Hey Willow Production. It was great seeing so many volunteers, from so many parts of the Willow Creek Production family in one place tonight. As promised, here are the full comments from the different ministry leaders and campus pastors, honoring all the work that you do.
Let’s start with the most amazing first…an original song and a music video from the Promiseland Creative Team:
Here are some great words from other key people:
From Marcus Bieschke – Willow Crystal Lake:
Hello, amazing P&P Volunteers of Willow!
It’s fitting that you should be celebrated and celebrating tonight. I’m sure I’m not alone as one of Willow’s pastors when I say that I’m sure God has a special place in His heart for all of you as artists.
In the Hebrew Scriptures, we remember how God called together only the finest and most skilled builders, craftsmen, masons and artists to set their heads, hearts & hands to bring beauty and shape to the place where He would be worshipped. He cared about exact measurements, symmetry, beauty and precision in their work.
At Willow, we also care about creating beautiful environments for people to experience life-changing encounters with God and His people. We deeply care about stellar vocals, outstanding instrumentation, captivating stage design, just the right lighting & shading, flawless video, clear sound & audio, fabulous camera angles, and much more. We care about those things because we care about our God getting every ounce of glory and worship due Him. Each of you are artists; and you create transformational beauty every single week.
So as you gather this evening for celebration of what God has done through you in this past year, let me encourage you to realize the high calling that is truly yours. May your service be more than work, but an art; less of a job, and more a labor of love. And may you feel the smile of God warm you as you do all that you do as unto Him.
Thank you, Willow P&P Volunteers! You ARE absolutely and undeniably the best. God bless you!
From Craig Springer - Willow Huntley:
John the Baptist had a vital role in Jesus’ incredible ministry on this earth. He quoted the prophet Isaiah saying
“Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God’s salvation.” (Luke 3:4-6)
In many ways, the production team is just like John the Baptist (except for eating locusts and wearing small garments of animal skin). You prepare the way for the Lord. You smooth out the sound levels, even out the lighting, make sure the paths are clear of electrical cords, and the environment is distraction free…you make the service experience excellent and distraction free SO THAT verse 6 can become a reality “all people will see God’s salvation.” You sacrifice time, volunteer crazy amounts of hours, at ridiculous times of the day and not, all to “prepare the way for the Lord” and for the message of Christ to impact the hearts and lives of people. Way to go! Willow Huntley and all of the Willow campuses need the production team… Thanks for preparing the way for the Lord.
From Jake Smith – Axis South Barrington:
There are three emotions that rise up in me when I think about you who are gifted to create a meaningful environment to worship God:
1. Jealousy, because I do not have those skills – and let’s face it…they’re cool skills
2. Gratitude, because you make guys like me look & sound about as good as we possibly can – and let’s face it…sometimes there’s not a lot to work with
3. Pride, because of the level of excellence you bring.
Thank you for giving yourselves to others, thank you for sharing in the mission, thank you for creating moments to help us all celebrate and respond to the spiritual blessings God generously provides. You reflect him.
From Bryan Jones – Student Impact South Barrington:
impact vounteers,
Every week, countless hours, thoughts, and energy go into an Impact service, many of which are given by volunteers such as yourself. I’m truly grateful for your heart to honor God and serve Impact by giving the best of your time weekly. You enable hundreds of students to crisply hear the truth of God’s word, thoroughly and diligently mixing sound and volume levels. You create and ambient and moving experiences through lighting and stage design. You capture and record video the services so hundreds of people can listen to the message via podcast. For all the things that are seen, and for all the things that aren’t seen, I want to personally thank you for all you do. It’s a privilege to serve alongside such humble and talented volunteers! Here’s to a great 2012.
