| Getting paid...
Hello there!
I’m new on here; totally wish I would have found this site sooner. I know the big question is always “Should I be getting paid?” or “How much should I be getting paid?” So I ask both of these questions. Never mind, just the first one, I already believe that we should be getting paid for what we do.
Some background: In March of 2008 we started a Multi-media Ministry at my church. We started out with a crappy sound system, 3 crappy handy cams, a table in the back of the sanctuary with a very crappy sound board and a video board that we still use. In the beginning a lot of the time it would be just me and my sister (during one service) and she would work the sound and I would work all three cameras and the video switcher (two other people did it for the second service). It was like that for a long time. Well it’s been almost 2 years and a few of us have been there this entire time with no pay but we have never complained about it. I always saw it as experience and if I’m going to be a church then I may as well do what I like. Plus, since I’ve been out of a steady job for over a year I really don’t give tides so I say this is my tides. We have seriously advanced since then; we have screens where the congregation can see what we’re recording and the words to songs. We now use 3 Panasonic ag-hvx200a cameras, a brand new great sound system and board, tv’s around church, and a few other new things all in our somewhat new sound booth.
We usually use about 5-6 people each Sunday (we have one service now) but more times then a few it’s only about 3 of us working because not everyone is 100% committed, not even 80%. My primary job is Director which I do every other Sunday and fill in whenever the other Director isn’t there but when he is I work a camera. I work the video board, and the camera that’s in the booth, not to mention help set up and break down equipment. It takes about 4 hours every Sunday. Also we are going to start producing commercials to be aired on the local station here in Austin and a live feed on the internet.
We use Easy Worship and we record CD’s and DVD’s. We do no editing when it comes to services so everything is a live feed and we then sell them afterwards. Any time we have a program we do the exact same thing and we seem to have a program about every month.
We have slowly been growing as a ministry and a church but we haven’t really had the budget to be paid. My thoughts are that maybe by this summer we could start being paid if we downsize the ministry and use only the ones that really put forth efforts (3 or 4 of us), and then be paid about $150-$175 per service, plus be paid about the same for programs and a flat fee for productions such as commercials and anything else. I believe our musicians are paid between $150 and $200 per service so I don’t think we’d be asking too much. I think that if we make a commitment to make the church X amount of dollars per year then this may help. Everyone there loves what we are doing, they especially love seeing me doing it because I’m a female and I don’t think they would have a problem with us being paid.
Am I asking for too much? Should we try to reach certain goals (money wise) before we ask to be paid? Any ideas or opinions?
Thanks.   |