What I Am Reading-Freebies, Printing Press and Questions
Nov 26, 2009 Communication, Devotions and Thoughts, Media and Technology, What I'm Reading
Thought I would let you in on a few different blogs and articles I have been reading lately-
1. The Internet is Not Your Delivery Boy- From Church Marketing Sucks I learned that the internet is not just the 20th century printing press, but should be so much more. It’s not about informing but connecting…
2. Freebie Friday- Tim Schmoyer from Life In Student Ministry shares different freebies each week. Last weeks was #152: Dallas Theological Seminary Courses on Itunes-
3. Finally David Risley in a guest post from ProBlogger asks the question, “Are You Talking At or To Your Readers” in a recent post. I wonder how many of the questions, and lessons learned, in this post could be applied to churches too?
Tags: blogs, Church, Itunes, Ministry, ProBlogger, Tim Schmoyer
What I’m Reading-Revolution, Connection and Forgiveness.
Nov 13, 2009 Communication, Devotions and Thoughts, Media and Technology, What I'm Reading
Revolution, Connection and Forgiveness. This is what I learned from reading blogs over the past few days.
First Kem Meyer posted a video called Social Media Revolution. If you thought social media was a here today, gone tomorrow venture then think again. I have seen this video before but it is definately worth reviewing.
Second, you can tell from my change in layout that I hit a wall with my blog and needed a change. Darren Rowse talks about the Getting Over the 6th Month Blogger Itch. Its a bit of encouragement for those of you needing a little push to keep going.
Finally, a new blog I have begun reading recently is Withoutwax.tv by Pete Wilson. In this one he talks about being Fast to Forgive. When we hold on to grudges and hurts usually we are only hurting ourselves. This is a great reminder to just let go and forgive.
Tags: blogs, google reader, important, shared
My Shared Items 11/02/09
Nov 2, 2009 Communication, Media and Technology, What I'm Reading
Each week I receive posts from over fifty different blogs. I collect and read them on Google Reader and thought you might benefit from some of the things I am reading. So here are some of my favorites from this week.
In Happy Hallow…. Harvest Festival, Michael Buckingham talks about ways to use Halloween as an opportunity, not a stumbling block. Yes I know it’s a little late, but file it for next year.
One of my favorite new blogs to follow is Michael Hyatt’s Blog. On 10/30 he shared a guest post from Margaret McSweeny on 12 Strategies for Leadership Success.
And finally TechCrunch, Pandora now offers integration with Twitter and Facebook
If you like, you can subscribe directly to my shared items on google reader.
Also if you have a blog to suggest, please put it in the comments below.
Tags: blog, blogs, facebook, Google, google reader, guest, late, Reading, Share, subscribe, twitter
Worship Planning with Google Wave
Oct 14, 2009 Communication, Media and Technology, Worship Planning
I was invited to a google wave “post” or “blip” or whatever it is called, where my friend was writing a blog post, and wanted some fresh eyes to read over it. He posted his thoughts and what happened next was amazing. About ten other people started sharing thoughts, finding spelling mistakes and making corrections, giving alternate ideas and collaborating on the post.
After watching this for a few minutes I wondered if it could be used for planning worship services? What would happen if someone could start a wave with the sermon and scripture, then let people from all over comment, make song suggestions, give links to videos or tell about a skit they wrote that would fit the topic?
Well let’s find out. First let me say that I know not everyone has Google Wave, and I know this process won’t fully work until it is available everywhere, so hurry up Google! But I think there are enough to give this experiment a try.
I have created a wave for a service we are doing on November 8th. If you have wave add me to your contact list and I will invite you to the wave.
My contact is rgmmusic@googlewave.com
Tags: blog, Google, LInks, Music, people, planning, scripture, Service, song, Thoughts, video, Wave, work, Worship, Worship Planning
Video Tips- One Way to Capture Audio
Oct 7, 2009 Communication, Media and Technology
Video is something I have just started doing at our church. Even though it is new to us as a way to communicate, we are already seeing some awesome results. We started out doing all of our youth updates as a video and have had some fun with that.
To start off with though, all the videos have been kind of funny and light. That changed this past week when our pastor wanted me to video the testimony of one of our members. When doing the funny, light videos it was good to hear what was being said, but with background music and other elements in the video sound quality could be compromised a bit. With the testimony, however, I knew that we had to get the best sound possible.
First you should know we are using two Everio Hard Disk cameras, set up in two locations with different angles. Its a good consumer level camera with a decent microphone. We have not invested in higher quality equipment, extra microphones or any thing else up to this point because we are just getting started and want to build slowly. But I did need to find a way to capture good audio. When telling a testimony, we really need to hear the story.
This is when I got the idea to just use the church sound system. We used the wireless lapel mic as our input. I then captured the audio three different ways. First it was captured by one of the two cameras I had set up; Second it was captured by sending it from the board, to a wireless earphone pack, to the second camera’s microphone input; and third it was captured by a CD recorder running on the sound board. We recorded the interview and I used my computer later to sync up the video, and audio from the different sources.
The best thing would be to purchase a good microphone for the video camera, and I hope that is in our future. However, this way gave great results and did not cost us anything.
Do you use video in your church? If so how? Is it effective? What is your setup?
Tags: audio, Background, Camera, capture, CD, Church, computer, Everio, Funny, late, Music, sing, tips, video, youth
Your Favorite Blackberry and Iphone Music Apps
Oct 6, 2009 Communication, Media and Technology
For about a year the most searched for and viewed posts on my blog had to do with worship backgrounds. That was until I posted a list of my most useful iphone applications for musicians, along with a link to a friend’s post on iphone audio applications.
