stevebrowningwired

The Last Day

2011-10-28T21:11:00.002-04:00

Our last day in Battambang was the best! We decided to get updated pictures of all the kids and staff, and record them saying their names on video. Rattanak and Simon helped with the video taping while Tim and Darlene took care of the pictures. Then I got to spend the rest of day just playing.

The kids let me sit as they hugged and played games around me. Some of the younger ones would take turns sitting on my lap and playing thumb wars. They brought me water and would take turns giving me shoulder massages. My kids back home could take some lessons! I even showed them how to do some forced perspective pictures. It was such a relaxing and enjoyable time, yet I knew it would be coming to an end soon.

We had dinner with the kids and staff from both of the Crossroads of Hope houses. It was a big deal for them and extra food was prepared. Rattanak went back for thirds! Even Sychu had a second helping, although I think she was a bit embarrassed that she did. I really enjoyed watching her. She has such a loving personality. I look forward to seeing her blossom into a young lady and discussing her life with her in years to come.

Rattanak is also a joy. He brought me gifts that included some hand drawn pictures. He is quite talented. His infectious smile brings me joy every time I see him or his picture. I really have come to look at him as a son.

The hardest part of the trip is without a doubt leaving the kids that evening. After dinner we had ice cream and continued to laugh and play, but they could sense that our time together was coming to an end. We asked them to sing for us again. I wanted to get some more video of them. It was joyous as it began, but soon some of the girls began to tear up. They knew this was the last time they would sing for us this trip. Some of them had to stop singing as they began to sob. But as I watched the kids, some with hands raised and singing out to the Lord, I was filled with peace and joy. I knew they would be fine.

After they finished, Pastor Tim began to pray for the group. The sobbing began. One by one the children began to cry, realizing this was the final time we were together. With Rattanak on one arm and Sychu on the other, I too began to tear up. I looked down to see Thisang, with her tiny arms wrapped around my leg. We began to move toward the van. A couple of the boys were laughing as they saw their friends crying, but soon they too were hugging us with tears in their eyes and sobs in their tiny throats.

As the van pulled away and kids were waving and yelling goodbye, a hush fell over the van. A single word from Tim summed it all up..."wow!" Then silence as we began the drive down the long bumpy road toward our hotel. A few minutes into the ride we slowly began to recall some of the funny moments of the departure. Soon we were laughing and telling stories of the children and their enthusiasm.

These memories will last a lifetime.

I now fully understand how I can make a difference in ways that impact the world, not just the local church.

Bust a Move

2011-10-26T21:27:00.000-04:00

Sunday morning we arrived at the campus for worship and the building dedication for Crossroads of Hope 1 & 2. The kids once again greeted us with joy and enthusiasm. I could get used to this.

Rattanak helped me set up my camera and tripod. He brought me a chair and then I proceeded to show him a little about how to use the camera. He soaks up the information. There was a gleam in his eye as he studied the buttons and practiced panning and tilting. I am proud to be here with him, showing him what I do on Sunday mornings.

The service included a worship band and dances from each of the 7 homes. I wish I knew the stories some of the dances were telling. The BB3 group have been together for awhile. It is apparent in the professionalism of their routine.

Pastor Tim did a short message with Savorn Ou, Cambodia Director for Asia's Hope, translating. The entire service was well over an hour long and the kids were so well behaved the entire time. After the service, Rattanak helped me gather the equipment and head over for the dedication of the new buildings.

The worship center is next to the Crossroads of Hope 1 (BB3) building and next in line is the Crossroads of Hope 2 (BB7) building. As the crowd made their way up the path toward the buildings we set up our camera. I had Rattanak run the camera as I took Pastor Tim's camera and began snapping pictures. It was a joyous time to officially dedication the buildings. As Savorn asked for everyone to pray, the air was filled with voices as everyone began to pray aloud. It was one of the sweetest sounds I've ever heard.

Later that evening came the dance party. For those who have been here before, you know what that means. The kids absolutely love to dance. There is a sound system set up and dance music, from hip hop to country line dancing blares out for several hours. The kids pull all of us into the mix and we dance in in wide circle, individually, in lines and in pairs for nearly 3 hours. I was hot, exhausted and exhilarated. Those kids can dance!

