FaithEngineer

Have you ever wished that you could access your home computer from work? Have you forgotten a much needed file? Do your parents need help with their computer, but you’re miles away and can’t work on it? Need to print something at church?  I’ve experienced all of these situations many times and I have tried several different solutions. But I have finally found a free software solution that lets you login and work on a computer from anywhere in the world via the internet.  I’ve been using it for a few months and it works great.

LogMeIn Free is a software application that you can install on any PC or Mac computer.  Once installed, you can access that computer from any computer with an internet connection and web browser. I can even use my Window mobile phone or iPod to access and control the computers.  I have installed this on my home computer, the church computer, and my parent’s computer. Now if I need to login and check something or email a file, I can do that quickly and easily. Everything is password protected, so choose a strong password and you’ll be safe. This is much simpler to use than VNC or remote desktop connection, and it’s a lot cheaper than MobileMe’s back to my mac.

Here’s more info from their site.

LogMeIn Free gives you remote control of your PC or Mac from any other computer with an Internet connection.

Simply install LogMeIn on the computer you want to access (it takes about 2 minutes), log into your account from another computer and click the computer you want to control. You’ll see its desktop and be able to use all the applications on your remote computer as if you were sitting in front of it -- even if you’re across town, across the country, or across the world.

• Works with Windows PCs and Mac OS X
• Two-minute set-up

They do offer a paid version that adds the ability to share files and print, but I can get around needing that by using the free Dropbox utility to move and sync files between computers.

There are some great podcasts out there if you are interested in learning more about utilizing technology in the church. Some of these are video shows, and some are audio, but they all have some great information about the software, tools, and technology to help you share the message of Christ.

Click on the links below to view each podcast (most of these links require iTunes to be installed on your computer)

• Church Media Design TV
• ChurchyMedia
• ChurchTechTalk
• The Collide Show
• Geeks & God Podcast
• God’s Mac
• Church IT Discussions

I’m continually amazed at how the internet is shaping technology.   I spent a couple of hours experimenting with streaming live video from church.  It was incredibly easy to setup and even more importantly, it was free.  We are looking at hosting a seminar at Cornerstone here in Virginia and broadcasting it live over the internet to two churches in Michigan that are wanting to join in.  Our first run-through was very positive, so I think we will proceed with our plans.

I hooked up an old mini-dv camcorder to my macbook pro through firewire, and then tried out both Mogulus and Ustream.tv.   Both services are relatively simple to configure and start your broadcast.  The only annoying thing about both services is that they are ad-supported.  Mogulus offers a pro version for around $350 a month that removes the ads, but that is out of our reach for a small seminar like we are planning.

I read recently about Watershed, which is a service of Ustream, and I think it will work perfectly.  Basically, for lower usages, you pay $1 per hour per viewer.  You can brand everything with your own logo, embed the player in your own website, and all ads are removed.  You can read more about using watershed with churches at ChurchCrunch.

A few lessons I learned:

• If you want to go without ads and make it look more professional, then be willing to pay.  Mogulus offers a pro account, and Ustream has the Watershed service
• If you want to broadcast your worship service, make sure you have the correct licensing. You’ll probably want to start with WorshipCast and CCLI
• If you are using a mac, then check out CamTwist.  It’s an amazing free program that lets you overlay text, graphics, and even show your desktop, movies, and slideshows.  I also have a copy of BoinxTV, and I might end up using that.
• If you are using a PC, then definitely check out Procaster – It’s a great front-end for Mogulus that is super easy to use.  You can quickly switch between the video and your screen.
• Run your sound through a soundboard if possible if you are mixing multiple sources.  Be sure to set the sound volume on the streaming setup so that it’s not too loud or too soft.
• And the biggest lesson … It doesn’t require a huge budget to broadcast.  If you don’t mind having ads, then it is easy and free to setup a live streaming channel for your church.

