We do a "one volunteer" week most of the time. Left hand Sound, right hand lyrics, broadcast mix in between verses, live stream chat moderation during prayer. Keeps me on my toes!
Right. it does take practice but once you find your rhythm. It's second nature. The hardest thing is getting the online mix right while inside the sanctuary.
I do this every week but I'm not a volunteer. I'm literally doing the work of 3 to 4 people every week because we can't get volunteers to learn and commit to this every week. My duties include staff meetings, video production, presentation slide design, installation and their operation for 2 services on Sundays, sound for the praise band rehearsals, sound checks for guest singers, the church bell ringers and concerts, operation of 5 PTZ cameras, producing and directing the live stream, switching projectors for the 3 sanctuary screens and finally mixing of the FOH and live stream....all by myself. Anyone who thinks this is an easy task has never stepped foot in a sound booth. It's stressful, tiring and being the only person who can run it takes it's toll because I haven't had a weekend off in almost a year. Why do I do it? Because I'm needed.
Bless you, bro... I know that struggle. It's SO difficult to do this, but if there's any way for you to say "no" to some of these things, do it. Even if that means those things don't happen anymore. That pace is unsustainable for you and for your church. You are worth more than killing yourself to make this all happen every week... and if it's those things are that valuable to the leadership of your church, they find more personnel/budget to make it happen. Thank you for all you do, Brian!
This is my life EVERY SUNDAY. We are a small church, even smaller in-person now with social distancing. A typical sunday is 1 camera operator, and me running sound, lyrics and live stream.
Man - I wish I had your rig! We are all volunteers, and I'm the only one with any tech proficiency it seems. I've been running services via ZOOM using a 2012 MacBook Pro, Scarlett Solo and iPhone with EpocCam since COVID started. Feeling a little burned out now too, like many of you seem to be. Let's push on and keep doing an epic job :)
When the pandemic hit I volunteered at my small church to upgrade our live streaming setup. It was rough, because not only was I stepping into a role I hadn't done before, but I could not get volunteers because they were intimidated by all the tech involved. So for about a year I couldn't really enjoy the Sunday services because I was stressed running A/V and our live stream solo. Thankfully, we finally got another volunteer to take the load off my shoulders and it made a big difference!
I do this on an alternate week basis! This week all the tech guys are on vacation so it's down to one of our leaders to do tech setup and live stream with his mobile.... should be interesting.
Haha I’ve been operating similarly to this for about 15 years. I’m literally mixing 32chs of audio for live, timers, switching cams, monitoring the 3 streams/chat room and during covid also running playback. It’s a lot but once u master it, it’s possible, not perfect but possible. At our church we are trying to fill seats for 2 other cameras we have which are forced to be static 80% of the time. This is also my church and i too am a Volunteer even though im head of the department as I did not want to be paid for the ministry at the church I grew up in but I am hired at a few other church’s currently.
We run every single Sunday on only two techs. We are running camera, lights, live stream, lyrics, audio, broadcast audio, and monitor mixes. The most powerful part of our system is Proclaim's MIDI control which allows us to trigger OBS scenes, lighting changes, and camera angles just by selecting the next scene. (There is manual override as well.) Audio side handles FOH and Broadcast mixes. We are moving IEM mixes to the worship team via ViSi Listen on their mobile devices. By using automation you can allow your team to take weeks off and actually sit in the congregation and listen to the sermon and give them the opportunity to worship with unsplit focus.
I was on presentation and audio tech to playing drums and also the audio tech, found 2 volunteers, Gladly helped them and trained, now i just play drums, but still goes to audio booth to meddle. Lol
I would assume that in most places there just aren't enough people that are willing to be a volunteer. In my church, the majority of the members are above 50, and aren't willing to help, and of the few we have below 30 only some of them are actually willing to help so we have to manage most with just a few people
I'm a one man team but we have only one camera, don't have a band, and mostly use a hymn book so it makes it so much easier. It's do able but bot ideal for a large church
I’m really curious how to setup Lightkey to run off the Stream Deck or more specifically Bitfocus Companion. I’ve not found a good resource on how to do this just indications that it can be done. Any help or resources would be great. Thanks for the continued guides and content!
