two words that most people don't put together...Worship Design
I know it wierd to think of “Worship Design” and alot of people are probably offended by that idea. “We don’t design worship God moves as God moves and we can’t design that…” and I would respond to that remark with ” I agree” but…”Production Design” doesn’t seem to sound “Christian” enough….but thats essentially what it is… Let me give you an example….
At my church we have two services for 9 months out of the year and three service over the summer. For now, I will speak about the two services and hit the summer schedule a little later. At 9 AM we have a ” Praise and Worship” service, more contemporary than a traditional service but not contemporary enough to be “contemporary”. At 10:45 we have a traditional service, very liturgical, very traditional.At the 9AM service we have a Praise band, drums, electric and acoustic guitars, a keyboard and a bass guitar. At 10:45 we have an organ, piano and choir. Both of these services occupy the same space with just roughly 45 minutes between services. The 10:45 service because of its traditional nature follows the same format week in and week out and thats exactly why the members attending that service attend that service. The 9AM service needs by ITS nature to be more varied week to week.
This is where “Worship Design” comes into play…and the first step to Worship Design is finding multiple points of view. This can be accomplished by forming an inter-generational team from members involved in the success of the more contemporary service. This for lack of a better term is your Worship Design Team. Meetings are held bi-weekly or monthly to build the structure of the services until the next meeting. The underlying foundation of the services relies heavily on the topic of the message being preached. This allows the service to achieve the same focus through music, media, drama and the Pastor’s sermon. Most people may think this is easy but its alot more difficult than it sounds….Because in all of this planning the congregation needs still need to be met even through the organization of the service. And organization is the key element to control and facilitate the flow of the service.
Worship Design needs to enable the service to flow from one element to the other with no gap or disruption so they members are not distracted from the message of the service. NO DEAD AIR….So as the band sits the Pastor stands to preach, as the Pastor closes his sermon and prays the Band retakes their position to play any special music…
I’ll post another article on building a Worship Design Team in the next couple of days….
Flow...Flow...Flow your boat....
The last few months have been busy….we’ve added a new baby, I’m changing roles in my day job and I’ve been a lot more hands-on with the AV needs of our “contemporary” worship service. If anything this has renewed my goal for this blog….the need to use Technology in Church…well.
The title of this entry is flow…flow…flow your boat…. and the reason is you have to pay careful attention to the flow of the service to use technology in church and use it well. Too much tech and media will overload the service and limit other aspects of worship.
Currently the “praise and worship” service we have is experimenting with different aspects of flow as our congregation gives both positive and negative feedback and weekly adjustments are made to either change or keep certain elements. Currently we are focusing on added elements that enhance the sermon and this includes video, internet, live drama, CD or movie clips…
The goal is to rotate elements so that we don’t over use any one over the other….no so much as a set rotation but as it fits the sermon.
I say all that to once again talk about flow…based on my previous work in both TV and radio the one thing we don’t want in a contemporary setting is “dead air”. which brings us back to flow…our goal is to have as few interruptions by someone needing to explain what happens next….but the the “flow” of the service transitions from one part to another….Here’s an example of one service’s flow…
Announcements (in this case video reporter” style quicktime videos filmed by our youth)
2 Praise and Worship songs
A brief greeting usually by one of the praise band members while music is transitioned between songs
Another Praise and Worship Song
Kid’s Sermon
Applicable media lead-in to sermon
Sermon with applicable presentation slides (the fewer the better)
Communion ( with a slower, applicable praise and worship song)
Closing Song (usually upbeat)
We’ll update more about flow as we go….look for more on churchnology.com
Video Alphabet Soup
HDMI,DVI-D,DVI-I, VGA,RGB,RGBHV… What do they all mean to me? Which should I concentrate on? Is one better than the other? If you have begun working with video lately, the names may have changed but the same principles apply. Now you also may ask the question, What about composite and component? Oh yes, they are still in use. The AV industry just added a few more options.