Battambang & the Kids

2011-10-22T11:40:00.002-04:00

On the road to Battambang. So much to see and video but driving past it all. Shops, people, motorbikes, houses on stilts for avoiding the water when the Mekong river floods. As we drive in our airconditioned van, I realize I know very little of what life is like here. Most of the country is poor. The government has elections is still very much influenced by communionism.These are things I find out from asking Savorn, the Cambodian Director for Asia's Hope. He provides us with commentary and information as we drive along.

Roads are very bumpy and filled with pot holes. So many different modes of transportion. Truck, car, motorcycle, scooter, wagon w makeshift motors, water buffalo and horse drawn as well. Bicycles and walking.

So many things I want to stop and shoot but we have to keep moving. The road is bumpy. Hard to type. Or videotape. Beautiful countyside. We stopped to take pictures of dried crickets and other assorted foods at a roadside stop. Nope. Not gonna try them.

A group of children ran away shyly as I began videotaping them. As I approached them a second time, I turned the viewfinder toward them. Once they saw themselves they weren’t so shy. A fun diversion from the everyday life they live.

Hours later, we finally arrive at our hotel. The kids from BB3 and BB7 are waiting for us. A huge cheer erupts as we pull in. We are mobbed as we climb out of the van. I can hardly keep from tearing up and my smile is from ear to ear and we hugged and kissed our kids. It was such a thrill to meet Rattanak in person. And his sister, Sychu. After 20 minutes of feeling their love, they load up to head home while we head in to freshen up.

A few hours later we meet up again as we arrive at the orphanage! The building that was just a dream last Easter is now open and all the kids from both orphanages are proudly showing us their rooms and beds. Then it was singing and games with the kids. I couldn't stop smiling! Or tearing up.

I can't wait to worship with them in the morning and dedicate the buildings!

Welcome to Cambodia

2011-10-22T06:05:00.002-04:00

Long flight. Watched movies and tried to sleep. We landed in Phnom Pehn at night. It was like greeting old friends as we came out of the airport and saw the directors from 5 of the homes. There were smiles, laughter, pictures and then hustle into a van and a drive through the city to the pastor’s retreat where we stayed for the first night.

The first thing I noticed as I left the airport was the uniformed men. Reminded me of the movies. Then as we actually walked out...the heat. Not overpowering, but definitely not the 42 degrees we left in Ohio. Many faces were pressed against the gates waiting on friends and relatives. As we drove to where we were staying, the city was quiet but people were still on the streets. Girls in the doorways…men sitting in groups…even a toll booth for a short section of road. Looking forward to seeing what God has in store for us.

Just Another Airport

2011-10-21T04:48:00.000-04:00

We're well on our way to Cambodia now. After a 13 hour flight from Chicago to Korea, we are sitting in the airport waiting to board a 5 hour flight to Phnom Penh. From there we will have 5 - 6 hour drive to the Crossroads of Hope (aka BB3 & BB7 orphanages.)

As I was looking around the airport I realized that I don't feel like I'm in another country . Other than a few signs written in Korean, the building looks like just another airport.

Now I'm thinking I need to take pictures in every airport. Yep, a new photo op idea!

Crossroads of Hope

2011-10-20T13:00:00.001-04:00

Banner brought back from the first trip to BB3

Asia's Hope is an organization that rescues orphans from the streets of Cambodia. For several years, Crossroads has helped sponsor one of these orphanages. Last Easter we attempted to raise $50,000 with a matching donor to help buy land and build a building for our BB3 orphans. Through the miracle that can only come from God, we raised $370,000! My wife and I have helped sponsor one of the orphans, Rattanak. We have had the opportunity to Skype with him several times.

Now, I am on my way to Cambodia to see him. The new building is being dedicated. Pastor Tim, Ron Biddle, Dar Rudrick and I have the opportunity to attend the dedication. I am excited about the chance to see Cambodia, but the real excitement comes in getting the opportunity to meet Rattanak in person. I am bringing photos, letters and gifts. I can hardly wait to get to know this young man. He isn't just some check we write every month. He truly is a child we are getting to help and watch become a young man. Now, as I get to know him in person, he will become my adopted son.

