Church Video Ideas

Today’s blog is simple: I’d like for you to get your FREE copy of “Facebook for Pastors” and read it. I wrote the Foreward for this book and think it’s a good read. Check it out HERE.

Yesterday I announced the beginning of the Church 2.0 Local Forum. I’m excited about the first 2 of these in May (one in LA and one in Chicago). For now, I’d like to give you more info on the first one in LA. This is for all Church leaders in the Southern California area. If you’re involved in ministry and would like to meet, network and share with others in ministry - this FREE event is for you.

DETAILS: We will gather on Friday, May 2nd from 11:30am to 3:30pm in Grant Hall at Hollywood UMC. I’d appreciate you signing up so we know how much lunch to provide. To RSVP go HERE.

Sponsors that have taken care of the facility rental, free give-aways/swag and free food for all are: eight20eight, iStockphoto, RevoStock and SermonSpice. I’m extremely grateful for their support.

Here’s a special note from sponsor iStockphoto: Enter the coupon code FAITH and you will receive a 20% first purchase discount on any order over 55 credits and you can also choose 20 FREE images out of a group of 50. Go HERE to check it out.

WHAT’S SO COOL ABOUT MEETING AT HOLLYWOOD UMC?

Due to the unique beauty of the buildings and the history emmanating from their individual spaces, the church facilities are often used as a film and television location and have been featured in several major motion pictures.

FILMS SHOT AT HUMC include…
• Jarhead
• Domino
• Anger Management
• Big Mama’s House
• Beautiful
• A Civil Action
• That Thing You Do!
• Super Mario Bros.
• Sister Act
• Back to the Future
• Star 80
• Imitation of Life

TV SHOWS SHOT AT HUMC include…
• CSI
• Days of Our Lives
• General Hospital
• Murder, She Wrote
• The Golden Girls
• Jake and the Fatman
• The A-Team
• Hardcastle and McCormick
• Riptide
• Hotel
• Dr. Phil - Special
• Bette Midler - Special
• The Temptations - Special

SPECIAL FOOTNOTES FOR FILM FANS -
In Back to the Future, the church gymnasium was the location for the high school prom/dance scene where Michael J. Fox reunites his parents and takes the stage to perform a wicked guitar version of “Johnny Be Good.”

In Sister Act, virtually the entire church served as an on-location set for the story of Whoopi Goldberg posing as a nun. The scenes where the nuns ate at a long table and where Whoopi was scrubbing floors were filmed in Grant Hall. The scene where the nuns were gossiping in the kitchen over ice cream was in the Main Kitchen. The choir room in the movie was shot in the church’s actual choir room at the time.

In Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do!, the gym stage was the setting for a college talent show where the movie’s fictitious pop-rock group, “The Wonders,” first sang their hit song “That Thing You Do!” in public. In the scene, the group’s drummer surprises them by speeding up the tempo of the song, with very positive results.

I have 2 conferences in May that I’ll be at (PLEASE let me know if you’ll be at either). One is a rare opportunity that I don’t usually get - I’ll be just attending and hanging out at the Biola Media Conference. This is a great conference that I’ve followed for years and always wanted to go to. This year I was invited to come and just attend and blog about my thoughts on it.

I look forward to seeing Phil Cooke and Craig Detweiler (both of whom I’m interviewing for my book) and getting to hear them speak. Usually I’m teaching at the same time as them and miss getting to sit in on their class. This will be a much-needed opportunity to not have the pressure of speaking and just soak up, network and learn. I can’t wait! Plus I’ll get to see several friends that I have in LA and spend some time with each of them.

***Speaking of my LA trip. I’m organizing a gathering in LA like we did in Las Vegas. This is a little different though - this will be the first of, hopefully many, Church 2.0 Local Forums. The Church 2.0 Local Forum- LA will take place from 11:30am to 3:30pm on Friday, May 2nd (location TBD). If you’re in the LA area and want to come (this is for all Church leaders) please stayed tuned to my blog and my Facebook group. ***

The 2nd conference that I’ll be at in May and teaching 5 classes for is the Moody Bible Pastors’ Conference. This will be my 5th year speaking there. I look forward to this conference each year as 1500 pastors from around the world gather to worship, fellowship and learn. I absolutely love speaking to senior pastors. This year will be cool because I’m taking my intern, Jonathan, with me.

