Friday, October 28, 2005

An Abnormal, Non-Typical Thursday at a FBC.

Last Thursday was very interesting to say the least.  I had to transfer registration, tags, insurance and taxes to a more fuel efficient automobile.  After that I had to attend a funeral to operate mainly the sound but something else unusual using technology. (more on that in a minute)  Lastly I had much set up to do for sound and lighting for an event that evening in one of our venues outside of the Sanctuary.

The car stuff went fairly smooth.  God is so good!  He knew what all had to happen that day so after filling out the paperwork at the DMV I went to reception to receive my “now serving” number.  To my amazement my number was being called as I entered the main office.  I was finished at the DMV in less than 30 minutes.  DID YOU HEAR THAT?  LESS THAN 30 MINUTES!  The same goes for the insurance office, where, yes, I saved a bunch of money on my car insurance.  I didn’t have to switch to a gecko to do it either.  The tax assessor office was empty so I didn’t spend much time there and my taxes were lower on this new vehicle.  I’m saving money left and right!

OK, back to the funeral.  The family made a last minute request that was a first for me and I had never heard of anyone doing this for a funeral before.  The son of the dearly departed has a son (the grandson) who is stationed in Iraq and was not going to be able to attend the service.  They wanted to do a video teleconference and have the grandson give a testimony from Baghdad on the big screen in the sanctuary.  This request was made on Tuesday before the funeral on Thursday.  Not much time to make something work where you are not remotely prepared.  With some help from a local IT freelance technician named Joe (I never got to meet Joe) and the local high school principle we pulled it off…almost.  
There is not any Ethernet into the Sanctuary as of yet.  Joe had set up a Linksys wireless router in an office with network connectivity nearby the Sanctuary.  We used a new HP laptop with built-in wireless 802.11g capability.  The high school principle had some experience so he brought in his Creative Labs web cam.  He set up the initial contact with guys in Baghdad using MSN Messenger.  After contact we first initiated voice traffic with them.  It was good audio at about a 1½ - 2 second delay. We next established video on both ends.  It worked like a charm and was much better than I expected.  The video was much more stable than some of the video phone reports that I have seen on Fox News.  All of this using cheap computer microphones, web cams and MSN Messenger.  After that there was only one thing to do and that was to integrate that to our audio and video systems in the Sanctuary.  Pressed for time I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to run the video through distribution and have the control I wanted.  I had to run it direct to our Christie LX45 projector and use the “no show” function.  I was able to use our audio distribution to feed the laptop audio to our Yamaha mixer console.  We took the web cam and taped it to the railing on the balcony for the final touch.  Man, we need some decent cameras in the Sanctuary.  Anyway, we had full video teleconferencing in our Sanctuary in about an hour.  The video and audio were much better than I had even hoped for.  
The funeral was about 30 minutes away and the testimony was about 45 minutes to an hour away.  I had the projector on no show and the principle was in contact by text with the Baghdad team.  The funeral started and we were all ready to go.  When it was time for the USN Chief Petty Officer grandson to speak I brought up the video which looked awesome and then I pushed up the faders only to hear what I can only describe as white noise in a barrel changing pitch and amplitude at random.  It was awful.  I couldn’t believe it was not working!  I muted the sound and kept the video up.  Of course no one knew what to do at that point.  It seemed like an eternity before some lady from the family stood up and read a letter that the grandson had sent back home to describe his memories of his grandfather.  It seemed to fit exactly with what the grandson was trying to say on the big screen.
Now I pose a question to the experts if I have any reading.  We never lost video and we only lost audio one way.  The grandson was able to watch and hear the entire service but we never recovered audio from Iraq.  Any ideas as to what happened?

After the funeral I rushed to change and then started setting up staging, lighting and mics for the women’s event that night.  Before I knew it we were doing a sound check as women were filing in.  The guest inspirational speaker and vocalist was Laurie E. Thompson who has a ministry for discipling women.  The message she delivered and the songs she sang were intended to touch the women but I was just as touched by her story as anyone.  
The event was nearly flawless.  I thank God for His guidance in us doing what was right for audio in that venue.  I’m amazed at the difference from just two years ago.  The cost was minimal as well and now we can provide audio for guest speakers, vocalist and groups that they can appreciate and we don’t have to apologize for every time.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the story of a completely abnormal, non-typical Thursday at a First Baptist church in a small town.  It was busy but it was fun and as always I learned from it.  Gaining experience is always a bonus.    

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Marketing to Churches

Almost all major manufactures, distributors and dealers have a person or team that is dedicated to the “houses of worship” market now. I’m sure that most of these companies are thrilled to have a new avenue of revenue. But is the church market different from other markets? I would surely hope so. An article titled Marketing to Churches Requires Subtlety, Staying Power in Sound & Video Contractor explores this new phenomenon.

Word of mouth takes top billing as the most effective marketing in churches SVC determines. I’m thinking that word of mouth is the most effective marketing period; regardless of product or market. Word of mouth will make the sale or condemn it faster than anything.

