1Christian Video® Magazine

2May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

May 2010VOL. 3, NO. 5

6 Greg’s ToolkitTrickery or Shrewdness

by GREGORY FISH

13 ArticleCloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

by MARTIN BAGGS

15 Making Ministry Happen Churches Use Web Videos to Tell Their Stories

by JASON OTIS

17 Audible Audio for VideoConfidence Monitors: Two Solid Solutions

by JAY M. DELP

Editorial 3

Cover Story 4ScreenVue Movie Clip Downloads and Ideas for Your Ministryby STEVE HEWITT

Special Feature 8Lessons from a Secret Shopperby GREG ATKINSON

May 2010 3Christian Video® Magazine

Christian Video Magazine is published monthly by Christian Video Magazine, Inc.

Editor-in-ChiefSteve Hewitt – steve@ccmag.com

ProductionDaystar Digital DesignMike Hewitt

Contributing EditorsGeorge TempleGregory FishStewart H. RedwineMark CarrollJay M. DelpMartin Baggs

Copy Editor Gina Hewitt

Corporate Home OfficeMailing Address:PO Box 319Belton, MO 64012

Phone: (816) 331-5252Fax: 800-456-1868

Copyright 2010 by Christian Video Magazine, Inc.All Rights Reserved

Written materials submitted to Christian Video Magazine become the property of Christian Video Maga-zine, Inc., upon receipt and may not necessarily be returned. Christian Video Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materi-als submitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publica-tion is the sole property of Christian Video Magazine. Copy or distribution of articles or content can be done so on an individual basis. Multiple copies or distribution may not be done without the express permission of Christian Video Magazine. Views expressed in the articles and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or em-ployees of Christian Video Magazine, or Christian Video Magazine, Inc.

So how professional do you want your church’s worship service to be? And, to what end? I ran across a blog this week from a person that I have followed for several years, Greg Atkinson that should make all of us think about the “what” and “why” of our worship services. The blog you need to checkout was posted on May 13, 2010 and is entitled “Do You Take Yourself Too seriously”. He has a video posted in the blog that can been seen as a bit humorous, but will also probably make you a bit uncomfortable. It was created by North Point Church (http://www.northpoint.org/ ). The video, and Greg’s blog, raise some questions about the way many are seeking to do worship. Check out the entire blog at http://www.gregatkinson.com/ .

The video is posted on Vimeo, and is called “Sunday’s Coming” Movie Trailer, by North Point Media. Of course, the center theme for Chris-tian Video Magazine is the use of video. Interestingly enough, video use in worship might have first been grabbed by those seeking to move to a “contemporary” type of worship, but I now see video being used consistently even in very traditional styles of worship services. Greg raises some valid questions in his blog about why we do what we do in worship and what should we be considering for our future. Greg wrote our special feature this month which will hopefully take all of us one more step down the path of examining why we do what we do at church, and maybe we will all do a little self examination to see if we are open to God’s direction for the future of worship in our churches.

Together We Serve Him

from the desk of the editorby STEVE HEWITT

Why Do You Do What You Do in Your Worship?

4May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

ScreenVue Movie Clip Downloads

Cover Storyby STEVE HEWITT

and Ideas for Your Ministry

Jesus was the greatest teacher/preacher of all time with the most important mes-sage of all time. He was remarkable in the way he used stories and parables to help people grasp His message. Successful preachers over the centuries have known the value of using good illustrations to help their congregations better understand the message and apply it to their lives.

Pastors and teachers now have a fantastic resource to help illustrate their message, movie clips! ScreenVue is an online resource making such clips available! They have movie clips from major studios, independent studios and Christian studios. With their service, it is easy to find the right movie clip to help illustrate almost any subject! To use any movie clip in a public setting, such as during a church service or a class setting, you need to have a license to do so legally. ScreenVue is brought to you by the people that have made such licenses easy and affordable, Christian Video Licens-ing International (CVLI). Once you become a CVLI License holder, you are automatically given a free standard membership for ScreenVue! First, ScreenVue offers three different types of clips. First they offer Clip Ideas. Basically, Screen-Vue has looked at thousands of movies and has noted specific clips that would make great illustrations. They have assigned these to specific topics, so when you come ScreenVue and are seeking a good movie

clip to illustrate subjects such as Anger, Anxiety, Apathy, Addiction, etc., ScreenVue provides you with the displayed start/stop times and synopsis. You play the clip from your own DVD or one that you have rented. With CVLI you have the legal rights to play the clip as an illustration, and using the services of ScreenVue’s Clip Ideas, you will discover many fan-tastic illustrations found in movies that you, and your audience, are familiar with. ScreenVue has over 3,000 different Clip Ideas to help support your next sermon or lesson! Second, ScreenVue offers Clip Downloads for PLUS members. If you are CVLI member, after log-ging in with your CVLI number, you may then select the upgrade button. The cost to become a PLUS mem-ber is only $34.95 per year. With Clip Downloads, members can actually download many clips (668 at the time of this writing) directly to their computer, ready to use. Of course you can preview the clip first (any visitor can preview the clips, even without a PLUS membership), and when you find the one you