***There will probably be a Church 2.0 Local Forum - Chicago on either Wednesday, May 21st or Friday, May 23rd. Again, stay tuned for more info. ***

If you will be at either of these conferences, please let me know and we’ll meet up! I would like to mention and thank EasyWorship for sponsoring my classes at Moody this year.

EXTRA:
Here’s more info on the Biola Media Conference…

BIOLA MEDIA CONFERENCE - MAY 3, 2008
Make plans to attend the largest gathering for Christians in the Entertainment Industry - the Biola Media Conference! Held on May 3 at CBS Studio Center in LA, this year’s conference theme explores the new
blueprints required in “Designing for the Digital Age”. Top professionals in film, television, and digital media will be addressing the challenges for Hollywood at the dawn of the online entertainment revolution as well as the innovative options in production, content, distribution and marketing that this digital age presents. New blueprints are needed as an era of social media and digital technology make entertainment and information more personal and customized than ever. Change isn’t coming. It’s here. NOW is the time to strategize a new design for the future of entertainment. Register online at www.biolamedia.com

OUR HOTEL:

Today I fly to Las Vegas to speak at NAB. I bring with me a crew of friends: my Video Intern - Jonathan, Brian Davis (Tech Director at Fellowship Dallas - who’s sharing a hotel room with me and my intern) and the volunteer leader of our Video Team - who’s going with his company. His company, Splash Media, just finished a huge project that you may have heard about - Adobe TV. I’m proud to say that our Video Team leader just headed up this project and oversaw the production of the videos you see on Adobe TV HERE.

My friend and member of our local tech director group, Kip Kendrick, arrived this past weekend and so we’ll catch up with him today, too. You know I’m a networker and love hanging out with peers, so I’m pumped about this trip. I have several tech director friends from around the country that I’m meeting up with and hanging out with.

Here’s a brief overview of my schedule for the next 3 days:

• Today - Arrive this morning in Vegas. Go to NAB and walk the exhibit floor. Check into our hotel, walk around the strip a bit and go see the Blue Man Group at night.
• Tuesday - We have a tech director lunch at 11:30am, where tech folks from around the country will meet and greet and eat! At 3pm, I lead a class on worship presentation software, where EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter will go head-to-head. Tuesday night, I bring 5 friends with me to see KA.
• Wednesday - At 9am, I teach my first “Church 2.0” class. I’ll be teaching this a few more times this year, but this will be the first time. I’m excited about this. I believe we’re going to try to video it and put it up on YouTube and GodTube for those of you that can’t make it to watch. Wednesday evening I fly back home and reunite with my family.
• Thursday - Meetings and playing catch-up at the church.

EXTRA:
Sometime this week, we plan on experiencing the following: The fountain show at the Bellagio. The Lady of the Lake show at the Wynn and the restaurant and rides atop our hotel, which you can see HERE. For more technical info on what it takes to do the Lady of the Lake show at the Wynn read THIS (scroll to the bottom).

EXTRA, EXTRA:

Yesterday’s service was great. Our pastor’s dad, Stuart Briscoe, preached and was a blessing to us all. Our pastor, Pete, and his parents have a radio show called “Telling the Truth“. You can listen to them daily online or via your local radio station. For more info go HERE.

BONUS:
I put some bigger (easier to see) pictures up of our Good Friday service. You can go back to the post to see them HERE. I’ll have a few Easter pics soon.

Besides this Sunday, Easter and a lot of other things campus-wide, one of the projects I’m working on is digital signage for our community space. I have several ideas and thoughts about what I’d like to do. I’m still very open and looking for ideas on the how to do it.

I’d love to hear what you’re doing at your church for digital signage - both content and how you do it (what hardware and software you use). Here’s more food for thought on digital signage.

