Tag Archives: Church

12 Days of Christmas Music – #12 Journey of the Kings

December 25, 2011   Russell Martin   No comments
12 Days of Christmas Music

With the carol “We Three Kings” in my mind, I sat down and just played what came to me. This is the type of playing I enjoy most. I hope you enjoy this too. The #12, and final song of the 12 Days of Christmas Music is , “Journey of the Kings (A variation on We Three Kings)”

To listen click the play button, to download Just click download (down arrow) on the song below.

Journey of the Kings (A Varition on We Three Kings) by Russell Martin

If you haven’t downloaded the previous Christmas songs you can download them here.

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One Reason TO Post Your Photos on Facebook

August 11, 2011   Russell Martin   No comments
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Last week I wrote about why you should not post your church trip photos on Facebook, but instead on your website.

But there is a good reason to post your photo to Facebook too. That is the “like” button and the “tag” button.

Every time someone clicks “like” or “tags” themselves that photo of your event is posted to their profile. The average Facebook user has 130 friends. If you have 50 youth at an event, and they each comment, like or tag themselves then photos of your event have the potential to be seen by 6500 people.

The question is what do you do with those views. Make sure there is a path back to your Facebook page and ultimately to your website.

But don’t stop there. Always keep in mind that the ultimate goal is to get people in the doors of your church so you can share the gospel with them.

 

 

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Don’t Be Crippled By Striving For The Way It Could Be

August 01, 2011   Russell Martin   No comments

At one church I was at we held our contemporary worship and traditional service back to back in the same location. This made for some interesting transition times, and meant we had to be creative with our warm-up arrangements. Since we could not get into the worship space sooner than 15 minutes before we had to play, we would rehearse in a small classroom, using amps, a small electric drum set and often no microphones. Not the ideal situation.

I mentioned one time that I couldn’t wait till we could get a bigger space, more ideal equipment and more time to set up. One of the members looked at me and said, “Yeah.. but we’ve come a long way. A few years ago the drummer used a couch seat for a snare and pillows for cymbals.”

I was looking at where we were currently, and where I thought things should be. I was totally forgetting how far we had come.

This is something that I constantly struggle with, mostly in areas of my ministry. I see how I think things should be, how they could be so much better, cooler, more effective. I forget to look back and celebrate how far things have come from that point. As I have reflected on this I have found that always looking ahead has some negative effects:

1. You are never satisfied- You have to realize that when you constantly look to how it could be, you’ll never get there. There is always sometime else, something more, something better. Yes you should strive for what’s next, but first take some time, enjoy where your at, smell the roses and look back and see how far you’ve come

2. You dismiss others accomplishments- You may be one who doesn’t need as much time to stop and  enjoy how far you’ve come, but sometimes others do. Others on your team, staff, ministry, and family may need more time to enjoy their accomplishments. Don’t rush on, let them enjoy the fruits of their labors.

3. You get lost in the journey- It is hard to see where you need to go,  if you don’t take time to stop every once in a while. By relaxing, and looking back on where you have been you get a chance to get your bearings, and reconsider the path you are going.

How do you get crippled by “How it Could Be?”

What ways can we correct that thinking?

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarae/

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One Reason to Post Your Photos on Your Website, Not Facebook

July 28, 2011   Russell Martin   2 Comments
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When I attended the UMR Communicator’s Conference Patrick Steil from Church Buzz presented on 10 Commandments Church Website Optimization. During the course of his talk he mentioned that though putting your photos on Facebook albums is ok, you should make sure and post photos on your website.

I think I understand why…

Here is a view of our church web traffic over the past month. I put up photos of our “Shake it Up Cafe” VBS starting on 7-25.  Then I posted a link to our church Facebook page. Thursday alone there were 180 views of the VBS photo page.

The great thing about it is that those views also trickled down to other pages, like our “Visiting Williams” page, “News and Events” page and “Children’s Ministries.”

While I probably could have gotten a lot of views to our church Facebook page by posting the photos there, I would not have gotten the additional hits and visits of our other pages.

What about you? How do you post photos of your events? Do you use albums outside of your website, and link to them? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Simple Worship Stage Ideas: Easy Being Green

January 17, 2011   Russell Martin   No comments

This set design is a lot more simple than our last one. Our church follows the lectionary and seasons of the church. The color right now is green, so we though it would be nice to create a design that used that color.

1. We started by running up green panels of fabric. We buy these in bolts, and cut them in various lengths. Mostly 15-18 feet.

The panels of fabric have a sleeve sewn at one end. We slip a dowel rod into the sleeve.

The dowel rod has eye hooks in the end. We attach those to ropes with hooks on the end. Toss them over a bar in the ceiling and raise them up.

Since it was Communion this week, we used our beautiful hand made communion banner. Next week we will replace it with a wooden cross.

We used some fabric clamps with rings, and made one panel of the green on each side drape across.

Finally we added our LED Bar lights at the bottom and everything was ready to go.

The final production.

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5 Statements That Should Change The Way We Do Communications

August 20, 2010   Russell Martin   No comments

I recently decided to create a separate blog called Simple Church Communications. It comes out of my own learning about church communications, and the needs we have to look for new effective ways to tell our stories. Most recently I wrote about What the “Social Media Revolution” Means for the Methodist Church. Here is the first part of what was said:

The updated “Social Media Revolution” video by Erik Qualman is a fast paced, fact filled, and eye opening. Beginning with the question “Is Social Media a Fad?” it goes on to show, through a variety of statements about current social media use, how social media is here to stay.

