In May of this year I gave up . . . no, let me correct that, . . . I took a sabbatical from writing my weekly blog. There, that sounds much better. It’s just that something had to give. I know most Pastors only preach once a week, but with our Wednesday night teaching series, Sunday morning and Sunday night messages, along with our new Saturday Night Corporate Prayer Service, something had to give.
Also, the computers we purchased from eBay back at the beginning of 2012 can do a lot of things (like project our song lyrics, record our videos, publish our newsletter and weekly bulletins, and produce the radio show), but they fall short in website production. It got more and more frustrating each month trying to update our website. Even earlier this year I had gotten down to just posting my blog each week and not worrying about the other pages on our sight or the media uploads. It was time for a technology sabbatical. So in May (5/20/13) I just took my leave from the extra work of blogging and waited until things got better.
Well, they did get better recently with the purchase of a new Mac Pro from eBay. I have been watching and bidding on these items for some time, but could not land one we could afford. I mostly watched the Buy-It-Now offers, but occasionally I would bid on one which sounded interesting. I usually did this in the evenings, but one morning at Calvary, in the sanctuary, I got on the computer and started bidding during the day. Well, by God’s grace (and most people being at work at the time) we got a powerful Intel-based Apple Mac Pro desktop for just $250.00. It inspired me to ramp up the TV program and update to modern software we couldn’t run before. It amazes me how quickly companies abandon support for older machines. Our old G5 might be used for live streaming of the service at a later date.
It has taken a couple of weeks to get the new Mac Pro online in the sanctuary, but even now it has cut production time on the TV program by 2 1/2 hours each week. Coupled with another miracle, we are also back to publishing our Preaching Series videos on You Tube. The old G5 processors of the Macs we had are incompatible with the latest software and we ceased uploading videos to You Tube a while back. Also the time to upload a sermon from our service was about 4 to 6 hours. This tied up a computer and our internet for a great amount of time, and many times it would fail during the process.
Faster Is Better
Here’s how the miracle went, and sometimes I use this favor with man as a confirmation of the Lord’s direction. I went to Time-Warner and tried to get faster upload speeds for our internet connection. Pastor Sonny had approved me to get this through the church next year so Susan and I wouldn’t have to pay the cable bill ourselves. Time-Warner didn’t agree. They said if Calvary paid for the internet service as a business, it would be twice what we are paying ourselves as individuals. I was disappointed until all of the sudden she offered to double my internet upload speed and reduced our bill for the next 12 months. Praise the Lord! Problem solved, at least for the next 12 months.
The ultimate test came this week when I download the latest version of Sandvox (our web authoring software) and fired it up on the new Mac. Fantastic! We were back in business. Finally everything the church does, except my messages, are on church computers and off of my laptop. Some organizational work and file transfers still need to be done, but all the work, from our church bulletin to our website, can now be done in the Media Studio here at Calvary. It has been a year and a half journey to piece this Media Ministry together, but the next generation will know all about what we have done. Media is the way people today communicate, from texting to streaming, we will be ready in years to come.
Recently, our General Superintendent, George O. Wood, was interviewed by Charisma Magazine. He talked about taking the Assemblies of God into the next generation. He has stated that for us to do it we need to make an investment in technology. The government realizes this, the schools realize this, it’s time for the church to realize this.
When I came to Calvary the previous Pastor had just started the process with a video projector, a laptop, and computerizing our accounting. However, the only way to get the message out of our service was via a cassette tape. Now, we have DVD’s, CD’s, MP3’s, PDF’s, the website, TV, and radio. Soon we will also include live streaming of our services and podcasting. The church should be the best at communicating our message in any media the world is using. We will not be confined to a pulpit and a chalkboard. Taking the message of the kingdom of God into the highways and byways is as much about media as anything else.
Although quite frustrating, and the fact that it can’t take center stage, technology is a must. I was recently in a service where technology was not properly implemented. It actually was more of a distraction than an enhancement to the message being delivered. Poorly operated technology is like poorly performed music. you would rather not even have it However, properly operated technology is seamless and almost invisible. What takes the stage, is the message being conveyed to the audience, not the media on which it is delivered.
Facebook and Calvary News
Being that I am still overtaxed each week, and there are other sources, like our weekly Church Bulletin, our monthly newsletter (Calvary News), and Facebook, to keep up with our activities and reports, I will be devoting my blog more to my personal reflection on life and ministry. I’m going to try to invest in the other areas of our website (now that we are able) to make it a resource for more of the media produced at Calvary. You will see more photo albums, reports from our ministries, podcasts, and preaching videos.
It was a great relief for me not to have to sit down and fight the internet each month during my technology sabbatical from blogging. The day will come when blogging goes the way of email. I already see a need to spend more time developing our church’s Facebook page and other relational media outlets. Twitter is something I don’t yet understand. How can a preacher be given a character limit and be expected to express himself? I hope you will begin again to visit our website weekly to read my future blogs. It’s been kind of refreshing to begin again, after so long a time.
There were no published blogs for these sabbatical dates: 5/20, 5/27, 6/3, 6/10, 6/17, 6/27, and 7/1