History In The Making

Remember me mentioning Perry Noble in an earlier blog? Perry is pastor of NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC. This past Sunday they had their biggest Sunday EVER. Remember, this is in Anderson, SC (not a metropolis): They had over 8200 people in attendance and at least 214 people accepted Christ. Say what? Read that again. 8200 people, of which, 214 accepted Christ….in Anderson, SC. It’s a TOTAL God-thing. I mention them to brag on God and to encourage you to keep an eye on them. He blogged about this past Sunday HERE and HERE.

BONUS: 

Planning a series on stewardship/finances? Grab Midnight Oil’s free monthly download!

 

Going LIVE Today

A while back I blogged about the new DVD from Flashlight Films that I reviewed. Today it went LIVE to the public. I encourage you to check it out. I blogged first about their “Run the Race Collection“. Next I blogged about their second one: “Lord’s Supper Collection”. Then I blogged about their third one: “Clean the Cup Collection”.

Now two mini-movies – “Dear Jane” and “Apostles Creed” round out the project (which I’d suggest just buying the whole thing). The “Dear Jane” mini-movie is very well done – very classy and dramatic. A great opener for a discussion on divorce or just trials in life. The “Apostle Creed” mini-movie I’ve used in a service before and it was very well received.

Speaking of going LIVE today – Chris Tomlin’s NEW Cd hit the streets today. You can get it at your local music store or on iTunes.

Also going LIVE today is FaithVisuals.com. I don’t know much about them, yet. I knew they were in development, but just saw today that they went live. I’ll update you more once they get back to me.

HERE’S WHAT I LIKE SO FAR:
Their stated goal is two-fold: 1) to raise the level of visual media used in churches today, and 2) to raise the number of churches using visual media. This I like. These two goals are the reason I teach and speak at so many conferences.

HERE’S WHAT I DON’T LIKE SO FAR:
FaithVisuals.com is created by the editors of Christianity Today International and PreachingToday.com. What’s wrong with that you may ask? I have a philosophy that I believe strongly in. KEEP THE MAIN THING THE MAIN THING. A project like this, who’s number one priority is not this company, will NEVER be as good of a resource as a company like SermonSpice or WorshipHouse Media, where that’s all they do – it is their “main thing”.

Christianity Today and PreachingToday will never be all they can be as a company with their time, money, energy, efforts and staff divided. Any time, money, energy, effort, etc. that they give to FaithVisuals.com is time, money, energy, effort, etc. that they’re not giving to their “main thing”. Why not achieve the two stated goals by pointing your readers to websites like SermonSpice (featuring over 2000 resources) and WorshipHouse (featuring over 5000 resources)?

 

DVDs for Shut-ins

I came across this announcement from a church and thought it was pretty admirable and  noteworthy. Most churches are upgrading from tapes to CDs and from VHS video to DVD. This is a cool way to allow those on the receiving end to upgrade with you. We all have either have an extra/cheap DVD player that we can give away (I just sold one on Craig’s list for $10) or we could buy a cheap one and donate it to the cause. This may not fall in some people’s cutting edge/innovative idea category, but I dig it and applaud them for their ministry to those that can’t get out. Aren’t we called to provide for the widows and the weak?

EXTRA:

Picking up on the topic of service audio and video recording, there are lots of things to consider (including copyright issues). Anthony Coppedge and I are going to be addressing this on our new podcast: Creative Synergy. Subscribe today!

 

Podcast Is LIVE!

As I’ve mentioned before, Anthony Coppedge and I teamed up to do a new podcast called: Creative Synergy. Our first episode is available through iTunes. You can link to it from our website: www.creativesynergypodcast.com. Also on our website are show notes with links to what we talked about. In our first episode, we play an interview with Kem Meyer of Granger Community Church – it’s pretty cool. Check it out!

 

MyVideoBible

Have you heard of MyVideoBible (As seen on TV – if that helps). Here’s some text/explanation from their website:

The new online service is so much more than simply video on your TV, it is a personal, involving product. The online version not only delivers the Bible to where it best suits you (anywhere you can log onto a PC), but also can help you read the Bible in a structured, managed way.

With over ten years in the making, The WatchWORD Bible brings you the whole New Testament word for word as a video stream, but also offers integrated reading plans, full text search and automatically updated log. Even better, the online version gives you instant chapter selection and the ability to watch just what you want, where you want and when you want.

Once you start watching, you won’t want to stop. God’s word leaps from the printed page to your computer – to make reading God’s Word easier and more enjoyable than ever before.

FREE:
MyVideoBible is now giving away 15 chapters from The Book of Acts COMPLETELY FREE so you can see for yourself.

 

Wk. 4 At My Church (Using EasyWorship)

The journey continues. Today was week 4 of “the switch”. Remember 2 Sundays ago, I trained 2 people on EasyWorship. One ran it last week and the other ran it today. I just came in for about 10 minutes before the first service for a “refresher” with Amy. She rememebered well from 2 weeks before and ran both services alone today. I was in a Sunday School class during one service, then sat with a friend and my wife during the second service.

I also popped by the church this past Friday afternoon to train two new people. One of the people I trained is the person who had been creating the slides each week in PowerPoint – she was a crucial one to train so that myself or the Technical Director, Brian, don’t have to set up the slides each week. Now she can continue to prepare the slides (which is part of her job), but now on EasyWorship, instead of PowerPoint. I showed her how easy it was to connect to CCLI’s SongSelect Lyric Service and import songs into the EasyWorship database. It really is simple and impressive. She caught on quick and will now begin preparing the EasyWorship slides each week during the week.

A SIDE NOTE OR MINI-LESSON:

In my conferences on “Beginning and Developing a Media Ministry”, I talk about two teams:

1. The PREPARATION team – A person(s) who creates the slides each week (that’s who I trained Friday)
2. The PRESENTATION team – These are the people who come in on Sunday morning and just run what has already been created for them.

PERSONAL THOUGHT:

This was an especially cool and out of the ordinary Sunday for my church. The theme/focus was “worship”. If you know me, you know I was a happy camper. The pastor wove his message throughout the entire service. He actually started the message before we even sang our first song (that really blew people’s minds). He pretty much magnified God and said why we worship, which led into a time of worship. We would sing 2 to 3 songs, then he would come back up and teach some more. The pattern repeated a few times. It was a great worship experience and a nice break from the norm.