A New Beginning - Crossroadswired

2011-10-08T10:39:00.010-04:00

Today we officially launch our new website, smartphone app and myCrossroads. The combination of these online elements has truly made Crossroads a "wired" community. These changes have been a year in the making and I'm very excited about the possibilities.

For those who have been around awhile, you already know what myCrossroads is...formally known as CCB. You can access myCrossroads from our website. I use it on a daily basis. All of my volunteers are in groups that allow me to communicate with them as a whole. I can see info on individuals or the entire group. I can post links to websites that help with training, upload schedules and much more. By changing the name, we have brought the site into the family of Crossroadswired!

I'm very excited about our new app. Designed by Subsplash, the new app will allow users to view or listen to sermons, check out each of our House Churches in detail, read the Bible in a year and find links to our staff blogs.

Our website has continued to evolve. The new look is upbeat, fresh and better reflects who we are. You can check out every element of who we are as a ministry and can sort through previous sermons by title, series, date, subject and more. Be sure to check it out!

Now, with the trilogy of Crossroadswired, you truly can take Crossroads anywhere, anytime!

Weekend Update

2011-04-18T21:53:00.000-04:00

This weekend there were so many tech issues I don't know where to begin. I heard from several other churches that had a multitude of challenges as well. I believe the enemy is attacking as we enter into such an important week.

All was going well at our Thursday rehearsal. As we are shutting down, my lighting guy gasps loudly. I look up and he has a horrified look on his face. Instead of a backup, he restored the show to our light board. Luckily he remembered most of the changes he did so he stayed an extra half hour to fix them.

On Saturday, all the settings from Thursday rehearsal were gone from sound board...even though we backed up. Monitors were a mess, house sounded horrible, and pastor's mic sounded like he was under water. Spent more time sound checking than rehearsing.

With a new series comes a new look to the stage, slides, announcements, everything. I created a cool looking announcement video using Jamie Koenig, our Middle School Coordinator...click here to see the video. What I didn't count on was the extraordinarily long render times for the new preservice slides and countdown. I came in a few hours early on Saturday to knock out these last minute items but instead found I was getting them ready to play to the house with just minutes to spare!

I also realized the lighting designer missed several key lighting cues, like house at 100% instead of off...luckily most of these edits were very easy to fix.

And now the video switcher is making unusually loud noises...like a fan is going bad. Realized I haven't cleaned filters for too long...another easy fix but still...

Saturday service went amazingly well, though! Then the Sunday morning rehearsal went amazingly well...but...

Sunday first service, all head amp control is gone on our board. We struggled through dealing with a little feedback but once Pastor Tim came to the stage and then interviewed the Cambodian Country Director for Asia's Hope, there were tears and cheers. All in all, a great weekend!

Click here for a look at the video that ended the service...

Taking the Easy Way Out

2011-04-10T17:33:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, we had the last of our big snowfalls. It was only about 6 inches, but it was enough that it definitely needed shoveled. I asked one of my sons to help. I took one end of the driveway and he took the other end and the sidewalk. When I finished I went to see how he was doing. He had shoveled about 6 inches to the edge of the driveway and only one shovel width on the sidewalk. I asked him why didn't take the extra 5 minutes and do it right. He said, "it's good enough."

This afternoon, I spent 2 hours completely clearing our stage of all cables, monitors, mics, etc. One our worship pastors and some teens stayed after service to help a bit. They moved some items to the edge of the stage, moved the drum set and then left. I finished moving the rest by myself. As I moved items from off stage right I found some interesting things...3 XLR cables, 2 powerstrips and 3 extension cords not attached to anything. Stage left I found old music packets, half empty coffee cups and water bottles.

Both of these are examples of how people sometimes tend to take the easy way out. My son did just enough to get by. Whoever left the cables and cords just off stage wasn't willing to take an extra minute to coil it and put it away. Team members weren't willing to move an extra 3 feet and put their trash into the receptacle.

This weekend I created a video to bring our pastor to the stage and discuss our campaign to raise money for building an orphanage in Cambodia. We purchased a video that had the look we wanted. I spent several hours recreating a video with royalty free music, photos from our missions team and a look that was similar to the one we purchased. The finished project was something I felt was our own and not just a copy of the one we purchased. I could have used the soundtrack on that video and just replaced all the video elements with my own, but that would have been a violation of copyright...and it would have been taking the easy way out.

