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Videos are an incredible way to tell your story. They draw your audience in and give you the ability to show who your church is and what you care about. But creating moving and effective videos can be difficult, and depending on your church size, you might need a team of people with the skill and passion for doing the work. 

Hiring Staff vs. Volunteers:

If you have the budget to hire a video person, or even multiple people, for your church, I recommend it. Video is such an important tool and a great way to communicate with great feeling and impact. If you're working with volunteers only, I suggest looking on YouTube to learn how to produce a sharp looking video. It's a wonderful resource to help you and your volunteers learn. A lot of videographers can be self-taught. We also have tips on doing video on a budget here and here.

Every video team varies in the way the work is split up and the way the members work together. The most important thing is to make sure you’re providing the team members you have with the tools and the training they need to do their best work.

Here's where to start and who you'll need to build a great video team: 

Where to Start

1. Know what you’re looking for
   
   What are you trying to accomplish with your videos? Will you want interviews with your staff and/or congregation, sermon bumpers that will play each week to introduce sermons or a welcome video that tells the story of your church? Decide what kind of videos you want to make so you know what kind of help you'll need.
   
   
2. Hold a call-out meeting
   
   Inform your church that you need volunteers and have a call-out meeting. Advertise your meeting in service or in your weekly program/email. Bribes can help get interested parties in the door! Mention pizza, cookies or other snacks that you'll serve.
   
   
3. Provide interest forms
   
   Once you have your interested parties in the door, start by having them fill out a form. Ask about their talents, skills, experiences and areas of interest. This is a way you can learn more about them, what they can do and what they’re willing to do.
   
   
4. Let them know what you need
   
   Definitely let your volunteers in on what you’re looking for. This will give them a better idea of how they’ll be able to help, what kind of time they can commit and what kind of skills they can provide/develop to serve this ministry area.

Who You’ll Need

1. The Expert
   
   It’s good to have someone who at least has an idea of what they’re doing with video, so it’s not the blind leading the blind. Maybe you have someone in your congregation who doesn’t have a lot of time to commit, but would be willing to lend their camera, their comments on videos or even some training hours. This can be a great help, especially if you’re starting from scratch.
   
   
2. The Producer
   
   What you really need is an organizer, someone who is willing to do some pre-planning and communicates with the group about when they’ll be meeting to shoot videos, where that will be and other important information. We call this person the producer.
   
   
3. The Writer
   
   You’ll need a writer to come up with video scripts and/or interview questions. You could also fill this role with someone who is more of an editor. This would require less of a time commitment from them but would still ensure your videos held great content.
   
   
4. The Videographer
   
   This is someone who is comfortable operating a camera, setting up the shot and recording your audio. They’ll need to have the basic skills necessary to make sure your videos have quality lighting and sound.
   
   
5. The Editor
   
   You need someone who can edit the video to create your final result. This can either be someone who has previous experience or has the skills and desire to learn the software necessary to make quality edits.

If you’re short on people, a lot of these roles can be combined, but make sure you have someone who is keeping tabs on your team members to make sure no one is getting overwhelmed with their workload.

My church pulls a lot of volunteers from the youth ministry. Teens are tech savvy and can often teach you things you didn’t know. As long as you have mentors/leaders working with your teens to make sure the work that’s being done is the best it can be, having teen volunteers can be a great way to fill your video team with people who have time to commit.

Looking for more tips on what kind of video equipment you'll need to help take your videos to the next level? Click below to download our Video Accessories Resource.