May 2010 5Christian Video® Magazine

like, you can click download and select the desired format! And, third, ScreenVue has brokered the opportunity for their members to access many free promotional clip downloads (for anyone). These are usually from major movies, and the last time I checked their site, there were 44 free downloads avail-able. ScreenVue offers a fantastic service. First, it helps to encourage churches to show such movie clips in a legal format, with a CVLI license. The creation of their movie clip category service is one of minis-try, and since any church that has a CVLI license can take advan-tage of this service, they have gone the extra mile in helping churches and ministries make the most of using movie clips as illustrations! Their PLUS mem-bership is very affordable, and most of the clips provided come from Christian and independent films and will be a great resource for the innovative pastor who is seeking something special in order to make an important point in their sermon. For more information on obtaining a license to show movie clips at your church or ministry, visit http://www.cvli.com/, and to take advantage of the free membership to ScreenVue, or to upgrade to the PLUS membership, visit http://www.screenvue.com/. In addition to all of their other contributions to ministry, CVLI and ScreenVue have been a sponsor of Christian Video Magazine, and help the publishers

provide this informative publication to over 80,000 subscribers, free of charge! Check them out and give them your support. And, before you even consider showing a movie clip at your church, make sure you are doing so legally!

By STEVE HEWITTCover Story

6May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by GREGORY FISH

Trickery or Shrewdness?

Greg’s Toolkit

Don’t you just love trick photography? I hope you don’t sense sarcasm in my typing. It really is incredible some of the things you can do with photos. These days the word “photoshop” is a verb. As in, “She’s not here for the family picture, we’ll just Photoshop her in later.” There’s some trickery that goes way beyond “Photoshopping”, or even cleverly framing your subject so that he is holding the sun in his fingers. Some photos are huge undertakings to wow us, the audience. For example, have you ever seen the 3d chalk art photos for instance? If not, you can see it here: http://www.impactlab.com/2006/03/09/amazing-3d-sidewalk-art-photos/.

For some reason, (I believe it is because I’m in the ministry) people send me email forwards want-ing my take on things. For example I was recently sent the email that talked about giants in the land of Canaan. In it were the incredible pictures that sure enough when I entered it in snopes.com came out as being a farce- http://www.snopes.com/photos/odd/giantman.asp. Even more recently there was another report that Noah’s ark had been discovered. A little digging of your own and you can find it to be another elaborate hoax as well- http://michaelsheiser.com/PaleoBabble/2010/04/noahs-ark-paleobabble-up-date/. Obviously, photo trickery is not always a good thing. Unfortunately, falling for these claims can give Christians a bad rap as well. However, there are times where we can right-fully use some trickery of our own, but for greater causes and never to harm. In fact, Jesus said in Matthew 10:16, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.” In a parable Jesus tells that the manager “commended the dishonest manager

because he had acted shrewdly.” I believe we can apply these passages to our graphics design and cre-ative photography/ videography. Hollywood has all of the latest tricks up their sleeve. If we are to keep up with their level of quality (in production terms), then we must be shrewd in our approach. If special effects are effective today, then why not use them for the good? There are so many special effects that I could highlight here. In fact, I just did a major software upgrade that was long overdue. Even though, CS5 just came out, I purchased Adobe Production Pre-mium CS4. For me, this is going from After Effects 6.5 to CS4. That’s why I say “major” upgrade. I’ve got quite the learning curve ahead of me, but a whole new world of possibilities. I’m glad it came with 31 days of free access to the video tutorials on www.lynda.com, because they are very helpful. If there are effective techniques available to us then let’s use them for God’s message in video. For this article I will just illustrate one simple effect of trickery/shrewdness for you.