So let’s look at what these new and not so new cable types are. First, we will look at VGA. This has a 15 pin connector that is often referred to as HD-15 or DB-15. The most common use for this type of cable is to connect your computer to your monitor. This was the first means of connecting computers to projectors. The length of cable you can use is directly affected by the resolution you use. For example, if you are projecting an image at 1024×768@60Hz, the maximum recommended length would be 10 meters or 32 feet. Now, the longer length of cable you use, the more resistance and signal loss you get which translates into noise in your video. I recommend the use of a signal amplifier or distribution amplifier if you plan to mount your projector in the ceiling and use more than 50 feet of cable.
The next type of cable is known as DVI. Often referred by the type of signal it passes, they are called DVI-A, DVI-D or DVI-I. So what does that mean? Well, DVI was the first on the scene. It is now referred to as DVI-Analog. DVI-A cables are used to carry a DVI signal to an analog display(CRT or cheap LCD). In this configuration, DVI-A carries the same signal as a VGA cable. Then there is DVI-D. This is used to directly connect two digital devices, traditionally a video card and digital LCD. DVI-I is the most versatile of the bunch. This type is capable of sending an analog to analog or digital to digital signal. Keep in mind that DVI is not interchangeable. You must use the correct DVI cable to connect your devices.
Ok, we have touched on the most common ways of connecting your computer to a projector, VGA and DVI. Let’s discuss the various ways of getting video signal to your projector or display.
The newest player on the field is HDMI. It is primarily used for HD devices such as HD LCD panels and plasma screens. DVD is the primary device that is connected to these screens and the HDMI cable is capable of sending audio as well so only one cable is needed for both your audio and video signals. The down side is that DVD, HD-DVD, and Blu-Ray are the only devices that have a HDMI port. Computer manufacturer are adding this interface to some laptops but it is still rather sparse.
One lesser known way of getting your computer signal to your projector is known as RGBHV. This is a series of 5 cables that passes the three main colors of video and a horizontal and vertical sync pulse usually terminated in a BNC connector. This type of cable traditionally carries a computer signal to a projector instead of a VGA cable.
A smaller signal such as video does not require the same number of cable connectors as a digital or computer signal does. Therefore, we can enter the world of RGB or component video. This has become a bit more mainstream with the use of DVD players as you found yourself connecting the red, green, and blue cable from your DVD player to your TV that had a component input. It’s still pretty basic but the video signal is divided into three colors so that more information about each can be transmitted to the display device. If you are sending video a long distance or just want a better overall picture, then RGB is the way to do it.
Lastly, there is the composite video signal. This signal can’t be used to transmit a computer signal without a scan converter and only has one small cable. It is the same type of cable used by the TV cable companies. It has every signal transmitted on one cable. Signal quality is ok but should be the last resort used to send video to your projector is you can help it.
Well, I hope this helps you decipher some of the alphabet soup that is video cables. It’s been a while since we have posted but thanks for reading and good luck in all you do. Email us any questions or comments you may have.
Installation And You
Most people who know me understand that I like to do a lot of things myself. Churches are the same way. We don’t want to spend money on things that we feel that we are capable of doing or we have a well meaning “friend” who can help us. While there are things that can be done by laymen in the church or someone who has worked with electronics before, there are just some things that should be left to professionals. Equipment that hangs from the ceiling is generally that type.
Take, for example, the hanging of speakers in the sanctuary or your youth building. One might think, “It can’t be that hard to do. I can take the speaker out of the cabinet, drill two or three holes in the top of the cabinet, place some washers on both sides and place an eye bolt to connect some chain that is connected in the roof. That should be sufficient to hold the speaker cabinet, shouldn’t it?”
What you don’t realize is that the most speakers are made of medium density fiberboard (MDF), GLUED together and held with a few screws in key positions. Unless you are spending BIG money (translation: thousands per speaker box) the speakers are wood pulp pressed together into sheets. While it works well for most applications, hanging from homemade mounting devices is not what these manufacturers designed the speaker box for. They were designed to be placed on stands or on a platform. Major manufacturers understand that some people are going to hang these speakers in a manner not unlike that described above. They, however, are responsible enough to manufacture the speaker box with enough strength to hold its’ weight for some time.