One of the easiest ways for churches to get more involved with video is by creating photo slideshows.  You can just take your pictures straight from your digital camera and use them to make a video.   It is easy, effective, and quick.   I have used the free Microsoft Photostory which does a good job of panning and zooming through your pictures, but it doesn’t do anything fancy, and the results are less than spectacular.   On my mac, I like to use iPhoto ‘09 to do photo slideshows.  You have several options, and the new “shatter” theme is awesome.  You can show photo captions, but you can’t really add text slides in the final slideshow.

That brings me to the new kid on the block, Animoto.com.   I’ve blogged about it before, but it has gotten even better than before.   You simply upload your photos to their website, add text, choose music, and hit create. That’s it. It’s not complicated or hard, and you’ll be amazed at the end result.  You can upload your own music, or choose from their library of great songs.  Animoto actually analyzes your photos and creates a video to match them to the music.  Animoto then provides you with the finished video file, embed codes, and several ways to share the final video, so you can easily incorporate the video into your website or show in your church.

Videos under 30 seconds are free, but you’ll have to pay $3 per video, or $30 per year for unlimited use.  I’ll even help you get started with Animoto. If you sign up for the one-year pass, you can get $5 off by using the referral code DPQIVMCW.

Here is a recent video that my wife created for our local community-wide Bible school.  I’ve done enough video-editing to know how hard it would be to create a video like this.  You could use videos like this to promote upcoming events or show highlights from past events.  We’ve even thought about making announcement videos for church using it.  What are some ways you have used Animoto?

I’ve seen a lot of negative comments about the new Facebook layout.  I’m actually liking it for several reasons.  It allows me to quickly see updates from my different friend lists, and I like how it places popular items in the right sidebar.  You can tell that they have been influenced heavily by twitter.   If you’re like me, you probably have some fake friends on facebook in addition to people you really want to stay connected to. And I also get tired of getting crazy gifts and seeing endless requests to join pirates or ninjas.   So how do you filter out all the stuff you don’t want to see?  You can click the “x” in the upper right corner of a note to remove that person from your news feed, but there is an even better way to organize your Facebook homepage.

I decided to make a quick video showing how you can take advantage of friend lists to filter through the noise on facebook.   I used a free screen capture program called Jing to make the video.  Leave me a comment and let me know why you like or dislike the new layout in facebook.  And if you haven’t added me as a friend yet, go ahead and click here.

Posts in this series

Part 1 – Why Make the Change?

Part 2 – How I Moved the Blog

I recently switched from the free Blogger.com service to a self-hosted Wordpress Blog.  In part 1 of this series, I covered the advantages and disadvantages of each platform.  To summarize, Blogger is a great free service if you don’t mind having limited options for themes and customization.  For family blogs or low-traffic blogs it is a good choice.  But if you really have something you want to share with a wide audience, or if you want to actually make money from your blog, then wordpress is the way to go.  I want to share how I switched and kept all the links to each post, called permalinks, the same.  By doing this, I didn’t loose any traffic from search engines and all my old links from other blogs and web pages remained intact.  I searched through many different blogs and tutorials and the best instructions I found were here(this link works intermittently).  Most of what I did was based on their help.  I did skip the part about installing a dummy wordpress blog on your own computer to test everything out.  I think it is an unnecessary step for most people.

So let’s get started, this is just a quick summary of the steps that I took.  These instructions were based on installing Wordpress 2.7.1.  If messing around with ftp programs, databases,, and templates scares you, then you might want to consider getting some help.  It’s not all that difficult, but it does help to have previous web design experience.

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At Cornerstone we have been using the program Easyworship for a couple of years now. We use it to project everything for our services: song lyrics, pictures, powerpoint files, Bible verses, videos, and dvd’s. I highly recommend Easyworship because it is extremely easy to operate. Even if you are not familiar with the program, you can learn how to operate it in minutes. At church, we have a dedicated desktop computer that runs Easyworship, but there have been several times for youth events or special services where we don’t have anybody there to run the system. I’ve had to run back and forth from the stage to the sound booth to get everything working.

I’ve stumbled upon a pretty interesting solution. At my last company, we used a program called RealVNC to troubleshoot computers from a central location. At home, I use it to control my desktop computer from anywhere in the house using my laptop. I even downloaded a VNC viewer for my ipod touch that lets me control my computer and see everything that is on the screen from my ipod. That made me think, could I do the same thing at church?

