Churches Openly Embrace Ministry on the Web
By admin | December 30, 2008
By Tracy Farnham
Much like an interactive church bulletin, local congregations are embracing the Internet to broaden the scope of ministry and stay in touch with members.
Hopewell Baptist Church uses the Web for their church calendar, prayer requests and member contacts. Josh Norman, who handles media and technology for Hopewell, said they had a test run in October for previously recorded services over the Internet.
“We record all our services and broadcast them on the Internet. We went full streaming with our Sunday morning services in November,” Norman said.
Norman runs In His Service Productions in Morganton that provides programming of special events, video duplications and promotional videos.
Topics: Ministry, Online Media, Technology | No Comments »
OCP’s Contemporary Catholic Musicians Unite to Fight Poverty
By admin | December 15, 2008
CLEVELAND, Dec. 15 /Christian Newswire/ — The best in contemporary Catholic music gathered on Friday, Dec. 5 at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for “Rock Out Poverty,” a benefit event for struggling families and individuals in the Cleveland area. Award-winning artists like Steve Angrisano, ValLimar Jansen and Matt Maher were among the many performers who contributed their talents for the concert. All the musicians who participated are affiliated with spiritandsong.com, OCP’s contemporary music division.
“Times are tough and getting tougher, and people are feeling that pinch,” said Sarah Hart, one of the popular artists who took the stage. “Jesus said the greatest commandment after loving God was to love our neighbor. This is a wonderful opportunity to let those neighbors who need a hand know that they are not alone and that they are loved.” Many of the thousands of people in Cleveland for the National Conference on Catholic Youth Ministry made their way from the Convention Center to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The 1,000 pre-sale tickets were sold out and over 200 additional tickets were sold at the door. After the first set at the concert, a check for $10,000 was presented to Catholic Charities of Cleveland by event co-sponsors spiritandsong.com, RCL Benzinger, the Diocese of Cleveland’s Youth and Young Adult Ministry and Catholic Youth Organization office.
Topics: Evangelism | No Comments »
9 Ways To Make Dry Church Services Come To Life
By admin | December 10, 2008
Why is it that in some churches, meeting with the creator of the universe is often a boring showcase for bad music, inept preaching and poor taste? Listed are 9 perspectives that can enhance the effectiveness of your services.
- Put yourself in the congregation’s shoes. Pastor, how long has it been since you just sat in the congregation? How often do you really try to identify with the needs, hopes and dreams of those in your congregation?
- Tell stories. Storytelling was Jesus’ primary method of teaching. He put the most profound concepts into simple and compelling stores that captivated people and changed their lives. Never telling a story is a prescription for putting people to sleep.
- Question everything. Why do you take up the offering the same way each week? Why do you always sing the same hymn of invitation?
- Find some fresh jokes-or don’t use any. How many of you would rather be here in church than in the finest hospital in town? Please discard your moth-eaten jokes. Otherwise your congregation will start laughing out of pity, not humor.
- Go beyond your trusty old sermons of the past. Yes it’s nice to have some standby messages you can rely on. But the danger is that the more you preach the same sermon, the more difficult it is to present it with conviction, originality and excitement.
- Understand and address the surrounding culture. Jesus understood the culture that He ministered in.
- Know your audience. It is important to make sure your services are appropriately targeted to the kind of people you are trying to reach.
- Keep learning. Some pastors have fallen into the trap of anti-intellectualism.
- Be open to the Spirit. God’s sovereign move always brings a response.
Topics: Ministry | No Comments »
New Book Teaches How to Conquer Church Sound Issues
By admin | November 27, 2008
rent a car bulgariaNew Book Teaches How to Conquer Church Sound Issues
Stop Stressing About Sound: Practical Advice About Church Sound Issues, a new book from TC Furlong Inc., lays out a plan for developing a successful and effective audio ministry, whether for a church plant or a megachurch. The book is in three parts: How to recruit, train, and care for your sound team; Technical aspects of the sound ministry, including system design, purchase, and installation strategies; and a Step-by-step plan to build an effective ministry.
