on the team. The volunteer who raised funds to buy a video wall for an Ethiopian church. The person who knows exactly which cable to grab in a crisis. The team member who can calm everyone down when things get chaotic. All are valuable, even when their value isn’t immediately obvious.

The Servant’s Story: Finding Purpose in the Unseen

The main characters in Downton Abbey aren’t the wealthy family living upstairs—they’re the servants working in the kitchen, cleaning, maintaining the estate. The real story happens with the people you never see, the ones doing things that go unnoticed.

This is the position of church tech teams. You’re the servants who make everything work, and your value lies in doing things that aren’t noticed. When your work is noticed, it usually means something went wrong. God rewards what’s done in secret.

God’s Sovereignty in Missed Opportunities

Kent shared his story of turning down Arthur Blank’s job offer to become the 25th employee at Home Depot on their second day in business—choosing instead to keep his job at Burger King. By his calculations, that decision cost him about $112 million.

But if he’d taken that job, he wouldn’t be where he is now, serving the church and teaching at conferences like Church Front. What seems like a devastating mistake or missed opportunity might be exactly where God wants you.

When you blow the pastor’s mic, don’t get the right background up, or something else goes wrong, remember: if you’ve done everything in your power to make it right, then it’s part of God’s plan. He knew from eternity that the feedback would happen on that specific Sunday at 11:33 AM for exactly seven seconds at 2.34 kilohertz. He had all of eternity to stop it and chose not to.

Excellence vs. Perfection

Leadership often expects perfection, but perfection is a never-ending pursuit that leads to an infinity loop. You never arrive at perfect. Excellence, however, is achievable and sustainable.

The goal isn’t to never make mistakes—it’s to do everything within your power to serve excellently, then trust God with the results. Some Sundays will go flawlessly. Others will have three seconds of feedback that dominates the Monday debrief. Both are part of serving faithfully in an imperfect world.

Practical Applications

Develop Thick Skin:

• Don’t take leadership criticism personally
• Remember they don’t understand technical complexity
• Let harsh words roll off like water off an alligator

Maintain a Soft Heart:

• Keep serving with love despite misunderstanding
• Support your teammates when they’re under fire
• Find ways to comfort others who are struggling

Embrace Your Role:

• You’re the servants who make everything work
• Value lies in unnoticed excellence
• God sees and rewards what’s done in secret

Trust God’s Sovereignty:

• Mistakes aren’t always mistakes if you’ve done your best
• Missed opportunities might be divine redirections
• Sunday’s challenges are part of a bigger plan

The Eternal Perspective

Church tech ministry is challenging by design. It’s not supposed to be easy. The equipment is heavy, expensive, and temperamental. The expectations are high, and the understanding is low. Leadership will hurt you, usually without meaning to.

But you’re not just running gear—you’re serving the church and advancing the Kingdom. Every perfectly mixed song, every flawlessly executed lighting cue, every seamless video transition is a sacrifice of praise that enables others to encounter God.

The key is humility. Count others as more significant than yourself. Understand leadership’s perspective. Serve your team. Do excellent work without expecting recognition. Let God handle the recognition and vindication.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

In Kent’s parting words borrowed from Galaxy Quest: “Never give up, never surrender.” The ministry is worth the pain. The church needs what you do, even when they don’t understand it. Your work matters eternally, even when it feels thankless temporally.

Be the alligator bunny. Develop thick skin for the inevitable criticism and misunderstanding. Keep a soft heart for the ministry and the people you serve. Trust that God is working through both your successes and your apparent failures.

And remember: everyone on your team is there for a reason, every challenge serves a purpose, and nothing done for Christ is ever wasted—even when it feels like it was a complete disaster on Sunday morning.

The tech crew is like the servants in Downton Abbey—the real story happens with the people you never see, doing the work that makes everything else possible. Find your worth in faithful service, not in recognition or understanding from others.