After a little experimentation, I’ve got it working. Since the church computer runs Windows Vista, I couldn’t get RealVNC to work, so I had to download the free UltraVNC server. After opening some ports on Windows firewall, it works great. From my macbook pro laptop, I can pull up and control the windows computer from anywhere in the building. So I could be on stage loading images or changing powerpoint files before they get put on the screen. For a smaller church or situation where you don’t have a full tech crew, this is a cool solution, and it even works from my ipod touch. I could envision a worship leader controlling the worship lyrics, or the pastor controlling and re-arranging his powerpoint during the message. Not ideal, but incredibly useful when you need it.

VNC is not known as the most secure screen sharing software, but it is on our internal church network and there is nothing confidential on this computer, so I’m not worried about the security. It is password protected to keep someone from taking control of the computer as a prank. Overall, it is pretty slick to see your entire windows desktop being controlled from another computer.

At Catalyst last year, they did some really cool surveys during the break using SMS (text messaging). They would put questions on the screen and then have everyone text in their answers. A few weeks ago, I read a blog post that showed how you could do the same thing using a free web service called Poll Everywhere. I have a passion for helping smaller and more rural churches use technology to connect to their people, so I started checking on how this could be used. Since most adults don’t do a lot of texting yet, at least in our area, I thought this would be a perfect fit to use in our new Saturday night young adult service. Here are a few ways that you could use this in ministry

• You could do surveys, polls, or trivia while people are coming in
• You could have people text in questions during the sermon that you could answer in a Q&A time at the end
• You could incorporate the questions and the survey results into your sermon

The last idea is what we did at Cornerstone this week. I started a new series titled “txt” focusing on the Bible text and how it can impact our lives today. Just like a text message, it is personal, relevant, and current. I used free graphics from Lifechurch.tv, and then built a sermon around the importance of God’s Word. I then used used a simple survey asking “How many Bibles do you have at home?” During my message I referred back to the survey. It was a great way to engage and get people involved into the message. During this series I plan on having a different poll each week.

Poll Everywhere is free for smaller audiences. If you want to poll larger audiences, then it can get expensive pretty quickly. Their website has all the info on how to use their service. I was able to take the survey and embed it into a powerpoint presentation that updated automatically every time a vote came in. It does require internet access. Unfortunately, the school we meet at has a policy against allowing any outside computers to connect to their network. To get on the internet, we used a program called PDAnet to connect my cell phone which has internet access to my laptop. It worked pretty slick, and it was fast enough to update the poll in real time.

Here is the poll from church this week. I expect even more people to participate next week now that they understand how this works. You can still text in your vote, or you can vote on the web here. This is just another way to use technology to really engage your congregation and make the service more participatory. I am always looking for ways to move people from spectator to participator.

Okay, I’ve introduced my readers to twitter, now it’s time for Jott. Jott is tough to describe since it does so much. At it’s core, Jott takes voice messages from your phone and transcribes them into text that is emailed or sent as a text message.

• You can call Jott and leave a message to send out a text message to a group of people.
• You can call Jott to record a blog post.
• You can call Jott to update your twitter status.
• You can call Jott to leave yourself a message and then have it emailed back to you.
• You can call Jott to add an appointment to your Google Calendar

and that’s just for starters! And as you know, I like services that are free, and Jott is 100% free to use. I think this would be great to send out messages to your youth group, your praise team, your leadership team, or any other group of people inside your church. And you don’t have to worry about getting some type of carpal tunnel syndrome in your thumbs from texting so much.

Here are some other posts that I have read about using jott for ministry
from Catalyst
from ChurchyMedia
from Leadership Network
from Oak Leaf Church

If you want to check out Jott in action, then take a look at this video that the guys from Sermonators put together. To show your appreciation, go over and signup for their blog and newsletter. They have some good ideas to improve your preaching, especially if you’re from the south.