Lake Forest, IL (PRWEB) — Audio quality issues plague houses of worship in every region and in every denomination. These issues have the potential to negatively affect the ministry — a couple feedback squeals can cause the congregation to spend more time looking back at the sound engineer instead of focusing on the sermon.
If the band is too loud, members may stay away. These issues can be worsened by the fact that most pastors do not have an understanding of the basic principles of sound engineering, or a plan on how to build a quality technical production ministry.
To combat these issues, TC Furlong Inc. announces its first publication, Stop Stressing About Sound: Practical Advice About Church Sound Issues. Written by Lightning Atkinson in conjunction with TC Furlong Inc., this book lays out a plan for developing a successful and effective audio ministry, whether for a church plant or a megachurch.
Lightning Atkinson has been mixing in churches as both a volunteer and paid staff member for more than ten years. He has also worked for audio-visual staging companies, audio equipment manufacturers, and as a freelance audio engineer. Currently most of his time is spent consulting with houses of worship on how to refine both their sound systems and technical ministries.
Atkinson gets past all the technical jargon and addresses the function, operation, and needs of a technical ministry. The first part of the book deals with the ministry itself — how to recruit, train, and care for the members of your sound team.
Atkinson then covers the technical aspects of a sound ministry — including the function of different gear, addressing feedback and volume concerns, and strategies for sound system design, purchase, and installation. The book finishes with a step-by-step plan to build your sound ministry from a portable church plant to being capable of handling a full band. The book also includes several useful “Quick Reference Sheets” that can be copied and provided to sound engineers.
“Lightning stays at a consistent introductory level, while also including fundamentals and essentials that every church needs,” said Chris Gille, Audio Director at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, IL, “I found answers to the ‘top ten’ audio-in-church questions I hear quite often…there is something in this book for every church.”
Stop Stressing About Sound: Practical Advice About Church Sound Issues is available now from TC Furlong Inc. for $24.95. Since 1973 TC Furlong Inc. has been providing professional audio equipment, rentals, and professional services to houses of worship throughout Chicagoland and the US.
For more information about this book, please contact Michael Tiojanco at TC Furlong Inc. at 847-367-9588 or email him at michael @ tcfurlong.com.
Topics: Technology | No Comments »
Using the Internet to fulfill your vision
By admin | November 10, 2008
Using the Internet to fulfill your vision
By Michael Bell
Fifteen years ago I was approached by young man name with a vision. His name was Mark Orr, and his vision was to use technology to connect Mission Agencies with young people who were looking for Mission experiences. Mark was President of an organization called Student Mission Advance, and he was convinced that traditional methods were not effective enough to help young people find the best fit with a mission agency.
Student Mission Advance in Canada served as a communication pipeline between Mission Agencies and young people. They would go into Universities and meet with Christian clubs, speak at chapels in Bible Schools, and meet with with young people at Churches, all with the goal of presenting missions and the opportunities available from Canada’s mission agencies. In short, their vision was that of being “Mission mobilizers”.
I had just graduated from Canadian Theological Seminary, and Mark wanted me to join the team as the Research and Information Manager. He was looking for someone who had both a theological education along with a technical background, and I fit the bill quite well.
In the early 90’s computer based bulletin boards were quite popular, and we started experimenting with how we might use these to communicate. In the fall of 1994, a friend working for the Federal Government in Ottawa introduced me to Mosaic, an early Internet Browser, and the first to integrate images into a browser.
I was impressed, but felt it was not quite user friendly enough. A couple months later Netscape 1.0 was released, and shortly thereafter Student Mission Advance had one of our cities first website. We called it “Fingertip” because it made missions available at your fingertips. At its core was the Mission Opportunity Database, with hundreds of opportunities from over 30 Mission Agencies.
Topics: Evangelism, Ministry | No Comments »