How do you direct visitors on your web site? It seems like an obvious question, but there is a subtle side to it. Sure, you expect Church visitors to check out your web site before they show up at the door. After all, they have all week to look. But how do you direct them to the information that is most critical for them deciding on whether to come or pass your Church by? You have to look at the Church web site from the perspective of a visitor. Make sure to present the following information directly off the home page:

• Worship times and places
• Upcoming Worship Theme or Series
• Information about Sunday School for all ages
• General directions and map
• Layout of the Church buildings
• Phone number to call if they have questions

If you do this, then potential visitors should be able to answer their questions prior to coming. And you can expect that they’ll know this basic information before they walk in the door. (Be sure your greeters are familiar with it, too, just in case a visitor doesn’t have web access.) You can then help them start down the path to joining the Church.

There are lots of Bible study programs available now for smart phones. When smart phones got sufficient memory (i.e. megabytes), Bible study applications started coming out. Here are just a few, along with comments:

QuickVerse PDA

Based on the PC program QuickVerse, this version is designed for the Palm OS. It allows you to have multiple translations, as well as commentaries and dictionaries. You use a hierarchical search tool to find a specific verse, i.e. select the book, chapter, then verse. It allows you to attach personal notes to specific words in specific verses.

For more information, see Quickverse.com.

AcroBible

Available on the iPhone, this Bible study program takes advantage of the finger based user interface. To find a verse, you start with an alphabetical list of the books – i.e. just like the contacts list. You select a book, then you get an outline showing chapter numbers and section titles. You then select a chapter and you go to the beginning of that chapter. You can then easily scroll down through the text to find the verse in question.

Acro Bible takes advantage of the iPhone’s user interface. It actually works quite well, allowing you to keep up with even a preacher citing verses rapid fire. And the text is easy to read even in low light, given the iPhone’s backlit display. But note that if you want to add a personal note, the note is attached to the whole verse, not the individual word.

For more information, see AcroBible.

Why not have a New Members page on your web site, complete with video clips? The idea would be to let each new member record a video clip right after they joined. The topic would be their personal testimony of faith. This is appropriate as a witness to their faith. In most Churches, joining requires that you either profess your faith or reaffirm the vows of membership. The video clip would capture a word of testimony from each person that the community of faith would then be able to see outside of the Sunday morning event. Families could share together or separately. Each clip would be limited to 3 minutes.

The assimilation of new members is an ongoing challenge in many Churches. This idea would give that process a jumpstart. Staff could review the video as it went up on the web site to tailor the assimilation plan for each new member. Other members of the Church could watch the new member’s video and identify like interests. The video clip would make each new member more visible, and open opportunities to get involved with various small groups based on shared life experiences. This would open the door to new members, who might otherwise stay put in the pew. Video clips would stay up for about a month, and then rotate out as others joined.

If you have all of the lyrics for the songs on screen, then why do you still need a bulletin? Many Churches have decided to drop the paper bulletin, since all of the information was a duplicate of what appears on the video screens anyway. However, there are still some advantages to having a paper bulletin:

• People can take home the paper bulletin.
• A printed page can be written on; for example, you can have a sermon outline.
• People still like to have something to read before and after the service.
• You can put stuff in the paper bulletin that you don’t have time to announce.

Does your Church still publish a paper bulletin each Sunday? If so, what do you put in it that is different from the information content of the worship presentation? And how do people in the congregation like it?

How do you respond to others when they insult you? Do the words of Jesus to “turn the other cheek,” Mat 5:39, come to mind? Or do you start plotting your revenge, even for what others would call a minor insult? Jesus was well aware that we have enemies. Long before He was flogged, He had no doubt felt the barbarity of Roman soldiers. If a Roman soldier was marching through your town, he could order you to carry his pack for a mile. It didn’t matter that you were on your way home after a long and tiring day. It didn’t matter if the interruption affected your time critical business deal. You still had to do it – i.e. just because the soldier ordered you to. If you refused, he could kill you; that was Roman law. Sometimes you don’t seem to have a choice; you have to endure the insults of others.

Jesus suggested a different response – i.e. out of grace. Let grace cover the insult. Let grace enable you to respond in a way other than what your instinct tells you. Jesus knew that there is spiritual power in responding out of grace to those who hurt you. He proved it on the cross. In doing so, you will experience grace anew and you will find joy.

So the next time the boss orders you to do something that feels like an insult, respond in grace. You will then find that the task will be a joy. And rather than doing the minimum to satisfy the demand, and that sloppily, do your best. In so doing, you will prove your excellence and professionalism. And the boss will take note of that.

