Interactive Worship Leaders Unite Online

The Worship Community.Com (TWC) is a grass-roots community of worship leaders, artists, singers, musicians, and technicians from all over the world. 

TWC was launched in the Spring of 2007 by Fred McKinnon, a worship pastor and small business owner. Fred has been involved in bring worship “online” for years, with the original HighestPraise.Com site that was offering free downloads of original worship music more than decade ago. He continues to blog about worship, ministry, and leadership each week at his site.

TWC launched with public forums for discussions about worship, technology, songs, and planning.  A newer version of TWC launched in July 2008 with the new “e-zine” format including articles, how-to, reviews, featured videos, and interactive discussions. 

One of the things that sets The Worship Community.Com apart is the grass-roots nature of the content.  The articles are written by contributors from all over the world who are “in the trenches” …. leading worship in small, medium, and large churches.  TWC combines exclusive content with re-published articles from what we discover as “the best of” from worship and ministry-related blogs, discussion forums, and resources.

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There's a company called Kronomy that will enable you to create a timeline of your life complete with descriptions, pictures and video.  Thus, you can share your story by making your life into a flowing visual slideshow via 3D browsing.  Kronomy also features social networking functionality including commenting, sharing, and friends.  Currently in beta, you will need a Kronomy invite to get the full effect.

Also, Guy Kawasaki (source of my beta invite) proposes other creative options for using Kronomy to document, for example, a product's lifecycle.  From initial sketches to prototypes to beta versions, almost any product could benefit from it's own archival history.  Guy proposes someone create a history of the Mac using Kronomy.  Good idea.  And I think there are lots of other possibilities.

As a fan you could document your history of relationship with a favorite band; as a CEO you could document the evolution of your company; as an adoptive parent you could write your adoption journey in pictures as an archive for your child's future.  As a runner, document your marathons.  As a couple, document your anniversaries.  As a pastor, you could create a rich visual history for your church. 

In fact, for Christians, nothing is more powerful than documenting how God has been present in our lives and how He has used us to touch the lives of others.  We often call this 'our testimony'.   Now, our stories can be told with words supported by visual media.

How would you use Kronomy's chronological memory abilities for the Kingdom?

Check out Guy's Kawasaki's life path in action.

The Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that GodTube is getting funding to the tune of $30 million dollars.

Christian video sharing site GodTube has landed $30 million from hedge fund GLG Partners at a $150 million valuation, according to PaidContent.org.

Launched last summer, GodTube reviews all video uploads, keeping them clean and pro-God.

It also claims to have a business model beyond advertising: PC says "a few hundred churches" use GodTube's "Godcaster" service, which generates subscription revenue.

The LA Times noted last fall GodTube had over a million unique users in August, and was the fastest growing video site in the Web, per comScore.  But, as you can see from the chart above, it looks like GodTube hasn't done much growing since then. 

Nevertheless, it's potential qualifies it for cash and GLG Partners are laying it down.

Yes, I've finally paid someone to translate The Digital Sanctuary into Spanish. 

Oh, no wait, Google does that for me.  Free, of course. 

Check your own blog out in your favorite translation.   One of 10 New Media values I covered at the Dynamic Church Conference '08 - free services.

Looks like our tech-savvy friends at YouVersion.com have hit a home run with the release of YouVersion for the iPhone.  Having an interactive online Bible in your hand seems almost hard to believe - only the LifeChurch.tv digerati team, headed up by Terry Storch, have made YouVersion.com a reality.  And just in time for the Apple 3G iPhone release.

At the time of this writing it was number 35 in popularity, beating out hundreds of other free apps in the new app store!  In the brief minutes it's taken me to post this, I've already downloaded it. You can too, free.

Now you can have the scriptures with you anywhere plus your journal notes, photos and other uploads to your Bible cache.  And - no more turning our phones off in church.

This is the final post in the Barton Damer Interviews, a brief series designed to spotlight the visual media of an artist serving the Church in an innovative way.  Barton's work, an artistic feast for those hungry for new and creative ways to express faith, is easy to access through the links found below and throughout this series.

In concluding the interview, I asked Barton what he sees as the future of faith-inspired media. 

The future of Christian media is going to happen outside of the church walls if things don't change.

Media is hot right now and a lot of churches are buying into it because that's what makes them "innovative."  I have to wonder if media will become the bus ministry of this era.  Everyone used to have a bus ministry, right?  We weren't reaching people if we didn't have a fleet of buses and a full-time staff person to service the buses.  And it's the same way these days.  It's common to have HD projectors and and a motion graphics guy on staff. 

If media is going to remain a valuable part of the way churches serve and share the gospel, we need to start seeing media as a ministry…  not as an accessory or simply a marketing tool for better announcements in church.

Part One: Motion Reel, Digital Art & Motion Graphics and Motion Graphics Reel

Part Two: The Creative Media of Barton Damer / Bio & Current Status

Part Three: BartonDamer,  In His Own Words

Part Four: The Future of Christian Visual Media

How important do you think visual media will be for the Church?

ECHO Live VJ clips from barton Damer on Vimeo.

Background and Training Yes, I know you've been waiting for it, in his own words…..

I began truly seeking the Lord around 16 years old…  but a very large movement in my life from the Lord was when I was 18.  I was taking Public Relations as a major and blew out my knee skateboarding. 