What happens though if a cheaper speaker is chosen, as often is the case, and they are not put together quite as well? Well, the weight of the speaker and the cabinet could cause the glue to fail and the cabinet becomes a 60 pound weight crashing to the ground, breaking a pew, chair, or worse. Or even the best manufacturer’s glue won’t hold forever. After 10 years, do you really want to have a speaker fall apart when you least expected it. Safety should never be sacrificed in the name of finances.
There are many things that you can do to save money for your ministry. You can run the cable yourself or terminate the cable ends if you have someone with that type of expertise. You can rack mount your amplifiers and support gear before the final installation.
If you must do it yourself, spend the money and make sure that you purchase speakers that have “rigging points.” These are threaded inserts that are engineered to support the weight of the speaker cabinet for the life of the cabinet. They are usually made of real wood or have cabinets that are reinforced internally to assist in the support of the weight.
Thanks for reading and as always, email us at Churchnology@churchnology.com if you have any questions regarding the use of technology in your church or ministry. We are here to help.
Remember they are not professionals…
We have already covered a lot of different topics in the brief beginnings of Churchnology. The purpose of Churchnology is “Using Technology in Church…Well”, so for this post we aren’t going to talk much about church…or really technology….maybe a little, but really I want to focus on the last word in our tagline…WELL. The creation of this blog comes from two separate angles…first, DC and I both have a heart for using technology in worship services/ and programming events and secondly, we both are professional technologists in our day jobs and are very detail oriented when it comes to the use of technology and we are applying that to churches in this blog. Now, due to the fact we both recognize we are detail oriented (read: picky) to the “professional use” of technology, I feel led to report the following Churchnology axiom : Most people using technology in church, wait for it, are NOT PROFESSIONALS.
There used to be several over the counter medicine ads where a well known soap opera actor would be dressed as their character and be pushing this pill or that rub and had the tag line…”I’m not a Doctor, but I play one on TV…” That tends to be the same problem we have in the church…the person running the sound board might be a plumber, or the person loading the songs into the chosen presentation software might be a used car salesman….or worse might be gasp! the Pastor… These people are professionals but they are not professional media ministers or sound technicians or even presentation developers. In our need to make things perfect we need to focus on the people that make things happen just as much if not more than the actual technology being used. They are NOT PROFESSIONALS, so as DC has stated in previous posts this is where its really important to take Baby Steps….
Some suggestions-
Schedule training sessions-If you are including something new in to the tech mix train your people how to use it weeks in advance and have multiple people trained , just in case.
If you have enough people that are part of your media ministry team cross train if possible, show your computer people how to run the basics of your sound board and vise versa.
Make a detailed list that’s posted of “in case of failure” what can be omitted “on the fly”. An example- if the tape recorder fails mid service, let it fail but don’t let the house sound suffer. If there is a miscommunication on the song order on the slides stop the presentation go to black and resolve the issue with the congregation never knowing there was ever a problem…
I’ve been applying a little saying to my work for the last 10 or so years…Be A Duck!!!! ( no for you who know me does this have ANYTHING to do with a trio of movies about a kid hockey team!!!) To most people a duck is one of the most peaceful creatures floating on top of a lake or river…but drop the camera below water and you see the true story….on top peaceful floating, underneath paddling like crazy….that’s how technology should work…to everybody on top peaceful everything going off on cue and with no problems….below the water everything is moving 1000 mph and if it breaks you adapt and keep moving, quality never suffering….like a duck. It’s a well known fact both DC and I go into any project with not only a Plan A, and Plan B but also a Plan Y and Plan Z.