EXTRA:
I know some of you are new readers of my blog (that I met at NRB). Here are the 2 articles I mentioned in my classes: One is called “Firing a Volunteer” and the other is called “Refining the Team“.

BONUS:
Today I’m attending a creative brainstorming meeting at Fellowship Church. I’ll also be meeting with their worship pastor, Pace and getting to know him better. You can check out his new blog HERE.

I’m am now back in good ‘ol Dallas. As I reflect upon my time in Nashville, many thoughts come to mind. Here goes:

• Staying with and hanging out with my best friend, Thomas, and his wife Dita. We played Nintendo Wii each night until about 3am. Good times! The Tiger Woods golf game on Wii is amazing! Thomas is the worship leader at Mosaic Nashville, where I went to church Sunday morning and night. It was also nice to eat twice with their pastor, Gary. God is doing some cool things at Mosaic Nashville. I’ve visited several times, so it’s been cool to see them grow and watch what God is doing in their community. If you’re in town, give them a visit.
• Seeing one of my friends from when I lived in Washington DC, who now lives in Nashville. Hanging out with Sarin (and his soon-to-be wife, Rebecca) was a true treat. Sarin is an amazing artist and is working on some very cool projects. We got to eat a couple of times together, catch some movies and he also played electric guitar at Mosaic Nashville on Sunday.
• Getting to hang out with and share many meals with Kirk Longhofer of Wichita, Kansas.
• Having lunch with Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion.
• Hanging out some with the crew from SermonSpice, my sponsor for my classes.
• Getting to speak with the Tech Directors of and hear about what’s going on at the following churches: Bellevue in Memphis, Brentwood Baptist, First Baptist Orlando and First Baptist Jacksonville, FL. Though my church is Non-denominational, I grew up Southern Baptist and have visited these churches before and know of their long history. It’s intriguing to me to see God doing a new thing at these long-standing churches that are trying to change and move forward. According to THIS article on Monday Morning Insight, 90% of churches are in decline.
• Meeting and speaking with some of the staff and key leaders at LifeWay.
• Seeing many Bent Tree members who were at NRB, including our pastor, Pete Briscoe, who was doing a meet and greet for his radio show: Telling the Truth.
• Catching a few classes at NRB. My favorite was my friend, Phil Cooke’s class on branding. He said a lot that is in his new book “Branding Faith“, which I’ve been reading the manuscript of for the last few months. It’s a great read and I’ll review it once I finish it. It was cool to see the actual hardcopy-version of his book. I encourage you to order a copy.
• Walking around the Exhibit Hall and meeting new people/companies, collecting free pens (something I enjoy) and doing a radio interview with a Jewish Ministry. The guy who works for the ministry used to be a tech director in San Antonio, TX and reads my blog. I’ll post a link to the interview when it’s ready.
• My biggest highlights were meeting some of you, regular readers of my blog, who came up and introduced yourself to me. It is so cool to look someone in the eyes, who has been commenting on your blog. I love it!
• Another highlight was my 2 classes that I spoke in. Here is a quick summary of what stuck out to me from the classes I spoke in:
  1. Large or small, every church has struggles/challenges and is constantly seeking to grow their ministry. I got to talk with people from very small churches to mega-mega-mega churches. It was humbling and amazing to meet fellow tech directors and be able to offer some of my philosophy of ministry and leadership.
  2. My class called “On the Air: Ten Attributes of a Winning Team” was filled with people that are broadcasting on television. I was absolutely shocked and floored that out of everyone of them that was on TV, none of them had a weekly rehearsal. Their first service was a rehearsal and they couldn’t imagine asking volunteers to come out to rehearsal during the week. I begged them to read my blog. You know how I love talking about leading volunteers!
  3. In my class, “The Ultimate Q & A”, where the panel just took random classes from the attendees, I got to share my philosophy on being and hiring “equippers” versus “doers”. I shared that leaders are to equip (based on the Ephesians 4 model). It seemed to strike a nerve and was something I believe God wanted me to share about. At Bent Tree, our leaders (whether volunteer or paid) are equippers.
  4. The major “God-moment” was during the “On the Air” class when I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to say the following, “Stop trying to revive what God is trying to kill.” Some gasped, some cried, some clapped, some said, Amen!”, some sat in silence. I have no doubt that God wanted me to say that and that it spoke right to someone’s (I don’t know who) situation. I’m amazed at the number of churches that have had a TV broadcast for years and never evaluate why they do it and if they should continue to.
  5. Below are some pictures of other highlights, including great food I consumed in Nashville:
     
