AUMC AV Blog

Just thought I would post some quick pics of the screen in the new sanctuary:



From the sound booth:



Matthew

I hear that the big screen has been hung, but I haven't had the chance to make it out there to take some pictures... maybe on my way out of town tomorrow I can swing by for some quick pics for ye old blog.

Matthew

I have been thinking about our CD ministry. We currently mail out about 5 CDs a week to shut-ins, and every once in a while we will burn a CD for someone who asks. This process is tedious, because we have to get the audio files to people that will be burning the CD, then we have to make labels, mail out CDs... it is time consuming for several volunteers.

So how can we make this process better and easier? Well, for starters, we will have a CD recorder in the booth, so we won't have to record on the computer, then burn that to CD. (However, we are still planning on recording on the computer for internet/archive use.) From there, we will need a quick way to duplicate them. While there is no CD duplicator in the budget, one might have to be bought to speed along this process. Using the duplicator, it is easy to make lots of copies fast (It can duplicate a CD in three minutes. That means if you have a duplicator with three burners, you can burn one CD per minute.)

But what about labeling the CDs? I plan on buying bulk pre-printed CDs. This keeps the cost down while making the presentation very professional. The one not-so-professional aspect is that if we use pre-printed CDs we will have to include blanks for Date, Sermon Title, etc., and someone will have to hand-write those in. I hope we can find a tech guy with pretty (handsome?) handwriting...

As to how people will order the CDs, I have several thoughts. The main thought is to have a table somewhere (probably in front of the sound booth). On the table would be "ordering envelopes". These envelopes would be the same type of envelope that we use for tithing/giving, but it would be printed for purchasing CDs. It would have blanks for them so that people can fill out what they want, IE: date, sermon title, full service or just sermon, etc. The CD would be a "suggested donation" of three dollars (which they would put into the envelope). This covers our costs, but doesn't make it a hinderance if someone doesn't want to pay for it. We might even want to put out pre-printed manila envelopes that are big enough to mail a CD in. If someone wants us to mail it to them, they just fill out the manila envelope so that all we have to do is drop the burned CD in.

Another random idea: have a sign saying that peope could "sponsor a shut-in". For $200 they could pay for a year of mailing CDs to a shut-in. This would help cover the cost of this ministry.

Anywho, this goes under "some random thing that Matthew is thinking about way too much," but oh well. What do you think? Are these good ideas or bad ideas? How does your church do it?

Matthew

Today during the services, Pastor Kory announced that there is good news and bad news about the new building.

The good news: We have a projected "move-in date" of December 14th.

The bad news: This doesn't mean that our first service will be December 14th. We will need to move stuff from this church to the new one (like 500 chairs), we need to perfect the sound system, etc. Also, we decided that we don't want to rush everything to have Christmas Eve services (our second busiest day of the year for the church) at the new building. So our plans are to have the Christmas Eve services at Argyle High School. This will accommodate the hundreds of people that will be at the services. We will move into the new building soon after that.

Anywho, I just thought I would pass along the information.

Matthew

First, let me say that I should be getting to sleep right now, and I pray that God will see this time writing this post as a sacrifice, and that he would reward me with rest. =: >

Second, for your consideration (not only because it is a cool scripture, but because it is the scripture that I was reading that made me get up to write this post): Ephesians 6:10-20

OK, on to business. I have been thinking a lot about the new tech team, and specifically how I am going to lead the new tech team. A general idea has been beating around the bushes, and tonight it cleared up: I don't want to just lead a bunch of guys into working perfectly as an AV team. Yes, leading worship is a large goal that this team has, but I am now convinced that this is not what God is calling me to have as my main goal.

I believe that God is calling me to minister to the people in the tech team. And I don't mean "minister" like a pastor does, or "minister" like an accountability partner does. I feel that God is calling me to help people focus on God. Too often I see teams in churches get the job done, but not much more. For example, every Sunday morning at AUMC, long before any service starts, everyone involved in worship (IE: the staff) gets together and goes over the services; who is doing what, the topic of the day, any special announcements that need to be made, etc.. And then they pray.

This weekly meeting is effective because it gets things done. I realized that every Sunday our tech team will need a similar meeting to cover similar (but media focused) topics. But I don't want it to be a simple quick meeting; I feel like there is an opportunity to do more. See, in the staff meeting, everyone there is on staff and knows their parts well, but my volunteer team will be much less focused and aimed, ready to fire on all cylinders (sorry about the mixed metaphors).

Before I go on, let me backtrack a moment. As all three readers of this blog well know, we have been working on the AV system in the new building, getting things ready. About a week ago some painters were going though the building, re-painting all of the door frames. We were working in the booth that day, so we were constantly going in and out of the booth. If you have seen pictures of the booth or have been on site, you know that there are several steps right inside the doorway to the booth, so as you are walking out of the booth it is very natural and often necessary to put your hands on the top of the door frame to steady yourself. If you can't see where this is going, you need to go back to 6th grade: yes, we now have not one, but two lovely handprints forever embossed on our door frame. (And from two different people, neither one me, I might add.)

Anywho, the painted-on-handprints led us to start joking about football stadiums that have sayings over doorways, so that as players walk through the doorway they see the saying and reach up and slap it. We decided that we needed to put a sign over the door that people would see every time they left the booth, because they are already putting their hands up to touch the door frame.

