Leadership, Production, Volunteer Culture
How to Provide Consistent Training Opportunities for Your Production Team
Training your volunteers is so important. And training shouldn’t stop with new volunteers. You should be consistently providing training opportunities for new members of your team and for your veterans. Consider this approach: Try offering training opportunities like college courses so it’s clear where someone is in the training process and gives them clear milestones for growth. I’ve seen a lot of success using this method in my experience.
At Newspring Church, we called our training process “BASICS” and it was designed like this:
BASICS 100s: Designed for New Volunteers
BASICS 101: A training environment in which a new volunteer would observe a veteran in a position of their choice. This training would be scheduled for one service on a Sunday.
BASICS 102: This was a Monday night training environment in which a new volunteer would learn about the details of how our Production Team operated. At this training each new volunteer would be paired with a Veteran to train on a position. They would also have the experience of running that position during a full Run-Thru with our band.
BASICS 103: A training class in which the new volunteer would run a position on a Sunday with a Veteran by their side as a safety net. We also called this class “Bowling with Bumpers”.
BASICS 200s: Designed for Veterans to be Cross-Trained
BASICS 201: A training in which a Veteran would observe another veteran in a new position of their choice. This training would be scheduled for one service on a Sunday.
BASICS 202: Our Monday night training environment. At this training each Veteran would be paired with another Veteran to train on a position. The Veteran would also have the experience of running that position during a full Run-Thru with our band.
BASICS 203: A training environment in which the Veteran would run a new position on a Sunday with another Veteran by their side as a safety net.
BASICS 300s: Designed for Live Directors
BASICS 301: In this course, a Director in Training would observe a service with a Video Coordinator or Production staff member.
BASICS 302: A Monday night training in which a full team of Veteran volunteers would be scheduled to operate each position while the Director learned how to dictate camera direction, call graphics and video playback cues, and lead a volunteer team in creating an excellent experience for those who attended our services.
How do you train your production volunteers at your church?
What’s worked and what hasn’t worked?
CARL BARNHILL
Creative Director / Owner
[twelve:thirty]media | Columbia, SC
twelvethirtymedia.com
Carl Barnhill has served on staff at some of the largest churches and organizations in the country. He served as Media Director at Precept Ministries International, directing the television and radio program Precepts for Life with Kay Arthur, broadcasted to over 98 million homes around the world. He served as Video Production Director at Pinelake Church in Brandon, MS, where he produced media content for four campuses, as well as led volunteer teams.
He most recently served as Video Coordinator for Newspring Church in South Carolina. Newspring has 10 campuses across the state with a weekly attendance of over 35,000. At one campus alone, the number of consistent volunteers serving in media production tripled, under his leadership.
He currently serves as Creative Director and Owner of [twelve:thirty]media, a company that serves churches and ministries all over the world through motion graphics content and church media coaching.
