Tech News

Igniter Media lights it up again, but this time with a twist: "Igniter Media Backs: 02 - Fuel for Worship".

Here's what's included:

Stills
Deciding between the black background with white text or the white background with black text? Then it is time to begin using our high quality images. You can layer text or lyrics over the stills or just use them as is. Either way, we think these images will help capture the attention of your crowd.

Loops
Loops. Doesn?t everyone love a good loop? Wait, what are those? Loops are motion backgrounds that bring life and energy to your setting. They can heighten your presentation by adding a creative element to your announcements, song lyrics or message points. Pretty nifty, eh? No, try really nifty.

Countdowns
It?s time to start and your audience is nowhere to be found. Sound familiar? Then, try using our countdowns to alert them that it is time to be seated. Pick a five-minute countdown that is contemplative, entertaining or anything in between. If these don?t help your timeliness, you can always try militaristic force.

Oh, and check the fun new T-shirt they throw in for free (Nacho Libre anyone?):

Tech News

My buddy Greg Atkinson has created Church Video Ideas, a new blog that is a terrific resource for churches.

Plus, Greg and I are working on a very cool new project that we'll announce next week! Stay tuned!

Techies

Guys and gals...I hear ya. You want quick and easy. You want to spend time searching the 'net and figuring out how to download something of decent quality. You are, in essence, willing to spend a couple of hours searching for something you may or may not find.

But there are times when instead of wasting time searching for video and audio clips (some of which would be a copyright violation) you just need to go shoot the video yourself. It's just not that hard. Don't believe me? Here's a case in point:

Let's say you need a video of a heart monitor machine and the "beep, beep, beep" sound followed by the "flat-line" (beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep) sound to create an opening video for a sermon. You could spend time trying to find this online or you could pick up the phone and get permission to go do it yourself.

I'll make an example of this in real time. I'm serious. I'm doing this as I type to prove a point.

I found a local hospital online by doing a search for the Hospital name. Went to "Contact Us" page, found the number and dialed it.

(Total time: 30 seconds)

Asked for someone in Human Resources. Got Rachel. Explained need to get heart monitor video. Rachel said I would need to talk to a "Generalist" (I have no idea what that means...but OK).

Got Voice-Mail, so I hit ZERO and got back to Rachel. Asked her for another person. Got another Voice-mail. Got back to Rachel again - asked to Hold.

(Total time: less than 3 minutes)

...holding .... not even "on hold music".... still holding... yup, still holding... oh yeah, still holding...

(Total time: 9 1/2 minutes)

Rachel is transferring me to Marketing after realizing she had been trying to connect me to the wrong person.

Left a voice-mail for Ashley in Marketing.

(Total time: 1 minute)

Ashely calls back 14 minutes later. She asks exactly what I want to do. I explain that I'll need about 1 minute of video plus the need to make it flat line at the end. I also explain that I will not shoot a real live patient, but instead will bring a volunteer along to "hook it up to" and then we'll pull it off to get the flat-line.

Ashely has no problem with this and asks to call me back in the morning to set up an appointment.

(Total time: 3 minutes)

The Result
I really did just do all of this as an example of how a little grunt work can make the difference. Folks, in 17 minutes flat, I had permission to go and get the footage I need. It would take a maximum of an hour out of my day to go and tape this. And when I say an hour, I mean drive time there and back, too.

So, in 17 minutes - 9 1/2 of which were on hold - I got what I needed.

Now, if I really want to get the full effect, I could ask to shoot some hallway scenes of bustling Doctors and nurses, maybe get some shots of the Hospital entrance. I might even find an ambulance and ask if they mind turning on the lights so I can get 10 seconds of B-roll. Heck, I might even ask to record the overhead speaker of someone paging a Doctor. And, I could do all of this in - what, maybe an hour more?!

Why is it so hard to get it through to my fellow media ministers and technicians that you can get this stuff done? You can be creative and have good quality when you do it yourself.

Just think, in this instance alone, 17 minutes yielded exactly what I needed. Compare that to hours of Internet searches, trial downloads, mixing and matching MPEG1 (or worse) videos with poorly recorded .wav files. Is that really worth it?