May 2010 7Christian Video® Magazine

by GREGORY FISHGreg’s Toolkit

As a worship leader, I love songs that are about the power of the cross. Sure there are so many cross loops out there, but I wanted to make some of my own. The problem is that I don’t have a good cross. I used one on “What was on His Mind”- http://sermonspice.com/product/27201/what-was-on-his-mind, but it broke during the filming. Then again, if it was ok, I would’ve had to haul it around to different locations. Well, that’d be a literal application of “carry your cross” wouldn’t it? So instead, the shrewd thing to do is to use stock footage and insert a cross in a layer in front of the background. Instead of getting a picture of a cross I took my own. So you see, I’m not stealing everything! As seen in the picture, the trickery is in the fact that the cross that I used was little, but it looks bigger in the final product. Instead of using a green or blue screen, I simply took pictures of the cross with a white background. Then to get rid of the background I suppose I could’ve taken the magic wand tool to it in Photoshop, preparing it there for my video editor. However, I chose to import it directly into my program (After Effects) and did a simple color key on it. There are probably several other ways to achieve this- masking for one. I just opted for what would be easiest for me. Then for the backgrounds I used some HD clips that I bought from the Footage Firm- http://www.footagefirm.com/free-footage. They are sponsors for this magazine. If you haven’t checked them out, do so. You’ll be glad you did. They have different collections in which you only pay $8 shipping. They just added 10 production music CDs that go for the same price. You can’t beat that! http://www.sermonspice.com/bundle/32838/cross-and-clouds-bundle is where you can see the 7 clips

that I made with this. (They are over half off when purchased in a bundle!) These are seamless loops. I discussed that in a back issue. Basically to do this you need to split the clip in the middle and move the first half to the end so that the new front and end are one frame apart from each other. You throw in a dissolve (or fade) in the middle somewhere where it won’t be too noticeable and bingo! Movie magic is so fun. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Gregory is a preacher in South Texas with a passion for combin-ing the timeless message of God’s grace with the technology of our day. On the side he produces videos for “FishXpressions” at http://sermonspice.com/producers/profile/285. Without formal training, he has set out to learn how to create better and higher quality films. Apart from this column, he also maintains a production blog with tips, helpful links, and other musings at www.fishxpressions.wordpress.com.

8May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by GREG ATKINSONSpecial Feature

Lessons from a Secret Shopper

Recently we had the hallway in our home painted by some professional painters. We were constantly reminded of this each time we left and returned to our house. You see, once we spent enough time in the house our noses got used to the strong smell. We got to where we didn’t even notice it. Then I went out to get the mail and walked back in and “Whoa!” – I was hit with the strong smell of paint once again.

What am I saying? I think most churches have something that stinks to a first-time visitor, but the leadership has been there too long to notice or remember. They’ve lost their fresh perspective, new eyes and as in my case, new nose. Why does this matter? Because people matter and you’ve only got one chance to make a first impression. You’ve heard it said before, but it’s true: people have made up their mind wheth-er they’re returning to your church long before you stand up to preach. So what have I learned from my experi-ence? Things like your website, Facebook/Twitter presence and your church’s voicemail when people call after hours or on Saturdays are very important. Potential worshippers check all the above men-tioned before ever visiting your physical church campus. Once they visit your actual church location, the experience starts in the parking lot. You’ve really got about 10 minutes (some say 7) to facili-tate and create a welcoming atmosphere or you’ve lost them for good. If you’re happy with the people currently at your church and aren’t interested in

reaching any new people, then please stop reading and go back to what you were doing. But if you have a desire to reach more and more people for Christ – changing your community, city and even-tually the world – then pay attention. Put your brightest, sharpest and best look-ing people on your greeter team. Unfortunately, too many churches have greeters as an afterthought or somewhere you serve if you don’t have any “real” talent. This is wrong on so many levels. The faces I see in your parking lot, your front door, lobby and as I walk into your worship center are the unforgettable impressions that will haunt or help me. These dear servants will put me at ease, ignore me or give me a bad taste in my mouth. The outcome is truly up to you and how you lead your first impressions/hospitality team. My plea to you is to not take this for granted or dare I say not even factor this in to your weekend experience. To put this another way, your music may be amazing, you may preach your best sermon ever, but the usher that sat me on your front pew has assured I’ll never return.

May 2010 9Christian Video® Magazine

by GREG ATKINSONSpecial Feature

Another often over-looked area is your church’s restrooms. A positive rest-room experience goes a long way. I was recently at Church of the Highlands in Birming-ham, AL (they’re the fastest growing church in the US). One thing that made a huge impression on me was their stress relief soap located at every sink in all their rest-rooms (I’m assuming it was in their women’s restroom, too). One thing to keep in mind if you’re a new or young church meeting in a movie theater or high school is you may have to have your own cleaning crew clean the bathrooms again before people arrive. Have you ever been a boy’s high school or middle school bathroom? Gross! A lesson that I could write a separate paper on is the smell of your church. I sincerely believe that the sense of smell is the strongest of all our senses. I’ve traveled the country teaching on multi-sensory worship and engaging the senses in wor-ship. I can have a woman pass by me and get a whiff of her perfume and instantly be transported back to my 3rd grade math teacher’s perfume or my first date. Smells are powerful and potent and very important to your situation. One thing I often talk about is positive and negative smells.

