Willow Creek
The Beginning
Overview
Willow Creek is a multi-generational church in the Chicagoland area. The production is placed at a much higher value than your average worship experience; their South Barrington campus seats over 7,000 and is often a venue for touring musical artists.
my role
Willow is where my love of production began. Starting at the age of ten, I worked as a stagehand for one of their regional campuses. This is where I learned all the basics of production, from wrapping cords to operating lighting and sound consoles. I was able to shadow some pretty amazing people, many of whom I still work with today. By the time I was fifteen, I was the Student Technical Director of all high school and middle school activities at Willow’s Wheaton campus. Over the next few years, I also tried my hand at cue calling, stage managing and A2ing, the middle school ministry retreats, some of which had over 1,000 students in attendance. Between helping with Sunday services, student ministries and large scale retreats, I clocked over 1600 hours at Willow by the end of my high school career.
key outcomes
Willow is a place I often call home and it’s the place where this whole production journey started. I will never forget the days when I woke myself up at 5AM just to sit in the booth and watch. I never could have guessed that the decision, to show up, shadow others, and be present would cause me to find a career. Willow is where a put in a lot of my hours learning how to do tKelly Epperson once told me,
“Production is a lot like flying; you have to put in a lot of hours,”
and Willow is where a lot of those hours came from.
Gallery