I have been planning on posting some information about good sources for church graphics, but Kent Shaffer over at the Church Relevance blog beat me to it. Check out this great post which includes a listing of free church graphic resources. He lists companies that do still image backgrounds as well as video backgrounds. There are also some sermon illustration sites that are listed. Be sure to check out the comment section as well for more ideas from other readers.

I am frequently asked where we get our video backgrounds and sermon graphics from, so here is a quick listing of what we use. I hope this helps and please drop me a comment if you have any additional sources for great graphics. Just for info, I typically use Photoshop Elements for image editing, Premiere Elements for Video editing, and EasyWorship to bring it all together and project on Sunday morning. (I am always looking for someone with Final Cut experience or Adobe After Effects experience that is willing to work for cheap)

Video Backgrounds that we use at Cornerstone for Worship

• Digital Juice Jump Backs – It helps that Sam used to be the CEO of Digital Juice – It’s nice to have connections
• WorshipFilms – They have great nature scenes and seasonal videos
• Christian Collages – These are all good and I’m using these all the time. They don’t have a big collection yet, but I am impressed so far.
• Muddy River Media – These backgrounds are FREE (They have some good backgrounds and they are adding more. Did I mention they are free?)

Sermon Graphics

• istockphoto – This is where I can usually find any stock photos or vector art when I want to create my own church graphics or logos.
• Lifechurch.tv Open Resources – Lifechurch is awesome. They provide all of their sermon series graphics for free. They are doing some incredible things with technology.
• Vine Resources - Another church that provides church sermon graphics for free. These are from the college ministry at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky.
• Newspring Online – I haven’t used any of their free resources yet, but I probably will at some point in the future.
• Midnight Oil Productions – they have some great image & video packs that you can edit and build from. I am using these for our current Breaking Free series.
• Pastor’s Place – I have used some of their stuff before, but they have mostly images and powerpoint only.

Again, I hope these help you out in finding the right graphics to display for your church. Just remember that you want to enhance the message, not distract from it. I have seen too many churches go way overboard on the graphics they use and create distractions during the worship service. Don’t use something unless it adds to the message and theme of the service. Now try some of these out and get creative!

Do you ever have a need to collect information on your blog or website? There have been several times that I wanted to do some type of online registration for an event, but I didn’t want to pay money to setup an online form using a web service. I’ve looked at Icebrrg and Wufoo, which are both great web apps, but they both required a monthly service fee if you wanted the ability to have numerous people fill out your form. If you’ve read this site for long, you know that I have a passion for helping smaller churches. And FREE is good. So when Google announced that you could do online forms using Google Docs, I thought it would be a good fit for ministry.

I did a website for an upcoming children’s event here in our hometown. We have several area churches coming together to do a weeklong children’s praise and worship celebration in the park. I didn’t want to spend much time on the website, but I wanted it to look good and be functional. I used iWeb 08 and used one of the default templates with a just a little tweaking. I added in a blog, and I added the ability to do online registration. For the online registration I setup a Google Docs form that automatically updates a Google Docs Spreadsheet. You can have text questions, multiple choice questions, drop-down boxes, and more. And did I mention it was free? The google info on the online forms is here. All you need is a google account and then you can signin to Google Docs.

The drawbacks are that the form is made to be emailed or be filled out on it’s own webpage. It’s not directly embeddable in a blog or other webpage. I got around this by just loading it as an iframe. See the below picture for the iframe code that I used. You can modify the width, height, and scrollbar visibility in the code below to fit your screen. This works good but it won’t take on the style of your webpage. I’m hoping Google will add the ability to embed the form in any webpage without using an iframe.

You don’t have as many options with the Google forms as you would with Icebrrg and Wufoo, but it’s free and it works. After people fill out the form, all the answers are tabulated in a spreadsheet that you can view or share or export. I think you could use this for online polls, registration forms, online prayer requests, youth permission forms, and anything else that you would like to track or share online.