The article goes on to correctly assess that building relationships is the best way to do business with churches. I can agree with that assessment. We do want to build relationships because that is our nature as Christians. Unless we are given the gift of evangelism the best way for us to share Christ is through our relationships with others. We have the opportunity to reach people for Christ that in the past have mostly dealt with markets in the secular entertainment business. That market is not known for fostering relationships but mostly of lending endorsement.

The article mentions that in larger scale projects a church will often seek a professional consultant. Not a bad idea but why limit that to large scale projects? I believe an honest, professional consultant who specializes in church audio, video and lighting should be the first relationship we should build. Make sure you find a consultant that knows churches and more importantly loves the Lord. They will be looking out for your best interest. I have had to write very meticulous, specific RFP (requests-for-proposal) for contractors to bid on and follow up on their every step because many are not looking out for you. Of course always accepting the lowest bid doesn’t always help either but that is a different issue. Anyway, I strongly urge any of you who need to have a system designed, revamped or replaced and you are not 100% sure of what you need then most definitely contact a consultant.
I will admit that when it comes to equipment needed in churches that I don’t possess the knowledge to know what is best or what is specifically needed for a certain application. I have no problem operating, repairing and managing but my strength is not design. Therefore I trust consultants to guide me so that I may be the best steward of the resources that God has entrusted me with. I pray that you do the same.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Hot Topics in Media Ministry

In the last few years I believe that God has called me to be in media ministry or some type of technical ministry full time.  Week after week I see the need to be able to devote a lot more time to keep up and exceed the level of media we are using for our worship services.  If there is any other event or request that requires use of media or our technical gifts then we are really pushed for time.  Since our team is made up completely of non-paid volunteers or ministry partners as I like to call them, we all have full time jobs.  Some of us have very demanding full time jobs in a technical field that requires more than 40 hours a week most weeks.  Unfortunately the time we have to use to keep up our level of media use is taken out of our family time and personal time with God.  Yes, the work we do in media is for God but it should not take the place of our personal time with God in which we study His word, meditate, pray and listen.  Our family relationships also should not suffer for ministry.  Many times we just plain run out of time and the services are not what our congregation has come accustomed to expect.  The lack of consistency is painful for someone like me who believe we should strive for excellence.

Another area of discussion in media ministry is how to deal with people who are just not getting the job done.  Sometimes it is personality conflicts in which you have to learn how to deal with in a biblical way and sometimes people just do not have the technical aptitude or creative talent or both that think they do.  Fortunately I have not had to deal with that yet because we are team and a church that is just beginning to learn how important the technical side is to our ministries.

I bring all of this up to primer you for a post by Anthony Coppedge on his blog titled WFX Recap – Great Questions! The predominant questions posed to Anthony during the recent Worship Facilities Conference & Expo ,also known as WFX, is what I have brought up in the first two paragraphs of this post.  These are great areas for discussion.    Thanks Anthony!    

Monday, October 17, 2005

Martin Audio Announces New Ceiling Speaker Series


Many times you don’t really think about distributed audio in your church. Other buildings and venues on your campus including nursery and preschool spaces and also overflow can be covered very well by 70/100 volt systems. I deal with these systems frequently with my day job and have learned how to apply that to media ministry as well.

So, I was pleased to hear that there is a new line of ceiling speakers on the market by Martin Audio. You can read the review by Sound & Video Contractor here.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

It Was God Equipment Review

I want to give a run down of the hodge-podge of equipment that God used because He obviously wanted His message through Adrian Despres distributed from October 2nd. First was the very acoustically live, concrete block building in which the service was conducted. Not the best place for a recording with its many reverberations.

Next Adrian was speaking into a Audio-Technica ATW-T31 wireless lavaliere microphone which was transmitting to the ATW-R10 diversity receiver. This wireless microphone system is one of my least favorites that I inherited but that day it performed almost flawlessly. The receiver lost signal a couple of brief moments but other than that I was very pleased. The microphone has a very low gain before feedback threshold so I was amazed at how well it performed. It was God!

The wireless microphone system was connected to a Mackie CFX20 live sound mixer. The Lord has really looked out for this board in the fact that it has suffered through two major roof leaks and is still getting the mix done. The only thing that doesn’t work on this mixer is the headphone jack and some unbalanced ¼ inputs are suspect. It is and continues to be God!

Next is the recorder that we purchase this year to finally get away from cassettes. It is most certainly not high end. So far I have found that the spoken word is really good but I need to play with it some more to get music sounding better. I’m speaking of the Fostex MR-8 digital multi-track recorder. I usually can be proficient with a piece of equipment straight out of the box but this one took some manual reading. I have not put it through the paces due to time constraints but it has made recording our worship services much, much easier. It also brings us out of the dark ages of using cassettes which did not give us the capability of recording to other formats. The ease of having removable recording media such as the compact flash memory that this recorder uses it a definite plus. God used it!

