Johannes Weber

I grew up in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, and sat down at a piano almost as soon as I could reach the keys. My parents put me in lessons at five. From then through the end of high school I studied classical piano and music theory with a private teacher, played in competitions, and came away with prizes.

Computers showed up just as early. I grew up as local networks and the internet were becoming ordinary, and I wanted to know how they worked. At sixteen I built a relay controller so household appliances could be switched over the network. After high school I took some computer science courses at Dortmund University, though it did not turn into a career then - music had the stronger pull at the time.

That pull turned into leadership. I grew up in a traditional Baptist church, Erlöserkirche Gelsenkirchen. When a new pastor, Wolfram Krebs, arrived, he and Bobby Batdorf — then music director at Bibelschule Brake — saw something in me and mentored me into music ministry. I ended up leading the Music Ministry at Erlöserkirche from 2001 to 2005. The annual Christmas concerts were the high-water mark of that season: well over fifty volunteers, an auditorium filled to capacity and a reminder that I thrive on gathering people into something bigger than themselves.

Working in ministry made the technical side of making music hard to ignore. I completed a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Recording Arts through Middlesex University (2005–2007), studying in part at SAE Cologne and SAE Byron Bay in Australia. Theology was the other natural next step. In fall 2008 I moved to Canada for a Master of Divinity at ACTS Seminaries, Trinity Western University, in Langley, BC, and graduated in May 2011.

During those studies I started attending King Road Church in Abbotsford. They hired me as Worship Pastor (2011–2016). I was responsible for all the music in the weekly English and German services, and I became the de facto technical director for volunteer-run production. Another Christmas series, Together We Sing, grew into a highlight of that season — the final one involving around a hundred volunteers in music and production.

While at King Road I partnered with Sapphire Sound, a major AVL integrator in Western Canada, on a full auditorium renovation: we put in a new soundboard and PA, a theatrical lighting system, and a broadcast video system that I got to design the control room for. All that went in somewhat ahead of Covid; the church was especially glad to have the broadcast capabilities later. On the side I built an online service-planning platform in the vein of Planning Center. It only ever ran locally, but it let me do the job with essentially no support staff.

Those same Abbotsford years were also a return to the piano as a public musician. I taught for five years, played two-piano concerts with Mel Bowker, a local pianist, and performed with violinist Calvyn Dyck and other professional musicians in the area.

In 2017 I moved into Vancouver for a full-time production role as Assistant Technical Director at The Centre for Performing Arts (Westside Church) — the former Ford Theatre. I learned a lot, quickly, from people who were excellent at the work.

From 2018 to 2023 I was Technical Director at Tenth Church (also in Vancouver), overseeing production across five venues in the city. Volunteer development was a large part of the job, alongside a small support staff. I worked with Sapphire Sound again on a major auditorium upgrade, including a broadcast video installation worth more than $200k that became necessary when Covid hit. Again I designed the control room and it was my responsibility to train audio engineers, media and camera operators, and video directors to run it. I also built tools for the venue: software (a broadcast tally system tied to the video switcher) and hardware (interconnected wall clocks for reference time throughout the building, a programmable and networked relay controller for sequencing equipment startup and shutdown, and more).

Alongside Tenth I took a side gig in sports broadcasting with TFSEtv at the Langley Events Centre: camera operator and video director for basketball, volleyball, hockey, and lacrosse, plus show jumping at Thunderbird Show Park. Spending some evenings with a crowd at a sports venue was a life-giving counterweight to my day job — especially later, once I had moved into a fully remote software role.

When coming out of Covid I felt I had completed my mission at Tenth, helping them through the pandemic and equipping them for the future both in terms of people and systems. I decided on a career shift; software would no longer be a side project I reached for when the existing tools weren’t enough but was going to become my daily bread.

In 2021–2022 I took a web development bootcamp remotely, to get professional footing in modern frameworks — I had been programming for the web for years, but not with that kind of training, and I needed to get current with things like React and modern JavaScript. In September 2022 I joined 14 Oranges Software in Richmond, BC, as a fully remote full stack developer. I still work there, mostly on the backend and CMS of InfoGrove, a platform that powers apps for cities and municipalities across North America.

The through-line is simple: I started with music and ministry, then kept taking responsibility for the systems around it: people, rooms, gear, and eventually software. I still play, arrange, and lead. I still care about how a room sounds and how a broadcast looks. And I still like building the tools that make that (and other) work possible.

If you are looking for help with anything in my area of expertise — thinking it through, teaching an individual or team, or doing the work — don't hesitate to get in touch.