A few bars in, my presentation coordinator, Monica, brought me up on the screen. With his mic still off, I said, “What are you doing, Todd?”
We then got into a little banter (after I turned his mic back on, making a big show about how we’re always the ones really in control), that led us down the path of me explaining what we do, and how we had a few openings it the tech team.
The congregation loved it. There was a ton of laughter throughout the announcement and I think it put us on the map, so to speak.
Technically, it wasn’t that hard to pull off. The biggest challenge for me was dealing with the 90 msec of delay from the PA to my ear.
To solve that, I put in my UE7s just before starting and soloed it up so all I heard was Todd and me directly with no delay.
I had already pre-built my snapshots so I knew my levels were good. My biggest challenge was looking into the lens, and not all over the room. I got better at that as the weekend wore on.
So how did it work? In a word, terrific. We picked up 3 prospective new sound volunteers and 3 new presentation techs. Since those were the only two areas we were shooting for, I feel like it was a huge success.
Since then, we’ve had a few other people contact me with an interest as well. Given that we ran a bulletin ad for 4 weeks prior to the video announcement and received 0 responses, I’d say it worked pretty well.
The goal was to present the tech team in a positive light, with a good dose of humor. I think we succeeded in that.
Personally, I hate the, “We need volunteers otherwise the lights won’t be on” approach. I wanted to say, “We have the best job in the church, and we’d like to share that fun with a few of you.” Now, will everyone who expressed interest stick around? Probably not. But we still have a great boost to our teams, and that alone will generate more interest and momentum.
So how about you? What creative means have you used to get the word out about the great opportunities in the tech ministry? Feel free to let me know in the comments below!
Mike Sessler is the Technical Director at Coast Hills Community Church in Aliso Viejo, CA. He has been involved in live production for over 20 years and is the author of the blog, Church Tech Arts . He also hosts a weekly podcast called Church Tech Weekly on the TechArtsNetwork.