My computer is a HP 845n but the star is the software that I have come to love in a very short period of time. There is a couple of audio editing software that I have been using and I have come to the conclusion that I like them both. The first is Audacity. Audacity is a FREE program written by a team of volunteer developers around the world. It works with many operating systems including Windows, Linux, Mac and more. It supports many different audio formats including .wav and .mp3. Not only is it an editor but it is also a player and recorder. Audacity has a vast array of effects including echo, compression and limiter, filtering and many more. Another great feature is unlimited undo. YES! The only problem that I have had with Audacity is exporting the project as an .mp3 file. It can’t locate the necessary files for conversion.
The other great editor I have used is Nero Wave Editor. It is more visually appealing than Audacity with the graphic equivalent of knobs and faders like a tangible digital recorder. Nero does not have nearly the effects that Audacity has. One great feature of Nero is the automatic crash recovery. Both have been more than adequate for what I do. We will see how they fair once I can use them more extensively. Regardless of which editor I use, I convert to .mp3 using dBpower AMP music converter. This software is Freeware and is packed with wave and mp3 codecs with capability to download virtually any codec you need. It has many features like adjustable frequency and bitrate and preset quality settings, DSP effects and volume normalizing. Nice little utility.

Last but not least is Nero Burning Rom 6 to burn the CDs. Very easy to use with drag and drop files into the window for burning. I’m also pleased with the speed and quality of the burns. It also has the capability of video but I have not tried that yet. This software has many features that I have not yet begun to tap into yet. Click here for a full listing of features.

As you can see none of this is high-end, state-of-the-art, quality equipment. Some of this equipment should not even work anymore. I keep it maintained the best I can with the ability that God has given me but sometimes it performs way beyond what I ever expected because God wants to use it anyway.

I’m just happy to be along for the ride because I love doing this stuff. I’m so glad that God gives me the opportunity work in media ministry!

Tuesday, October 11, 2005

It Was God!

Have you ever been involved with something happening and the only explanation is it was God?  I had that October 2nd and the week following.  
At the last minute without planning, preparation or practice, which goes against my core media ministry teaching, I decided to move my low end digital multi-track recorder from our sanctuary to another venue to record the special worship service we were conducting.  I used a spare aux send on the mixing board to send audio to the recorder.  I didn’t even check the audio level that was there until I set record as the service was starting.  I put on the headphones to make sure I heard audio and then I left it be.  

The speaker that day was Adrian Despres of Kingdom Building Ministries.  Adrian is the epitome of “He called some to be…evangelist”.  God has gifted this man as a communicator.  I thought he would have an impact because we have been hearing about him ever since we started attending our church back in 2000 from when he had been there in 1998 I believe.  His name comes up every year as we discuss revival.  I now know why.  I highly recommend Adrian Despres for any special event or revival you may be planning.

I had been warned that Adrian would speak longer than we are normally accustomed to so we planned to have one service that Sunday from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.  That was planning on Adrian speaking for 45 minutes.  I had recently ordered a 512 MB compact flash memory card for the digital recorder which would give us 98 minutes in mono.  I thought that would be perfect.  I was wrong.  Our service did not conclude until after 1:00 p.m. and I ran out of memory on the recorder before Adrian was finished speaking.

Now for the God part!  Have you ever seen your entire church go forward at the invitation?  That is what I witnessed from the sound booth.  400+ people going forward to confess sin, rededicate their lives to Christ and to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  What a sight to behold!  That was God!  

On Monday I started listening to the audio in .wav format.  The spoken voices for announcements and other things sounded ok.  The singing voices lacked amplitude.  The instruments just sounded bad.  The worship leader did not sound as good as I know he can sound.  I was disappointed in the audio to say the least.  Then Adrian came on and I was amazed at the sudden clarity, fidelity, amplitude and lack of noise.  I started thinking of what microphone I had him use.  The microphone was nothing better than what everyone else had used if not worse.  The .wav recording was ready to convert to .mp3 as is.  I sampled it again and found no fault.  Like I said before I ran out of memory before Adrian had stopped speaking so I thought I would have to do some editing and end at a part that still got the points of message across or I was going to have to scrap the whole project.  The recording could not have shut off at a better point in the message.  No editing needed.  I converted to .mp3 and listened to that on my computer.  It sounded great for computer speakers.  I then burned it to a CD in about 15 minutes which was excellent compared to other burns I had did.  This was for 65 minutes of his message at almost 700mb; a full CD!  I took the burned CD in and played it on my home theatre system and I was blown away at the quality.  It sounded as good as the CDs that I had purchased recently from Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram; minus the professional narration, lead in and packaging of course.  All of that was God!

I know when something is beyond understanding, beyond the capabilities of equipment and beyond my own human abilities then it has to be God.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing me to be a part of “rightly handling the word of truth”. (2 Timothy 2:15)