AUMC AV Blog

I am pleased to announce the details of our new CD Ministry!

In our new building we have a CD recorder built into the sound system, so we will be able to burn the services directly to CD. This makes it harder to do things like edit it for content (for example if someone left a mic muted, or Kory coughs), but it makes the process much more streamlined. We will record the third service directly to CD, creating chapter markers just before the sermon begins and again after the sermon is over. This will allow people to skip to the sermon if they please. ("Chapter markers" is the DVD term, and if you couldn't tell, I am a video guy, not an audio guy, so it might be called something else on a CD. But you get the idea.)

Anywho, as I was saying, we will burn the service directly to CD. We will take that master CD to our CD duplicator (copies to 5 CDs at once), and in about 5 minutes we can have 10 CDs out.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let me back up and talk about the design. I am ordering pre-printed CD-Rs with our new logo:



The printing process that is being done is a photothermal print. It has a glossy coat on top so it is smudge proof, and it looks amazing! For the sermon title, date, and other information, we will use a DYMO LabelWriter DUO to print the text onto a clear sticker that will go onto the CD.

OK, back to duplicating the CDs. After we have duplicated the CDs, we will put on the title information sticker and put them in a clear vinyl case. Some CDs will be mailed (or hand delivered) to our shut-ins, wile other CDs will be retained for people to pick up in the foyer. Their going price: a suggested donation of $3.

In addition to burning the aforementioned CD live during the late service we will also record all three services on the computer. This allows us to have a backup in case the CD being recorded doesn't work, or we need to do some editing. We will also use these files to put the sermon on our new website. The new site has a built in media player, so you just browse to the sermon you want to listen to and it starts playing. You can also subscribe to the podcast if you want to listen to it that way.

In a previous post I mentioned recording the video of the sermons. Along with the pre-printed CD-Rs we will be receiving pre-printed DVD-Rs with the same label (except that it says "DVD" instead of "CD", duh). The DVDs will be packaged just like the CDs, with the clear label and a vinyl case.

I am excited to see the CD ministry grow at AUMC. IIn the past it has been an amazing ministry, but it has been mostly limited to mailing CDs to shut-ins. As I was recently telling someone, I have the opportunity to step back and ask the question "If I could have anything in a CD Ministry, what would it be?" IE: I have the opportunity to design the CD Ministry from scratch, from the design and look of the label and case to how we will distribute them. The beginning of this post talks about the physical mechanics of creating the CD, but I have many other great ideas. For example, I want to provide a CD to every family that has a baptism at our church. If possible, I also want to provide a DVD of the baptism. (The CD would be the entire service, the DVD would just be the video of the baptism.) Whenever we have special choir events (and with Joe Stobaugh, we have a bunch!) I want to provide a CD to every member of the choir to say "Thanks for making this day special." I want to give the congregation the opportunity to "Sponsor a Shut-in", where someone in the congregation would pay for the cost of mailing a CD to a shut-in for a year, or better yet, they pick up the CD and every week hand deliver the CD to the shut-in. What an amazing ministry opportunity!

You can see how excited I am to be able to think outside the box and not have any limitations on how we can best serve our great God! Do you have any ideas for a great CD Ministry?

Matthew