I watched a worship leader completely freeze on camera last month. Not because she didn’t know her stuff. Not because the equipment intimidated her. She froze because nobody told her why her story mattered.
We’d spent an hour setting up lights. We’d fussed with the audio levels. We’d framed the shot just right according to some rule of thirds thing the videographer kept talking about. And then when I asked her the first question, she went blank. Because somewhere in all our technical obsession, we forgot to tell her that her life—her actual story of how God met her in the mess—was the whole point of why we were there.
Here’s the thing about interviews for your church or ministry. We’ve gotten so enamored with 4K resolution that we’ve forgotten we’re doing soul work. Every person who sits in front of your camera carries the image of God. Your job isn’t to make them look polished. It’s to help them tell the truth about what Jesus is doing in their life. And that requires a completely different kind of preparation than figuring out your shot list.
Before You Ever Hit Record
The best interviews start long before anyone touches a camera. They start with three questions that have nothing to do with production and everything to do with purpose.
First: What truth does this person carry that our community desperately needs to hear? Not what information do we need to convey. What truth. There’s a difference. Information is “We’re starting a new small group ministry.” Truth is “I was so lonely I thought about not coming back to church, and then someone invited me to their living room.”
Second: What does the Spirit want to stir in the people who watch this? Not just what should they feel. What is God after in their hearts? Are we trying to cultivate courage? Spark curiosity? Break through cynicism? Your interview needs an emotional destination, or you’re just making content for content’s sake.
Third: What’s the one thing that should be different in someone’s Monday morning after they watch this? If nothing changes, if no one takes a step, if everyone just thinks “that was nice” and scrolls on, you’ve failed. Not because the production wasn’t good enough, but because you didn’t give them a place to put their feet.
The Coffee Meeting Nobody Schedules
You need to talk to your subject before the interview. I know, I know. You’re already drowning in meetings. But this twenty-minute phone call or coffee date will save you hours of wandering around on camera trying to find the good stuff.
I learned this the hard way. Early on, I showed up to interview a guy about his mission work in Guatemala. Thirty minutes into the interview, I finally stumbled onto the fact that his daughter had died there. That was the story. That was the gold. But I’d wasted half our time because I didn’t know to dig there. A simple pre-interview would have changed everything.
You’re already good at this, by the way. You do this every time you prepare to pray for someone after service. You do this when you’re prepping hospital visits. You ask a few questions, you listen for where the Spirit is moving, you find the tender spots. This is the same work. You’re not extracting content. You’re discovering what God’s already doing so you can help that person testify to it.
And here’s what will happen in that pre-conversation. You build trust. You narrow your focus. You give them time to think about their story when the pressure’s off. Come interview day, they’re not starting from scratch. They’re continuing a conversation with someone who already knows them.
Why I Still Use a Yellow Legal Pad
I know a guy who brings his iPad to every interview. He’s got all his questions loaded up, beautifully organized, color-coded even. And he never makes eye contact with the person he’s interviewing. He’s too busy looking at the screen.
I use a yellow legal pad. Sometimes I don’t even bring that. Because here’s the secret. If you’ve done the work beforehand, if you’ve really listened in that pre-interview, you don’t need fifteen questions written out. You need three or four good ones. And then you need to be present enough to follow where the conversation wants to go.
Scripture didn’t come alive through screens. It came alive in conversation, in dust and heat and face-to-face presence. When you put a barrier between yourself and the person you’re interviewing—even a barrier as thin as a laptop screen—you lose something. You lose the moment when their eyes light up. You lose the pause that means you just hit something important. You lose presence.
So do the homework. Learn their story. And then lose the notes and just be with them.
Creating Space for Souls to Breathe
Hospitality isn’t an add-on to interview work. It is the work.
Before your subject ever sits down, you need water bottles. Real ones, not the tiny ones from Costco. You need snacks And make it something more substantial than stale cookies. You need a printed schedule so they know what to expect and when they’ll be done. These aren’t niceties. This is you saying, “You matter. This isn’t just content to me. You’re a person I’m caring for.”
