doug's blog

I'm pretty much at the point where I am ready to abandon Microsoft Office completely. It's not because MS-Word isn't a great word processor--in some ways, I suppose it is superior to Pages (which I prefer to use most of the time), and it still makes more sense to use Powerpoint to produce materials for Easy Worship, since EW can't deal with Keynote directly without me exporting a Keynote presentation as a Powerpoint file. No, all of this is secondary to my primary objection: the inane update installation process.

I sat down to use MS-Word today, and Microsoft's update installer interrupted me to tell me that there is yet another security update that I need to install. Fine. My beef is that the update installer is so intrusive that it requires me to shut down both my Web browser AND the Microsoft Update application before it can continue its work.

No other application I use (except for Parallels) is this aggravating. When a new release of Cyberduck is available, I get an install-and-re-launch option, and it leaves everything else I'm running alone. Acorn works the same way (Photoshop is way too bloated for my needs--Acorn is great).

But not MS-Office...I have to basically stop everything I'm doing and wait while it does its thing, then wait again while it checks once more to see if there have been any other updates during the time it was installing the current update.

Arg.

So here's something new that I'm looking forward to trying out: Proclaim. According to the video on the Proclaim Web site, Proclaim runs on Windows or MacOS, and your worship resources are available to anyone on your production team at any time (sounds like a cloud-based app to me).

I definitely like the idea--it's no secret that I'm becoming increasingly weary of our current presentation software package, and I'm generally put off by the high cost of licensing for almost every worship presentation package out there. I like the idea of being able to distribute the production work to different people without the requirement that they come to the church to use the software there.

So I've signed up for the trial, and I'll give it a whirl. If you do the same, I'd love to hear your impressions.

Day 2 began for me with the keynote talk by Shaun King, pastor of Courageous Church here in Atlanta. His focus was how you can use social media to grow your church, not just numerically, but in discipleship and diversity, as well. He's a young guy, great speaker, and he's really plugged into the whole social media thing (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and using it to great advantage in his church, which is less than a year old.

King made the observation that in his church, 75% of the attenders showed up because of a social media connection, and the other 25% showed up because of a social media connection with someone they knew. Pretty impressive. He shared some interesting anecdotes about his experience using Facebook ads to promote his church, and he demonstrated how he uses Facebook and Twitter to connect with his congregation personally. You can see Pastor Shaun's notes for his talk on his blog right here.

My next session was a hands-on session with live sound mixing, using Yamaha M7 digital consoles, with sound over Ethernet. But even though the technology was a bit beyond what we have in our worship center, (and "a bit" is a gross understatement), the principles of live mixing, EQ, compression, headroom, etc. are applicable nonetheless. I did learn some very helpful things about how to improve the sound of various instruments and vocals using just the controls on the console, and I'm looking forward to experimenting with that stuff.

Out on the expo floor, I stumbled onto an impromptu demo featuring Todd Fields, worship leader at Northpoint Community Church here in Atlanta. He had a drummer with a very small club kit (snare and small kick), and he played acoustic guitar and sang. All of this was amplified only using mics hanging from the overhead rigging in the booth, through an array of 4" speakers that were also hanging overhead. (With the particular product the vendor was demonstrating, this little open booth in the middle of the show floor sounded like a cathedral--pretty impressive.) Anyway, it was a nice little treat for a worship leader/media guy.

Next came a session on "immersive audio"--surround sound, elevated surround, and some of the stuff like what Todd Fields was helping to demonstrate. The first speaker, Buford Jones, worked as a live sound mixer for Three Dog Night, George Harrison, Pink Floyd, and many others, going back 30 years--very cool. The other speaker, Steve Ellison of Meyer Sound, explained a lot about the acoustics of rooms. I was hoping to hear him relate all of this stuff to how we might do better sound designs for worship, but from there it sort of went into a more esoteric place, with interesting audio demonstrations (flies buzzing around our heads, etc.), but with little practical application for the church. (They can't all be winners, eh?)

Tonight they're having church tours, but they cost extra, so I'm going to pass and try to go back to my hotel and do some of the work I'm not doing at home right now.

More tomorrow.

