Church Video Ideas

The holidays are the biggest season for volunteering. In the spirit of the Christmas season, I wanted to see if you might consider checking out ChristianVolunteering.org.

ChristianVolunteering.org is a FREE directory with over 2,000 volunteer opportunities in ministries serving the “poor.” The site’s partners include the Salvation Army, GospelCom (BibleGateway.com), World Vision, the Association of Gospel Rescue Missions and over 1,000 ministries serving under-resourced communities. In addition to volunteer opportunities for individuals, you can also search the site for opportunities that might be appropriate for church small groups and for short-term missions trips. If you just type your postal code, you can get a listing of the volunteer opportunities in your region.

Yesterday was a 14 hour day, so I’ll be brief. I’ll be reviewing some new Christmas media resources in the near future. For now, I’d like to mention 2 things: One from SermonVideos.com and one from WorshipHouse Media.

My boy, Craig, and his team at SermonVideos.com have created a new Christmas Pak for ‘07. Their Christmas Paks are a favorite each year. I’d encourage you to check out the first two if you don’t have them and if you do, it’s time to purchase their new Christmas Pak 3. Go HERE and look for the newest resource on the right.

My friends at WorshipHouse Media are giving away a FREE download every weekday until Christmas! That’s right… every weekday. Also you can watch a daily podcast from Dale and Kent. Go HERE and click on the “Daily Freebie” ad to go to each day’s freebie.

EXTRA:

If you’re a fan of Paul Baloche (like I am), you may want to check out his video of the Christmas version of his song, “Offering”. You can watch it HERE.

I was recently contacted by Albert Martin, a tech staff member at Granger Community Church. He told me that they used to use another presentation software at GCC for their lyric presentation, but between the quirky behavior and crashing, it became really frustrating for both he and the volunteers that run the program most of the time.

As a result, Albert has been developing a brand new piece of worship software from the ground up that “has proved to be both extremely stable and incredibly easy for our volunteers to learn and use” (he said he has trained volunteers in 15 minutes for what used to take at least twice as long). GCC has been using this every week since early this year.

The software is just wrapping up development and he’s released a FREE public beta for other churches to use and test. He currently has a very brief website up during the public beta period that gives a brief overview of iWorship along with several screenshots. A more thorough website is being prepared for the final release. Check it out HERE.

TechMission has just launched www.UrbanMinistry.org as a Web portal for the Urban Ministry world. Some of the sections you may be interested in include:

* UrbanMinistry Blogs: including some of the top syndicated Blogs of Urban Ministry leaders.
* Sermon Videos & MP3s including John Perkins, Jim Wallis, Noel Castellanos, Wayne Gordon, Ray Backke, Effrim Smith and Martin Luther King Jr.
* Gospelpedia: similar to Wikipedia but covering youth ministry, addiction recovery, technology and ministry and volunteer management.
* Conference Materials: including over 100 keynote talks and workshops from CCDA, Kingdomworks and Compassionworks/YouthPartnersNet (coming soon).
* Local Volunteer Opportunities: including over 1,500 volunteer opportunities from nearly 900 organizations. National partners on this site include: CCDA, UYWI, YouthPartnersNet, HLIC, Salvation Army and AGRM.
* Online Courses
* Account Registration (FREE)

EXTRA:

Cory Miller (from Church Communications Pro - and is also a part of my book) is offering people a coupon code to get Granger’s Church Communications Form Bundle for FREE. I have it and it’s great! You can get it HERE.

BONUS:

Yesterday, WorshipHouse Media launched their Thanksgiving and Christmas seasonal stores. Check them out for the best in seasonal media (new for this year and good stuff from earlier years).

Yesterday I referred to SermonSpice’s release of their new, free worship presentation software: SpiceRack. I did my homework on this, including speaking with several “pro’s” in the industry and getting their feedback, too. I, honestly, don’t know where to begin. To call this product premature is an understatement. I don’t know if they were just concerned with getting it out to Catalyst attendees or what. Let me also say that calling it “Alpha” or “Beta” doesn’t excuse what I saw either. As one computer developer I talked with said, “Beta versions should have most bugs worked out and be MUCH further along before releasing.”

I downloaded the software and tried using it and was not able to. All it did was flicker. I couldn’t press any buttons or tabs. I couldn’t add an image or a video - nothing. The other thing that I and my investigative team discovered is that the software is heavily dependent upon the Web - meaning it doesn’t like it if you’re not connected to the Web (Obviously, the creators of SpiceRack want you to be able to connect straight to their mother company, SermonSpice).

I ask: Who is it that is going to be interested in a free presentation software (knowing you get what you pay for)? The answer: The startup church that meets in a school auditorium or a movie theater. Think you can connect to the web there? Nope. For the church that is portable and in setup and tear down mode every week, they probably are not going to have web access, which makes a lot of this product useless.

My 2 cents… This is a one-time purchase. Prayerfully consider how you can come up with the money to INVEST in a solid product (like the Top 3 in my software poll - EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter). If you really don’t have that much to invest, then consider MediaShout Express, which I reviewed earlier and is half the cost of the leaders in this field.