Although the video was more intended for businesses, it got me to ask the following question.
What does the “Social Media Revolution” mean for the church? How does it, or should it impact how we do advertisement, outreach, publications, even worship services?
In the video he mentions 42 different statements. I want to look at 5 specific facts, or statements, and see how they can have a huge impact on how we do things.

The five statements that I picked were…

96% of adults under 30 are on a social network

Fastest growing facebook demographic is females 55-65

The second largest search engine is Youtube

78% of people trust friends recommendations, 14% trust advertising

We will no longer search for products and services, they will find us via social media

I believe these 5 statements, when applied to a church setting can have a profound impact on where we spend our time, energy and money in our communication efforts. To read the reasons why, and to check other articles visit simplechurchcommunication.com

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Splitting My Blog In Two- Simple Church Communication

August 17, 2010   Russell Martin   1 Comment

You write about what you know. When I started Forkintheroadmusic I was basically just leading worship both in churches and out at camps, and retreats. Since that time I have become increasingly interested in how we as a church communicate. Because of that interest I have taken on some communication responsibilities in our church, and for our district. I have also been asked to lead a few workshops dealing with communication in the church.

For a while I tried to combine both of these topics into this blog. As I have continued to write though I have thought about the fact that even though I have interest in both of these areas, my readers probably do not. Readers of the Fork In The Road blog, which talks about worship leading, youth worship teams and my personal music ministry, do not necessarily want to learn about how to create a website, or the differences between a facebook page, or facebook group.

That is the reason I have started simplechurchcommunication.com. The purpose of the site is to provide a place to ask questions, give answers, and share resources about communication.

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Youth Band: Three Things to Check Before Beginning After Summer Break

August 11, 2010   Russell Martin   2 Comments

Our youth program, like many others, takes on a different schedule for the summer. With all the trips and unusual schedule we found it hard to keep up with our Youth Band over that same period of time. Now summer has come to an end and it’s time to get going again.

You also may be done with the hectic travel of the summer and are beginning to gear up for the school year. So what do get ready  for your youth band to start playing again? Here are just a few ideas:

1. Equipment Check- Where did the kick pedal for the drum set go after your last service… 3 months ago? Are the bass strings still good after sitting out the same time? Did the adult praise team return the extra monitor they borrowed? One of the first things to do is to check and make sure that you have everything located and in working order. This is the time to replace strings on church owned instruments, purchase batteries needed for microphones, and to check all cables.

One way is to do this yourself. The other way is to get several of your youth band members together on a day when you will not be rehearsing. Have them sort, check, find and prepare their instruments. The more responsibility they take, the better.

2. Music Check- Where are your folders of music from last year? Are you planning on doing the same songs from last year? What new songs are you wanting to start off with when rehearsals begin? Last year I wrote about the process we use to evaluate our overall song list. It helps us to determine which songs we know we can play immediately, which ones we want to work on, and those that need a well deserved rest.

3. People Check- Two of our vocalists graduated and are heading off to college. Another member has moved away to another town. Now is the time to be thinking about how to replace those members. Whether you have a try out process, or you personally ask students, now is the time to fill those holes. At one church I had two youth bands. One was a learning band, and the other led on a regular basis. When we lost a member in the band, we had a member ready to step up and take their spot.

Does your youth band even take off during the summer? Why or why not?

Read more posts relating to Youth Worship Teams.

Check out my friend Jason Huffman’s thoughts on Youth Worship Bands, including last year’s post about Taking the Summer Off

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So You’re Leading Worship for Church Camp- Part 1- Questions to Ask

April 13, 2010   Russell Martin   3 Comments

So you are sitting in the bookstore, drinking coffee and your phone rings.

“Hey, I was wondering if you would be interested in leading music for camp this year?”, the cheery voice on the other end says. “Um, sure?”, you say “When is it?”.

After a promise to check your calendar you hear, “I’ll call you later with more details, Thanks!”

That’s only one of the ways I have ended up spending weeks at a time at what I would call one of the greatest opportunities in the world. A chance to share in the lives of youth; to hang out with them, and listen to them; and to lead them in worship.

That time is coming up and the phone calls will soon arrive. So I’d like to take several weeks to post a series of some tips, thoughts, questions and practical advice for you before you head out into the wild camp frontier.

And the first tip is.. Ask Questions!

The first thing you should do before you go, and even sometimes before you agree to go, is to ask lots of questions. This will help you to know what’s expected of you, what you can expect, what you need to bring etc…

I took a few minutes to write down just a few questions you should ask:

What age group am I leading for?
Will I get paid?
Will I be responsible for campers?
What other responsibilities will I have?
Can I bring merchandise to sell?
When do I need to be there?
Where do I need to be?
What equipment is provided?
What equipment do I need to bring?
Over the next few weeks we’ll talk about why some of these questions are important, and what to do. However I know that I haven’t touched on all of them so I ask you. What questions do you ask, or would you ask, when you are leading worship for a camp or a group?

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What I Am Reading-Freebies, Printing Press and Questions

November 26, 2009   Russell Martin   No comments

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?

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