Coffee is a positive smell. Mold is a nega-tive smell. Citrus is a positive smell. Bleach is a negative smell. How your facility smells (again I refer you to the high school bathroom) is huge when it comes to making a lasting impression. Sometimes people leave in a bad mood or not wanting to return solely based on smell – though

10May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

they may not be able to put their finger on what they didn’t like. They just know they won’t return. There are department stores that have spent thousands and millions of dollars studying the science of smell and shopping. There are stores that have machines unseen in the corners of their areas that are pumping out pleasing senses that encourage you to linger, shop and spend more money. Are we selling shirts or shoes? No. I bring this up to demonstrate how significant something as simple as smell can be. If companies can spend millions to increase sales of clothing, shouldn’t we pay attention, too? We’re trying to reach the lost for Christ and that’s far more important. Overall, the things I look for are hospi-tality, cleanliness, appearance and a special

focus on your main worship experience. I can’t emphasize enough how crucial cleanliness is to making a visitor feel comfortable. Why do we want them to feel comfortable? Because we want them to encounter God. We’re in the business of remov-ing any obstacles or barriers that would hinder one from experiencing the presence of our Living God. For the same reason that your worship team works on service flow and tries to remove dead time, we as secret shoppers key in on hurdles that one would have to overcome to have a pleasant and positive experience at your church and ultimately to encourage a second visit. Again, if you’re not focused on reaching the people that aren’t current-ly at your church, a lot of this will seem like a waste of time to you.

by GREG ATKINSONSpecial Feature

May 201011Christian Video® Magazine

Whether you have kids or not, you know without me even having to tell you how important a good chil-dren’s ministry is to a healthy and vibrant church. I’m not just talking about fun and life-giving, I’m talking about safe and secure. The quickest way to make someone uncomfortable during worship and distract a worried father or mother during your message is to have a sloppy and non-assuring check-in experience. To put it plain and simple: if I’m worried about my child’s safety, I’m not listening to your message and I’m not engaging in your worship. Believe me I’ve been there before and I got up and walked out of the service to check on my kids. Notice we’re not to your worship service, yet. All of this (and I haven’t even gotten into signage and how important that is to a first-time guest) are crucial first steps that you must master if you want guests to make it peacefully to your service and actually have a chance to encounter Christ and hear from God. So what can you as a church leader do? Encourage, encourage, encourage. Empower, train and vision cast to those that work on your website, answer your church’s phone, serve in your parking lot, nursery, lobby, children’s ministry and yes, the person that came on Saturday to clean the high school bathroom (again). Everyone wants to make an impact and be a part of something significant. If you can lead, pastor and shepherd your servants to grasp how vital they are to your church’s ministry, you win. If you want, forward this article to them and let them

by GREG ATKINSONSpecial Feature

know how crucial they are to accomplishing your mission of reaching people for Christ. Honestly, if you master everything we’ve covered so far, it doesn’t really matter how you preach. I’m only kidding, but seriously, so much is out of your hands when it comes to making that first impression. You must take locating, training, shepherding, encouraging and empowering these leaders seriously. The best way to find these people in your church is to have some type of growth or discipleship track in place that allows people to discover their gifts. Many churches have people take the DISC personality profile along with a spiritual gifts test to help people see what they were created to do.

12May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

Once you identify what someone enjoys and is passionate about, you don’t have to “recruit” them, you simply point them to where they can use their gifts and ultimately be fulfilled and happy in their role of the Body of Christ. Having been in worship ministry for over 15 years and having taught at countless worship, tech and preaching conferences, I do have a sharp eye for what goes on in the worship service. A good secret shopper can give you feedback on the environment you’ve created in worship, the music, the set, stage, technology (sound, video, graphics and lighting), as well as the message. Worship should be upbeat (unless it’s Good Friday), relevant and life-giving. I’d be willing to bet that most people in your community have been to a church before, but were unfulfilled and dissatisfied with their experience. Unfortunately, sometimes you get one shot and then they could never return; that’s why what we’ve covered so far is essential to your mission as church that wants to be obedient to the Great Commission. I will unapologetically say that your wor-ship experience should be done with excellence. I don’t care if you’re a traditional or contemporary service, emergent or liturgical – have your act to-gether and show you’ve put a lot of prayer, thought, effort and energy into what they have gathered for. I’m speaking to your teaching pastor as much as your worship leader. Often pastors will talk about excellence, but come across unprepared and lifeless. I recently met with a well known pastor of a well known (mega) church and he said that he watches other well known pastors’ messages and takes notes. He’s constantly learning, growing, stretching and becoming a more effective communi-cator. He gets “it”. The Gospel is paramount and great care should be given to presenting it clearly and in a compelling way. I’ve seen too many preachers read a manuscript, never looking up. May it never be!