Wednesday, November 3 was the first full day of WFX 2010, and it was packed. I attended an early morning session called "Staying Relevant in Changing Times," presented by a couple of church building contractor/experts, but the content was largely philosophical and thoughtful. There was some discussion of the impact of the digital age on church (and non-church) culture, and the importance of designing spaces that allow people to gather, connect, and participate. The concept of the "third place" was touched on briefly (more on this later from another session), and there was a lot of time given to the difference between "attractional" and "incarnational" churches. The digital age and the culture that comes with it has rendered the conventional, traditional "attractional" church model (build it and they will come) nearly irrelevant--the effective church today is an incarnational church--one in which the participants/attenders are actively pursuing being the body of Christ in their world. Our worship places should reflect this and provide spaces (such as "third place" spaces, like coffee shops and informal meeting areas for the community to use) where people can connect, interact and do life together.

The morning keynote was given by Ed Stetzer, president of Lifeway Research, and his focus was the importance of moving people in churches from being passive spectators to being active participants in the mission of God (his text was from 1 Peter 4:10). A notable quote: "You do not want a church full of knowledgeable, religious people, not living on mission, criticizing those who are." An unintended side-effect of producing excellent worship service is the possibility of producing worshipers who believe their role in church is to watch and consume. "We have made it normal and acceptable," Stetzer says, "to sit there week after week and do nothing and call ourselves followers of Christ." I really enjoyed Stetzer's message and was challenged to think.

I attended a practical session on lighting, set decoration and the like, presented by Alex Castro and Randy Burchard--this was a useful session that explored the many ways that we can create beautiful, compelling visual environments for worship on a budget. (Home Depot is your best friend in this world.) Burchard works at a church that is a strategic partner with Northpoint, so he has access to some cool resources and hand-me-downs from the Northpoint churches, but he, too, is on a budget, and showed many examples of how to create relevant backdrops for worship and preaching using materials such as chain-link fence, PVC pipe, paper, plastic and insulating foam. But the most important element of all: lighting. And it doesn't take much.

Another session I attended (which was nearly ruined by the rehearsal of the worship band next door) was about the concept of the "third place" (see above). Many churches today are building in coffee shops and cafés in hopes that they will become meeting spaces for personal interaction between attenders, but more importantly, for non-attenders and the unchurched. This is most effective in churches located in urban areas--the suburban churches don't have the foot-traffic of the urban churches--but many churches make it work. One pastor shared about how his church launched a worship service in one section of a bar on Tuesday nights, while patrons were still using other sections of the bar. Abandoning traditional worship music, he brought in a cover band to play music that related somehow to his message, and filled the place up night after night.

The vendor expo is the centerpiece of this conference, the bread and butter, if you will...over 220 vendors are hawking everything from playground equipment to fog machines, sound gear to seating, video projectors to building contracting. I picked up a lot of literature (and some of the usual conference schwag :-), and have learned a great deal about what is available and where to get it. All it takes, unfortunately, is money--lots of it. But even so, I will bring home a variety of ideas about ways that we can update our worship center without spending an arm AND a leg (maybe just an arm).

But so far, the most valuable insights have had to do with the focus on the shift from consumer-oriented church to active participation, and the various effects of the digital age on modern church life.

I'll have more to share about this later--time to head off to the morning keynote on Day 2!

I'm in the Kansas City airport awaiting a flight to Atlanta for the 2010 WFX (Worship Facilities) Conference and Expo. My church has graciously sent me on this trip to gather information in preparation for future renovations and improvements to our worship center, and I'm looking forward to it.

This will be my first WFX, though I've known about the conference for a few years--I'm a subscriber to Worship Facilities and Church Production magazines, which are trade journals of the WFX organization. My hope is that I will come away with a better understanding of how our church might need to update, adapt, and improve the worship experience for our attenders and for future generations of people we serve.

I'm not under any illusion that merely having lots of slick "bells and whistles" (so to speak) in a worship space will actually grow our church--but I do believe that if we are to keep moving forward, we can't ignore the setting in which we worship. Our facility was built in 1990, but it frankly isn't much different from facilities built twenty years earlier. Our lighting for the stage (and I know some people hate the word "stage" in reference to the main platform in a worship space) is dismal. We've considered theater-style seating to replace our traditional pews, but while that is definitely the trend for new worship spaces, I suspect that it will be some time before our congregation is ready to consider that seriously.

In any case, I'm going to Atlanta to see what's happening, to take pictures, to talk to vendors, to experience workshops and sessions led by people who are supposed to know and understand how to do this stuff well.

More to come...

