Pilot Story: DJ Grick

 

My interest in media and production took off in college when I took a few video production classes and helped with the college’s daily chapel livestream. Not only did I get great training, but I also had the opportunity to access some amazing equipment. In those days, we did everything on Final Cut 5, and I dreamed of owning Adobe Creative Suite 2.

At the time, I thought I was just taking some electives for fun. I was called to be a pastor. Video production was just a hobby. Yeah, I would occasionally make some extra money recording weddings, but it wasn’t a business I planned to do anything with.

The Accidental Media Guy

I did become a pastor, and I served for well over a decade at the same church. When I started, the church was in trouble. A few weeks in, the senior pastor resigned, and the board was talking about closing the doors.

However, the youth pastor before me came back as the senior pastor, and we re-launched the church.

One of our biggest draws was the number of relevant events we hosted for the community—especially those for young families. During one of the events, I got bored, and took out my digital camera to record a few clips. That night, I created a highlight reel from the event, posted it on Facebook, and, unknowingly, stepped into a new position in the church. I was now the youth pastor and Director of Media and Technology.

As the church kept growing, so did our production team. My title changed again, and I became operations pastor. Over the years, we regularly talked about how cool it would be if we had drone footage from different events.

Our imaginations ran wild with all the cool things we could do—until reality set in.

As we looked into purchasing a drone, we realized it was a hard purchase to justify to leadership—unless we had multiple people licensed to fly, and that wasn’t an easy task.  We reviewed the FAA materials and they seemed too dense to digest.

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