What can a secret shopper or mystery worshipper offer? A new nose. New eyes. New ears. An outside and objective opinion on his or her experience. What can you expect? An honest, “speak the truth in love” opinion. I, personally, try to encourage as well – pointing out things that you and your team are doing right and well. But if you bring in a secret shopper or mystery worship-per, ask them to shoot straight and hold nothing back. For more on this, you can read this article that was in the Wall Street Journal last year on mystery worshippers. Finally, approach the experience humbly and with a teachable spirit. I say this especially to large churches and mega-church pastors. Often churches see a few thousand people and can easily get a misconception that nothing needs to be changed or fine-tuned. Some of a secret shopper’s best work is done at large, “successful” churches that haven’t reevaluated why and what they do in a long, long time. To get more information on my ministry to the Church and how you can arrange for a secret shopper visit, go to http://www.gregatkinson.com/secretshopper/.

© 2009 – Greg Atkinson (GregAtkinson.com) – This article originally appeared on SermonCentral.com Used by permission from author. All rights reserved by author.

Greg Atkinson is a consultant working with a number of strate-gic partners. He travels the country consulting with churches, teaching at conferences and writing about innovation, technol-ogy, worship, leadership, church planting and social justice. Greg most recently served as the director of technical arts at Bent Tree and before that as the director of WorshipHouse Media, after hav-ing served as a worship pastor for 11 years. You can connect with him through his blog www..GregAtkinson.com and reach him through his email: greg@gregatkinson.com.

by GREG ATKINSONSpecial Feature

May 201013Christian Video® Magazine

by MARTIN BAGGSArticle

Cloudy with a

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a very fun family film that, though light-hearted, has some depth. More than a one-course spaghetti dinner; it is the full meal-deal. Still short of the high-bar standard set by Pixar films, both in artistic and narrative forms, Sony Pictures Animation (Monster House, Open Season) has improved its credentials in this blossoming genre, and the proof is in the pudding. The story is creative, the animation is cool, the humor is clean, and the voice talent very capable. All in all, it is four-star worthy fare.

Remember, before showing clips from movies, be sure you have a license to do so. Check out Church Video License to be sure you are legal. www.cvli.com

Chance of Meatballs

We meet Flint Lockwood (voice of Bill Hader) as a kid in school. A typical nerd, he is enamored with inventors and inventions. Adorning his bedroom wall are posters, but not of rock stars. These are of scientists: Tesla and Einstein. His heroes are the creators who have impacted society endur-ingly, not with transitory music. But as a kid, this is tanta-mount to social suicide, and he is mocked and ridiculed. His invention of spray-on shoes, to overcome the problem of untied shoelaces, solves the issue but leaves him with permanent “shoes” . . . and a lasting badge of his ineptness. Cut ahead a decade and Flint is still inventing things that don’t work or contribute to his town. Still an outcast, he “works” in a science lab constructed above his parents’ house, a crazy contraption that is reached via an elevator in a Port-a-potty. His mother has died and his father Tim (voice of James Caan) wants him to come to work in his fishing tackle store. But Flint wants to pursue his dream of being a genius inventor and somehow saving the world. Cloudy portrays a young man wanting to contribute to society. Despite being a social outcast, he wants to make a difference for the good. We all want this. We want our lives

to count for something. We want to contribute, to help make things better. God has made us this way. We were made to function socially in community. We all have different gifts and talents (Rom. 12:4-8). As we accept this, we can exercise these God-given gifts and talents for the benefit of ourselves (as our livelihood), our neighbors (who we know, or should know, personally), and our broader community. Like the parts

of a body, as we work together we enhance the common good (1 Cor. 12). Flint’s town, though, is in the midst of an economic depression. Swallow Falls is on a small island in the middle of the

ocean and has relied on its sardine cannery as its main source of income. When the world woke up and realized sardines are yucky, their economy went into mercurial meltdown, leaving the islanders with megatons of sardines to eat or dispose of. And there are very few ways you can eat sardines before you get sick of them, just like the Israelites got tired of manna for 40 years in the desert (Num. 11:6). To overcome this problem, the town mayor (voice of Bruce Campbell) comes up with a scheme to turn the liability into an asset by creating an entertainment theme park out of sardines, much like Disneyland but with the canned fish. But during the grand opening celebrations, misfit Flint manages to