I just listened to an episode of the TED Talks podcast (TED is a non-profit organization devoted to "ideas worth spreading"--the acronym "TED" stands for "technology, entertainment, design." Well worth some time.) This particular episode was a talk by Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church and author of The Purpose-Driven Life--he was talking about why his book continues to sell a million copies a month (this was in 2006) after three years, and he said it has to do with the fact that everyone eventually wonders about the purpose and meaning of their life. He referred to the story of Moses and God's call on his life--as he looked at the burning bush, God said to him, "What's that in your hand?" It was his shepherd's staff, the primary tool of his trade (Moses tended sheep). God told Moses to throw it down, and it became a snake--you know the story--and ultimately it became the tool through which God did all of the amazing things that followed in Moses' life--the plagues, the parting of the sea, etc.

Moses' staff was a symbol of who he was and what he did for a living. His willingness to do what God told him to do with it unleashed incredible power and influence in Moses' life. Pastor Warren used this story to make the point that God intends for us to use the things he gives us--the skills, the abilities, the experiences, the way we're wired. He made us this way, so why wouldn't he want us to be who we are? In fact, says Warren, God is most pleased when "you be you."

I've struggled at times with this very question of the way I'm wired--why would God wire me up this way if not for the purpose of using the way I'm wired for his purposes and glory? Warren says that when God sees one of his children doing the things he wired him or her up to do, he is pleased.

Earlier this week, I overheard some co-workers talking about the film, "Chariots of Fire," and I couldn't help but remember the scene in which Eric Liddell has a conversation with his sister, who seems a bit put off that he is pursuing his career as an Olympic runner, seemingly forestalling their plans to go to China as missionaries. He explains to her (I'm paraphrasing), "God made me for a purpose--he made me for China. But he also made me fast. And when I run, I feel his pleasure."

I'm realizing (and it's taken a very long time) that the thing that pleases God the most in my life is when I do the very things that he has made me for. It's tempting, for those of us who are wired up as nerds, to think that somehow our gifts and abilities are less "spiritual" than those of people who are wired up for the more traditional spiritual professions--preachers, teachers, missionaries, etc., and to consider ourselves as being less useful for God's purposes. But the truth is that when we do the things that God uniquely wired us up to do, he is pleased.

So, what's that in your hand?

(I'm cross-posting this entry in my worship leader blog.)

I'm an idiot.

Last night I was working by my fireplace in an overstuffed chair--my typical evening location--and when the fire needed poking, I carefully set my MacBook Pro laptop on the wide arm of the chair, something I have done hundreds of times. My iPhone was plugged into the USB port, so I gingerly placed it on the laptop next to the trackpad. With my back turned to the chair, poking at the fire, I heard my wife gasp from across the room as she watched the Mac begin to fall. I heard a sickening thud as it hit the floor, and I whipped around to see it lying on the floor, with a colorful, chaotic display of lines on the screen. There was a spot near the lower left corner of the screen that almost looked like broken glass.

(The image at right is not my computer, but it looked something like that. Photo credit: Jared.)

I surmised that what had happened was the laptop slipped and fell, and my iPhone, tethered to its USB port, followed with a jerk and smacked into the screen, effectively shattering the fragile liquid crystal. There was a strip of undamaged area on the right side of the screen that allowed me to see that my Mac was still alive and working, but the rest of the screen was gone and wasn't coming back.

I bought AppleCare when I bought my Mac, but unfortunately, AppleCare doesn't cover accidental damage. I knew that I was going to have to cover the replacement cost myself. My first instinct was to schedule a Genius Bar appointment at the nearest Apple store--about 35 miles away. There was one morning slot available for today, so I booked it. Then I went to my office at the church, where I had a spare LCD monitor, hooked up my Mac to the monitor and to a 500GB USB drive, and began doing a full backup with Time Machine, Apple's back-up program.

While I was backing up the machine (which took several hours), I did some research into what sort of repair costs I might be facing, and what I learned was disheartening, to say the least: several posters in the Mac forums were saying that I could expect to have to pay up to $900 to get my display replaced. That seemed ridiculous to me, so I briefly entertained the notion that perhaps I could do this repair myself. The LCD screen was available from at least one supplier for less than $300. I even found a series of videos that showed how to disassemble the MacBook Pro and replace all of the major components. But the longer I watched the videos, the less confident I became that I could actually do this repair myself without inflicting further damage or otherwise botching up the job. So I resigned myself to biting the bullet at the Apple Genius Bar.

So this morning I drove to Lenexa, Kansas to the Apple Store there, waited in line until the appointed time, explained the situation to the guy who helped me, and was told that (1) they would have to send the machine to a repair center for a few days, (2) my AppleCare coverage would not cover this repair, and (3) the total cost would be $1255.

