Church Video Ideas

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you later this week at NRB in Nashville. Several of you have emailed me and asked to meet up. If you’re going to be at NRB or live in Nashville, give me a shout (greg@churchvideoideas.com).

Saturday I’ll be speaking in the class: “On-Air Church – 10 Attributes of a Winning Program” at 3:45pm - 5:15pm. Sunday, I’ll be part a panel called “How’d You Do That? The Ultimate Q&A”, also from 3:45pm - 5:15pm. The “Ultimate Q&A” class is a chance for you to ask me and a few other panelists anything you’d like. I always enjoy participating in this class at NRB!

Also, Saturday, I’ll be attending the Church Media Reception at 9pm. If you’re going to be there, I’d love to meet you.

Next month I’ll be teaching two classes at NAB in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, April 15th, I’ll be teaching “Which Worship Presentation Software is Right for Your Church?” at 3pm. This class will feature representatives from EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter. *** I want to make it clear that though we use EasyWorship at my church, I stand behind and endorse all 3 of the above mentioned companies. I encourage churches to try the free downloads of all three and see which is best for their church. ***

On Wednesday, April 16th at 9am, I’ll be teaching “Church 2.0″ - a class based on my upcoming book. This class will stretch and challenge your definition of creativity and innovation. I’ll be talking about Church 2.0 churches and Church 2.0 leaders.

I’d like to once again mention and thank my sponsors for both NRB and NAB: SermonSpice is sponsoring my classes at NRB. eleven72 and ProPresenter are sponsoring my classes at NAB.

I’ll talk more about other conferences I’m speaking at in future blog posts, but for now, would like to simply mention 2 brand new conferences that I’ll be speaking at. Interestingly enough, both are taking place in my hometown of Dallas, TX. One is ECHO and the other is Fusion ‘08. I’d encourage you to check them both out. If you attend one or both of these in Dallas, we can work out a time to come visit Bent Tree!

EXTRA:

I’ve been re-reading “Let the Nations Be Glad” by John Piper (the revised and expanded 2nd edition). What a great read. I forgot how much of my philosophy and feelings about worship and missions were shaped by this book. If you haven’t read it, I strongly urge you to check it out HERE.

Many have asked what we’re doing as far as media in our new worship center. As I mentioned before, we are using EasyWorship as our presentation software. We are also slowly changing over our entire campus (all venues) to EasyWorship, which has a universal site license (other products such as MediaShout and ProPresenter charge extra to use their software on multiple computers). We have 7 venues that will be using EasyWorship, so the universal site license was a win for us.

My friends at EasyWorship were great during the crazy weeks and days leading up to our first worship service. Either we (Bent Tree) are the first church to use EasyWorship in an HD setting or we are one of the first - either way: we won’t be the last. I’ve heard rumors of confusion about whether or not EasyWorship can do HD. Let me set the record straight: it does and we’re doing it.

The trouble that we were having leading up to the first service was due to having the wrong video card. I went locally and purchased a new video card (NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS) and we were up and running in a matter of minutes. If you have any other questions about the initial setup of EasyWorship and the codecs I purchased/downloaded, just email me.

Here’s what’s up as far as the HD backgrounds we used. We’ve had 3 Sundays in our new worship center. The first Sunday we used all Igniter Backs Vol. 3 backgrounds (loops and stills). The next week we used more Igniter Backs and some brand new backgrounds from FortyOneTwenty. This past Sunday we used new HD backgrounds from SermonVideos.com.

I’d like to point out that I still encourage our volunteers that pick the backgrounds each week to use at least one still background for a song. As I’ve said before, motion backgrounds are most powerful in contrast to still backgrounds. You can read more on my philosophy of this in my “Less Is More” article.

EXTRA:
Still looking for FREE worship backgrounds? Check out HERE.

BONUS:
Yesterday we found our opening video to kick off our Easter service. It’s available at BlueFish.tv, it’s pretty sweet and it’s $1.99! Check it out HERE.