With the emphasis these days on web 2.0, there are new opportunities for the Church. What if we used the web to create dialogue groups following worship? The congregation could join these groups and participate in a dialogue during the week after the worship service. These groups would focus on the sermon, discussing it together. A moderator would be needed to help keep the group on track. The preacher could participate if so inclined. The purpose of the group would be to reflect on and let the sermon sink in. It would not be an opportunity to put down the preacher or reject his message. The opportunity for people to deepen their faith is great. Would this work in your Church?

The technology for this already exists. It could be implemented as a blog or web log, whereby members could sign in and write their comments on each sermon. The main posting could be a summary of the sermon. By limiting comments to existing members and moderating the discussion, the spammers would be limited. It would also be helpful to come up with rules of etiquette for these discussion groups. The moderator could be a staff member if appropriate. The time frame for the comments would be the week after the sermon was preached. That would put a time box on the discussion, since a new sermon will come along after a week. The preacher could read these comments and gather feedback on the sermon that would take a 100 phone calls to elicit. So this becomes a win-win situation.

One recent development in worship lyrics uses a moving background. This departs from the previous technique, where you used a static image as the background for your worship slides. Now you can have a dynamic background for the song lyrics. You can even use live shots, but more often you want something that is simply a moving background. The movement helps keep the congregation’s attention.

So how do you pick a moving background? First of all, you should ensure that you maintain good contrast between the words and every frame of the moving background. Otherwise, people will have trouble reading the words while singing. For example, you should show white text on a dark color; or you could show dark text on a light color. Secondly, the moving background should be designed so that the words dominate. If someone glances briefly at the screen, the words should stand out in their mind’s eye. Thirdly, you should choose a moving background that matches the lyrics. For example, a song about creation could show a moving background that was a scene from nature, e.g. a babbling brook. A song about the God of the universe could show shots of the stars. By following these principles, you increase the interest of the congregation in watching the screens.

How does your church use moving backgrounds? Feel free to comment below.

In most megachurches today, you will find video cameras. The cameras are there to record the service, so that it can be distributed via DVD, CD, CATV, or over the Internet. Along with the cameras, you will usually find stage lighting. These are sophisticated, computer controlled lighting systems that can light up the stage like daytime. You can easily have so much light shining that the preacher might well observe that he has been “blinded by the light”. This is not a reference to Paul’s dramatic conversion on the way to Damascus (i.e. Acts 22:6), but rather an observation that the light is overwhelming. It makes it hard for the preacher to see the reaction of the audience. This affects the pacing of the sermon, e.g. making it difficult to pause for people to laugh at a joke. The dilemma is that to get good video footage, you have to have a lot of light on the subject. How do we ensure that we have excellent lighting on the stage without disconnecting the preacher from the congregation?

The first step is to make sure that the lighting is well designed. It should be even all the way across the stage, so that the far left is as well lit as the center. The stage should have appropriate back lighting, so that people look three dimensional and not flat. And it should be well diffused, not glaring and bleak. When we pay attention to these issues, we will make sure that we do not walk in darkness, for we have the light of life – John 8:12. And people will get more out of the sermon.

People in the Church need leadership that provides a strong vision of the future. Without a clear vision, how can we expect to arrive at the same place together? A clear vision helps everyone – clergy, staff, members, and constituents feel like they are part of something that really matters. The leader has to inspire others with their vision, and then guide them in pursuit of that shared vision.

When this happens, a Church will grow and develop into a strong fellowship. This builds goodwill and grace which can help in times of testing. The Church at its best is a place where everyone has a sense of belonging there, sharing in the work of Christ in the world today. This shared purpose is what makes the Church the community of faith. It is not just our belief systems and doctrinal statements – important as they are – but rather the shared vision that makes us one in Christ. May God bless the Church!

Proverbs 29:18

What does it take to televise the worship service? One might think that all you need are a couple of video cameras and a link to the television station, but there is more to it than that. The standard for broadcast TV is so high that it is hard to match without a million dollar’s worth of equipment. And the quality has to be there for the service to be widely accepted.

One church that I was involved with had an ideal situation. They had captured the local access channel, ensuring them an audience. They could show their worship services live every Sunday. However, they also had to provide programming 10 hours a day – 7 days a week. So they got the equipment and ran a television studio out of the church! During the day they broadcast family oriented programming. On Sundays and Wednesdays, they broadcast their worship services. And this was largely run by volunteers – teenagers at that. It just goes to show the creativity and talent of the local church.