For over 2 months, I limped around on crutches while I waited to receive surgery over Christmas break back home.  While laid up, I was taking an entry level art class that was required as part of the major I was studying.  So, I poured all my free time into my art projects, having no idea I could draw anything other than skulls & bones off of skateboarding graphics from the 80s!  That injury really allowed me to pause and reflect on what God wanted for me rather than what I wanted for myself.  The rest… is History.  I changed my major to Commercial Art.

Even though I went to school, i would consider myself "self taught" when it comes to the computer. I had good training with traditional techniques but back then photoshop was on like version 2 or something like that and our teachers didn't even know much about it.

Today, I use illustrator, photoshop, after effects, cinema 4d, and final cut pro. I used to build websites using flash and dreamweaver about 6 years ago, but realized I hated it pretty quickly. I like developing the graphics for web, but making it function properly is not my gig.

I had done frame by frame animation for the speaker intros so I basically copied and pasted all the frames (8 frames/second) and put them onto a shirt. the video is here:

http://gallery.mac.com/bartondamer#100074/Tim-20stevens-20WEB&bgcolor=black

or here: The Whiteboard Session Speakers

Part One: Motion Reel, Digital Art & Motion Graphics and Motion Graphics Reel

Part Two: The Creative Media of Barton Damer / Bio & Current Status

Part Three: BartonDamer,  In His Own Words

Part Four: The Future of Christian Visual Media

Barton Damer Interview, Part 2

In this ongoing series of posts, I explore the creative genius of Barton Damer, a leader in innovative graphic arts, design and media.

Barton began his career at a secular design firm in the Washington, D.C. area.  (The story of his conversion to Christianity will be in the next post.)  After a couple years he felt called to use his gifts within the church setting.  Over the course of more than 7 years, Barton honed his artistic skills for print, web, video and motion graphics.

The latter part of those years, he spent working within a local Washington, D.C. congregation, Mclean Bible Church, where he was involved in creating media content as well as live production.   Mclean, located just outside D.C., is a church that serves about 12,000 weekend attenders.  You know it's near and dear to my heart since some of my closest friends are members there and when visiting them I've blogged my trips.   I now have the explanation for why some of Barton's artistic style has seemed vaguely familiar.

While at Mclean, Damer was able to create content for main services, youth events, and the young adult services, better known as Frontline.  He was also part of a team that launched the very first offsite McLean location. 

Today, Barton Damer is a Creative Director at RT Media Group.  RT Media maintains four points-of-presence on the web: Igniter Media, Collide Magazine, Worship House Media, and Echo Conference.

Additionally, Barton works with various agencies and freelance clients.  He is also a creative contributor for tutorials written at Gomediazine.com - real world advice from working artists and designers. 

Remember, you can view more of Barton's work at Barton Damer.  And here's a handful of his video clips (Truveo Clips tag: Barton Damer).  But of course, enough of the facts; let's get on with the interview…..  next post.

Part One: Motion Reel, Digital Art & Motion Graphics and Motion Graphics Reel

Part Two: The Creative Media of Barton Damer / Bio & Current Status

Part Three: BartonDamer,  In His Own Words

Part Four: The Future of Christian Visual Media

Recently, COLLIDE Magazine published an article I wrote (Technology and the Virtual Church) and used some cool graphics with it that caught my attention.  Somehow, they felt familiar, like I'd seen the style before.  In fact, I was certain of it.

Then I realized I'd seen similar artwork at conferences, on t-shirts, in video and in magazines lately.  Surprisingly, I've traced all of it back to a single artist - Barton Damer.   I wanted to familiarize myself with his work so I interviewed him. 

Barton is a a thirty-something resident of Dallas, Texas, who, besides being a skateboarding enthusiast, is setting the world of Christian graphic arts on it's occasionally uncreative ear.  You can count on seeing a lot more visual media authored by him in the near future. 

In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this glimpse of his work, Barton's Motion Reel, Digital Art & Motion Graphics; it's your teaser in the first of a four part series.  And, it's well worth the visit.

Part One: Motion Reel, Digital Art & Motion Graphics and Motion Graphics Reel

Part Two: The Creative Media of Barton Damer / Bio & Current Status

Part Three: BartonDamer,  In His Own Words

Part Four: The Future of Christian Visual Media

                                                 image: socialmedia.biz

Kem Meyer, Communications Director at Granger Community Church has been having ongoing conversations with her team about improving the online experience their church delivers.  Recently, Kem posted What we like… a brief list of the things Granger's staff enjoy when visiting a website.

Kem, an insightful communicator and active user of new media, noted that when the staff stepped away from their own church website to discuss what they liked about the websites they visit on a regular basis, they came up with 5 things they like (aka - what they value):

  *  I get to choose what information comes to me and how. (personalization)

  *  I can interact if I WANT to, but I'm not forced to. (interactivity)

  *  I can access it from any computer; public or private. (mobility)

  *  I like the "insider scoop" on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc. (user generated)

  *  It's instant. (instantaneous)

I was curious to see if their list paralleled the list I created late last year for the Dynamic Church Conference '08 - Social Media - 10 New Media Values Your Ministry Needs.  Sure enough, of my ten, they listed the five found above.  You can down my list here Download Presentation (PDF).

Although your church website should be well-designed and easy to use, what's as important is that the values it reflects embrace a new communication mindset.  

You can also comment, twitter, ichat or facebook me for more exploration of new media values.