A while back I wrote about forming my Tech Arts Leadership Team. I can not stress enough how crucial this team is to my ministry. I work extremely hard and am very strategic about making sure nothing relies on me alone. If I miss a Sunday, my team doesn’t miss a beat - everything will still go on like normal. Obviously, I love being there most weeks and love encouraging my team and seeing them in action, but I try to lead in such a way that all the volunteers take ownership.

Yesterday was an exception, as I had to run lights due to my previous post on “firing a volunteer”. I ran lights because that person was scheduled to run lights. The rest of the month is covered on lighting, so I’ll go back to being a cheerleader for my team. Every now and then I’ll video direct, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

In this crazy last couple of months leading up to the move into the new worship center, I relied heavily on my Tech Arts Leadership Team. I met with them about a month ago and shared the weight of pressure and responsibility with them. They dove in and rallied around me better than I could have ever dreamed. Each person is over a specific area of ministry. They each headed up their area and led out in organizing and overseeing training for their teams. Besides being the first team to serve on our first Sunday (last week), they each committed to stay on the remainder of the month to sit beside each person in their area as they serve for the first time on the new equipment.

Besides learning new equipment in a new room, we’ve had to grow overnight and assimilate new people onto our team. We went from 2 video cameras to 3, 1 stage manager to 3 and added the video engineer/shader position since our first Sunday in the new building - that’s 4 extra people needed each week to make Sunday happen. Thankfully, people are coming up to me and asking how to get plugged in last week and yesterday. Picture that! Yesterday everyone who served last week was sitting beside those that served this week. It was a beautiful sight and I was grateful to God.

Obviously, there is a lot of excitement and momentum with a new building and new equipment, but I also think it helps to have more of the team visible to the congregation. In our old worship center only Front of House audio was visible to the people. The lighting, graphics, and video team were hidden upstairs in the “tech booth”. Now there is a large Front of House booth in the middle of the worship center where lighting, our Service Director, Producer and Front of House audio team (A1 and A2) are. We also have 3 camera men up on platforms (a left, middle and right camera) that are seen in the house. FYI - Our graphics operator, video director and video shader are in a video control room, which is in a building behind the worship center. They have an “eye in the sky” camera that they look at on a big plasma monitor, so they can see what’s going on on the stage (note the control room picture in my next to last post).

Another thing I did was to order new tech team polo shirts. We did a whole new branding campaign when we moved into the new worship center, which changed our church’s logo. I waited until the first Sunday in the new building to utilize our new, black tech team polos, which feature our church’s new logo. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You wouldn’t believe what people will do for a free shirt. Our team looks sharp and people have taken notice. Below is what the logo looks like on the shirt:

Some have asked, so I’ll list these two groups out for you:

• The Technical Arts Leadership Team consists of: Myself, a person over audio, a person over lighting, 2 people over video (one over live video and one over video production), a systems person, a person over graphics and social events, a person over volunteers/assimilation and Service Directors and a person over stage managers. NOTE: Each team member plays a role in assimilation, as I match them up with newcomers to shadow and learn from. them
• What it takes to make Sunday happen: 4 audio engineers (A1 and A2 at FOH, a monitor engineer and a broadcast/recording engineer), 3 camera operators, a camera shader, Video Director, graphics operator, lighting operator, a Service Director (who executes and calls cues) and a Producer (who takes in the overall experience and offers artistic suggestions for creativity and different looks/feels each week). I simply float around and spend sometime in the video control room, some time at the FOH booth and sometime in the audience just taking it all in.

What does it take to make Sunday happen at your church?