Scheduling Staff is usually handled by internal calendars or event management systems (i.e. EMS).
But how do you schedule volunteers? Why not devise a calendar system on the Church web site that would let volunteers schedule themselves for various tasks. You would assign each volunteer a set of roles, e.g. sound technician. They could then look at the calendar and pick the days that they are available to run sound. The calendar system would then keep track of the fact that they had volunteered to run the sound desk on the particular date. If they needed to change, the system would allow them to drop that commitment of time and post the task back to the available tasks pool. Another volunteer trained in sound could then volunteer online to take their place. You might need a hot list of items that were coming up, so that volunteers accessing the calendar would see what was most needed. Overall, this would take care of scheduling volunteers for technical ministry tasks automatically.

Does such a system exist? Perhaps, but it would need to be flexible and role based. If you know of such a system, then please comment below so that others can discover it.

What is the difference between publishing on paper and on a website? In one sense, both are means of communication. The content can be the same. Yet there are many challenges that come up when you move from printed page to web page.

1. The flow of information is different. There is no need to spill over to the back page, because a web page can be any length. And you can use hypertext links to jump around to different sections of the article. Doing that in print was once called “programmed learning.”
2. Web pages lack a context. If you jump around in a book, then you know where you are based on the feel of the book. But you could get to a particular web page via links on a dozen different pages on as many sites – and that doesn’t count the results of various search engines. You have to write the web page with the notion that the user may not have seen what you wrote on the previous page – i.e. they just got here.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, but they illustrate that each media has its pros and cons. An author that writes for multiple types of media has a real challenge on their hands. A good resource on this subject is the following book:

Price, Jonathan. Hot Text: Web Writing That Works. 1st. Albuquerque, NM, USA: The Communication Circle, 2002. ISBN: 0-7357-1151-8.

July is a month to celebrate our Patriotism, as the 4th of July rolls around. Most of our Churches celebrate this with a special worship service emphasizing a patriotic theme. This is a good way to recognize our nation’s birthday. However, you can take this too far. For example, it would be easy to put the American flag up as a background image for all of the worship slides. But would it be appropriate to have the Apostle’s Creed appear on top of the American Flag? Maybe. Maybe not. Americans believe strongly in the Separation of Church and State. However, where do you draw the line? Perhaps a better idea would be to put the Christian Flag up as the background for the Apostle’s Creed. That demonstrates both your patriotism – i.e. by showing a flag – and your belief that God is the ultimate one you worship – i.e. by saying the Apostle’s Creed. Here is what the Christian flag looks like:

There was a time when you had to publish the monthly newsletter on paper, incurring ever rising printing costs and postage. Now, you can get the same information out in electronic form, using EMail. But how do you manage a large mailing list? Just building a huge distribution list in Outlook is not very effective, and opens you up to spammers. EMail Communication Services exist to help you with this communication. They provide huge capacity and security at relatively low cost. Many will support multi-user access and scheduling of EMails in advance. Here is a review of some of the commercial services available:

Top Ten EMail Services

Does your Church use such a service for the weekly or monthly newsletter? If so, please comment and let us know how you use this service. What are the pros and cons?

What is the measure of grace? There is an abundance of books on the subject of God’s grace, some of which I have read. And I have come to understand grace in theological terms. However, grace also applies to human relationships. It is the measure of that human relational grace that I want to take here.

When our enemy hurts us, we are told to “turn the other cheek” (MAT 5:39). I have often pondered what Jesus meant by that. Was he talking about physical or psychological abuse? Does that apply to the coworker that we perceive is sabotaging our project so that theirs can succeed? I tend to think that Jesus saw physical abuse on the streets of Nazareth. When a Roman soldier came through town, by law he could demand anything of the people. If you complained, then more than likely you got the back of his hand across your face and the soldier just took the item away from you. Who would stop him? Yes, the soldier was being barbaric, and we would say that he was no better than the mugger who stops us today on the sidewalk. But Jesus knew that the way to respond was to change the heart of the soldier, not start a fight over a piece of bread. In a fight, you would more than likely just get killed, and the soldier would be that much more filled with guilt. When you turned the other cheek, the soldier would realize that you weren’t going to oppose him, and he would be left wondering why. That is grace in action.

You see, it is grace that enables our “other than by instinct” response to human situations. Without an understanding of grace, our responses would be “tit for tat” – i.e. violent and vengeful. And we all know about the cycle of violence, that it just spirals out of control. Wars have been started following a simple disagreement. With grace in our lives, we can “turn the other cheek” when provoked. We can respond with love for our enemy, and do the right thing to heal the situation. Our enemy may not always understand why we aren’t responding the way they would – i.e. they may expect us to be seeking revenge. But ultimately, they will learn to respect us, because they realize that we are seeking justice.