I stood there, literally in shock for a few moments, and pondered what to do. I had just browsed the tables at the Mac store, and had seen a brand-new 21.5-inch iMac selling for $1199--less than the cost of this repair. It seemed insane to me. The upside was that if I had Apple do the repair, my AppleCare coverage would be "reinstated," so to speak. But there were 1,255 downsides.

The genius at the Genius Bar told me that there were other non-Apple repair shops in the area who could do the repair, probably for a lot less, but that he wasn't allowed to actually recommend one to me. I briefly considered just springing for a new MacBook Pro, which would definitely be cool, but which I definitely could not afford. So I returned, dejected, to my car and sat in the parking lot for a few minutes, thinking over my situation, and praying that God would help me choose wisely what to do.

So I fished for my iPhone, the very instrument that (combined with my stupidity) had caused the damage to my laptop screen, and fired up the Safari browser. I Googled "mac repair lawrence ks" (I live in Lawrence, KS), and found DoctorDave's site, and decided to give DoctorDave a call. He was absolutely great--he said he could probably do the repair in a day or so, if his supplier in Olathe could get the part to him quickly. He said he'd call me right back, which he did, and he suggested I just take the machine directly to the shop where he got his parts--Mission: Repair, in Olathe, Kansas. It would cost a third of Apple's price, and they could do it while I waited. He had called ahead, verified that they had the replacement part, and then he texted me their address and phone number. Dave was careful to explain that this repair would void my AppleCare coverage, but unless I was willing to fork over $1255 to Apple, my AppleCare coverage was useless for my accidentally-damaged machine, anyway. I did the math, and decided it made sense to skip the Apple solution.

I called Mission: Repair, and they said that they could do the repair for $350, plus about another $50 to do it while I waited. They told me how to get there from the Apple Store in Lenexa (I was still sitting in the parking lot), and I drove over there, and they fixed it right there and then. It took a while--more than an hour--which didn't surprise me a bit, after I saw the repair videos. The total bill, with tax, was $413.38, about a third of what Apple wanted to charge me, and done in a few hours instead of a few days. I'm typing this on my repaired machine, about 18 hours after my laptop crashed to my floor.

I'm amazed. I'm humbled, also, that God made a way for me to get this repair done for a lot less than I thought it would cost, and I'm so grateful for DoctorDave's kindness in recommending the Mission: Repair shop to me. He went out of his way to help me out, and that is very cool.

I share this, partly out of gratitude towards the people who helped me get my Mac back into working condition, and partly to encourage you in case you ever face a similar situation. Just because Apple says it's $1255, don't assume that's your only option.

If you've been listening to the Geeks and God podcast, over the past few years, you've probably heard by now that Rob and MF have decided to end the podcast. I wondered, when they went on an extended hiatus recently, whether this might be the end. I had been watching my iTunes podcast feeds for a while, hoping to see a new episode show up, and when it did, I knew right away (from the title, "The End") that my fears were real.

Geeks and God was a really cool show, and you can still listen to most of the episodes by visiting the Geeks and God Web site. If you're involved in church technology at all, do yourself a huge favor and go check out the topics there. The discussion forums are still active, as well, and there is a wealth of knowledge and content there.

Hosts Rob and MF are working on a "secret" project that they are pretty excited about, and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it in the coming weeks. Thanks, Rob and MF, for three and a half years of great podcasting, great content, and for your service to the Church. Well done, gentlemen.

I know how it goes--if you're serving a small, under-resourced (read, "broke") church, someone donated a video projector, maybe even a computer, too, but software (even basic stuff) might be out of the question for a while. But you are not without options. Here are a couple of solutions that work just fine and won't set you back hundreds of dollars--they're free.

ImpressSome churches get along just fine using Powerpoint for projection, and fortunately, there is a great open-source alternative called Impress. It's part of the OpenOffice.org suite of applications, all of which are powerful programs, and most of which can produce MS-Office-compatible documents. There are versions of OpenOffice for Windows, MacOS, and Linux--in fact, many Linux distributions come with OpenOffice already included. (And if you're really strapped for cash, why not use a free OS, too?)

OpenLPThe other option is actually open source lyric projection software: it's called OpenLP, and you can get it at http://openlp.org. I've played with OpenLP just a little while, and granted, not under the optimal conditions (I actually ran it under Vista, running on Parallels on my MacBook Pro). No, you won't get the same bells and whistles and nerd-knobs that you'll find on the commercial products like Media Shout, Easy Worship, ProPresenter and others, but if you need to get the job done for free, OpenLP seems to be up to the task.

