How to Provide Consistent Training Opportunities for Your Production Team

Carl Barnhill

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.


Be sure to communicate this process to your team and get your veterans involved!

 

Read about how to design an organizational chart that gets all your volunteers involved in each part of your ministry, including your training, in my blog post:

About Carl Barnhill

Owner, Church Visuals

Carl Barnhill is a creative entrepreneur, motion designer and author. He is the Owner Church Visuals, a company that helps Ministry Leaders visually communicate the Gospel. He is the host of the Your Visuals Matter Podcast. You can find him in Columbia, South Carolina with his wife, Katie and two sons, Jacob and Wesley.

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