I say all that to say this…we strive to make technology work in church and work WELL…but some of that is reliant on training in most cases volunteers to do something well they don’t normally need to know how to do….and that will bring another post soon about training your volunteers to do both sound, video, web and other parts of integrating technology into church we haven’t even talked about yet.
Heads High, Stand Tall, Fly Straight
Open Song sings for FREE!!!!
We have focused a lot on the presentation part of church technology so far but we have stayed away from product reviews or giving any preference to one piece of software over the other. We have chosen to stay vendor neutral for a number of reasons and we will strive to continue in that effort. I say all of that to say this I have found a new tool I didn’t know existed, and its free. Most, if not all, of the well known church presentation applications are both primarily for Windows and usually rather expensive. They all do similar things-lyrics, bible verses, some video formats, audio etc. They all allow added control not available with Microsoft Powerpoint. Mediashout had a Macintosh version when the company first released their software but later releases were Windows only. OpenSong is not only free and on Windows but also allows churches to present lyrics, Bible verses, as well, but on a MacBook , MacBookPro, and even the older iBook and PowerBook. Later, I will have a post comparing the different Church Presentation Applications for Windows, but for now if you are a Mac user….OpenSong sings for FREEMillions of Colors and So Many Fonts: Can I use them all?
PowerPoint, Easy Worship, SundayPlus, and MediaShout are all programs that churches can use to project announcements, scripture, or your pastor’s sermon notes. It is easy to set up but as is the theme for our site, “Keep it Simple.” While there are millions of colors to choose from and so many different fun fonts available, that doesn’t mean they should be used.
Colors, “If I can’t use all of them, what should I use?” It depends on the effect you want to have. A white background and contrasting font color is appropriate for well lit areas so that the text stands out. Also, white backgrounds allow for some light spill to occur on the screen without any noticeable difference. Your choice of font color would be best kept to classic colors. Black, blue, green, red, or even brown are good colors to stick with for clean images and good intelligibility. Darker backgrounds such as black or blue are better for places where heads might edge in front of the projector image. The darker background blends with the “shadow” of the person or item obstructing the view. It makes it less noticeable. Also, the use of a white or yellow font color succeeds in making the text “pop” off the screen.
Allow me to say a short word on video and photographic backgrounds. While they often are very pleasing to the eye without text overlaid on them, you very rarely have a video that is always dark or always bright. It is difficult to determine what font color to choose to contrast the background. If you plan to use pictures, use them sparingly or during transitions where text does not need to be on screen.
One last word of advice, video has a “rule of thirds.” This divides the picture screen into thirds and how to frame a video shot. When creating slides for praise choruses or sermon notes, use the top two thirds of the screen for your text and leave the bottom third open.
Copyright and Legal Issues- READ THIS
How many times have you sat in church and seen a short clip of a movie as the pastor’s illustration? Or, sang along with a nice Powerpoint presentation of a praise song? Or, sang the printed words of a praise song from the bulletin? Did you ever see the letters CCLI and a number printed on the slides, or the handout? If not, there is a good chance you were watching an infringement of copyright that could cost the church up to $30,000 per incident. The CCLI was created to enable churches to be able to use copyrighted material in worship without having to contact he copyright holders individually EVERYTIME they need permission to use the song, words and the CVLI was created for protecting the copyright of videos and dvd’s.
Both these organizations are very important to the way you are able to use media in your services. But there is good news, both are annual licenses and are priced according to average Sunday attendance. The CVLI license gives you over 100 movie production companies including most of the major studios and the CCLI license gives you access to over 150,000 songs.
The major third party worship software applications integrate the CCLI license number into the presentations and also are able to download lyrics directly from the CCLI website.
We need to remember copyright infringement is a serious issue in the digital age and it is the Church’s responsibility to make sure it respects all copyright laws.
How much is enough? or maybe, How much is TOO much?
This post is going to build on DC’s last post as well as touch back on the very first post on Churchnology.com
Pull out your answers to the following questions:
Average Age?
Average Education level?
Level of Employment?