From Scott Rubin – Elevate South Barrington:
I’m pretty sure that this reception is to honor ALL the production volunteers — but I want to ESPECIALLY thank the fabulous people who stand behind-the-scenes & give heart & soul to make ELEVATE happen. Led by the mysteriously awesome Arnez, our Elevate production crews work to support an audience that lots of the world unintentionally overlooks… Middle Schoolers. They’re not so much cute little kids anymore, and they’re certainly not-yet adults. They often don’t offer much feedback — BUT … they’re SO impressionable, and God does some of his best work in young teenagers. Middle school students can forget to express appreciation MOST of the time … and even more so when they’re being served by people behind the scenes. But I have NO DOUBT that Jesus himself has noticed every hour that these fine people have invested in trying to help HIS name be known among this next generation. As as for ME? I’m absolutely, positively, completely grateful to you ALL!!
From Hector Hermosillo - Casa De Luz:
Dear team of heroes,
Casa De Luz would not be the same without you and your contribution Even when we are not the sexiest ministry in the family, you make that Casa look like a princes! Thanks for the unconditional love and hard work that you have shown to our people; we are unable to pay it back, but I’m sure that one day it’s going to be highly rewarded, because you have serve The Lord.
On behalf of Casa family, thank you very much
From Shane Farmer – Midweek Experience:
To the Midweek Volunteers thank you so much for giving up your Wednesday nights to help us put on classes and services to help people grow. It’s really fun getting to do this together, and can’t wait to see how God will work through our efforts in 2012!
From Kerri Mahla and the PL team – Promiseland South Barrington:
To our Promiseland Tech-
The words, “Thank You” just don’t seem to cover the countless ways you serve. From being the first to arrive, to hauling sets from all over the church to our rooms to dragging stage blocks from room 360 to Blue Sky rooms, and other places, to setting up monitors, to marking scripts, to doing a mic EQ, to aiming lights, and then you’re the last leave as you tear every stage down. You are an amazing team!
But let’s be realistic. You do an fantastic job at prepping, setting-up, and executing your role, getting through the service with out any mistakes, and then…we change.
Yes, that’s a key word in Promiseland. Change. BUT, because you are such an amazing and talented team, you roll with each challenge we bring to you, even the change. Do you know how great you, are? We sure do. You make our programs even better. You give your best every week. You get better at your role, every time you come to serve.
There are not too many people in the world that would do what you do. But know this for sure.
1) We think you are amazing!
2) We wouldn’t want anyone else in our tech booths but YOU.
3) God, using your serving every single week, to teach kids about His great love! There is no greater gift in the whole world you could give to someone! Your gifts are helping 1,000s of kids each week love God and discover His love for them.
4) You may behind the scenes now, but someday….God is going to throw a HUGE party for you in heaven for the way you served Him and His kids.
WAY TO GO!!!
From Matt Lundgren – Main Stage South Barrington:
Dear Production Volunteers,
Week after week, while walking around this campus, I hear compliments all the time. “The service was great!”, “I love how the music sounded this weekend!”, “That video looked so cool!”. My usual response is “Thanks so much, it’s definitely a team effort.” Almost all of the positive feedback I hear is quite honestly more directed to the production volunteers than it is to me. Without the tireless effort of the stage team to make sure that our worship experiences flow without distractions we’d be lost; without the lighting volunteers the experience would fall flat visually; without the video team spending the time to make the live experience look the best it could possibly be we couldn’t engage people in worship how we do (…and it’s really hard work making me look good). And to the numbers of audio/lighting/video volunteers throughout the church we are so thankful for your efforts to turn simple ideas into powerful spiritual experiences. I don’t have the chance to pass along every compliment we receive about the services, but I hope tonight can serve as a small portion of the gratitude that you deserve. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your tireless efforts week after week.
From Darren Whitehead – Main stage production:
Please convey an enormous thanks from me and the executive leadership team of our church.
When I watch our production volunteers, I often think “they are worshipping God through their technical expertise”. Your contribution is often unnoticed as you are often creating environments for people to engage with God. Thank you for serving with such excellence. Thank you for serving with such passion. Thank you for serving with such humility.
Many, many moments would not have been possible in this last year without your commitment to fashioning such artistic and technically stunning environments. So for the thousands of tasks I know you do and for the thousands of tasks, I have NO Idea you do – Thank you!
Way to go Willow Production! Our church couldn’t function with your unique gifts and your willingness to use those gifts to help spread the gospel of Christ to our community and the world. I am honored to be counted as one of you.