Are any of you really telling me you can't do this, too? If you don't have the vision and drive to be inventive and get the results you need, why would your Pastor ever be motivated to get you the resources you need?

The vision - and the creativity and drive - starts with you.

For Pastors

Let me start out in love and with respect to all of you teaching pastors: I respect that your role is incredibly time-consuming and that shepherding your flock takes time away from purely studying for messages.

No two ways about it, you have a tough job and you're held accountable for how well you manage your time and your pulpit. 1 Timothy 5:17-18 deals with this directly:

17The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. 18For the Scripture says, "Do not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain," and "The worker deserves his wages."

That double honor can also be translated "double pay", a premise I have no problem with - heck, who wants to be held double accountable by choice except for Pastors!? - but it also means that we should respect the difficulty of ministering to staff, volunteers and attendees while also preparing for a dynamic, relevant and engaging Biblical message. Here me clearly, pastors: Those of us who support you need to give you a lot of latitude, grace and trust.

Hopefully, you'll understand that we as media & communications staff and volunteers respect what you do and want to help support and enhance your message.

The other shoe drops
However (you knew it was too good to last!), in many (most?) churches, we feel hamstrung and left out when it comes to using our gifts, tools and time to help you with crafting a weekend experience instead of just another weekend service. Usually, this happens for a few consistent reasons:

1. You don't finish (or even really start) creating a full outline and support scripture for your message until Friday, leaving us without the time to create compelling media support and enhancement for your message.
2. You don't think about including us in the creative brainstorming process for upcoming messages/series.
3. You don't want to lose the spur-of-the-moment inspiration from the Holy Spirit, so you resist too much planning in the interest of being authentic and timely.

I've got to be honest with you, Pastors. This all comes down to trust issues that you have.

Trust Issues
You don't trust God enough. You don't trust yourself enough. You don't trust us enough.

Yes, I still love you, so I'm trying to speak the truth in love and open up an honest dialogue so that we can use our creative synergies to make more impactful weekend experiences.

Trust God
All the way back in the first chapter of the Bible, God starts out by showing us that anything worth doing well is worth taking the time to plan and implement. The omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent God of everything could have just snapped his celestial fingers and been done with all of creation in a nano-instant. But that's not what He did. Instead, he took his time, planned and handled all of creation over time. There's a lesson for us in that!

Go ahead and trust God to inspire you on Fridays - but make that four or five Fridays in advance! God is big enough and smart enough to give you the inspiration you need well before Sunday rolls around!

Trust yourself
Habits - even well-intentioned ones - are hard to break. But hear me clearly: the future impact-fullness and growth of your church will be directly influenced by how you adopt better methods for creating weekend experiences. The old adage "If it is to be, it is up to me" doesn't apply here! Yes, you are ultimately responsible for the sermon and we should never tell you what or how to preach it - but you must also stop limiting the quality of the entire weekend experience by being a spiritual "Lone Ranger"!

Yes, you CAN change. In fact, you MUST change.

Trust us
We as media & communications staff and/or volunteers must earn your trust and provide helpful, critical input in the development of weekend experiences.

For some of us, that means we have to spend time with you before 9 AM on Sunday morning. It is critical that you make the time to get to know us and learn about our skills and passions so that we can be helpful resources for creating excellent, interactive and memorable services. We must take the time to meet with you early on in the creative planning process so that enough time and resources can be devoted to doing more than turning on PowerPoint and hoping for the best!

If you've not done so yet, please take the time to read and print out the articles I did on Creative Team Planning. They're all on my Blog, and you can read them here:

Creative Meetings: Overcoming the Fears

Creative Meetings: When and Where

Creative Meetings: Picking the Team

Creative Meetings: Expanding "Go-To" Resources

Creative Meetings: Controlling the Meeting

The Chaos of Creative Meetings Comes to Order!

So Why Aren't You Doing This Yet?
This is where you (anyone, not just pastors) get to tell me why you're not doing this yet. Seriously, put in a comment below and let's have some honest dialogue about this - I really do want to know!

You don't have to figure this out on your own
No matter where you are in this process, I'd like to help. Shoot me an email and let's find a time for me to visit with your church leadership on how to transition from weekend services to weekend experiences through the implementation of Creative Team Planning. I've helped others make this critical change, so I not only know that it's possible, I know that it works!