I wish i could choose a day to just tell all the volunteers that they can rest. As of now, we are working with in pairs, whoever's in charge of front of house audio is also taking care of bc and in-ear mixes and the other one is taking care of lyrics and video switching. We really can't give them a break right now (as of them I'm reffering to me and my friend hahaha) because if we did, there would be no service. But we are working on getting people to join our team so we can deliver a better in person and online experience. I'm saying that I would love a break, but I'm also doing what I love, so it pays off haha.
Hello Church front, Great awesome work you're doing, Please I have some questions I wish I could talk to you about on a call or something, My church over here use VMIX and are considering switching to ProP, however our services are completely spontaneous, we dont know what song or bible verse is coming next, or even who is going to take what function. So we cannot schedule a service. Vmix allows us solve all of that problem...though, so id really like to hear from you about this , thanks alot!
On the extreme side of things: if it’s just the worship leader (tech leads have day off too) and you’re looking for a very basic setup. Can you use a MIDI foot switch to navigate through lyrics not for your ipad but for the presenter software so the congregation can follow along to the lyrics projected?
Jake I have an important question. I just bought a Mac Mini m1 to run pro7. Heres where I need help. You said in one of your videos that you can't use both usb C ports on the Mac Mini at the same time for both projectors. Can you use it for one projector? I'm getting ready to purchase the sonnet chassie and deckling duo PCIe card, but it won't be here by Sunday. I need help!! I accidentally got the rear projector (Confidence monitor to show up on the front screen. Pro 7 for some reason won't see my front projector. New monitor HDMI into the Mac Mini and USB c is being used for the front screen. I would really appreciate your help. I need to get this done, but can't figure out why just one display won't work?
Josh, we're running two instances of ProPresenter - one for the center screen. It's just pushing graphics to a single output, so it's not working too hard. Lightkey isn't too super CPU-heavy so the M1 Mac Mini is going great with ProPresenter and Lightkey. We're also multitrack recording to Ableton on that single machine.
I understand wanting to give all the volunteers a day off, but if your pastor decided to do this to "teach the congregation a lesson" that's a horrible idea. Especially at the expense of the lyrics. If you remove the lyrics and people can't sing along it ceases to be worship.
Hi Mike - I agree about the lyrics, unless they chose to do songs that are done enough that everyone should know them. I am interested to know why you think it is a horrible idea to teach the congregation a lesson about volunteers though. Most churches I've served in have a tiny amount of people doing the majority of the work and I think an idea like this might encourage others of the importance that they serve. I'd love to hear why you had a negative reaction to it though.
@@trowabarton345 I think it makes your congregation feel like you're punishing them and they need to learn a lesson. It just feels kind of childish. I think the average adult will respond to this negatively rather than positively. I think a better approach is to cast vision for your congregation, explain the importance of volunteering, how it fulfills the mission of the church, and inspire them to want to serve the Lord. You can do this corporately, in small groups, or talking to people 1 on 1 that you think can be encouraged to serve.
@@mikehines14 That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. I can see how it would seem like a lecture from a father-figure. If you don't mind my asking a follow-up question - have you seen that sort of vision casting done well?
@@trowabarton345 Thanks for asking! Yes absolutely. Vision casting is how we reach the volunteers at our church. We have a saying "People don't respond to need as much as they respond to vision." If you ask someone "We need someone to do nursery 1st service. Will you help us?". An average person probably won't return your call/text or have reasons why they can't. A nice person might say yes but they will only do it because you asked. They're less likely to own it, care about it as much as the leadership cares, prioritize it, etc. However if you ask "Would you be willing to serve in the nursery 1st service? I know watching children sounds like a thankless job but it helps out corporate worship tremendously. While children are in here, parents can be freed up mentally and physically to go to the worship service and focus on the message. That freedom allows them to become better disciples, and learn and grow to be like Christ better. You, as a nursery leader, are helping facilitate worship." When you connect the dots for them, you get buy in, ownership, and they take pride in serving in that capacity.
@@mikehines14 wow, this is extremely helpful information. Thank you so much for sharing. I can definitely see how that would help volunteers know that what they are doing is crucial to the ministry and not just a laborious task. Thanks again!