14May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by MARTIN BAGGSArticle

mar the events, further ostracizing himself in the eyes of his fellow townsfolk. To make matters worse, a national TV news channel has sent an intern weather reporter Sam Sparks (voice of Anna Faris) to cover the ceremony. If Flint offers a perspective on contributing to society, Sam offers one on conforming to society. She is all you would expect from a meteorologist. Perky, pretty, blonde with big bright eyes: an “airhead” with her head in the clouds. But later we discover the truth of Sam Sparks: she is a nerd-wannabe. As a kid, she had big glasses and a ponytail, and a yearning for the scientific tools of weather-forecasting. But she realized that others would look down on her if she followed her desires like this, so she adopted the expected visage and characteris-tics of a successful weather person. In short, she conformed to society’s expectations. The Apostle Paul has strong words for followers of Christ on this matter: “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Rom. 12:2). The world wants to mold us into its image, making us who it wants us to be. Sam understood this implicitly, and realized to get the job of her dreams she would have to sacrifice who she really was on the altar of corporate expectation. She gave up her real personality and took on a fake one, just so she could be in front of the cameras. Like-wise, the world wants to grind us down, tearing us away from Jesus. Jesus intends to inaugurate a new kingdom, one where we can be who we are meant to be. To do this, we must allow ourselves to be transformed from within. We have the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16), and the indwelling Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), and can have our own minds renewed. By meditat-ing on the Word of God and drawing on the Spirit’s power, we can experience this transformation and turn our back on cultural conformation. To her benefit, Sam ultimately finds this out, too. Flint and Sam come into contact when his latest invention, a machine that transforms water into food, goes out of control and blasts into the atmosphere . . . where there are clouds full of water. The first “rainfall” is cheeseburgers, and is seen as a miracle, like manna from heaven. And when Flint realizes he can control what is delivered from the sky, he begins to take orders. The mayor even sees a new way to exploit this apparent blessing. But predictably, matters get

complicated until chaos ensues threatening the entire globe. The world needs a savior, and Flint is that man! Against this big picture scenario, the real heart and theme of the film is much smaller and down-home: commu-nicating “I love you”. Flint’s mom was a good communicator, but his una-browed dad has a different conversation style: “Son, not every sardine was meant to swim,” he tells Flint early on. But Flint replies, “I don’t understand fishing meta-phors, dad!” They are not on the same wavelength. His dad is an uninspiring and practical man, who goes about his work with an air of defeatism. He does not understand Flint’s world or his dreams. Here is a giant generational gap; Tim cannot understand his son’s inventions. Another character, Earl (voice of Mr. T), the local martial arts-practicing policeman, presents quite the opposite picture: “I love you son,” he tells his boy. “I know dad. You tell me every day.” Plain and clear, he tells his son in words he understands, words every son wants to hear from his dad. Even grown-up sons are like little boys who want to hear that their dad loves them and is proud of them. As a father, I am called to raise my children to be the people God made them to be (Prov. 22:6). Yet, I am called to do this in a spirit of love and encouragement. All children are different, they are unique no two exactly alike. What works for one may not work for another, and I am finding this out per-sonally. But somehow they need to feel our paternal love. And we fathers must strive to find the love language that works for our children, especially our sons. One author said men are from Mars and women from Venus in their communication styles. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs says we may all be from different planets. The trick is to find which planet your son is from and learn that language. That, or invent a magic translator like Flint!

Copyright ©2010, Martin Baggs

Martin works as an engineering manager in the high tech industry. He leads a monthly film review group at Mosaic Church in Portland, Oregon. He writes film responses from a biblical perspective on his blog: www.mosaicmovieconnect-group.blogspot.com

Contact: martinbaggs@gmail.com

May 201015Christian Video® Magazine

Churches Use Web Videos

by JASON OTISMaking Ministry Happen

If you’ve ever heard people talking about their churches, you’ve probably heard someone try to give you a flavor of the service. You may hear an explanation of what they believe, what they’re like, what you’ll find. You’ll hear how it’s differ-ent, how it’s meaningful, what makes it a church. These descriptions are a part of the ongoing desire for churches – and their members – to tell their own stories. Now, you’ll see this taking place with even greater impact through the use of Inter-net-based video and audio technology.

to Tell Their Stories

In fact, E-zekiel.tv offers a category called “Meet My Church” to give churches a video vehicle for visitors to catch a glimpse before an actual visit. You could think of this as a preview. Much like a movie trailer gives something of a movie’s “feel,” it’s not the same as seeing the movie itself. Instead, the trailer’s purpose is to give a sense of what’s going to happen and prompt people to attend to see it for themselves. First Baptist Church of Forney, Texas, has an uploaded entry in this category that’s also embedded in the Welcome page on the church’s Web site. The nearly 10-minute video features ministers from all areas of the church explaining programs and opportunities their church mem-bers enjoy and it presents scenes from services, baptisms, discipleship, musical performances and missions. “It gives a high-level overview of each ministry,” said Bonnie Warren, the church’s communications director. As Warren explained, the video was originally created to be shown during a monthly new member luncheon. Typically, staff members would come to the luncheon and tell about their areas of ministry. But because all ministers weren’t always able to attend all the luncheons, the video resolved that issue and also opened the door to another avenue. “It ended up being such a good piece we thought we needed to put that on our Web site,” Warren said.

