Church Video Ideas

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.

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.

I’d like to tell you a little more about one of the regular readers and comment contributors on this blog - his name is Richard Gaspard and he’s the Media Director of Crossroads Church and Director of Production of Crossroads Creative. Richard is a talented, visionary leader and has developed a video ministry that is truly on another level. (Remember my article: “The Next Level“?) Well, Richard and Crossroads have taken that step to the next level and started offering their media created in-house to other churches.

If you’re looking for media resources created by another church that can relate to your world, you’ll probably find something you can use at Crossroads Creative. Their videos are available for download or you can order the DVD volumes. They have creatively divided their resources into different series. Their series are called:

• On Ramps (video sermon series intros)
• Scenic Routes (video parables)
• Fast Lanes (video skits)
• Video (video clip-art or generic video announcements that you can customize for your church)

* PLEASE NOTE: For you, the readers of my blog, you can get 30% off your order through January 31st by using the promo code: CVIDEAS.

Personally, I’m proud of Richard and what he’s done at Crossroads and hope to see our video ministry expand in the future so we can offer “Bent Tree Media”. Well done Crossroads Church!

I’m off work today and hope to catch up on some long overdue reviews. You would not believe the amount of products that I receive from companies/producers. I have a stack of unopened packages sitting on a shelf in my house. I hope to review them today and tell you about them soon. Look for reviews of new media resources from LifeWay, Crossroads Creative and Christmas resources from Angelhouse Media, Flashlight Films, Highway Video and Worship Films.

If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to join my Facebook group for my upcoming book: Church 2.0. You can find the group HERE. I’d love for you to be a part of the group and join the conversation. Please feel free to post new topics and items for discussion.

EXTRA:

Who’s hoping to get a Kindle this Christmas?

We recently made a great purchase at my church. One of our electric guitar players had played at another church and used a product called Axe Trak. He’s a very good musician and picky about gear, so he was skeptical at first, but after playing through it, he had to admit he thought it worked great. He came back and told me about it. We bought one the next week, loved it and bought a second one this week (we often have 2 electric guitars).

What does an Axe Trak do? It allows your electric guitar player to have their amp beside them on the stage, but via the Axe Trak, there is no stage volume. We had been putting our electric guitar player’s amps in holes we built into our stage. The holes (with the lids on them) reduced the stage volume, but were a pain to set up, mic and needed a fan constantly blowing on the amp, which means we had to crack the lid open and caused a danger on our stage (one of our vocalist fell in one of the holes while walking backstage and hurt her leg pretty bad). We’ve had several other people (including myself) that almost fell in the hole, when the lid was left open or not fully closed. With the Axe Trak, we have closed the lids for good.

Here’s some more info from the Axe Trak website: “The warm sound desired by most guitarists can only be created by the speaker of a good sounding guitar amp being mic’d in the right environment. Direct amplifier outputs sound fake, fuzzy and extremely harsh. The AxeTrak® alleviates this problem by allowing the user to connect directly from the speaker jack of their guitar amp to the input jack of the AxeTrak®. The output of the AxeTrak® is then plugged into a recording console, mixing board or computer soundcard using a standard low impedance microphone cable. This method of recording allows you to get a direct signal that includes the preamp tubes as well as the power tubes if using a tube amp. This is very important if you are a tone freak like most guitarists.” Check it out HERE.

This past Sunday, my church beta-tested the unreleased Igniter Track: “Here Is Our King” by David Crowder. Igniter Media Group (one of my favorite church media producers) is coming out with a new line of products called: “Igniter Tracks“. They’ll be starting with 2 very cool volumes, which include some great songs and good song arrangements recorded professionally by Igniter.

As I mentioned, we used the “Here Is Our King” Igniter Track in our services this past weekend and it went very well. Our congregation was singing along to the video created by Igniter and our band was playing the song live with a click-track in their ear (all our band and singers where in-ear monitors).

This is like an iWorship video on crack. Every conference I do I hear from people that are tired of the same ‘ol, same ‘ol iWorship videos with stock aerial footage. Igniter Tracks offers cutting edge, creative, cool looking video tracks to play and/or sing along with. It’s truly taking the iWorship concept to the next level. If you haven’t already, you can pre-order both volumes now HERE. You can preview a video HERE.

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!

One thing I enjoy each year at the Catalyst Conference is the worship and their use of technology. My friend, Brad, the creator of ProPresenter is a big part of what goes on. He usually is the Video Director and they use his software to make it happen. With the combined use of ProPresenter and ProVideoPlayer, Catalyst is always on the cutting edge of media in worship. I just checked in with my software poll and ProPresenter is still in First Place, which surprised me - not because it’s not a great presentation software, I just didn’t realize how many churches had switched over to the Mac platform. If you haven’t voted yet, go HERE to vote.

Soon I’ll be reviewing SermonSpice’s new presentation software that they unveiled at Catalyst: SpiceRack.

I recently heard from the cool people at Glow Box Media. They are a new producer worth checking out. You can find their products HERE.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE:

The first issue of Collide Magazine just came out. Did you get your copy? Collide is a great new resource for Church leaders. I wrote an article that has been getting positive feedback. I was a little nervous about the article (where I reviewed 3 media clearing house companies) due to having to say something negative about each company. I use, respect and know the people behind each company that I reviewed, so I was a little worried that they’d be upset with the article. The truth is, I simply gave my best shot at being objective and the feedback I’ve received so far is that people respected that and agreed with my comments. If you haven’t subscribed yet, go HERE to sign up.

Many of you may have listened to a podcast by WorshipHouse Media, but have you checked them out since they started doing them via video? I think they’re well done and add a new dynamic to their podcast. Big props to Trent for a very cool intro to the video podcast. Check it out HERE!

EXTRA:

Speaking of podcasts, Anthony and I were back in the studio this past Friday and recorded Episode 6, which should come out soon. If you haven’t subscribed to our podcast or checked out our last episode on copyright and the Church, you can HERE.