mediaministry.org

That is the tag line for a new site that was brought to my attention.  It seems that FREE is becoming the in thing to do for ministries.  There are many churches and sites that are offering all FREE media content for us to use.  Greg Atkinson recently let us know of OpenResources.org which is a site that offers a complete set of content to support a theme or sermon series.  The newest FREE content site is FreeCountdown.net.  This site carries a good start of available countdowns that are ready for download.  There are no tricks or gimmicks or even any registration.  Just countdowns ready for you to use in your church, youth group, children’s ministry or special event.  Check out FreeCountdown.net for your next countdown need because after all it is FREE.

Well, I have taken the plunge into video shooting, directing, editing and post production for sermon intro videos.  I actually enjoy the process but, man, it takes some hours to get it to where I think it is decent for presenting.  I also had to learn the software in the process.

I’m hoping that all my friends here in blog world will take a peek and supply some brutally honest critique and advice.  I know that lighting was an issue and I hope that was resolved in our shoot last night.  There are a few areas where I just ran out of time to edit any further to fix some timing and other elements.  Check out the video below.

I wanted to share an article with from a blog that I follow called Copyblogger.  It is the only blog I follow about writing.  All the rest are technical or ministry related.   

One thing that I learned early on in blogging was write everything down.  When it takes weeks and sometimes months for me to get around to blogging on a topic that stirred my interest, writing everything down has been invaluable. 

Check out Buckets and Chunks: An Exercise in Writing Everything Down

Here is another great post that I have had tucked away from July of last year.  This is a post from Tim Corder whose blog Corder Notes has some great information about mixing audio in the church.

This paticular post is really about being proactive in your mix.  Going on stage to check what is going on before the mix.  I witness so many at FOH who sit back and try to mix without ever checking the source or the room.  The only interaction with those on the stage is through the talkback. 

The post title is a quote from Robert Scovill from who all audio engineers should be seeking out wisdom in mixing.  Check out the post Great Mixes Start with Great Source. Period.

One of my best friends as far as applications go is Photoshop.  I never cease to learn new things that it can do.  I used to be relentless in finding tutorials.  For a while my friend Anthony Coppedge was offering some.  Len & Jason, the MO Guys, also have produced some good step by step procedures for Photoshop files and .PSD files are included in all of their graphic sets.  I thought I would share with you some more that you might not know about. 

Good Tutorials is user submitted tutorials.  It has a section devoted to Photoshop but they also have tutorials on Flash, Ruby, Ruby on Rails, PHP, CSS, etc. 

Pixel Perfect is a video podcast hosted by Photoshop expert Bert Monroy, one of the pioneers of digital art. 

Photoshop Mosaic has tutorials, brushes, filters, patterns and plugins. 

Photoshop Support has a ton of great resources that you can use from brushes to tutorials. 

Photoshop Café is another good source for tips and tutorials. 

I have used CAT-5 cable for many different applications in networks and communications over the years so when I first started hearing about audio and video over CAT-5 I was intrigued.  I just had to try it.  I’m successfully using video over CAT5 on a permanent basis using active adapters from FSR and a portable set up using passive baluns from Black Box.  I can honestly report that I have had no problems with either. 

I came across an old blog post that I was saving to write about from VLOBLIVE which always had some good information on video.  The author was Dave Chalmers from Edinburgh, Scotland but for some reason in March 2007 the posts from Dave stopped.  Check out this post from February 2007 which gives an excellent explanation of video over CAT-5 cable.

  Understanding Video Over Cat5 Cable

I have been holding on to a few thoughts about excellence and the pursuit thereof.  I have come to realization that sometimes our pursuit of excellence is just an excuse for us to have everything done our way or to do everything ourselves because no one can live up to the expectation we have.  Such is the vice of a perfectionist.  In my preaching of striving for excellence I found myself taking on more and more to show excellence and trying to conform people to my perfectionist mold instead of providing opportunities for service so that they could actually strive for excellence. 

Tony Morgan has some good thoughts on this subject this week.  Check out Should I Pursue Unexcellent? 

Matt Redman on excellence 

“‘Great works’ (of art) and ‘good works’ (of charity) had better also be good work. Let choirs sing well or not all. Otherwise we merely confirm the majority in their conviction that the world of Business, which does with such efficiency so much that never really needed doing, is the real, the adult, and the practical world; and that all this ‘culture’ and all this ‘religion’ (horrid words both) are essentially marginal, amateurish, and rather effeminate activities.”C.S. Lewis, “Good Work and Good Works” from (The World’s Last Night, and other essays).

I have been writing lately but it has been pages so I’m just going to write it all out and then break it up for bite size consumption.  Meanwhile there has been a lot of great stuff that has been crossing my path that I want to share with you from others.  The first is from the MO Guys about how to create song lyric slides for worship.  Enjoy!                       

There’s nothing more tedious in media ministry than the weekly ritual of preparing song lyrics. Yet even this task normally given to newbie volunteers, interns, or the church monkey can become an important part of creative worship with a few simple rules.

1. Three to Four and You’ll Score. One or Six Don’t Mix.Try to keep your song lyrics slides to three to four lines per screen. One or two lines, and you’ll turn the screen into a flipbook and create a guaranteed way for your congregation to miss half the words of the song while the operator has an ADD attack. Five, six or more and you’ll want to consider putting a number in the lower corner and designating someone to stand at the front and turn the screen over like a giant piece of paper, because that’s what you’re making it.

Click here to read the rest of points 1 through 8 and all the illustrations.

  After much asking and pleading and invitations I finally took the plunge and joined Facebook a few months ago.  So far I have really enjoyed it and have been able to stay closer to friends.  It is also an excellent networking tool.  Click on the Facebook button above to visit my profile and become my friend.

I’m still working out some things in my life.  It has been a chore to completely change how I think about some things and how my schedule is structured.  I thank you all for your continued prayers.

I have a lot that I would love to write about but I’m still trying to find that blogging time without neglecting higher priorities.

I did want to put out this announcement for those of you here in the Charlotte area.  This is a unique event being held at MediaComm studios.  Click on the banner below to find out more.