The video was done in-house, thanks to an associate youth pastor who has a video photography business. He used his own equipment and lighting to shoot the video, and War-ren wrote the copy with the assistance of each minister. “We couldn’t have paid to have one done,” Warren said. “It was going to cost several thousand dollars.” Plans are currently underway to update and revamp First Baptist Forney’s video, which by now is two years old. Noting that they have more editing software, Warren said, “We’ll be able to do a lot more with the technology this time around.” For example, for the current video, each minister was shot in a location that represented the particular minis-try – the children’s minister in the children’s event center, the student minister in the student game room, and the finance minister in his office, for example. For the next, Warren says they’ll shoot interviews in green screen, and they’ll be able to overlay video of scenes that represent the area of ministry. Rochelle United Methodist Church in Rochelle, Illinois, was also able to create a welcome video in-house but with far less effort. This 2 1/2-minute video gives a picture of services, weekly events and special activities with an an-nouncer voiceover and video of still images. Matt Hayes, the church’s children’s and youth minister who also serves as Web master, said that he created

16May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by JASON OTISMaking Ministry Happen

a church preview in a couple of hours with the assistance of his online photo album and software that he already had on his computer. “It creates more of a video aspect even though they’re still shots,” Hayes said. He was also the voice of the announcer, which he recorded with his computer micro-phone. “It only took me a couple of hours,” Hayes said. “I did this all on my computer in an afternoon.” Rochelle UMC has received offers for others to cre-ate a church promo, but that was going to be “a whole lot of money,” Hayes explained. His choice was a whole lot less. Since he had the software, he had the still shots, and he had the microphone, he said, “It didn’t cost me a dime.” He did note that creativity has a little to do with it, but added, “People are more creative than they think.” In Wickenburg, Arizona, First Southern Baptist Church made a different decision about its welcome video. They purchased one that had been professionally produced by Floodgate Productions. “It really communicated a lot about what we be-lieve,” said Jerome Taylor, associate pastor. “It’s very upbeat, stately. It matches our tone.” The price was right too. “We are a small church,” Taylor said. “Our resources for technical abilities are limit-ed.” They could have produced a video themselves for $150, he said, but instead they bought one for $15. The one main issue, though, was that they make sure Floodgate Productions gets the credit.

The Growing Number of Online Viewers Churches are growing in their use of online video not coincidentally as members and prospects are turning to online video more and more. An ABI Research study from 2008 predicted that the number of people viewing video on the Web would reach at least one billion in 2013. More recently, ComScore released data showing that nearly 173 million U.S. Internet users watched online videos during January 2010. These Internet users watched 32.4 billion videos during the month, and with an average of 187 videos per viewer, that breaks down to a little more than six online videos a day for each person. The most recent statistics from Internet World Stats

show that there are an estimated 227,719,000 Internet users in the U.S. That would suggest 75 percent of Internet users view videos online. Whatever these numbers mean, one thing’s for sure: there’s a whole lot of video viewing going on. And churches and ministries can be included in this wave for very little investment.

Options for Online Videos What options are there to upload a welcome video to your church’s site? Possibilities vary by price and production level.

1) Hire a production company to create a video. This could be a pricey option as Warren and Hayes noted, reaching into the thousands. But there are certainly many tal-ented professionals who can create a quality video that’s unique to your ministry.

2) Produce your own. Your financial investment is one of time and technology, with a broad range of either. You can start with a video camera and computer software, add in a bit of creativity, and get your video online.

3) Purchase a ready-made video. If you’d like to purchase a video that’s already done, that’s easy too. Start with a hosting site, preview and select your video, make your purchase and upload.

Whether you purchase or produce your video, these files can be uploaded to E-zekiel.tv for hosting and delivery. Any churches using E-zekiel.com to manage their sites can upload the file once and have it automatically posted on their own Web site in addition to E-zekiel.tv.

Jason Otis is vice president of marketing and business devel-opment for Axletree Media, the company behind E-zekiel.com, a content management system for churches and minis-tries, and E-zekiel.tv, a free video-sharing site. Comments? Send them to Jason.otis@axletreemedia.com.

May 201017Christian Video® Magazine

by JAY M. DELPAudible Audio for Video

Every church using video projection needs a way for those ministering on the platform to see what is being projected behind or beside them without turning around. Requiring ministry leaders to “turn their backs” on the very people they are attempting to lead and/or communicate with violates fundamental principles of effective communication and is not acceptable to any ministry whose goal is the ef-fective (i.e. seamless) use of media in ministry. At the time of this writing, my own church (which incorporates dual side screen projection) does not provide confi-dence monitors although a solution is pending (read: “in committee”). There are ba-sically two different approaches to providing such a “confidence monitor” solution: 1) a flat screen (or multiple flat screens) positioned at or near floor level (angled up approx. 10-25 degrees) along the front edge of the platform or near the first row of seating or 2) projection on a screen or alternative surface in the rear of the sanctu-ary. Let’s take a look at which approach is right for your ministry.

