The “pandemic made creative”

For my 9–5 job, I am a youth pastor at a small church in Cincinnati, Ohio. I, like many people, have seen my job change dramatically over the past five months. Before the pandemic, I spent the majority of my time planning large scale events with other youth pastors and putting on weekly student services from a youth group experience on a Sunday night and an after school program on Wednesday afternoons. That all went away when the pandemic began. And even now, with the fall fast approaching, so much has changed in terms of what we are doing and what my job will look like moving forward.

When the pandemic first started the real question of “how will we have church?” and being the youngest one on staff I spoke up and helped lead us into creating our digital church services and for the first time since I had been on staff my church began to put effort into what we were putting out online.

This also meant that I was thrown into the world of paid creative work for the first time. I didn’t train for this or even have an understanding of what I was getting myself into. However, in a matter of 24 hours, I switched from being an event coordinator and pastor to being a videographer, editor, graphic designer, and more.

This means for the past five months, I have lived and breathed Adobe Premiere Pro, Lightroom, and Photoshop. Most of my experience when it comes to these programs are all self-taught in the middle of this pandemic. Outside of one digital communications class I took in college that taught me the basics of Photoshop, I had no other knowledge.

So like many people, I have had to rely on Google and Youtube and social media platforms to learn these programs. That is why I wanted to share a list of helpful resources that have allowed me to grow in my skills and have allowed me to serve better the organization that I work for. This list is not for the person who has been masterfully using these programs for years, no this list is for the person who has been throw into the deep end content creation and using these programs and has no idea where to begin.

1) Presets/templates

When I discovered presets and templates, it was a gamechanger. Not only did it allow me to support some of my favorite creatives, but it also allowed me to learn how to do some stuff in the programs and think in ways that I am not used to thinking. You can use Google and Youtube and find tons of free presets out there, but here is a list of a few websites and creatives I’ve discovered during this pandemic to be extremely helpful.

*None of these links are affiliate links by the way!*

• https://www.freelightroompresets.co/
• https://mixkit.co/
• Tyler Babin Lightroom presets
• Kyler Hollands paid and free Premiere templates

This is by no means a comprehensive list. Just a list of a few resources I have been checking out during the pandemic. As always, be sure to use Google and Youtube and see what other great amazing and free resources are out there!

2) YouTube Videos

Treating Youtube like a university has been one of the most helpful things in the world for me. Taking a few hours out of my week to learn new skills when it comes to creating in these apps has helped tremendously. Adobe themselves put out some fantastic tutorials that you can check out on there Creative Cloud YouTube channel.

Outside of Adobe, there are tons of creatives who love to share what they know with the community of inspiring creatives. Here are a few of my favorite videos that have helped me during the pandemic.

My favorite things I’ve created during the pandemic

Thanks for making it this far! I hope you found something useful in this article! Before you go, here are several things I’ve created by watching these other creators that I’d love to share with you. I’m also always posting regularly on Instagram or Youtube, so feel free to follow me on either of those platforms.