Magnitude is an incredible opportunity that gathers hundreds of young people from across Scotland, so we invited Douglas Crabb, Pastor at South Beach Baptist Church, and Magnitude Production Manager to share with us what drew him to get involved, what it’s really like behind the scenes and why he keeps going back for more…
“It’s my joy to have been on a long and winding journey into pastoral ministry and that has led me to currently serve as the Lead Pastor at South Beach Baptist Church in sunny Saltcoats on the North Ayrshire coast. But as part of that journey, I’ve worn many hats. I’ve been involved in several roles ranging from admin assistant within a local authority to a job inspecting bus shelters all across the west of Scotland – I kid you not!
One thing that has been a bit of a constant fixture for me however has been a keen interest in all things technical! Growing up as a kid in church I used to go and sit down the front next to Wendy who operated the sound desk, and she very patiently put up with me peering over her shoulder as she worked until it was time for me to go out to Sunday School. Ever since, I’ve always been fascinated with all the components that make live events work and I’ve worked particularly as an audio engineer in various capacities and contexts. So, when I was invited to have a conversation around what the role of Production Manager might look like for Magnitude it was a conversation I was very interested in!
Production Manager sounds like a bit of a grand title, but it really just means that I get to lead the Production Team who are a bunch of incredible folks with very similar stories to my own as to how they ended up fascinated by speakers and lights and mixing desks! At Magnitude, the Production Team look after anything to do with sound, lighting, visuals and power – along with some other bits and pieces – and it’s our job to make sure people and content can be both seen and heard.
As much as it’s tempting, I’m not going to go into all the detail of what the setup was or how we made stuff work – although I realise if I was myself reading this article, I’d be longing for that! If anyone is genuinely interested in that level of detail, then please do get in touch and I’d be more than happy to chat! What I would like to reflect on though is why we do what we do. Why do we pull out all the stops from a production point of view? Why do we go the extra mile when there’s probably a slightly easier way to do it and get by? Well, first and foremost, and at its simplest, it’s because we firmly believe that our incredible, gracious, merciful God, deserves the very best. From our team’s point of view, he deserves excellence and, for us, it’s very much an offering of worship to he who is worthy of all our praise.
Digging a little deeper though, why do we do what we do at Magnitude? Well, at Magnitude we have a set of core values and one of those is “We put young people at the heart of all we do.” And I think I can speak for most people on my team, and probably most of the other teams too, when I say, they really care about the young people of Scotland. They really want to enable them to have the opportunity to encounter Jesus and for their lives to be changed and transformed forever.
I’ve had a phrase in my head over the past year as I’ve been journeying with Magnitude, and it’s been something along the lines of: “we unashamedly want to make space for this to be a mountaintop experience for young people.” That’s really come out of me reflecting on my own faith journey where I’ve looked back and recognised the significance of those “mountaintop moments” that I myself had – the big and exciting moments that stick in my mind as a significant marker on my journey of faith because I really encountered Jesus in a special way. This isn’t to say that these are the be all and end all. Nothing can replace consistent discipleship in family and church contexts. However, I think it absolutely is true that mountaintop experiences can have a huge impact in terms of cementing and energising the faith of young people for years to come.
So yes, as a Production Team, part of what we do is unashamedly contribute to creating a mountaintop experience for young people. I’m drawn to the mountaintop experience of Jesus and some of his disciples that we read of in Scripture. We read in Matthew 17:2 that once Jesus had led them up a high mountain:
“There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.”
What an experience that must have been for the disciples who were with him. If it were me, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have wanted it to end! But it does end, and they go back down the mountain and get to the work of ministry right away as Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy. How spiritually refreshed and energised must they have felt after their mountaintop experience?
In the same vein, as our young people go out from the mountaintop experience of Magnitude, it’s very much our hope and prayer that they go out prepared and energised to undertake the kingdom work that God has for them in their families, their schools, their churches and beyond. May they have encountered Jesus so clearly at Magnitude that they go out now as builders of his kingdom. Please pray for the young people, particularly as they are back at school, that they would know Jesus as their strength and their guide and that they would continue to be encouraged as they figure out what it means to be a kingdom-builder in their own context.
To be clear, a mountaintop experience isn’t all that Magnitude is about. As well as having the role of Production Manager it’s my privilege to serve as part of the Planning Team who organise the festival. One of the particular joys of that is getting to hear the stories flood in of how God has been at work in the lives of young people from all over Scotland who came to Magnitude. There have been countless testimonies of salvation, freedom, healing, forgiveness and so much more that have taken place in main meetings, seminars, prayer spaces, over ice-cream, on the campsite – God has been moving graciously and mightily in so many different ways and we praise him for that.
The Production Team at Magnitude has become a bit like a family. There’s a WhatsApp chat set up for every team at the festival and ours is very proudly the one that stays very active all year round. So it was especially joyful when at the end of one of the sessions this year we found out that a young person whose Dad is part of our team gave their life to Christ. If ever it hit home to us why we do what we do, this was definitely it!
If you’d like to find out more about why, as Magnitude, we do what we do, we commissioned a video called “Heart of Magnitude” which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/a0BgAvF94Jc
If you’d like to see the highlights of Magnitude 2024, you can watch them here: https://youtu.be/wf3VMSYjgQU