And here’s something you probably already know from platform management but might not have connected with an interview. There should be one voice, one shepherd. If you’ve got a crew helping you, make sure you’re the only one giving your subject direction. Nothing makes someone shut down faster than getting contradictory instructions from three different people. The camera guy doesn’t get to tell them to move left. The sound person doesn’t get to ask them to speak up. You do. Because they need to know who to trust, who to look at, who’s guiding this.
When Your Interview Happens in Squares
Most of us are doing this on Zoom now. I get it. Remote interviews are just the reality. But that doesn’t mean you abdicate the care.
Show up fifteen minutes early for your tech check. Not ten. Fifteen. Because inevitably someone’s going to need to restart their router or figure out why their microphone isn’t working. That fifteen minutes isn’t neurotic. It’s love. It’s you making sure the technology doesn’t become the enemy of the moment.
Help them with lighting. Tell them to face a window if they can, or grab a ring light if they have one. Tell them backlighting turns them into a witness protection silhouette, which isn’t the vibe we’re going for. Tell them to wear something they feel confident in – solid colors, jewel tones or navy, nothing that strobes on camera. Basically, help them look like themselves on their best Sunday.
You already know this, worship leaders. You already know that bad lighting kills a moment on stage. Same principle here. We’re not trying to make them look Hollywood. We’re trying to remove distractions so their story can breathe.
Where Eyes Should Land
This is simpler than people make it. Your subject should look at you, not at the camera lens. Unless you’re doing a direct-to-camera testimony situation, which is a different thing entirely. For a conversation, they look at you. And you sit as close to the camera as humanly possible so their gaze lands near the lens.
Why does this matter? Because when someone’s eyes are looking slightly off-center toward you, it feels intimate to the viewer. It feels like they’re in on a real conversation. Dead-center staring at the lens feels like a hostage video. Slightly off-center feels human.
Trust the principle. Let them be a little off to one side of the frame. It just looks better. Don’t ask me why. It does.
The Soul Work of Trust-Building
People fear what they don’t understand. So before you start asking questions, demystify the process.
Tell them what’s going to happen. Tell them the camera will run continuously so they don’t need to worry about stopping and starting. Tell them you might ask them to repeat something if you didn’t quite get it, and that’s totally normal. And teach them to incorporate the question into your answer. Instead of saying “Yes,” say “The reason I joined this mission trip was…” This isn’t about making your editor’s life easier, though it does. It’s about teaching someone to tell their own story well. This is discipleship. You’re making them the hero of their testimony, not you.
The Posture of Listening
Your body language is preaching whether you know it or not.
If you lean in, you’re saying “your story matters to me.” If you lean back, you’re saying “I’m waiting for you to finish so we can move on.” If you nod, if you make eye contact, if you let your face show that what they’re saying is landing with you, they’ll go deeper. If you sit there stone-faced, they’ll shut down.
There’s some fancy psychology about mirroring posture to build subconscious trust, but honestly, you don’t need to get clinical about it. Just be genuinely interested. If you are, your body will follow.
Starting Before You Start
Here’s a trick that saves everyone: start rolling before you officially start.
Don’t do the big “ACTION!” moment. Just start the camera, make some small talk. Talk about the weather, traffic, how their week’s been. Then ease into the real questions. Most people clam up when they know it’s showtime. But if they don’t realize the interview has technically started, they relax. And that relaxed answer is almost always better than the polished one they’d give after you clap a slate.
I got the best soundbite of my life this way. We were talking about his garden while the camera rolled, and he said something about how pruning tomatoes reminded him of how God cuts away the dead stuff in us. Boom. That became the whole piece. And it only happened because he didn’t know we were “on” yet.
Questions That Unlock Hearts
If your questions can be answered with yes or no, they’re not good questions.
“Were you excited to join the mission?” gets you “Yes.” Useless. “How did you feel when you got the call that you’d been accepted?” gets you a story. Use “How,” “What,” “Tell me about,” “Walk me through.” These are invitations, not interrogations.
Let me give you a progression that works. Start with facts. Safe territory. Roles, dates, timelines. This warms them up and gets them talking without vulnerability. Then move to feelings. How did that make you feel? What was going through your mind? This is where it gets real. And then, if they’re ready, move to vision. What do you hope happens because of this? What do you believe God is doing? This is the sacred ground. You can’t start there. You have to earn your way in.
