A teenage Media Ministry invasion?

[Lucas]

I'm curious CMN,

How many churches have teens at the wheel of the Worship PC, the sound mixer, lighting desk, video mixing and all in between?

Do you have a set of 'protocols' in place, a set of rules, are they different to those of adults operators?

Do you find teens to be as good/ confident a operator as their adult counterpart?

Just curious guys.

Lucas

[LeAnn B]

Is it just me or did anyone else see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the subject line??

Seriously though, I'm going to begin training my 12 year old to run the projection computer. I have no doubt he's capable but I'm not sure if the maturity level is there. So any advice in training teens/pre-teens would be appreciated.

[[Admin] danroth]

Where teens are involved, we have the same rules and expectations as for adults.

[jflash]

I'm on the projection computer every Sunday in our contemporary service. I'm on sound every Sunday in our traditional service, and I'm backup in contemporary. (As you all know, I am a teenager here for purposes of answering the question.) We don't have IMAG/video recording at the moment, and so that's not a factor. Lighting is simply switching between scene x and y, and that's handled by whichever one of us can get to the lightpad first. I have the same rules and expectations (if not higher expectations in the graphics/projection department) as my adult counterparts. However, having a grand total of 2 on our media team, there aren't really any hard and fast rules except for don't blow anythign up

And of course, us teens are just as confident and capable in our roles as our adult counterparts. Maybe even more so, in some instances. (Who me, biased?)

[Steve G.]

At our church teens run everything, we have tried to train adults and it hasn't worked. We have 1 on sound, 2 on lighting and 1 on projection. We also have one to operate 2 cams.

[[Admin] skstarkiller]

I have an 11 year old who runs MediaShout on a pretty consistent basis

[[Director] Joseph B]

I've used 12 year olds with no (major) problems. Teens are the great untapped resource!

[AlexH237]

For the adult service, all of our camera ops are Youth, all of our video directors are adults (except me). Graphics, lights and sound are a mix of adults and youth.

I am the ministry leader for our youth production team (which is made entirely out of youth plus the media director at church). We run the graphics/sound for the youth group. We have weekly meetings to work on creating our own videos and media (there are about 7 of us).

Yes, there are some youth that have a habit of not showing up, but there are also some adults who have a habit of not showing up. (for both youth and adults, I am talking about a very small few). We have had some services run by just youth, no adults. No problems. Some of our youth have trained some of the adults.

We don't separate youth/adults. They are all treated the same.

[bladeaudio]

I have one teen who runs projection, expectations are the same as for adults. Overall I've struggled to find teens who are willing and excited about being involved. Some help out on occasion, but don't want to do it regularly.

[jarhead]

Anyone who has a real desire to share their wisdom or learn the wisdom of someone else is welcome. Finding someone of any age that really wants to do a great job vs. just a mediocre job is really tough.

[MPCC Media]

We have teens doing just about everything. They are just as confident and trustworthy as adults, and I think that they actually do a better job. But I will admit that I do tend to be tougher on adults than on the teens when it comes to being on time and paying attention to what they are doing.

[WORDpictures]

Contradicting the teen theory - we have about 15 tech teamers for main service - and strangely, all are adults! These positions are once-a-month rotations, so the only responsibility is to show up before it starts. It's probably just too boring for the teens I've worked with before who have been enthusiastic & driven though some could have used more focus.