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Sunday, January 27, 2008 by David Wilcox
Working WeekendWe've had a busy, working weekend around Covenant Life.Yesterday was Work Day 1, the first of our quarterly clean-up, fix-up, sort-out, and organize days. We managed to complete:
After cleaning up from our clean-up day, we got ready for Sunday. Joshua Harris preached the third message in The Old Paths, our current series on Jeremiah. You will be able to hear this passionate, gospel-soaked message here very soon. I will not be posting for a few days ("What's new?!" you say), as I check out of the blogosphere to take a few extra days off to paint our bedroom (and basement apartment, if I'm lucky).
Resource Library DatabaseWhen I first came on staff at Covenant Life in 2002, another new staffer, the church's first Director of Communications, had a big project on his hands: Develop a new website. And he successfully did so. And we've been using it since.But that was 2002. That's eons in the web world, so our site has needed a facelift a functionality-lift for some time. Well, with the help of our new Director of Communications and a full-time web designer, the time has come for a new website. Launching in late April or early May, the new site will be much less like a glorified brochure and much more a place where our church members can go to grow and learn. One of the most significant improvements will be the Resource Library. Modeled unashamedly after the resource library at Desiring God Ministries, this portion of the site will offer a catalog of sermons, articles, and eventually videos. Everything will be 100% free. In order to make this happen, though, we needed to also upgrade our record of sermon recordings. The excel spreadsheet we've been using - even with its cool macros - isn't going to cut it any more, so we hired a database manager to create a resource library database. Last week, we got our first peek into the admin features of the database, and this last Monday we started to enter information about our sermons. No more spreadsheet! This is exciting progress, but now the work is really in my team's court. Getting the current information cleaned up and the database loaded with other sermons will take some time, but the effort will be well worth it. Now, we just need to land on a set of topics... Labels: databases, resource library, sermons, spreadsheets, websites
A Fly in the OintmentWhat a wonderful Sunday!Covenant Life heard a great message on evangelism by Mark Mitchell. We saw an inspiring and edgy video about New Attitude. Bob Kauflin led in a longer time of singing. We had a fly on our video screen. Yep, we had a fly on our video screen. This happens about once every eight months or so, and always elicits some chuckles. A fly manages to find its way into the projector room, which is largely sealed to the outside world. Then, it hears the call, "Come to the light...come to the light." And it follows dutifully until it lands on the glass between the projector room and the screen room, directly on the projection image. To the congregation it looks like a 1 foot wide moving blob until the mysterious hand comes in and swats it away. We've got one more item to add to the work day project list: Video Projector Mosquito Net. Labels: fly, Sunday, video screen, Work Day
Work Day PlanningManagement Realization: Getting others to work takes work.About once every three months, the Covenant Life Production Teams has a Work Day. We take an entire Saturday and take over the entire building to clean, fix, move, organize, sort, and just generally improve our technical systems. With an average attendance of 20-30 people, these are very productive days ... when planned well. This last week I began in earnest to prepare for our next work day on January 26. Because people are giving up a whole weekend day, I am continuously trying to improve our planning and preparation. It sure is a lot of work to get others to do a lot of work. We have to order gear, research project solutions, make drawings, borrow tools, and order food. We have to set aside supplies, create team lists, assign projects, talk through plans with team leaders and make it all fun. But the prep work is well worth the results. Here is our project list for this coming work day, in no particular order:
What's Next? | A Post-Christmas ReturnSome "great" ideas turn out to be just plain silly.Late last year I wrote about a system we were putting in place to help us understand what is coming next. We purchased a children's paging system and remote displays in order to cut out the middleman in our production communication process. As the pastors make decisions about spontaneous changes in the service order, they can signal us directly about what was coming next. They simply push a few buttons and the light, sound, and video volunteers immediately know what to expect. Perfect, right? Some great ideas turn out to be just plain silly. I failed to adequately assess one part of the equation: "They simply push a few buttons..." We've been using this "miracle solution" for over four weeks now and we still haven't gotten one signal in time for it to be helpful. Why? Well, the folks pushing the buttons are not production people. They don't really understand how early we need to know about the adjustments. No matter how early we have requested a signal, we have only ever gotten signals moments before the person starts talking. In addition, the keypad is too complicated. There have been at least four times when they thought they signaled us, but the message didn't go through. They accidentally pushed the wrong buttons. Some great ideas turn out to be just plain silly. The sorrow comes when it is expensive. Please pray that we can get our money back!
To IMAG or not to IMAG... Where We LandedIn November, we briefly discussed my conundrum about IMAG at Covenant Life's Christmas Eve Program. There seemed to be many reasons to do it. And many reasons not to.We ended up NOT doing IMAG during the production aspects of our Christmas Eve Service. Why, you ask?
No IMAG this time around. Maybe next year? Labels: Christmas Eve, IMAG
Lighting & Camera TestsOne of my favorite parts of the Covenant Life working culture is that we are continuously striving for improvement. This can sometimes be my least favorite part because it means that nothing ever stays the same. We are always changing, adapting, building, growing, changing again, deleting, revising, and changing a third time.One of those changes is related to a recent series on the sacraments. We'll be adding a permanent baptismal to our main auditorium, so that we can baptize people during Sunday services without having to bring out Big Blue, our lovable 10' wide pool. She has only dumped her contents twice, once all over the stage and once down the walls into Bob Kauflin's office. Well, it's obvious we need a replacement for Big Blue, so we did some tests today to see what lighting and camera improvements will be required in order to make our new baptismal pool work as well as possible. As much as it slows down the process, I am really grateful for the way our pastors want to think through each big financial decision thoroughly, see it as clearly as they can, and then make the best decision possible. After a confident sense that we can make the pool look great in real life and on the video screens, the new baptismal pool will start going in on January 15th, I believe. But don't hold me to that! Labels: baptism, construction, decision making, test
Happy 2008! Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you enter this first day of 2008 with much faith that God will be at work in your life for the next twelve months. Those of us at Covenant Life this last Sunday heard a message on prayer called Ask for More based on Ephesians 3:14-21. May you ask for much more strength, love, and knowledge with confidence that his grace never runs dry. Last night my wife and I spent some time going over the last year, identifying the highlights of 2007 for our family. This was a wonderful time of recalling both the blessings and the challenges of following God as a family. One thing I learned from last evening was this: I should blog more, not because anyone else is reading it but because I'll want to read it later. There is so much that I would have completely forgotten had my wife not recorded it all in our family blog. I wish I had been as diligent here. While stopping short of calling this a new year's resolution, I can say that I hope to blog much more this coming year. Watch out! Photo Credit: Joe Lanman, but you can blame me that it's not really a 2008 calendar. |
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The BlogThis blog contains my reflections, as a simple church technical director, on how to use media to the glory of Jesus Christ. |
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Dave Wilcox is married to Cara, the most beautiful woman in the world, and is father to Meg, Matthew, and Esme, the cutest kids ever seen. |
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