If you want to see the form in action, then visit http://www.praisinpark.com
However, please don’t fill out and submit the form unless you are actually attending, since this is actually being used. Leave me a comment if this info helps. Thanks

Here’s another quick explanation behind the sermon intro video from Sunday. We’re starting a new series at Cornerstone titled Breaking Free: What’s holding you back from following Christ. We are going to be spending 6 weeks tackling some pretty intense topics. For a series video intro, I used some stock video and still footage from Midnight Oil Productions. I then used Adobe Premiere Elements to overlay the text on the video. I used cross-dissolves between each text title and then used an additive dissolve to blend in the still title slide at the end. All together, about 25 minutes of work. I don’t want to spend too much time on graphics and videos, but I do enjoy the creative process. That is one thing that I do miss a little from my engineering background. Taking an idea and seeing it turn into something concrete.

The music is the introduction to the song Set Me Free by Casting Crowns. I think the graphics give each series an identity, a branding that helps people to focus on the theme. This whole series is based on the imagery of shackles. Shackles that bind us and hold us hostage and keep us from following Christ. Shackles that take away our freedom. So take a look at this 20 second video and let me know what you think.

Here is an example of how you can create a sermon intro video quickly and easily. For Easter, I did a special sermon about responding to God. While I explained various events leading up to the cross, I wanted to establish a mental timeline of when the events occurred. I came up with the idea of using the style of my favorite tv show, 24. I didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time creating the video elements, so I decided to try something new. I used Apple Keynote, which is Apple’s equivalent of Powerpoint. I added a dark cross moving background and then added the background sound effects from 24. The last thing to add was the title in an LED font with one of the built in text entrance effects.

Start to finish, I spent about 20 minutes on the whole project. Keynote allows you to export to a quicktime movie file. I then used visualhub to export the .mov file over to a windows video file that I could use in EasyWorship.

Check out the short video clips. I think they turned out pretty good for the amount of time put into them. As a small church, you have to learn how to make things happen with limited resources. Using Keynote allowed me to create very quickly and use the built in functionality to create the look and feel of what I was looking for.

Cornerstone has been using a free web service called SermonCloud to put our sermons online for over a year now. I did a little research today to see how much the service has actually been used and I was pleasantly surprised. We have 71 of our Cornerstone sermons online, and all together they have been downloaded or listened to online 7658 times as of today! That includes the iTunes downloads as well.

The neat thing about sermoncloud is that you can search through all the different sermons from other churches by church or topic or scripture reference. You can download an mp3 or listen to it using their online jukebox. This is just another tool to get out God’s Word to people who are hungry to listen and learn and obey. I pray that it will motivate those listening to experience new life in Christ, that it will equip them to carry out God’s message to a hurting world, and that they will use what they learn to engage people all over the world.

Check out Cornerstone’s SermonCloud page here.

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For a few months I have been using a service called OpenDNS. So far I’m impressed.

DNS, or Domain Name System for you techno geeks, is how the internet takes the web addresses you type in you computer and finds the website that is tied to the address. Typically you rely on your internet service provider to do this for you. OpenDNS claims that they are able to do this service faster and better, increasing your web speed, and also add new features, all for free. It is also fairly simple to setup, you simply change your network settings on your wireless router (or your computer if you don’t have a home network) to point to a new DNS server. You can then setup an account on their website to access all the additional features.

The biggest advantage that I have found is the ability to filter questionable websites. They have multiple categories that you can block. You can set it up to block everything from auction sites to adult sites to blog sites to about anything (see image below for more info). It gives you the freedom to setup your access any way you want. For my family, this is a great free service. I also think it would work great for churches as well. And although I haven’t seen a huge speed increase, I don’t think it is any slower. I also like that you can customize the page not found page that pops up when you type something wrong. OpenDNS will also correct most typos for you when you type in web addresses.

(Warning: Techno Jargon Ahead!)
It was easy to setup if you are familiar with networking, but it may be a bit tougher if you don’t know the terminology. I have a static IP address, which is pretty unusual for DSL or cable now, but a static address makes the service much easier to setup. If you have a dynamic IP address, you can still use the service, but you will have to update your IP address with them when it changes. They do have a client program that will do this for you.

All in all, I recommend this service. It’s free, it works as advertised, and it is another layer of protection for your family or church. If you have any questions about it, please let me know.