When we were talking about it that day, I took it as a joke; but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. I like the idea of having something (probably a scripture) there to remind people of our purpose, our reason for being here (both specifically volunteering at the church, and our reason for being here on Earth). The more I thought about it, the less I could narrow down what I wanted to put up there. I soon had the idea of every week having a different scripture, just to give volunteers something to think about and to help them stay focused. I took it one step further: I was thinking that it would be a good idea for, every Sunday morning, before any service, us to get together as a tech team and first read over the scripture of the week, then pray. At that point, we could have our tech meeting, I would tell them what they needed to know for the services.

OK, bringing the two halves of this post together: I again took it one step further. The following is my hair-brained idea. It is the ramblings of a brain that needs sleep, but here goes: The two tech volunteers and I show up at the same time, probably at 7:45. I go to the 7:45 staff meeting, while the volunteers turn on the system and get everything ready. At 8:00 (or whenever the staff meeting gets out), I grab the two (or however many there are) volunteers and we head into a conference room (that is, if we can find an open one). In the room, apart from the hustle-and-bustle of everything else, we would have a 5 minute "Mini Bible Study." It wouldn't be in-depth or profound, but it would be enough to help people focus on WHY we are here volunteering, on HOW we can serve God, on WHO we are serving. (The studies would not be geared for these specific topics, those are the reasons for the study.) After the study, which would focus on the scripture that is hanging over the sound booth door, we would pray, go over anything about the service that needs to get covered, then at 8:10 head to the booth for final prep. This would give us plenty of time before our 8:30 service to have things ready to go.

Yes, I know that taking 10 minutes of busy time could be a bad thing, but I think that having volunteers (and of course myself) focused on God BEFORE we start leading worship for others could be an amazing tool to help us be focused and ready to glorify God.

Is this a good idea, or just a waste of precious time? I love to hear any and all feedback on all of my posts. =: >

Matthew

Well, we have a new header (meaning the photo at the top of the blog). Like it?

I love the back-lit cross!

Matthew

As our country decides who our next president will be, I am trying to get my mind off of the idea that we are picking the wrong guy. So, here is what I am thinking about for the computer and computer software in our new building. I put this here to get your feedback. If I am missing something, or you disagree with me, speak out and tell me what you think!

Hardware:
iMac: $2,368.00
24", 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB memory, 500GB hard drive, 8x double-layer SuperDrive, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS with 512MB memory, price includes Apple Care.
Honestly, this one buggs me. I know that it wouldn't be smart, but part of me says "Wait until Apple updates the iMac" (which should be mid-January). See, my last iMac I bought two months before they were upgraded, and it still buggs me that I missed out on a better computer for the same price. I guess I am destined to do it again. Anywho, I want to get the top of the line iMac. If we will be doing video and other heavy processing, I figure it is worth the extra couple hundred bucks to get the best.

Some kind of mouse: $30-$100
Sorry Apple, the Mighy Mouse sucks, especially if you need precision mousing like we will need. So I suggest that we splurge on a different mouse. I personally own the Logitech MX Revolution. It is expensive (just under $100), but it is an AMAZING wireless mouse.

Apple Mini-DVI to DVI Adapter: $19.00
A monitor cable to hook the iMac up to our video system.

Kensington lock: $30
So the iMac doesn't walk away.

2 more GB of RAM: $30
Lots cheaper than the $150 Apple wanted.

Necessary Software: (IE: Software we will use on a weekly basis)
ProPresenter: $340
This will be the backbone of what we project. We will use it for projecting songs, scriptures, videos, etc. The more I use this program, the more I like it.

Microsoft Office: (already purchased)
For those times that we need to use PowerPoint, we will need Office. It has served us well so far, so we will have it in case we need it. (The sermon notes might end up being displayed in Office every week.)

Audacity: Free!
Audacity is a great app for recording audio. It will be easy to record the audio from the board so that we can easily put sermons on the website.

DropBox: $100/year
A great utility for moving and sharing files on several computers. I will probably pay the upgrade for 50GB so that we can store everything online... this will also serve as an off-site backup.

Not Necessary Software (IE: Software that we won't use on a weekly basis, but it will probably be installed on the computer anyway)
Quicksilver: Free
A great little app that can do just about anything. If you haven't used it, it is hard to explain what it is. If you have used it, you know why it will be on the computer.

Covenant Eyes: $100/year
Covenant Eyes is a program that watches what web pages you view and it reports to someone else what you have looked at. While mainly used for people seeking an "accountability parter", it can also be used for keeping track of what others are looking at on your computer. Not that I plan on the internet being abused on the church computer, but I think it is wise to hold people accountable when they are browsing the web.

Adium: Free
A multi-client IM program. We might use this to receive notices from the children's wing.

Meteorologist: Free
A great weather-in-the-menu-bar app.

Maybe Later Software (IE: Software that we will need one day, but probably won't get right away.)
PhotoShop Elements: $90
This is good for editing backgrounds and photos and stuff. There have been many Sunday morning where I was in the booth and just wanted to touch-up a photo so bad...

Final Cut Express: $200
For basic video editing and the like. However, iMovie will have to do for now.

Well, I am sure that I have left something out, in which case I will add it in later. Outside of things I have missed, what do you think of the list?

EDIT: I have added: Kensington lock, extra RAM, DropBox, and Meteorologist.

Matthew

Short work day today. We got the projectors installed, and built the two light bars that will hang over the choir. In the next few days, James will work on the punchdowns. Next week we will start the heavy working again.

Matthew