When hiring a media minister, or when guiding one or more volunteers in media ministry, look for enough of the following skills to make a match with your church. The elements of the description below, when taken as a whole, suggest a medium to large church structure. If your church is smaller, edit the description as necessary.
Creative
• Visionary: Demonstrate necessity of media in church life through excellence in production.
• Planner: Oversee digital media content for church life, including weekly worship celebrations, education needs, church life campaigns, and broadcast advertisements.
• Advocate: Promote visual thinking in program development in all areas of church life.
• Storyteller: Compose the thoughts and visual images that will form a coherent visual story.
• Theologian: Critically evaluate the interpretive power of the visual medium, making sure to preserve the integrity of the Gospel.
• Producer: Develop scripts, draw storyboards, and plan integration of graphics and music for video features; create graphic looks for worship and education series.
• Coach: Guide media assistants in media design, for 2D, 3D, and video.
• Continuous learner: Stay current with cultural trends in media content by watching television, film, and 2D mass media (advertising, periodicals, etc.).
Administrative
• Oversee all budgeting for media ministry.
• Lead all coordination of scheduling for live and production needs for worship and educational media.
• Evaluate and approve all media purchasing, from capital equipment to production needs to ongoing materials.
• Archive all media content in database form.
• Design structures for new ministry components of media, such as media content and presentation for education.
• Evaluate and determine staffing and personnel needs for media ministry.
• Determine best service arrangements for equipment maintenance, and oversee all equipment upkeep.
• Promote the needs of the media ministry in church life.
Team/Relationship
• Develop leadership within the media ministry, including (at least) weekly conversations beyond technical/administrative issues with team leaders in video, sound, lighting, and tape.
• Host monthly small group meetings within the media ministry and direct social and spiritual gatherings for the ministry as a whole.
• Recruit new members into the media ministry while developing fringe participants.
• Train team members of the media ministry in relevant technical areas.
• Impart spiritual leadership and wholeness to the teams and people of the media ministry.
• Create environments where people feel part of a community.
• Provide accountability and developmental guidance for media staff teams professionally and spiritually.
• As possible, develop relationships with other media ministry professionals throughout church and with secular media industry professionals.
Technical/Production
• Oversee operation of in-house computer systems, all computer systems related to education/presentation, all production and live video operations, and all live and production sound, lighting, and tape for weekly worship celebrations and education needs.
• Power User on a variety of software programs; know processes and means to create desired media outcomes for video and graphic applications; for more intense software programs such as video compositing and 3D rendering this requires a continuous learning curve.
• Coach and develop assistants in specific technical areas for purpose of content creation.
• Know setup and operation for laptop and desktop computers for presentation use, including configuration into video systems.
• Location video operation: Operate broadcast cameras and related field equipment, including field lighting, battery maintenance and optimization, field audio for video, and recording deck(s).
• Various offline video editing functions, including logging all footage, refining script, picking shots, using time code from logs.
• Various online video editing functions, including digitizing all footage, creating graphics in video compositing software, importing music, compiling all together in video editing system, “sweetening” audio, and creating effects.
and further duties as needed or assigned . . .
