I loved working for the church that I served with as a volunteer and know that the opportunities that they provided me has inspired me to do so many amazing things that have brought me to this point. But I sit back and wonder what would have happened if the church had decided to stop using volunteers and instead went the route of a paid tech team, including a sound engineer, presentation specialist who could do their own web graphics, and a production crew for the video and webcasting?
Below, we have a list of positives and negatives in regards to the idea of using paid volunteers instead of volunteers. In the comments, share some of your own.
- Positive: The quality of the media will far exceed the standards of a common volunteer team.
- Negative: The cost! What small town church of less than 5,000 members in the congregation has the tithes and offerings to pay for that?
- Positive: Mistakes will be low.
- Negative: Not utilizing the gifts of the congregation.
- Positive: Creativity could bring in new possibilities for presentation of the message and may bring more people to the service.
- Negative: Staff may move on to bigger and better things, leaving you with the long and expensive process of hiring a new staff person.
- Positive: Meetings would be mandatory, organization expected, and teamwork a huge benefit.
- Negative: We are assuming that flashy is necessary, when in reality a black and white powerpoint is fine for hymnals
- Positive: Audio issues would be a thing of the past.
- Negative: A nine year old can creates really good material with the proper guidelines and a program like Pro Presenter.
kolby milton says
Hey Jeremy, I think it all depends on the church size. I think if the church is a certain size, it will probably need both volunteers and a paid person.
seventy8Productions says
I think that it could depend on the size of the church. Of course, I have seen a church of 14,000 people have the most dedicated volunteer group of college students and interns that rocked it. (It helps that most get jobs in industry because of these volunteer opportunities). The paid staff person is the worship leader and actually knows little about what they do beyond the basics.