If you absolutely need to go FREE, go with a proven product like Easislide or Open Song that has been around for a while.

EXTRA:

On a more positive note, my friends at SermonVideos.com have come out with 2 cool new things that I’d love to tell you about:

1. HD widescreen motion backgrounds! As you know, I’ve stated before that I’m looking all over for these since we’re getting ready to go into a new worship center with widescreens. SermonVideos.com now joins the ranks of Igniter Media and Worship Films as pioneers in offering HD backgrounds to churches. Praise God. Many of their newest motions are now available in full widescreen 1280 X 720 HD in BOTH Windows Media AND Quicktime MP4 format. NOTE: Subscribers have full access to these files. I’m a subscriber. To subscribe go HERE.
2. SermonVideos.com is happy to announce the new Countdown Creator software. If you would like to quickly and easily be able to create your own countdowns, this software is for you! Simply put your stills and videos into the creator, arrange the countdown clock and export.

PERSONAL:

I’ve received several “Thank yous” from people that read my article in Collide Magazine. It seems there are a lot of people who appreciate honest reviews of companies and products. Thanks for your encouragement!

I’m back in good ‘ol Dallas. Glad to be done traveling for a while. I had a great time at Catalyst - it truly is my favorite conference to go to. I speak at so many conferences that I hardly get to simply attend a conference and be fed. Catalyst is one that I make sure I attend each year. It really recharges me.

Highlights this year for me were:

• Andy Stanley
• Craig Groeschel
• Francis Chan (WOW - I love him!)
• Erwin McManus
• Rick Warren
• Getting to know some of the staff from my church better
• Seeing friends from other churches and companies
• Meeting people that I know from online face-to-face

BONUS:

It was good to spend some time with my friends from WorshipHouse Media. They had rented some couches, which I spent some time on. WHM was giving away free loops. You can get them HERE.

PERSONAL:

Today our new Audio Coordinator starts his first day at our church. I’m excited and looking forward to him settling in to our team.

People that know me, know that I love networking and I love food. Therefore, I do a lot of lunch meetings - a TON of them. Monday, I went to a luncheon with several Dallas worship leaders and learned more about a new company called Interactive Worship Live. I had seen them at some conferences that I was speaking at, but I got to know the product better.

Yesterday, I attended another lunch with metro worship leaders, hosted by the Gospel Music Channel. They are doing a 12 city tour and wanted to get a few key leaders together to hear from and bounce ideas off. I don’t have cable, but if I did, I would watch GMC often. It was good to see their programming and know that someone out there is doing Christian television without the cheese.

BONUS:

Get a cool new countdown from Igniter Media Group for FREE at WorshipHouse Media. Go HERE to download it.

EXTRA:

One of my favorite up-and-coming producers is FortyOneTwenty. They’ve just come out with some new products. Check them out HERE.

Gracepoint Fellowship Church is giving away a FREE video on small group ministry that they created. They intentionally made it generic so that you could use it at your church. You can preview and download the video HERE.

Our pastor, Pete Briscoe, started a new message series last week called “Opening the Door”. Last week was kind of an intro/overview. This weeks is the official start of this series, which will last all the way up until the time we move into our new worship center (December). For his message/illustration, he asked our Visual Arts team to build him a giant door. Check it out (that’s a ladder to the right of it). To get a perspective - I’m 6′5″ and the door knob is at my eye level. I’ll try to get a picture of me next to it.

BONUS:

Be sure to download this cool new motion background at WorshipHouse Media.

EXTRA:

Check out THIS new article from my friends at Midnight Oil Productions. The article is titled, “Identifying Your Team’s Purpose”.

Highway Video is having a “Back to School” DVD Sale!

There are only 3 days left to save BIG on sermon & worship DVDs! Only $25 through Sunday!

The fall season is almost upon us, and the busy season is definitely ramping up. Highway thought they’d help you get ahead of the crunch. All of their DVDs and Christmas DVDs are only $25 through Sunday!

* Highway Video DVD Volumes ————— $25.00 each (regularly $75.00)

* Vibe Video DVD Volumes ——————- $25.00 each (regularly $75.00)

* Elements Volumes ————————– $35.00 each (regularly $112.50)

Each Highway and Vibe DVD comes with FIVE great videos. That’s only $5 per video! That’s right! Change hard drives or change computers and these babies will still be on your shelf, ready to use! Element Volumes come with at least 20 video clips. (That’s just a little over a buck per video!) Stock up for Christmas. Stock up for Easter. Highway is making it easy and inexpensive to get ahead in your planning and stock up your church’s media library.

NOTE:

I’m writing an article about my Top Ten media producers/filmmakers. Highway is definitely in my Top Ten. This is a great opportunity to acquire all their content.

BONUS:

Spend over $50 at Igniter Media or WorshipHouse Media and receive a FREE year subscription to Collide Magazine!