You already know how to do this, by the way. This is exactly how you do hospital visits. You don’t walk in and immediately ask about their eternal security. You ask how they’re feeling, how the family’s holding up, what the doctors are saying. And then, when trust is there, you go deeper. Same thing.
The Holiest Thing You Can Do: Shut Up
After someone finishes answering your question, count to five in your head before you say anything. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
This will feel excruciating. The silence will feel like failure. You’ll want to fill it with another question or an affirmation or just nervous laughter. Don’t.
Because here’s what happens in that silence: The person sitting across from you will often – not always, but often – keep talking. And what comes out in that second wave is gold. It’s the thing they didn’t plan to say. It’s the unpolished truth that’s more honest than anything rehearsed. The Spirit needs space to move someone past their prepared answer into the real thing.
Proverbs 18:13 says whoever answers before listening is both foolish and shameful. The silence is the listening. The waiting is the wisdom.
One technical note: When they’re talking, nod. Don’t say “mm-hmm” or “yes” or “right.” Because that bleeds into the audio and makes the editor want to quit. Silent nodding is your friend.
When Good Isn’t Good Enough Yet
Don’t be afraid to ask for a redo.
If someone gives you a great answer but they’re looking down, or they’re talking too quietly, or they stumbled over a word and it’s clearly bothering them, stop. Say, “That was wonderful, but let’s try it one more time.” Or say, “Tell me that again, but imagine you’re explaining it to your grandmother who doesn’t know any of the church-y language we use.”
This isn’t manipulation. This is coaxing the truth out. You’re helping them find their authentic voice, not coaching them into a performance. There’s a difference.
The Last Five Minutes Matter Most
Right when you think you’re done, ask this: “Is there anything I didn’t ask that you think is important?” or “If you could only tell people one thing from this conversation, what would it be?”
I cannot tell you how many times this question has unlocked the whole interview. Because you don’t know what you don’t know. And often the thing they really wanted to say but didn’t know how to bring up will come tumbling out right here. This is where the Spirit surprises you.
Be Their Biggest Fan Because You Are
Throughout this whole thing, you need to affirm them. Not with hollow flattery. With genuine witness to what you’re seeing God do in them.
“That was a beautiful insight.” “I hadn’t thought of it that way before.” “Our church needs to hear this.” Your belief in their story gives them courage to keep sharing it. And that courage will show up on camera.
The Grace of Keeping It Rolling
After you’ve said “That’s a wrap” or “We got it, thank you,” keep the camera running for another thirty seconds.
People relax the second they think the pressure’s off. And in that exhale moment, they’ll often give you the most honest, most concise summary of everything you just talked about. It’s like they’ve been processing the whole time, and now that they can breathe, the real answer surfaces.
Your editor will thank you for the options. But more than that, you’ll thank yourself for capturing the truth that only comes when someone stops performing.
The Gift You’re Actually Giving
The point of all this isn’t about becoming Spielberg. This isn’t about having the fanciest gear or the slickest production. Most of the time, a phone and decent natural light will do the job just fine.
The point, however, is that every person who sits in front of your camera carries the image of God. They have a story of how Jesus met them, healed them, wrecked them, rebuilt them. Your job isn’t to make them look good. Your job is to create the space where they can tell the truth.
When you sit down fifteen minutes early to make sure their Zoom works, you’re saying their story matters. When you bring them water and granola bars, you’re saying they matter. When you ask one more question and then shut up long enough for the real answer to surface, you’re saying you believe God is doing something in them worth paying attention to.
This is kingdom work. You’re not just making content for the announcement loop. You’re helping someone testify. You’re giving them the dignity of being seen and heard. You’re saying their life counts, their journey matters, God is moving in them and through them.
And when you help someone tell their story well—when you bring that truth into the world where it can encourage someone else who’s in the middle of the same battle—you’re doing exactly what the church is supposed to do. You’re making space for the Spirit to move.
That right there? That’s a very good gift.
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