HOUSE OF WORSHIP: BUSINESS
Volunteers In HoWs Seek, find and keep them. By David Lee Jr., PhD Lee Communication Inc.
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olunteers are among the most valuable people in a house of worship (HoW). These amazing individuals are called upon to address a host of needs in their HoW; those can include custodial needs, lawn-care needs, office needs, nurser y needs, hospitality needs and media needs. HoW leaders struggle with the challenge of seeking, finding and keeping volunteers who will faithfully ser ve their HoW. They face an even greater challenge in finding people who are willing to be members of the media team. Ever y HoW media team with which I have worked uses volunteers in various ways. One type of media team combines paid staff and volunteers. In that scenario, the majority of the critical roles—for example, front-of-house audio mixer, video director and light director—might be filled by paid staff (or freelancers), whereas volunteers fill the remaining roles. However, I have also worked with media teams composed entirely of volunteers. My point is that there are uncountable numbers of volunteers who ser ve on media teams in HoWs located around the world. I believe we must understand the role that these amazing people play in creating worship experiences, and we must be mindful of the role they play in influencing leaders to purchase equipment for use in their HoW. To that point, volunteers directly affect the bottom line for those of us who work in the HoW market. Allow me to share an example of what I’m referencing. I’m writing this article from Nashville TN, where my 20 Sound & Communications June 2019
team and I built a lovely audiovisual system that enables a ver y impressive team of volunteers to create powerful worship experiences. This particular HoW has about 500 congregants who frequent the physical campus, but its unique countr y music worship style inspires an average of 10,000 people to view the livestream each week. The audiovisual system we built is ver y high quality, but it’s reasonably simple to use. We selected the gear for this HoW based on its communication goals, and while remaining mindful of the fact that the media team is composed entirely of volunteers. Early in the process of meeting and working with this HoW, I was told by the pastor that he was able to get volunteers to help with most areas of the church. However, he was not sure how to recruit the 20 or more volunteers required for the media team. He asked me to help him establish a plan to seek, find and keep volunteers for the media team. What follows is the path we chose to develop the team: First, we selected a person who would ser ve as the team leader. This person had leadership potential, but minimal production experience. Then, during a Sunday worship ser vice, the team leader explained the need for volunteers who could learn to operate the new equipment the church was about to purchase. After the ser vice, interested people met the team leader at a special table we’d set up in the lobby. The team leader gathered contact information from those folks and invited them to attend a special meeting, at which they could learn more about the media team. Some 40 people attended that meeting. The vision was cast, but the attendees also learned that, as volunteers, they would have to commit 10 to 15 hours (or more) each week to the media team. Fifteen people indicated they could not commit that much time. However, the remaining 25 who committed to membership formed the core of the media team. We installed the HoW’s new system and immediately began to train the members on how to operate the video cameras, video switcher and recorders. We also trained them on how to set up the lighting and operate the new lighting board. We set up the new digital audio boards and taught them how to use them. In the sale, we included additional funding for us to deliver training over the course of the first year. In addition, I conducted a session during which I explained to the leadership that, now that they’ve found members, they must learn to keep those great people by taking proactive measures to cultivate a positive culture…one that encourages and validates the hard work the team members do to make the ministr y successful. Sadly, I often obser ve leaders who push volunteers so hard that, before long, they burn out and quit the team. Thankfully, there are good leaders who are mindful and praise these good folks, thereby creating a culture that attracts people; thus, the leaders never lack volunteers. Perhaps the most compelling reason we should understand the value of volun-