One advantage of OpenLP, particularly for the cash-strapped church, is that its system requirements are fairly modest, compared with some of the commercial packages out there, meaning that you can probably run OpenLP on hardware that might be adequate to run the commercial apps. You'd be hard-pressed to run Easy Worship on a 500 MHz machine with 64MB of RAM, but that's the minimum for OpenLP on Windows at this time. (I think this may mean that you could potentially run OpenLP on a netbook-type PC, though I haven't actually tried it yet.)

Although this isn't for the faint of heart, you can compile OpenLP for Linux, and apparently there are a few hearty souls who've gotten it running on MacOS, as well (I've seen the screenshots!).

OpenLP is currently at version 1.x; there is talk of version 2, and I'll be watching for it--this could be pretty cool, particularly if a user community arises around OpenLP as such communities have arisen around certain other open-source projects. The beginnings of that community are there--there is already a collection of user-contributed themes available for download.

I had the privilege of attending the National Worship Leader Conference in Kansas City last month, and it was a great time. One of the things I enjoyed was chatting with other worship leaders and media people and learning how they do things, especially since I wear both the worship leader and media guy hats at my church. I also enjoyed talking to the company representatives for MediaShout and EasyWorship. MediaShout has rolled out version 4, and EasyWorship is about to roll out their 2009 version, so it was cool to see where these products are going, and especially EasyWorship, because that's what we currently use in our church.

As I think I've mentioned before, I'm really not a huge fan of EasyWorship--it's the application I inherited when I assumed leadership in media at my church, and frankly, EasyWorship's licensing is a better deal than any of the other projection applications I've seen so far. As it turns out, MediaShout, a major sponsor of the conference, was used in the main worship sessions at the conference facility, so I got a good look at how MediaShout works throughout the week of the conference--in fact, I sat behind the MediaShout operator during many of the main sessions, so I got to look over the shoulder of the operators during the worship sessions.

Both MediaShout and EasyWorship provide downloadable demos, so you can try before you buy, which is cool. There are differences in the licensing and costs--when you buy EasyWorship (list price, $399), you get a site license, which means you can install it on as many machines as you like, and use it simultaneously on all of them. I had a hard time finding licensing information for MediaShout on their Web site, but it appears that you can buy a single license for $429, and add additional licenses for more money.

Frankly, we ended up with EasyWorship not because it is necessarily a superior product, but because the licensing is more flexible, and thus it made for a cheaper overall solution.

But I'm a Mac guy, and although it will be a while before our church can afford shiny new Mac hardware for the sanctuary, I'm interested in finding a good Mac solution, for several reasons:

1. I'm more comfortable with the MacOS than with Windows
2. In my experience, the MacOS is a more stable platform than Windows
3. My Windows machines are constantly having issues with viruses and other types of spyware and malware
4. I believe that it's easier to train people on the MacOS

(Another issue I deal with is that I produce video content with my Mac, and EasyWorship requires an additional codec to play it. A native MacOS projection app would presumably have no trouble playing QuickTime movies. And I'm not likely to switch to the Windows platform for my video production needs.)

I'm not trying to get into a Mac vs. Windows religious debate--these are just my opinions. Anyway, in my conversations with another worship leader at the conference, I learned a little bit about ProPresenter for the Mac, and when I got home, I downloaded the free demo version, and I'm pretty impressed with it--except for the licensing. ProPresenter costs $399 for a single license--you can install it on as many machines as you like, but you can only use it on one machine at a time. This is handy--I can have a copy on my laptop, for creating worship materials, and a copy on the sanctuary Mac (or I could, if I had a Mac for the sanctuary). But at our church, there are three different venues where projection software is used simultaneously, so I'd have to buy the site license ($799)--not to mention at least three more Macs.

Financial realities being what they are, this probably isn't going to happen any time soon, and I'm not sure it is wise to require my volunteer projection operators to learn two different systems, so this is all really just speculation at this point. But it's stuff I have to think about, because I want to keep moving forward with our media projection stuff.

I really like ProPresenter so far, but to be fair, I need to point out that both MediaShout and EasyWorship are planning MacOS releases--MediaShout's Mac version is coming fairly soon, I am told, and EasyWorship's Mac version is slated for a 2010 release. I have to admit that if EasyWorship's Mac version is released with the same licensing as their Windows version, it will be difficult not to at least consider moving in that direction. There would presumably be enough similarities between the Windows and Mac versions that I wouldn't have the same training challenges I might otherwise have. But do I want to wait another year before making the switch?

Ah, decisions, decisions... If you have any advice for me, I'd love to hear it.