Great comments, emails and feedback on yesterday’s blog post. Unless someone contacts me that hasn’t so far, I think we’re the first church to use EasyWorship with a full HD system. One common theme I noticed from your comments is that many of you are searching for HD resources. I’ve been putting together a collection over the past year. Here’s where you can find HD media resources:

• BlueFish.tv - Essentials Vol. 1-3 has HD stills, countdowns and loops
• BluePonyDigital - This mainstream company has a worship line of HD products
• Digital Juice - We use their HD backgrounds, as well as use their products to create custom lower third titles for our staff
• Igniter Backs - Check Igniter Backs Vol. 3 for HD stills, countdowns and loops
• SermonVideos.com - SV offers HD motion backgrounds
• WorshipFilms - Most WorshipFilm’s products are available in HD and SD

Supposedly, we have 2 Sundays left in our current worship center and will have our first service in our new worship center on Sunday, Feb. 3rd - that’s the plan. It could be the 10th, but we’re going full-steam ahead towards the 3rd. It’s getting pretty exciting walking through there these days. The video portion is pretty-much done. They began working on lighting today. Next week (for one entire week) they will tune the room. It’s madness and fun all at the same time. Your prayers would be appreciated.

FOLLOW UP:

I got some good emails and feedback on yesterday’s blog post. Apparently, I have some people that work for Microsoft and Apple that read my blog. The wars may not be over. Phil Cooke made a compelling argument for the wars ending, but the word on the street is that Microsoft and the porn industry might be going with HD DVD. Unfortunately, the porn industry pretty-much runs and determines the future of video - believe it or not. Regardless, I think we’ll be getting a Blu-Ray disc player.

CONTINUING ED:

Yesterday, I mentioned that Phil and I will be speaking at NRB and NAB. I forgot to mention that SermonSpice is sponsoring my classes at NRB and eleven72 and ProPresenter are sponsoring my classes at NAB.

Here’s my 2 cents: if you are in driving distance of Nashville, join me at NRB - they really are trying to make it more relevant for churches (that’s the reason I’m going to be there). If you can only choose one tech conference this year, try to shoot for NAB in Vegas. I’ve already heard of several friends going and am looking forward to hanging out with them there. I try to hang out in groups of people when I’m in Vegas.

EXTRA:

If you are local to Dallas and can’t make it to NAB, I’ll be teaching the same 2 classes at the ECHO Conference in Dallas this summer.

Thanks to my friend, Phil Cooke, for posting this blog on the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD war. Apparently, Blu-Ray is the future. We had recently been discussing this at my church - wondering what we should put in our video control room. Guess we’re going Blu-Ray shopping.

FYI - Both Phil and I will be speaking at NRB and NAB. If you’re there and have never been to one of his classes, I encourage you to check him out - you won’t be disappointed. In February, I’ll be reviewing Phil’s new book on this blog.

PERSONAL:

I’m extremely disappointed with the Cowboys.

As I always do, I try to visit as many churches as possible when I’m away from my church. This past Sunday I visited 3 churches in the upstate of South Carolina - 2 in the morning and 1 at night.

• 9:00 AM - I went to a church that I always try to visit whenever I’m in Greer, SC: Springwell Church. Springwell is a vibrant, fairly young church that has had a great impact on their community. This was my 3rd time getting to attend a service in their new (3 years old) worship center. As usual, I wrestled with trying to worship and turning off my analyzing and critiquing. All in all, I had a great experience. This was the first time I had seen them use IMAG (they had 3 cameras). I was disappointed with the quality of cameras/picture and the video directing. I also thought their left and right screens were too small for that size room. On the positive, I like how they used their screens. They had a left, giant middle and right screen. They did some cool stuff on the middle screen which was a nice touch. The had some nice looking backgrounds and FYI - they were using ProPresenter. The music was great. 2 young worship leaders co-lead and both had great voices and sang some of my favorite songs. Their youth pastor was preaching. I only got to listen to his intro and then had to slip out to go get my family and attend my mom’s church.
• 10:30 AM - I went to Tigerville Baptist Church, which is where my mom and step-dad go. My step-dad is the pastor there. TBC is located on the campus of North Greenville University. This church was probably the most special of the 3 churches I visited. Besides getting to hear my step-dad preach and worshiping with my kids and mom, it brought back all kinds of memories from the church I grew up in. This church is much like how I grew up - no screens/media, the music minister called out the hymn numbers and we turned in our hymnals to that song. Everybody knew everybody. There was a sweet spirit and family-type feel, which I can see being attractive to college students - which they have attending when school is in. There was no children’s ministry, so my 3 kids sat on the same pew with my wife, mom and me. I must say, they behaved very well and it was a memorable experience.
• 5:00 PM - Sunday night, I rode with my friend Don Chapman to his church: NewSpring in Anderson, SC. As you know, I’ve blogged about NewSpring several times. 2 of their staff members: Lee McDerment and Tony Morgan are a part of my upcoming book. Tony was on vacation, so I didn’t get to talk with him, but I did get to hang with Lee for a bit. Lee is an amazing worship leader and that band rocked! The whole experience was amazing. I was blown away. NewSpring lived up to all the hype (they are on the “Most Innovative Church” list and the “Fasting Growing Church in America” list). I knew of what they were doing, but had never seen it with my own eyes. Now I know why Don drives 30 minutes every week to go there. He won’t have to for long because they are launching a Greenville campus! I was blessed to be there for their last Sunday of the year, where they gave thanks to God for all He had done in 2007. You can listen to the message online. They played a highlight video, which was very moving. They had also had their congregation vote on their favorite songs of 2007 and did the top songs - I loved them. I was very impressed with everything I saw on the screens - the backgrounds, the picture quality, the video directing, everything - very well done. The sound was great - they are not afraid to raise the roof. I commented that I had never been to a church that played the pre-service/prelude music so loud - it was cranked! If you ever have the chance, you’ve got to check out what God is doing in this small city - it’s truly a God-thing. FYI - NewSpring used MediaShout.