Number of families with small children?
Involvement with Church Activities/ Groups?
Do they go to the Movies?
Do they listen to the radio?
Do they follow the local sport teams?
Do they give topical suggestions of what they’d like to see in the service?
Are you a rapidly growing church?
What is the largest demographic growing in your church? (youth, young Adults, young married couples, new families, baby boomers,seniors)
The answers to these questions should shape the answers to these five new questions:
What?
Why?
When?
How?
and maybe the most important in this sense:
If?
Let me explain:
and go back to the title of this post: How much is enough? or maybe, How much is TOO much?
The demographics of your church directly impact and focus how you use technology in your services. Most people that work with media and ministry would suggest different approaches to integrating technology into a worship service depending on the median age of the participants. I have a 4 year old son and I am learning day by day what methods work and don’t work when it comes to enacting change in his life. This is a great analogy in regards to integrating technology into a worship service. Remember: NOT EVERYTHING YOU TRY IS GOING TO WORK FOR EVERYBODY.
The path DC and I are suggesting can be summed up in two words: baby steps.
Let me give you an example:
Average Age? 40 years old
Average Education level? some college
Level of Employment? business professionals, doctors, lawyers
Number of families with small children? 10
Involvement with Church Activities/ Groups? about 45% are involved with at least 1 church activity or group
Do they go to the Movies? the younger congregants more than the older congregants
Do they listen to the radio? mostly classic rock, christian, or country; some talk or sports
Do they follow the local sport teams? yes
Do they give topical suggestions of what they’d like to see in the service? some but it usually is divided-younger want more contemporary; older want more traditional hymns
Are you a rapidly growing church? growing steady but would say rapidly
What is the largest demographic growing in your church? (youth, young Adults, young married couples, new families, baby boomers,seniors) empty nest and seniors
Which now causes us to plan our integration based on the answers to these questions:
What? How? When?
Based on the age, education level and involvement with Church activities this could be as little as taking the Church Annoucements out of the bulletin and creating a powerpoint slide presentation that is played via projector before church starts; after a couple of weeks use the projector for Annoucements and maybe the scripture readings or responsive readings during the service; 4-6 weeks since using the projector for announcements you involve your music minister or choir director and integrate a couple of praise songs into the service and ONLY the praise songs are projected; the traditional hymns are still sung from the hymnals; 8-10 weeks you transition the traditional hymns over to the projector and add the Pastors “talking points” or scripture references to be displayed while he’s speaking.
Why?
This method of integration allows the entire congregation to take baby steps into the deep end of the pool slowly and together. By slowing warming up the congregation to the use of the projector, before long if the projector was down for repair, you will hear how much the congregation missed it being there.
This method also adds the technology without taking away the traditional aspects that are so important to some of the older members. It also allows everyone to follow along with the pastor as well as be more involved with the singing because they are no longer looking down into a book but instead are looking towards the platform.
And for the pastor it gives them greater control over changing the flow or direction of the sermon as they are led. Third party software like MediaShout or EasyWorship allow song lyrics and scriptures to be integrated with no distraction to the congragation “on the fly” as well as integrate video clips directly into the sermon as illustrations.
and
If?
This one is the biggie….what do you do If no one likes it and everybody complains? This is a trick question. These two things you need to do before you ever embark on integrating technology into worship. If you do this first, hopefully, you’ll never have to deal with the If no likes it and everybody complains?
First, Pray. Seriously, pray that this is the best direction for the church to go and pray what to integrate so that it doesn’t alienate but invites people to accept the idea of technology and worship.
Second, Don’t laugh at this, Form a committee-Involve each age group and let them tell you what they need to see specifically in the service and sculpt the use of technology to meet those needs.
More to come-
This blog is not for just churches new to the idea of integrating technology into church but at the same time some of the hints, tricks and tips we offer may sometimes be things old pros know but may have forgotten or have become so comfortable they don’t pause and take the time to do anymore. Honestly, it happens to all of us.