Since I wrote the apps for musicians post I know that many more applications have come out for the iphone, and you may have different favorites than me. I also know that there are a lot of you out there who use Blackberrys and use apps for them in your ministry.
So here is my question. What applications, for Blackberry and Iphone, do you use in your worship ministry and would recommend to others? List the name of the app and what platform it’s for in the comments below. If you have a link that would be great too.
Tags: application, apps, audio, Background, blog, iphone, Music, question, Worship
Wave Winners
Oct 5, 2009 Communication, Media and Technology
Congratulations to those who responded in my Google Wave Contest, and will be receiving a Google Wave nomination. I want to say thanks to each of you who left comments Congratulations!
I will be sending an email to the address you left in your comment to find out what email you want the wave nomination sent to.
Two Ways to Get A Google Wave Nomination
Oct 1, 2009 Free Stuff, Media and Technology
Thursday when I received my Google Wave invite I did what came natural. I posted it up on twitter. What happened next suprised me. All of the sudden twitter and facebook I had about 45 responses from people asking for me to give them one of my invites. Some of the eager responders were my friends; others I had never even heard of.
So today I thought about how to use my invitations wisely. Since Google Wave is a collaborative tool I thought it best to find those with whom I share something in common and could collaborate; worship leaders, youth directors etc… I thought it would also be fun to give a few out randomly. So here it is.
First- Leave a comment on this post saying how you see Google Wave being a tool for ministry. How would you use it? What ways would it benifit different areas? I’ll choose 3 and send you an invite.
Second- Leave a review for “Unfailing Love” CD on Itunes, or Amazon.com . Then copy it and post it as a comment on the post entitled “Unfailing Love Cd Available. I’ll collect the names, choose 2 at random and send you an invite.
I will choose the winners on Monday morning at 9:00 a.m.
One more note.. I still have a few more to give away after that so you also can just ask me. Find me at the following
twitter.com/rgmmusic
facebook.com/russellmartinmusic
Tags: Google, Invitation, Nomination, Wave, Win
The Best Form of Communication
Aug 19, 2009 How To, Media and Technology
One of my jobs at the church is dealing with communication. We are constantly trying to find the best way to communicate with our members and the community. We are always looking for new ways to get information out. It seems like each week we ask ourselves, “What’s the best way to communicate?” Well I finally found the answer. Whatever works best.
I know that’s kind of a weird answer but hear me out. When I took golf lessons a long time ago my instructor showed me how I should swing. He went through the stance, grip of the club, ball placement, back swing and follow through. He said this is how you are supposed to do this and showed me, and I practiced it. I did fairly well taking lessons and eventually my time was up so I began just playing on my own. After a while I noticed that as I had practiced and played over time I had made my own little adjustments to my game. Over time my grip, swing, stance, all had changed to varying degrees. I ran into my instructor later and asked if I needed to go back to the right way of swinging my club etc. His response…”Do you hit the ball straight?.. me “Yes”… him..”There is no right way, there is the way that works for you.” Over time I had found a way to play that fit me, and that gave me the results I was wanting.
I think of this a lot when I watch Major League Baseball. I watch each player go up to bat and each have a different way of standing in the box, holding their bat, and swinging. And those methods have developed over time to give them the results they desire.
So what does this have to do with communication? Find what fits you, church, or organization, and what gives you the results that work. Maybe that means going all electronic in your communication using Facebook, Twitter, and a Blog. Maybe that means you mail out a weekly newsletter to each of your members. Maybe that means a combination of everything.
So what do you do? Here are some suggestions.
1. Find out how your congregation communicates- This can be done by a simple survey question that says “How do you want us to communicate with you?” and then list several ways like email, newsletter, twitter etc…
2. Don’t do something just cause everyone else is- If you spend countless hours updating your church facebook page, but no one uses facebook then you are wasting time. Just because the church down the street does it, doesn’t mean it will be effective for you.
3. Do keep your congregation informed of new ways that you can communicate- Just because your church doesn’t use facebook now, doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. Hold workshops, write articles and talk with people about new ways of communication.
4. Don’t use more methods than you can keep up with- You want to use as many communication tools as you can, however it is better to do fewer things well than a lot of things poorly. If you are a social networking person then find someone else who can take care of your print publications.
5. Create once and deliver different ways- There are several ways you can combine your delivery methods that cut down on your work. If you print your announcements and news in the bulletin do it in such a way that the news sheet can be mailed out. Have your blog automatically post to twitter and facebook. Anytime you can do this, you multiply the eyes that see your information.
Those are my five ways.. what do you suggest?
Asking for Help
Aug 9, 2009 Media and Technology
For the past week I have not been writing on my blog. Not because I am tired, or have nothing to say but because I was kinda stupid. I have been looking for a new look, layout for my blog and as I was trying them out, loading and unloading them something went wrong. All the sudden I couldn’t get to anything. Forkintheroadmusic.org just brought up a blank page. Instead of asking for help I tried several days worth of solutions. Download this, upload that, copy and backup, restore… nothing worked.
Last night I gave up and asked for help. I sent a simple email to bluehost.com explaining the problem, which was human stupidity. They sent me an email saying that they had a backup and could restore it if I confirmed my password. Thirty minutes later I was up and running with no problems.
Unfortunately I tend to do the same thing in other parts of my life too. I get into a mess, make a mistake and then I spin my wheels and spend my time trying to fix it, when I should just ask for help in the first place. Maybe that help is from God. Maybe that is from a friend or family member. But the hard part is asking for it in the first place.
What do you have the hardest time asking for help with?
Tags: asking, blog, email, Family, help, late, Music, night, work
