Streaming the video of a worship service has always fascinated me. My background in TV Ministry combined with Web Technology makes me aware that the technology is there. The trouble is in the end points. How can we ensure that people have the bandwidth to receive a streaming video webcast of the service? Do you set minimum standards for their hardware? Or do you come up with complicated methods for downgrading the video quality until something works? What has been your experience in this area?

Images have power. They can convey the equivalent of a thousand words. They can convey emotion, as in a picture of a young child looking lost. Then can convey love, as in the mother who has just found that lost child. They have this power because they evoke a response within us. That is perhaps why a great movie can bring us to tears. It can leave us with a powerful image of just about anything, if well crafted. How do we use this power of the image? In the Greek Orthodox tradition, images have 3 dimensions. They aren’t just paintings, but sculptures. They look like real life, and they thus have power. We may be limited to two dimensions – i.e. for the present – but we can still leverage the power of images to convey the Gospel in new ways. That means seeking out new images to show. It means trying different approaches. Some will be effective; others will not. But the Gospel message has always been known for breaking out. Remember the words of Jesus, “even the stones will cry out.”

How many screens do you use in your worship space? Can you have too many? Remember the reason for the screens or IMAG is to enable people to worship more effectively. For the person on the last row of the balcony, this may be the only way that they can get a clear view of the preacher. For the congregation, this may be the best way to present lyrics for the praise songs. One idea is to reflect the seating layout. You want everyone, no matter where they are sitting, to be able to see clearly. If this is not the case, then you need to add a screen so that it is. Some sanctuaries have a single big screen. Others have 3 or more screens placed strategically around the sanctuary worship space. Take a brief walk around the sanctuary. Can you see from every seat? You might be surprised at what you find! Your comments are welcome.

Multi-media is well established. In essence, any time you use more than one media – i.e. visual, audio, etc… – you are doing multi-media. But what happens when you mix live drama with video? This could be described as multi-faceted media.

The logistics involved in doing a combination are pretty intense. Not only do you have to have the audio channels all set up to work together, but you also have to have lighting coordinated down to the second. Preprogramming these sequences will help, but the timing has to be perfect to make it come off well. This opens up a whole can of worms in terms of possible things that can go wrong. But if done well, a multi-faceted media presentation will capture the attention of the congregation in a new way.

In designing a video clip, you have many objectives. To get a lot of great shots is probably on your mind as you shoot it. To find just the right transition effect is probably on your mind as you edit it. But what about the thinking you expect in your audience as they watch it. There is a tendency to make it as plain and specific as possible. But there are times when you want to leave the congregation thinking about something. In the Bible, there are numerous paradoxes designed for this purpose. How can that rich man enter the eye of a needle? Who is my neighbor? Jesus knew His audience. He didn’t always tell jokes – although we have some evidence that He had a great sense of humor. But He did challenge His audience to think about the implications of what He was telling them.

One occasion where you might use a Video that makes you think is right before the sermon. It will serve as a transition from whatever happened before in the service. And it can leave the congregation asking a particular question. The preacher then goes on to answer the question that’s on everybody’s mind. A well designed video can do that, rather than just getting everybody to laugh. But it will take some coordination between the preacher and the videographer. And the preacher will have to be comfortable letting the video serve to make His first point, which otherwise would be to ask the question that he wants everyone to be thinking about. It can be done, and it can free up the preacher to focus on articulating the answer. The video can leave people thinking, and thus challenge them to engage all the more in the words of the sermon. For here is the answer, the Word of Life!

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.

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.