How much are you willing to do? Do you do just enough to get by? Is it "someone else's job" to pick up the trash on and off stage? I challenge you to take a look at yourself. Where do you fit in? Don't take the easy way out.

I'm Back

2011-04-08T15:49:00.000-04:00

I've been writing blog posts in my head for the last few months. Unfortunately, I've been so busy at the church that I haven't had time or energy to actually put them down on paper, digital or whatever. But as I think back to the reasons I used to write, I've begun to realize that I need to find the time. It is therapeutic. It is refreshing. It is time, again.

Cool Video

2010-12-20T10:28:00.002-05:00

So many creative churches out there!

Cool Video

2010-12-10T00:43:00.000-05:00

Look for more cool videos as I come across them...

"Every life has a story if we only bother to read it"

This is a video created by Chick-fil-A to remind us that everyone we interact with is a chance to create a remarkable experience. It's used as a training tool for their employees.

©2010 Chick-fil-A

Getting It Together

2010-12-08T16:38:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I promised to get back to some regular posts. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I've been working through a few issues, not the least of which is trying to avoid burnout. The hours I've put in the last 6 months have caused me to avoid things that might hurt my brain...like thinking. Seriously, I have so many things I want to write about...so many things going on here at Crossroads that I want to share. So I plan to post more often, but with less content.

We're currently getting ready for our Christmas series, The Promise. I've been working with Tom, our volunteer lighting director. We've added numerous fixtures with color to accomodate the changes in how we are staging people. We've come up with a new way to program lights using templates that can be edited. I can now program a weekend service in about 20 minutes instead of 1 - 2 hours. The extra work is paying off.

Where I've Been and What I've Been Doing

2010-10-04T22:13:00.037-04:00

It's been 2 months since I've posted on this blog. A couple of my loyal followers have been asking for some posts. So this is for the 2 of you. I'll send you a check in the mail.

So much has been been going on at Crossroads that I don't know where to begin. So I'll just continue from here and you can catch up as best you can. We've had regular services, of course. But we've also had Classes @ Crossroads (I teach a class on Technical Arts and camera training), 5 K Run (Asia's Hope fundraiser), a car show, baptism, live Skype with Cambodian orphans we support, staff changes, Dr. William Brown, President of Cedarville University guest speaking for our weekend services, our youth band lead worship for weekend services and much more.

Be sure to check out some videos on Crossroads' YouTube page as well my personal YouTube page.

I'm ready to get back into regular posts. Stay tuned.

Cool Video

2010-08-03T22:29:00.000-04:00

The Expendables

Luau Video

2010-07-28T20:08:00.000-04:00

If you haven't seen it yet, here is a link to a highlight video from the Crossroads Volunteer Appreciation Luau...

click here to watch the luau video at Animoto.com

Crossroads Volunteer Appreciation Luau

2010-07-28T01:25:00.000-04:00

It takes hundreds of volunteers to do what we do at Crossroads. This weekend, we decided to say thank you to them by hosting a picnic at the Biddle's home.
The theme was a Hawaiian luau complete with a roasted pig and a live band.

Ron and Lori Biddle have a wonderful property for hosting outdoor events such as this one. Nestled in the Possum Run valley, their house sits on a hill overlooking a large field and barn. There are woods behind and on the sides of the property. For most events, there is plenty of room for parking as well as games and an area for everyone to congregate. Not so much this weekend!

You have no idea of the amount of work the Biddle's had leading up to this event. First, their daughter Joci was married on Friday evening. It turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far, with the heat index near 105 degrees. But the wooded area provided the needed shade for a wonderful outdoor wedding. The following day, their son Eric hosted a music festival with his band. Although some thunderstorms rolled through, they moved the bands under the tent from the wedding the night before and rocked on! Finally, to finish off the weekend, the Biddle's hosted Crossroads Volunteer Appreciation Luau.

In order to determine how many people to expect, we handed out tickets during the weeks leading up to the luau. As the date descended upon us, the number of expected people exceeded 750! We made arrangements with Snow Trails (a local ski lodge just a quarter mile down the road) to let us park everyone's cars in their parking lot. A trolley made constant rounds picking up and dropping off all the attendees.

