The unsung heroes
These past few weeks of streaming our services have meant an incredible amount of effort from a group of people that you may never have met or heard of. I want to take some time to introduce these Chapel-Heroes to you!
First, I want to introduce you to Blaine Staub, who is our Production Director. Blaine has been on our team for just about two years and is the kind of guy who quietly starts on with things that you didn’t even know needed to be done. In his early days, he led us to upgrade our ancient lighting system to the lights we now have. Then, around a year ago, I asked him if he would like to lead our effort to stream our Sunday services and since then he has been working tirelessly on installing the equipment necessary and learning how to make what you are currently seeing every weekend a possibility. We didn’t expect to be streaming this soon, but Blaine has stepped up and made it a reality with his can-do attitude.
Alongside Blaine is our Production Coordinator and Blaine’s wife, Brittany. Brittany has been on our team for over a year, leading our Guest Services team, but recently switched to this new role, bringing in her background of production to help us begin streaming our services. Brittany directs all of the camera and video work for our services and has done an incredible job on very short notice to get us an amazing end result. She is a total go-getter and has worked long hours these last few weeks to make our online worship services a reality. You may know her from her role as the host on our YouTube live chat; make sure to say thank you to her this Sunday!
Alongside our production team, we have a communications team that has been working tirelessly to keep you all up to speed on the changes to ministry at Chapel Hill and to get content into your hands on a daily basis. Judson Taylor, our Communications Director, leads this team, and under his leadership has steered us through these rocky times. Alongside all that is currently going on, Judson has been leading an ongoing project to create a new website, and the rebrand our look and feel. Judson is a lot of fun to work with and brings a huge amount of experience to our team, having previously led the communications department at Princeton Seminary.
However, Judson would be nothing without Rebekah Ueland, our Communications Coordinator, who runs all of our social media pages (have you checked out how Instagrammable our Instagram page is lately?) produces all of our graphics (yes, from scratch!) and has played a major role in the new website and rebranding process. Bekah, as she prefers to be known, is a Martin Luther buff and has slowly been reworking all of our online passwords to contain hidden references to Luther and the Reformation. She also works freelance with a bunch of other organizations.
Of course, these are not the only people who are working behind the scenes, but in the last six weeks, these four have worked so hard to produce the content you are engaging with, and I wanted you to have the opportunity to get to know them. If you want to say a personal thank you to them, feel free to send an email to Blaine, Brittany, Judson, or Bekah. I’m sure they would feel encouraged to hear from you!
Pastor Ellis
P.S.—We have a big announcement this weekend for those of you who prefer a more traditional style of worship. You won’t want to miss our service tomorrow at 10:00 am on YouTube and Facebook Live.