The fastest way I've found to document a role on our church media team is to talk through it on my phone and let ChatGPT or Claude turn it into a checklist. It works for sound, cameras, ProPresenter, live stream, even production director. Whatever lives in your head (or someone else's head) ends up as a step-by-step checklist any volunteer can follow, and you never pick up a pen.
It takes about 15 minutes of talking through the role and about five minutes of pasting that into a prompt. I'll use our photo and B-roll role as the example.
Pick one role. Take out your phone, start a voice memo, and talk through every single step the way you'd explain it to a volunteer. Talk for as long as it takes.
Put in as much detail as you can. If you say something out of order, don't stop and start over. Keep going and say something like, "Hey, by the way, this step comes before that other step. I forgot, but make sure it stays there."
Take the transcription of your voice memo and paste it into ChatGPT or Claude along with the SOP prompt. Hit enter.
What comes back is a full checklist with high-level tasks and the details for each task sitting underneath it. It's all organized in a cohesive way.
The prompt usually splits the role into three phases, which is what I call them:
Most churches have those three phases, so it tries to assign each task under one of them. When I ran our photo and B-roll role through it, the output had a role overview, a pre-service rehearsal section, and then setup, service and shutdown with every task I'd talked through on the voice memo.
Before it writes the checklist, it reviews the transcript. On my photo and B-roll memo, it said the transcript was detailed enough to build most of the SOP. If it thinks there are follow-up questions worth asking, it asks them.
The photo and B-roll role is for someone who takes photos or shoots video during a service. Here's what it asked me and how I answered:
Then I told it to generate the SOP with my answers, and it built the checklist with those answers folded in.
You can go back and forth with ChatGPT or Claude a bit, or edit the checklist yourself. Most of the time, with the prompt I use, it gets pretty close to done right out of the gate.
Once you have the SOP (or checklist, whatever you want to call it), you can put it anywhere. Paste it into a Google Doc. Print it out. I put ours in Notion.
I have a Notion template we use at my church. It's where I keep all of our checklists, SOPs and any resources our team needs, with a page for each role. For the photo and B-roll role, I copied everything ChatGPT gave me and pasted it onto that role's page. The page now has the role overview, the three phases, and every task with its details underneath.
No. You can create a free Notion account, paste the checklist into a page yourself, and format it however you want.
The template is a starting point. You can copy whatever's in it and keep what you want. You'll have to replace a lot of it with the exact steps you do at your church, but it gives you a good idea of what to put on each page. It also helps to see how other churches write this stuff down and what they include.
I also record videos of myself talking through the steps for a role and add them to that role's page. If you have the time, I think that's a great thing to add. I'll also put in tutorials I've found interesting or helpful.
If you want the full process, I have a system called the Church Notion System. It's a step-by-step guide that takes you from ideation, through the prompts, through documenting all your roles and formatting them in Notion. Then it goes past that into filling out your Notion pages so they become a one-stop shop resource for your entire team. It's the most comprehensive thing I have on documenting roles for a church media team.
You don't need it to document a role, though. One voice memo and the SOP prompt will get you a checklist for that role: about 15 minutes of talking and five minutes of pasting.
Record a voice memo walking through every step of the role the way you'd explain it to a volunteer. Paste the transcript into ChatGPT or Claude with an SOP prompt, answer any follow-up questions it asks, and it builds the checklist.
Yes. With the transcription of your voice memo and an SOP prompt, either one will put together a checklist with high-level tasks and details underneath each task, usually split into setup, service and shutdown.
About 15 minutes of talking through the role on a voice memo, then about five minutes of pasting it into ChatGPT or Claude with the prompt.
No. You can put the checklist in a Google Doc or print it out. I use Notion because it's where our team keeps every role's checklist, videos and resources, and a free Notion account works fine.
The Church Notion System puts every media role, every step and every training video in one Notion hub your team can open on Sunday.
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