I hope that my heart for helping and my passion for improvement have come through loud and clear! I love ya, Pastors! Let's make the change together and increase the effectiveness of your local church.

For Pastors

As many of you know, I travel to dozens of churches each year in my role as a Church Media & Communications Consultant. I also have the opportunity to visit churches as I travel to tradeshows and conferences, so the church denominations, sizes and styles that I encounter vary greatly.

I was doing some journaling when I looked back over previous stuff that I'd written when it occured to me that while most churches face the same major issues, the trend of making excuses based on their size was also a constant theme.

• "We don't have the money to use technology well."
• "We don't have the technical staff able to do what we'd like."
• "We can't find enough qualified volunteers."
• "We let each ministry handle their own marketing and communications because it's too much for one person to handle."
• "Our Pastor can't get his sermons to us (media) ahead of time because God doesn't give him his message until Friday or Saturday night."

Do you know what the honest and accurate answer is to all of those excuses? That's a bunch of bull.

When churches like Ridge Stone in Canton, GA (yeah, like that's a metropolis overflowing with cash!) - which meets in a rented movie theatre (running about 500) and starts setting up staging and light trussing, projection and sound at 5 AM every Sunday morning - use technology better than some mega churches I've visited, I refuse to believe money (or the lack thereof) is the true culprit.

When a church like Crossroads Community in Adrian, MI (another non-urban area where cows outnumber the humans) pulls together a volunteer tech crew of over 120 when the church is running under 1,000 (yeah, over 12% of their congregation is in the media arts ministry!), then not having the tech people on staff isn't the issue, either.

And when I visit churches and find out that they have only 1, 2 or 3 techies involved, it makes me wonder who hasn't been invited into this clique. "You have not because you ask not."

Finally, if your Pastor can't "hear from God until Friday or Saturday", do you really think that's a limitation on God or a limitation on the preferences and priorities of the Pastor? What, God can't talk before Friday or Saturday? I can't find that in the Bible and neither will you.

Pastors: I love ya, but stop making excuses about why you don't - because it certianly isn't can't - get your messages prepared weeks in advance. Suck it up and change. Your church needs you to get ahead of the curve, like it or not, so get over yourself and force the issue.

It's important that churches stop making excuses and force the necessary change from "we've never done it that way" to "hey, we've never done it that way!" Don't tell me what you can't or aren't doing; tell me what you are and will be doing. Anything less is simply an excuse.

Techies

We had just started the final song of the service, right after the message, when I looked down at the Betacam SP recorder and saw the time code running. I called out the time so our volunteer could write down yet another point in the service for possible video editing and then did a double-take at the recorder. The record button was lit, but not the play button. In the world of professional decks, this meant that while the numbers were faithfully ticking by, nothing was being recorded to tape!

Creating Checklists
That painful memory meant that the entire service was not recorded to video, which also meant that I would not have a TV show to put on the air. While distressing and embarrassing, this incident prompted me to do what I should have done in the first place: I created a video recording checklist.

I wish I could say "do these three things to make a checklist" and have it work exactly in every church. The reality, however, is that due to the innumerable ways that you can hook up your system and the nearly limitless number of recording devices available, a "checklist template" would be wholly inaccurate.

Instead, I'm providing you with the kinds of things to consider when you make your own custom checklist for your recording systems.

Draw it out
Every cable plugs in to one device and comes out of another. That's how signal paths work. So it's necessary for each of your systems have a signal flow diagram ? a line drawing that shows every device and how they're connected ? printed out and posted in the tech booth or media room near the equipment. You should have, at the least, three sets of drawings: one for audio, one for video and one for lighting.

This solves two issues. First, it gives you an instant reference to know where a signal is coming from and second, it also is a very handy quick reference troubleshooting guide in times of crisis.

Once completed, it will become obvious which components need to be operating for the recording to take place. Remember, just because the projector has a signal doesn't automatically mean that the equipment feeding the video recorder is also operating. The same is true for your sound system.

Create Step-by-Step Instructions
Assume that every techie calls in sick and the system must be operated by your mom. That's the premise you need to start with when creating a step-by-step instruction sheet.