     
• EXTRA:
  Yes, President Bush spoke at NRB, but no I did not get to see him. I missed it.

If all goes well, I should be on my way to Nashville for NRB today. I was planning on having lunch in Nashville, but as I type this (Thursday night) there are hundreds of flights delayed out of DFW. I’m just hoping I make it in time for my class on Saturday! Pray for me. If you’re there - holla!

EXTRA:
I really Easter v.2 from Igniter Media Group. Not only are the stills and loops very usable, but they’re creative, edgy, artsy, and just plain cool. The video “Because He Lives” is a home-run. And to top it all off - they have an HD version of everything, which is crucial for my church now. Well done, Igniter!

UPDATE:
The snow canceled my flight this morning. They originally re-booked my flight for tomorrow night, meaning I would miss my class tomorrow afternoon. I called and got on a flight that leaves tonight. I’m going to go ahead over to the airport and see if I can catch an earlier flight. I’m still coming Nashville!

Lately, I’ve been giving lots of tours to friends from other churches. One thing that they notice and I’m proud of is our extra chairs located beside each tech position. There is a stool beside our FOH audio engineer, there’s an extra chair beside our Service Director, there’s an extra chair beside our lighting tech, there’s an extra chair beside our video director and video engineer/shader and an extra chair beside our graphics operator.

Hear me friends: this is something I do VERY intentionally. When I’m a little sad is when that “extra chair” is an “empty chair”. We almost always have someone in training/learning at every position. If there’s a week when I see an empty chair, I look to my leaders and ask, “Do we not have someone training this week?” I (and my volunteer leaders) work hard and again, very intentionally, to see that the extra chair is not left empty. As I’ve said countless times on this blog, you must continually be recruiting and training… recruiting and training… recruiting and training. It never ends.

PERSONAL:
Why do I write with passion? Why do I travel away from my family to go speak at a conference? Why do I consult with other churches? Because for what ever reason, God has given me a heart that bleeds for His Church. I love Christ. I love the Gospel message. I love my church home and place of service (Bent Tree) and I want to be a good steward of the knowledge, experiences, education and tough lessons learned that God has given me and my church.

What’s my pet peeve and drives me crazy? When a thriving or successful church, especially a larger church, keeps secrets. You ask him how they got to where they are and they don’t share. There’s nothing Kingdom-minded about that. If you’ve ever interacted with me at a conference, you know that I pass on everything I can think of - the good, the bad, the ugly. I share ideas, thoughts, philosophies and challenges with anyone that will listen. This is what a “Church 2.0 leader” does (more on that in my upcoming book).

Do I think I know it all? Hah! Not even close. That’s why I’m constantly meeting with peers and picking their brain. I ask a lot of questions and try to learn from their lessons, philosophies and experiences. I, and my church, am an open book. Come, visit, share, ask, learn. We’ve had tech directors from around the country visit our church to attend a service and see behind-the-scenes. I welcome each of them with open arms. Usually, I feed them, too (just look at me). I’m a big boy.

Sorry for the little rant. I just had this on my mind and heart and wanted to express it publicly. I love you. I love hearing about what God is up to in your church, ministry and community. I want to be a friend and help to you and your ministry in any way I can. We’re in this together, friends. Put away any spirit of competition - that’s not of God. Let’s share our resources, our ideas, our struggles - that’s the Body of Christ!

ON ANOTHER PERSONAL NOTE:
We will miss you Brett Favre!

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.