Greg Davis - Technically Speaking

Have you noticed how Easter has often had a very feminine feel to it? The tone and approach in many churches will have a very nice and beautiful feel to it. They may still deliver the good news about the resurrection, hopefully they do, but the appeal of their style is often geared more to the women and the kids.  They may not do that intentionally, but it happens.

This Easter, I’m encouraged by the efforts of LifeChurch.tv and NewSpring.cc.  I just experienced the first installment of LifeChurch’s “Warrior” seriesvia their internet campus, which seems to have roots in the “Wild at Heart” book by John Eldredge which I read last summer and am continuing to go through the study guide this year.

 

NewSpring is launching their series called “Sex Money and Power - The Man Series” on Easter Sunday.

 

Why would they do this? That is where I am encouraged.  Tony Morgan from NewSpring posted about it and said,

Men are MIA in U.S. Churches 

‘Nearly one-in-five men say they have no formal religious affiliation, compared with roughly 13 percent of women.’” With men under 50 being the largest group that doesn’t have a religious affiliation, I’m glad we’re launching a series on Easter that’s specifically targeted to men.

Have you ever thought about the American male as an “un-reached” segment of our population?  Maybe we haven’t done it intentionally, but have we historically driven men away from our churches and our portrayal of Christ because we have made them too effeminate?  Lord is a warrior, the greatest one ever. I’m glad to see these churches starting new series on Easter. If a guy only makes it to 1 or 2 services a year, it is normally Christmas and Easter. Maybe this will help get the attention of a few men who so desperately need to hear the life changing message of Jesus Christ!

 

Kem Meyer has posted today about the process Granger Community Church uses in their communications. She includes links to 8 different PDF process documents that they use.  You can read her post (including the links for downloads) here.  In summary the items she talks about are:

1. All Church Promotions Process (big picture)
2. Speaking Schedule for the Year (tool)
3. Promotions Outline (tool)
4. Series Promotion (team documentation)
5. Communications Department Routines (team documentation)
6. All Church Communications Values (foundational)
7. All Church Communications Priorities (foundational)
8. Big Idea Worksheet  (tool)

Be sure to check them out and really think about what can be improved in your church’s communication process.  Regardless if you like Granger’s style or not, you can’t help but admire their organization around communications and making sure their ministry leaders are all on the same page and working together as a team. 

 

In my previous post, I talked about how it isn’t such a far fetched idea to see your ministry on TV.  I wander how many church techies are aware of YouTube’s nonprofit program?  The church has the most compelling story of all to tell and this is a great and effective way to do it.

Some of the highlights include:

 

• Premium branding capabilities and increased uploading capacity
• Rotation of your videos in the “Promoted Videos” areas throughout the site
• The option to drive fundraising through a Google Checkout “Donate” button

 

You can watch the following YouTube video to get an overview as well.

 

Has anyone out there reading this tried it out?  I’d definately be interested in hearing your comments.

Storme at Eleven 72 posted a good summary about the basics needed for shooting good interviews (technically).  Important things to keep in mind:

1. Don’t use the camera mic!
2. Lighting
3. Focus and exposure
4. Check your footage (don’t assume it is working)

I think there is encouragement that with a little grounding in the basics we can do more to tell the story of our church better.  There are a lot of stories out there to be told, we just need a few willing volunteers to help capture and tell those stories.  Don’t let the technicalities scare you from trying!

Here is a good example of using technology to get main idea from a sermon out to your listeners. Ed Young, Jr, Senior Pastor at Fellowship Church gives this message on listening to the wrong “they”.  With many free and easy to use resources like YouTube, Facebook, MyChurch and many others, are you taking advantage of them to get your message heard?

Pastor Mike Ballard wrote this guest article for Church Communications Pro about some of the benefits he saw in being a blogging preacher.  While I am certainly not a pastor, I can understand these benefits he sees which help him to better reach his congregation.  In summary his points were:

1. Creativity
2. Information
3. Transparency
4. Discipleship
5. Preaching
6. World Missions

At it’s core blogging is about communications, not technology.  Likewise, preaching is about communicating the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Could there be a better example of a perfect match of purpose and tool?  Read Mike’s post here and see if it doesn’t encourage you as well.

  In case you haven’t heard about this yet, you will definitely want to try out a new free service called Jott.  It is a simple and very effective way to help keep you organized and not forget things.

How often have you been somewhere (car, store, back yard, etc) and thought of something you don’t want to forget?  Most often we never have a piece of paper or pen to write it down so we try really hard to make ourselves remember but only to do so days or weeks later (oops).

Jott can help!  Probably the one thing most people do carry with them where ever they go is their cell phone. With Jott, you sign-up for a free account at http://www.jott.com once you do, you’ll be given a toll free (877) number that you can call. This is where the magic comes in! The next time you think of something you want to remember, simply call the Jott number from your phone (even better when you add to your speed dial). You can then speak your thought in your normal voice and Jott will not only record it for you, it will also send it to your email account so when you do get back to your computer, you will have your thought transcribed into plain text in the body of an email message!

Not only can you Jott to yourself this way, you can also Jott to other people by adding them to your Jott contacts. You can even create Jott groups so you can say something once and send it to many people at the same time! You can even blog with Jott!  For an overview, see Jott in Action and try for yourself - you won’t be sorry!

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