Confidence Monitors:

The first confidence monitor solution we’ll consider is the flat-screen approach. The size of your platform and your worship team(s) will determine how many flat screens you will need to effectively serve as confidence monitors. For most ministries two flat screens 32-50” diagonal each, is sufficient. Regardless of how many flat screens you require you’ll want to position them below seated head level either along the front edge of the platform or near floor level between the platform and the first rows of seating. Since the platform is elevated you will want to tilt the flat screens back 10-20 degrees in order to im-prove viewing angles for those standing on the platform. A very cost effective way to accomplish this is to use guitar stands, usually two or three per screen depending on the size of the screen and

the design of the stand. Some guitar stands work better than others for this purpose. Be sure which-ever guitar stands you use have padded supports to help protect your screens from scratches. I use several Proline Fretrest Acoustic Guitar Folding Stands (Model FS100A; $15) which work very well (two per 50” flat screen) for flat screens ranging from 32” to 50”. You will need to pro-vide video signals/cables to each of these moni-tors from your video switcher (or scalers) program output which may require use of an additional distribution amplifier if you currently do not have the necessary number of additional program video outputs available. The second confidence monitor option is “rear projection”. When discussing confidence monitor solutions “rear projection” simply means

Two Solid Solutions

18May 2010Christian Video® Magazine

by JAY M. DELPAudible Audio for Video

projecting on a surface, typically a wall or screen, in the rear of the sanctu-ary. This can be a very effective solution for many churches and is the solution which my own congregation is currently pursuing. Obviously this requires an additional video projector and a pro-jection surface which is at or near the back center of the sanctuary and large enough to be quickly and easily read from the platform. Thankfully this confidence projec-tor and image does not need to be as bright (read: expensive) or as large as your sanctuary’s pri-mary projectors/images. For most applications a 2,000-3,000 lumen video projector and an image from 60-90” is more than adequate. It is not even mandatory that the screen surface be an “official” projection screen which may allow you to use existing sanctuary walls and surfaces as they are without any additional expense or modification. So which of these two confidence monitor solutions is right for you? Both have their advan-tages and disadvantages but I favor the 2nd rear-of-sanctuary projection solution for most churches. Here’s why: First, it allows everyone on the platform to be looking up and right over the heads of those they are ministering to instead of down to floor-level monitors. This is no small advantage. Second, the use of floor-level confidence monitors at or near the front of the platform will usually

require them to be physically removed or at least moved out of the way for special occasions such as weddings, funerals, etc. Not only is this a time waster and a colossal hassle it will shorten the life span of your monitors and cable connections as they get “beat up” by repeated moves year after year. At this point, you may be thinking, “We would love to use the back-of-sanctuary projec-tion solution but the design of our sanctuary simply does not provide any place to hang/mount a projector facing the rear of the auditorium.” That’s exactly what I/we thought at my own church. Enter the Sanyo PLC-XL51, a 2,700 lu-men, XGA (1024 x 768) ultra short-throw reverse-

May 201019Christian Video® Magazine

by JAY M. DELPAudible Audio for Video

projection video projector. Every once in a while a new technology or product comes along which seams custom designed for a particular media ministry application. This is one of those prod-ucts. This great little unit which currently has a street price of approx. $2,500, can project up to an 80” image from only 3 inches! That is no typo. But that’s not the best part. It can accomplish this and project that image onto the same surface on which the projector is mounted. I’ll pause a minute here to let that sink in…ok, are you still with me. So this means you can mount the pro-jector on a back wall or bracket and it will project its image onto that same wall! I have one of these units and we tested it at church and at another lo-cal church to see if it would be a good confidence monitor solution and it really does work. It is vital that the projector be positioned EXACTLY perpendicular (90 degrees) from the wall/surface it is projecting on to but that’s not very difficult to accomplish. And its 2700 lumens are plenty bright for these types of confidence monitor solu-tions in almost any sanctuary. Problem solved! The difference in cost between the above two options is not significant in most scenarios especially since the price of projectors and flat screens has dropped so dramatically over the past

5 years. If your confidence monitor needs could be solved with a single floor-level, near-platform 42 or 50” flat screen then that solution could be much less expensive that the single projector, rear-of-sanctuary solution but it may be worth the extra dollars to go with the rear-of-sanctuary solution to take advantage the other benefits such a solution provides. Regardless of which of the above solutions (or a creative third solution you come up with) it is vital that your ministry provides some type of effective confidence monitor solution for every-one who is attempting to minister from the plat-form. It will go a long way towards helping them minister with, well, confidence.

Jay Delp www.jaydelp.com jaydelp@comcast.net