We encourage you to think about caring for your church media volunteers during the Christmas season and honoring family time while preparing excellent Christmas services. Looking for a practical checklist to help you plan and prepare? Read our Production Team Christmas Planning Guide.
Christmas is one of the most beautiful—and busiest—seasons in the life of the church. Services multiply, rehearsals stack up, volunteers give extra time, and your media team often carries a huge portion of the load to help create worship experiences that are meaningful for both regular attenders and seasonal guests.
But as the schedule fills, it becomes easy to forget something important:
Your volunteers—and your staff—are people with families, memories, traditions, and a deep need for rest.
This season, one of the best gifts your church can give its media team is margin.
Why Protecting Volunteer Family Time Matters
For many families, Christmas is the one season where they slow down, gather, and build the memories their kids will carry. When media volunteers are pouring hours into rehearsals, late-night edits, last-minute changes, and Sunday-after-Saturday services, that family time can quickly disappear.
Here’s why it matters to protect it:
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Rest is sacred. Even in ministry. Especially in ministry. When volunteers serve from rest rather than exhaustion, their worship is more joyful, their creativity is stronger, and their presence is more sustainable.
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Family rhythms matter. Volunteers are giving up time with the people who matter most. Guarding their holiday rhythms shows that you value them as people, not just positions.
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Healthy teams last. Churches often lose volunteers not because of workload, but because the pace never slows. Setting boundaries during Christmas helps protect long-term health.
Protecting family time doesn’t mean scaling back your Christmas services (although in some cases it could) but it means being intentional about how you prepare for them.
Practical Ways to Support Your Media Team This Christmas
Here are simple, actionable ways churches can care well for their media volunteers and staff:
1. Plan early—and communicate clearly.
Give volunteers a clear schedule as far in advance as possible. Even knowing rehearsal dates helps them plan around family gatherings and school events.
2. Reduce unnecessary meetings and rehearsals.
Sometimes an extra run-through only adds stress. Focus on what truly needs attention—and skip what doesn’t.
3. Assign work in smaller pieces.
If your volunteers assist with putting together the elements of your presentations, let them “own” one area (lyrics, announcements, message slides) instead of expecting everyone to juggle everything.
4. Give permission for rest.
Tell your team upfront: “Family time matters. If you need to say no this season, we’ll support that.” A little grace goes a long way.
5. Equip them with the right tools.
Often the biggest time-saver isn’t cutting content—it’s using better tools to prepare it.
How the Right Technology Gives Volunteers Hours Back
The truth is, most church media teams aren’t short on talent—they’re short on time.
And that’s where the right software can make an enormous difference.
With a tool like MediaShout 7, volunteers can build clean, professional presentations in a fraction of the time it used to take. It’s built specifically for churches, which means:
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Fast slide creation for message notes, scriptures, and announcements
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Built-in integrations that eliminate complicated workflows (like CCLI SongSelect and Shift Worship Media
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Automated formatting for lyrics and media that make building worship sets simple
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Motion background support and media organization that keeps everything easy to manage
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70+ Bible translations included, with automatic formatting
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Reusable templates that ensure a consistent, excellent look—without extra work
For a season like Christmas—when time is short and services are many—having tools that give hours back is not a luxury. It’s an act of care for your volunteers.
A Free Christmas Template to Make This Season Easier
To help lighten the load even more, we’ve created a free Christmas service template for MediaShout users and prospective ones. (We’ve also even included the media files in a folder within the download, so you can use it for any presentation software, even PowerPoint, although we’d hate to see you spend the extra time to do so :D).
It includes:
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Beautiful Christmas-themed graphics
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Backgrounds and slides ready to customize
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Common Christmas scriptures
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Popular Christmas hymns built-in and formatted, or use the template to apply to your own song choices
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A ready-made visual media presentation structure for a full service
Your team can download it, add your church-specific content, and have a polished Christmas presentation in minutes—not hours.
👉 Download the Free Christmas Template
If your church isn’t using MediaShout 7 yet, the template works perfectly with our fully functional 14-day free trial.
👉 Download the Free Trial of MediaShout 7
There’s no watermark, no limitations—it’s the full software good for 14 days, ideal for building and even presenting your Christmas services.
This Christmas, Honor the People Behind the Screens
Christmas is a season of worship. Of awe. Of Emmanuel, God with us.
And the people behind your screens—the volunteers who set lyrics, cue videos, and support the pastor’s message—need the chance to experience that awe too.
When churches prioritize healthy rhythms and give their teams tools that make ministry lighter, you’re not just preparing services—you’re caring for people.
And that care will echo far beyond December.
Continue reading: Church Presentation Software for Christmas & Production Team Guide: How to Create a Smooth, Worshipful Christmas Experience
