By Brandon Sumrall | Special to the Advertiser

What began as one man’s mission to provide a way for his sick wife to be able to continue to be part of services at West End Baptist Church has morphed into a worldwide outreach platform over the past 20 years.

Armed with a simple handheld camcorder, Ralph Esco began videotaping services at West End church in Clanton back in 1995 so that his wife would be able to watch the services she was unable to attend.

Due to demand from other homebound church members, West End started the migration of the one tape Esco had been producing and began duplicating VHS tapes in 2001 thanks to Esco and Buddy Baker.

With changing technology, West End made the switch to DVD format in 2004 and began making any worship service or special event held at the church available on DVD. To date, the church has shared more than 10,000 DVDs.

Since then, West End has formed an Audio and Video Ministry comprised of more than 50 of its members that are responsible for many of the technical aspects of worship at West End Baptist Church.

From a location in the back of the worship center, three members of the team run soundboards that provide music that has been previously recorded via CD or digitally for the worship services and special events while also providing lighting for services, conferences, concerts and drama presentations held at the church.

From this location, multiple video projectors are operated to display live or pre-recorded multimedia presentations on monitors located throughout the worship center.

There is plenty of action going on upstairs as well, as a three-man team is hard at work each service in the video control room.

Three separate cameras that are set up inside the worship center feed live video to multiple screens inside the control room. One member of the team is responsible for switching between the three different live feeds to be sent out for the live broadcast, while another member mixes the audio that is being broadcast and yet another is adding subtitles and other important visual items to the feed.

With viewers tuning in not only locally but all across the world, the Audio/Video Ministry has become an important part of the outreach of West End.

Pastor Daniel Wilson quoted 1 Corinthians 9:22: “To the weak I became weak, in order to win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I may by every possible means save some.”

“Our audio/video ministry helps us to reach people that may never come to our church, or any church,” Wilson said. “It is a point of entry for us to share the gospel without that person having ever step foot in the doors of the church. Our commission is to reach as many people as possible with the message, and this ministry has been a great tool to help us achieve that goal.”

Each service at West End is broadcast live via the internet at www.webconline.org as well as via the radio on station WPJN 89.3.

Anyone interested in receiving a video copy of any worship service or special event held at West End should contact a member of the Audio/Video team or the church office at (205) 755-0625.