This is the work of Jesus on the cross. And it has a benefit in our everyday living. The measure of grace is the impact it has on our human relationships. It affords us a chance to be human beings who are more concerned with doing the right thing that exacting revenge. With finding justice instead of perpetuating injustices. With sharing God’s grace rather than hoarding it.

May your life be filled with God’s grace – i.e. overflowing and abundant!

How do you learn HTML? HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language. It represents the lingua franca of the Internet. Learning it, in all of its variations, is a mind boggling task. But you can get started on it with a simple editor and a browser running locally. You first have to learn the syntax of the language.

There are a number of excellent introductions to HTML. One is found at W3C School – i.e. the standards body for the Internet. W3C stands for the World Wide Web Consortium, and it has a web site at www.w3c.org that contains the standards. Their introduction to HTML can be found at introduction.

Scheduling staff is usually taken care of via internal calendars or event management systems (i.e. EMS). But how do you schedule volunteers? Why not devise a calendar system on the Church web site that would let volunteers schedule themselves for various tasks. You would assign each volunteer a set of roles, e.g. sound technician. They could then look at the calendar and pick the days that they are available to run sound in worship. The calendar system would then keep track of the fact that they had volunteered to run the sound desk on a particular date. If they needed to change, the system would allow them to drop that commitment of time and post the task back to the available tasks pool. Another volunteer trained in sound could then volunteer online to take their place. You might need a hot list of items that were coming up, so that volunteers accessing the calendar would see what was most needed. Overall, this would take care of scheduling volunteers for technical ministry tasks automatically.

Does such a system exist? Perhaps, but it would need to be flexible and role based. If you know of such a system, then please comment below so that others can discover it.

You can read the Bible in a year. All it takes is 15 minutes a day, 365 days, and you will know the content of the Bible! For more information, see the reading plan:

One Year Bible

The current readings for this week are listed below so you can get started reading.

Many churches are now capturing the worship services for later playback on their web site. The technology to do this is readily available. People can even playback the service on their video enabled cell phone. Or they can play the service back on an iPod – i.e. in audio or video mode. Or they can play back the service on their computer over a broadband connection. Or they could receive a DVD of the service via mail or home delivery. Or they could just read the sermon online.

The technical demands of these processes are enormous. It takes a lot of hard disk space to record and process the service. And it takes a broadband connection to upload it to the web server. And the web server has to be capable of handling streaming media. A good rule of thumb is as follows for capturing video live:

For every 5 minutes of video (DV), you will be using up 1GB of hard drive space.

That implies that a one hour service will occupy 12 GB of hard disk space. If you just record the sermon, then you can cut that in half – i.e. 30 min or 6 GB. But this is still a huge load on system resources. Since you want to maintain quality, you will want to capture the service at the highest resolution possible – i.e. in these examples, standard resolution or DVD quality. High Definition would be even more. Then, to process and store the service, you will use up intermediate storage – i.e. rendering space for programs like Final Cut Pro. The overall load on hard disk space is enormous.

How do you plan for and manage this load? There are many approaches you can take. One would be to size the hard disks of your video editing system to handle a year’s worth of worship services, using the rule of thumb above. Another would be to use NAS (i.e. Network Attached Storage) technology to store everything except this week’s worship service. You also need to plan for having a web site with sufficient storage and bandwidth to support all of the services you want to have online at any given time. You will need to manage these spaces so that you do not exceed the limitations of the web host system, as that will incur high fees.

How do you design a church web site for good accessibility? There are a number of issues that come up, such as readers for the blind. Yet, the church should be one place where we take these things into consideration, so that the very least (Mat 25:40) can use the web site.

One issue is color. For those with color blindness, a beautiful color scheme may really be unreadable. This surprisingly affects a significant percentage of adults – i.e. over 10 million adult males in the US. However, those of us who don’t suffer from color blindness don’t recognize it. There is a web site that helps you visualize this effect. Check out the Color Accessibility wheel by Giacomo Mazzocato:

These days it seems like everyone is vitally concerned with security. Political rallies have to have security. Sports stadiums have to have security. Airports are sometimes so tight that you have to plan to leave an hour earlier than normal, just to get through the security screening. Employers check the background of new employees, to make sure that they aren’t a security risk. So what about people working in the Church as a volunteer?

There was a time when the Church was considered a haven for those in trouble. Perhaps that time has passed. These days, with the concerns over security, perhaps we have to make sure that Church employees are people who are trustworthy. But what about volunteers? Should they have background checks done to make sure they are also trustworthy? What do you think?