Here are a few Christmas media resources that my friends sent me to check out and are new for this year. I encourage you to check them out as well:

• “Breath of Heaven” by eleven72 - $20
• “The Devil’s Take on Christmas” by eleven72 - $20
• “A Christmas Wish” by Flashlight Films - $12
• “Christmas 101” by Flashlight Films - $12
• “A Christmas Response” by Floodgate Productions - $20
• “Christmas v.2” collection by Igniter Media Group - $35
• “Xtreme Christmas Backgrounds 3” collection by Radiate Films - $25
• “Christmas Pak 3” by SermonVideos.com - $40
• “Complete Christmas” collection by WorshipFilms - $49 (also available in HD - $69)
• “Kid’s Christmas” collection by WorshipFilms - $35

EXTRA:

I made a collection of still backgrounds last year for Christmas/Winter. You can purchase them HERE.

Each season seems busier than the last when you’re in ministry, but no season tops this time of year! Here we are again in December juggling preparations for Christmas programs, special services, ministry outreach events, holiday parties, family events, not to mention Christmas shopping. And somewhere in here we have to focus on wrapping up “business” for the year. It’s time for those of us with “use-it-or-lose-it” budgets to make the most of whatever we’ve got left.

Thankfully, HighwayVideo.com has put together a terrific year-end sale, which means you can get more bang for the last of those 2007 bucks. From now until the end of the year, you can purchase ANY of Highway’s 5-video DVD volumes for only $25 each.

Highway Video makes some of the best videos on the market (in Collide Magazine I rated them as one of my Top 10 Church media producers), which makes these deep discounts all the more valuable. So check out Highway’s “2007 Blizzard of Savings” sale before the year, the sale and your budget all disappear!

Usually I do a thorough (and very time-consuming) review of all Christmas media resources each year, but this year I am swamped, so I’m going to link you to my review from last year HERE and the best of the new from this year HERE. I’ll be reviewing some select Christmas media products that are new for this year soon.

Also, a few years ago I worked on a template for a traditional “Lessons and Carols” service. I make it available to churches every year for free. If you’d like to use it, base yours off of it and make it your own, however it can serve you - download it HERE.

EXTRA:

A few years ago I arranged “O Holy Night” for worship leaders that lead from acoustic guitar and want something more modern sounding. You can download the chord chart HERE and listen to the arrangement HERE. On the recording, I’m playing guitar and a local worship leader friend (remember my blog on “The Network”) is singing.

PERSONAL:

I’m on vacation today through Wednesday. I hope to do a lot of reading and research for my book, as well as spend some time with my family and not think about church for a few days.