This month we have our annual Missions Festival. This years theme: GLOCAL. I’ve been using that term a lot lately. Our Visual Arts team is transforming our church for this yearly extravaganza! More info HERE.
In November we’ll host the “Hymns of Hope” featuring worship leaders (including our own) from 4 amazing churches. Click HERE to see a sneak peak of them on The Worship Network and hear our worship leader, Scott Dyer.
In December we’ll have some sort of theatric/dramatic presentation in the early part of the month. I’m told we’ll do something “simple” for Christmas Eve. I’m counting on it!
Today my wife is working (she gets paid double on holidays!) so it’s just me and my 3 amazing kids. Lots of fun on this holiday. See you tomorrow! For those of you in the USA – Happy Memorial Day.
What inspires you? Different things inspire me – I look for inspiration from other churches, American Idol, The Grammys, concerts, conferences, things like Blue Man Group and KA in Vegas, etc. My friend, Pace, from Fellowship Church sent me THIS link to something they did this past Christmas. I was inspired. I was encouraged and I was proud that The Church is using it’s gifts and creativity again. Check it out!
EXTRA:
Each Friday I check out the “Video of the Week” from my friend, Bill Seaver’s blog: MicroExplosion. This week’s video was on giving a presentation. I thought it was great and would love for all preachers/presenters to watch it.
The interview I did for the Churchy Media Podcast just posted. You can check it out HERE. In it, we talk about a tech get-together at NAB next week (Tuesday, April 15th at 11:30am). I hope you’ll download it and give it a listen.
Again, my classes at NAB (“Which Worship Presentation Software is Best for Your Church?” and “Church 2.0″) are sponsored by eleven72 and ProPresenter.
EXTRA:
Here a some pictures from our Good Friday service…
We’re in the craziness of Easter week. I know you are, too. Let’s all pray for each other.
Last night we rehearsed for our Good Friday services. Tonight we rehearse for Easter. I’m pretty excited about what I see coming together. I’ll have pictures for you in the near future.
For now, I’d love to hear what you’re doing at your church this Easter.
Lately, I’ve been considering getting Apple TV for our church. I have several ideas of how to use it and am sure there are others that I haven’t even thought about. If you’re interested or curious in how Apple TV can be used in a ministry setting, you can read more about it HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.
Are you using Apple TV? If so, please comment and tell us how you’re using it.
EXTRA:
Today begins “Tech Week” at Bent Tree. We have rehearsal every night this week, 2 Good Friday services, dress rehearsal on Saturday and 3 Easter services.
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!
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.
We have been meeting over the last 2 months to discuss this year’s Good Friday and Easter services. We are finalizing our plans soon and I’ll blog about them. What are you doing at your church this Easter season?
Each year I make “New Year Resolutions”. Of course I’m doing the standard: spend more time with God, spend more time with my family, lose weight, etc. I take all those seriously and plan to do all three, but I wanted to blog about a more specific list of ministry goals for 2008. Here they are:
Lead, empower and develop my Tech Arts Leadership Team
Lead a smooth transition into our new worship center and the remaining projects and renovations
See our team double in size
See our team become closer and share more social time together
Develop and lead well those that I oversee
Have a better process for assimilation for newcomers to the team
See that our team and each volunteer does what they do better
Video and catalog special moments throughout the year for a highlight video at the end of the year
Raise the bar for excellence and quality in our corporate worship
Offer more training for our Tech Arts team
Help train and develop other tech teams and leaders for children and youth
Improve upon and expand my knowledge of Final Cut Pro
Go on a mission trip
Read several more books (ministry, business and leadership)
Continue writing for several magazines
Complete at least 2 of my 3 book projects before the year ends
Add some new classes and information to the conferences that I teach at
Work with more churches to help them grow in their worship and technical ministry
EXTRA:
This just in from Matt at fortyonetwenty: “We want to give your readers a promo code for a FREE mini-movie from our site. The mini-movie you will get is called “Anything But Silent”". To get it just use the Promo Code: free4120
