Building Your Church Sound Team: Job Descriptions & Scheduling

However, typically the staff sound operator is given the primary responsibility of building and administrating a team of volunteers.

In a ministry application, there is a high level of importance placed on providing an opportunity for the congregants to participate in each ministry—the sound ministry happens to be an area in which volunteers can be trained to function well, as long as they have a sufficient aptitude and a strong desire to learn.

Once you build a team of several sound operators and as your church ministry needs expand, scheduling will become a concern.

Consider that most thriving modern churches have enough different ministries to fill up several evenings each week, along with several weekend activities, so scheduling audio support for all of them is an administrative extravaganza.

The need for organization is imperative in these situations.

There are many excellent scheduling software packages available on the Internet; plus, the calendar programs available in the Mac OS iCal, Outlook, Entourage, FileMaker Pro, Datebook Pro, and so on are becoming increasingly powerful and useful.

Whatever software you decide to use to keep your team organized and dependable, use it regularly and keep it up to date.

There are several features that you should look for in your scheduling system, including:
• Wireless bidirectional synchronization with your PDA, phone, laptop, desktop, work, and home computers
• Automatically generated calendars in HTML format for Internet distribution
• Individual calendars for each team member
• A comprehensive reminder architecture that automatically generates e-mails for sound operators, ministry directors, staff, and pastors
• Easy-to-use functionality
• Color coding so that each ministry category displays in its own unique color for easy visual recognition
• The ability to generate calendars that filter by ministry category as well as by team member

Be sure to take full advantage of the Internet in your scheduling communications.