A Cool Use of Technology

Last night at our First Wednesday service at Cornerstone, we tried something pretty cool. About 5 minutes before we started, Sam asked if there was a way to patch in a phone call through the sound system. We talked about holding up a mic to the speakerphone, but that is less than ideal.

I thought about using Skype, so I quickly thought through how to get it working. I have a Skype subscription for unlimited nationwide U.S. calling through the internet for only $2.95 per month. I don’t use it a great deal, but it comes in handy to keep me from burning up all my cell minutes.

I quickly downloaded and installed Skype on the church video projection desktop computer, and started hooking everything up. The sound output from the computer was already routed through the soundboard so we could hear the phone call. I then ran a cable from the soundboard output to the mic input of the computer. I did a quick level check with the mic to make sure the signal wasn’t too hot, and then we gave it a try during the service. Without testing it first … but it worked awesome and we were able to hear a great testimony about how one of our attenders had led their neighbor to Christ earlier in the week. He could hear everything that was said from our microphones, and we could hear him clearly through the church sound system.

It was a great way to make a live phone call and patch everything through the sound system. As long as you have internet access it should work great.

Mike

I am a former design engineer who now pastors Cornerstone Community Church in Galax, Virginia. I'm passionate about following Jesus and I love technology. I've been married to Jennifer for 28 years, and we have three adult children.

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