I've been in churches where the start up checklist referenced terms that a non-techie wouldn't know. The assumption was that a fully trained technician would be operating and the checklist was written for someone with that level of knowledge. You can't make that assumption, so start with the very basic steps and be as specific as possible.

It's also helpful to have every piece of gear clearly labeled so that your checklists reference the exact labeling schema, making following the instructions as easy as possible.

Now that you've created a step-by-step process to start the equipment and begin the recording process, create another checklist that stops the recording and turns everything off. Sometimes, this is simply a reverse-order checklist, but often enough, the process is slightly different so go ahead and take the time to make the shutdown checklist just as complete.

Create Redundancy
When I realized that I had failed to record the service, I kicked myself for not having a second record deck. The very next week, I had one installed, because if it's worth recording, it's worth making sure that the recording has a backup.

Sure, this costs more money, but if the church has already invested in recording technology, then the implication is that the recording is worth the effort and expense. Therefore, ensure that the recording happens by utilizing at least two different recorders in case the hardware fails. Some people will opt for a dual-recording device, but if the device fails, then both recordings fail along with it. I know, it's more money, but it's worth having a backup unit recording at all times.

Finally, create redundancy with your tech teams. When one person is responsible for making a recording, having all the right checklists, all the right gear (including redundant equipment) and all the right things in place doesn't prevent operator error. Sometimes, we just forget to hit record! That's why a second person should have the responsibility of going through their own checklist that asks if everyone has started recording. This human redundancy is probably going to save your church the embarrassment I went through when I failed to have this system in place years ago.

Learn from someone who?s been there before: Create checklists, create redundancy and provide peace of mind!

Stuff to Ponder

I was in Canton, Texas at the "First Monday" event - which is a HUGE garage sale that takes up several thousand acres - this past weekend and had to take a picture of this sign:

The sign was posted just outside of the entrance to one of the few air-conditioned buildings (it was 102 degrees when I was there) and warned people not to park their rented scooters in front of the door. What made me laugh was the ridiculous (and improper) use of the quotation marks.

Usually, the usage of quotes in this context would mean that the term or word was a euphamism, but the designer apparently was confused as to the purpose of the quotation marks!

This got me to thinking about how stupid people can be in how they deal with a perceived problem. Sure, if enough people try to park their rented scooters too close to the door, it's gonna create a traffic flow issue. But instead of a sign (and one with huge grammatical errors!), why not have scooter parking just to the side of the door? Instead of telling people what not to do, why not show them what they can do?

The sign also got me to thinking about the signs I've seen posted outside of churches that I've visited over the years:

• "NO skateboarding"
• "No loitering"
• "Staff Parking Only"
• "Pastor (insert name here) Parking"

How about we have a skate area so that kids can skateboard AND hang out at church? And don't we WANT people hanging out (loitering) at church? As for dedicated parking spots - hey, do what everyone else does and WALK. More to the point, lead by example and park far away from the building so single parents, senior adults and visitors can have the up-close spots!

Finally, if you have to put up a "NO" sort of sign, at least have some fun with it, like Chili's near my house did:

Stuff to Ponder

Note: Perry has added part four, so I've added it to this post and bumped this post up. This is REALLY great stuff - and I LOVE Part Four!

Perry Noble takes a hard look at why some churches stay small, why others are growing by leaps and bounds and - best of all - what the Bible has to say about it, all on his Blog.

I've known Perry personally now for over three years and even had the privilege of working with him and his team on their new 2,500 seat auditorium by designing their entire video system.

Newspring, the church where Perry pastors, is in Anderson, SC - not exactly a huge metropolitan area! The church is around 5 years old and is averaging 5,800+ in attendance. That's in a town with an estimated population in July 2005 of 25,899 (+1.5% change from last year - thanks to city-data.com). Think about that - they have 20% of their community (if they all came from within the town, which not all do, of course) attending church! Holy smokes!!

My friend Perry is in the middle of a series of posts about why the church is commanded to grow. It's a fascinating read and I had to share it with you.

Oh, as an aside, Perry is the same cat who came up with the analogy that running a church only by committee was like an airline pilot being required to ask First Class, get permission and then get 80% of Economy Class to approve his plan to land the plane!! This guy just tells it like it is...and I LOVE IT!

Go check out these posts at his Blog:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four