Content creation first and sermon illustrations second are the main two reasons I wish we could get more ahead. I know that when our pastor has more time to “chew” on his messages there is a difference. That isn’t a shot at him at all though, I think everyone is better when they can apply more thought. Same thing goes for videos. You give me a day in After Effects, I can produce SOMETHING worth showing, if you give me 2 weeks notice before that day, I will have really thought about it and have a better end product with maybe even less “editing time.”

Jen, I feel the same way that you do for C & E services. I get frustrated to think how many worship services around Christmas and Easter every year completely misrepresent the church they are in. The issue is not how prepared we are or how big of a production it is ON Easter, the issue is that we just try to “hook” people with a blow out service or whatever on one Sunday and then go back to “reasonable” services until Christmas. Thankfully I don’t feel like SSCC does this, there is obviously a conscience awareness of the “special” days when we plan. But we don’t really pull out anything unusual that week that we wouldn’t if it fit some other week.

With media creation, we try to stay about 2 weeks out, but things change. Our tech guys schedule sound checks as far as possible, but with a high-turn over in planning at times we end up changing things alot. What I tell my team is to get the stuff that can be put in stone taken care of as far in advance as possible, then we can concentrate on what may change (it always does).

For the most part, we have a partial skeleton of the service (with all the participants, scripture texts, readings, song suggestions and special needs) done around a month out. We spend 3 hours together just for planning every monday and about an hour three days a week taking care of any last minute issues.

On a regular weekly basis we generally have sermons 6 weeks out so we schedule tentative songlists 6 weeks ahead then always stay open to changing those up till the service actually runs.

Much like Mike, we do the same basic service each week – and just add choir or drama for the “high attendance” weekends. We only have 1 team though – it’s a small church still.

Regular services get planned at least 1 week in advance (I’m trying to get them a little further out!) and our monthly evening service gets a month-worth of attention. I start planning those about 6 weeks out… but they get tweaked up until a week prior.

I agree that we need to strive for excellence in this ministry, and I am personally trying to get our ministry closer to having each service planned at least 2-3 weeks in advance… but we are still very much working on it.

Mike, thanks for sharing. Sounds like your planning system works for what you are trying to accomplish. We just can’t do it that way here, too many things require too much prep time.

Neil, time keeps us from getting there mostly. I don’t know if 8-10 is the overall goal or not, I should ask myself and let myself know. With sermons we fluctuate b/t 3 & 8 weeks out. To get EVERYTHING that far ahead would almost require us to do nothing for a few weeks to allow for planning. Honestly, if we could get a month out on the majority of our things, we would be in good shape. It’d be nice to have a bit more notice for motion graphics and video requests though.

Mandy, no I think you have an extra month up there.

Our choir usually has the most “prep time” for their events. We rehearse the choir every other week, and will usually do three or four rehearsals for a specific event.

We don’t do themed message series. Our preachers rotate and rarely does the same one preach two weeks in a row. There have been occaisions where the senior pastor has asked to preach on XX for a certain month because the is led the congregation needs that. But each preacher plans his own messages. (I usually have mine done in advance – some are still working on them on Saturday. )

When we have a special “non-Sunday” service, that gets extra planning. We usually take two to three months planning the Christmas cantata service, which is separate from the Sunday morning service. It’s usually on a Saturday night. Or when we do services in the park a couple of Sundays a year, those take some planning. But I don’t think that detracts from “regular” Sunday services, if each Sunday you allow the Spirit to lead. There’s something to be said for simple and familiar.

I have been pushing for a couple or so years for us to get out ahead in our programing process. It’s a tough and never ending push. We have made much progress and continue to refine our process.

For all video projects we require 4 weeks out minimally. Of course we always have those last minute requests and will accommodate to the best of our ability. Graphic or video support for our services tends to get finished the week of the services.

In our weekly programing meetings we review our past services, work out the details of our weekend services and then go through planning details of services that are 1,2 and 3 weeks out. As we get closer to the service dates we tend to refine and have more details worked out.

For services like Easter, we walked through the services yesterday and discussed the music, the design elements etc. I will have the stage plot and input list completed this week or early next for it. The creation of the graphics and video support content will be started right away.

All of our separate bands are scheduled at least a month out and my techs are on a 4 week rotation. As information is available for them we post the information for all involved parties view.

It’s not a perfect system but hey, neither are we. We refine our process as we learn. All in all it is working out well.

Anthony Progar
Technical Director
Oak Pointe Church
Twitter: @AnthonyProgar