Every worship service utilizes lyrics – i.e. words that the congregation is expected to sing, speak or read silently. This is typically shown via a video projector on one or more screens. But who determines the content of these slides? And what is the process whereby that content is generated every week for worship? And how do you ensure high quality in this presentation?

Overall, the worship service is the responsibility of the minister, so the minister will certainly have input to the lyrics for the service. This may take the form of Bible verses and/or creeds. Slides containing the Bible verses that are read or referenced should always be shown. Slides containing the liturgy should always match the bulletin. Other slides may contain creeds or statements of faith. Some slides may be used to make points or provide illustrations to the sermon. The minister will determine the scriptures and the translations involved. The words may even be shown in multiple languages – e.g. Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, Latin, ….

Typically, the minister delegates the music to a music director or director of worship. The music director will then have input to the praise and singing in the service. This may take the form of congregational hymns, choir anthems, or solos. The music director also determines the music, but only the lyrics are typically projected. (Technology exists for showing sheet music, but this is usually only applicable to the musicians.) Slides for this part of the service should always include the lyrics that the congregation is expected to sing. If there is a screen setup so that only the choir can see it, then the lyrics to the anthem may also be viewed. This helps the choir look up from their music books and out towards the congregation.

The process of generating worship lyrics needs to be well defined. After all, the Church will use this process 52 weeks a year. One person on the technical ministry team – i.e. an editor – will be responsible for generating the worship lyric slides. They should receive input from the minister, music director, and anyone responsible for the bulletin. The style and content of the bulletin should match the worship slides, right down to using the same Bible translation for scriptures that are going to be read. There should be a defined sequence of steps involved in this process. Here is one example of that sequence:

• Minister plans the worship service in advance, setting the theme, scriptures, and points to support the sermon.
• Music director plans the music for the worship service, setting the songs and the specific variations to be played. For a hymn, you might have a selection of verses.
• Bulletin source is prepared, setting the content for the bulletin.
• Technical ministry team receives input from the minister, music director, and publisher of the bulletin. There should be a hard deadline for this – i.e. well before Sunday morning!
• Editor prepares the set of slides to be shown during the worship service. This takes time, but it can leverage the content from previous worship services.
• Editor publishes a draft of the slides for this coming Sunday.This should be in the final sequence, just as they would be projected on Sunday morning.
• Slides are reviewed by all parties concerned. Any exceptions are reported to the editor.
• Slides are delivered to the sanctuary control room on Friday at noon for presentation on Sunday morning.

The slides should always be reviewed by multiple eyes. One editor will tend to overlook certain issues; and you don’t want them showing up on Sunday morning, when they will be difficult to fix. The slide presentation software should catch typographical errors – i.e. be sure to run the spelling checker, for you can expect that somebody in the congregation will be an English teacher. The reviewers should look for quality issues – e.g. the transposition of slides in a music verse. The review process should seek to add polish to the finished presentation, not provide an opportunity to make lots of changes. IMHO, getting the whole process done by Friday noon is critical to having a slide presentation on Sunday that is high quality.

One could think of this process as a collaborative one. You could even agree to publish the prepared slides on the Church’s intranet so that they can be reviewed online. Given the weekly timeframe of preparing for worship this Sunday, this would avoid having to wait for eMail comments to circulate. Worship Presentation Software should support this process, not hinder it.

May worship always be focused on reverence and awe – Hebrews 12:28.

WordPress has now released version 2.5. MinTech will always strive to be current, so we have upgraded to this release. Some of the new features that this upgrade provides are as follows:

• New Search Capability

If you have any questions, then please take a look at WordPress.

What are the primary elements of a video illustration?  There has to be an opening image, an attention-getter. And there has to be an ending image, something you want to leave the congregation with. In between there can be anything you like to get the Word across. You can use the same content as a parable, or fall back on standard elements:

• Setting – evoking a mood by presenting a background that people will recognize, e.g. the Holy Land

• Theme – presenting the main idea, e.g. Love of Neighbor

• Point of View – demonstrating a point of view, e.g. Stewardship

• Character – developing a character through their action, e.g. Acting on the basis of Love

Whatever the content, remember that the objective is to get the congregation thinking along the same lines as the preacher. If you can do that, then you’ve succeeded.

Which video file format do you use? There are a multitude of available formats for video information. Here is an admittedly short-sighted list:

• MPEG – i.e. MPEG-2
• AVI
• MOV
• MP4 – i.e. MPEG-4

The decision as to which format to use may be dictated by the hardware and/or software that you are using. However, more and more software is able to support multiple formats. It can get rather confusing. Each format has things that they do well and things that they don’t do so well.