The staff arrived early, setting up games, tables, trash barrels and a stage. As people began to arrive, there was excitement in the air. Kids enjoyed many games like croquet, volleyball, cornhole and limbo. The band, KB and the Riptides started the event off by allowing a young lady from the crowd come up and sing the national anthem. She nervously told me she was performing at Scioto Downs and asked if she could she sing when the band was ready. They were game so onto the stage she went. The crowd stopped talking and everyone stood up as she belted out The Star-Spangled Banner. They cheered and the party was on. KB and his band played California surf music as well as some party favorites. For the next hour and a half, there was music, dancing and laughter. I had someone ask me if they could play a little louder. They laughed and said no one has ever asked for the music to be louder before.

As the band was finishing up, everyone lined up for food. The line stretched nearly the length of the property, but I don't think anyone minded the wait. The food was great and consisted of hamburgers, hot dogs and a roasted hog.

Then the games began. Jesse Rider, our youth pastor, did a fantastic job as the MC for evening. He had volunteers come up to help lead the first game, which consisted of groups looking for things like anyone who has a pet parrot, someone willing to have a cup of water dumped on them, a group of people who could spell out the word "Hawaii." The funniest part of the evening had to be blind folded musical chairs set to Hawaiian music.

As I stood and talked to KB (Kirk Bradley Sporck)he expressed his amazement at how much fun we were having. He mentioned that he had played gigs for churches before, but he was impressed that so many people seemed like such good friends. He and the band stayed around for nearly 2 hours after they were done just so they could watch the festivities. I think this is a testimony to what we do to build fellowship at Crossroads. If you didn't make to this event this year, plan to come back the time!

Gurus of Tech

2010-07-26T09:55:00.000-04:00

The weeks since I've been back from the Gurus of Tech conference have been quite busy. I've brought back and implemented many ideas from the conference. Just so you don't think I've completely forgotten about you, though, here is a video from the opening day of the conference.

GURUS 2010 Opening Video from Church Tech Talk on Vimeo.

I'll get more information to you soon, I promise!

Little League Baseball

2010-07-17T09:21:00.003-04:00

It has been another busy summer. I've not updated here as often as I'd like and it seems like I'm working on a project at the church nearly every day. Sometimes though, I get the opportunity to slip out to watch my grandchildren play baseball. I shot pictures at a few games. The season is over, but the memories will live on...

Gurus of Tech Pt 1

2010-06-30T01:35:00.001-04:00

I just returned to my hotel from the 2nd day of Gurus of Tech. This free conference has been phenomenal.

The week leading up to yesterday was filled with running here and there and everywhere. Following our services on Sunday, I had to load a grill and take it to my daughter's 16th birthday party, set up and cook. After the party, I had to move a bunk bed my other daughter had purchased. Then, my wife and I took our Saturn to drop it off or service. Unfortunately, the wipers quit working on our Blazer and it was raining. By the time I got home to begin packing for my trip, it was after 10pm. I decided to relax for a few minutes and take a look at the pictures I took at the birthday party. I took the memory card out, got distracted, set it down and can't find it. I say all this to set up the trip to Louisville, KY and the best tech conference I've ever attended!

Michael Knisely picked me up at 8:15 Monday morning. We stopped for fuel and put some gas in the car. The drive down was filled with conversation and anticipation. Mike didn't really know what to expect. He is an IT guy and has only recently begun to learn some of the tech things we do at the church. As we drove, I began to Tweet...and so did all the tech guys I follow on Twitter! Updates were coming in regularly as they began arriving.

We arrived at Southeast Christian Church at 2pm. After registering and looking around for a few minutes, we headed to our hotel and checked in. On the ride up the elevator, it stopped. And not on our floor. In fact, it wasn't at any floor. We looked at each other, then looked at the lights on the elevator. It took about a minute and the elevator started up again. After dropping our stuff in our room, we decided to take the stairs down. And we headed for Gurus of Tech.

To Be Continued...

Weekend Update

2010-06-29T00:01:00.002-04:00

One of the best weekends we've had, technically speaking, in quite awhile. Our stage was extremely full. We had 6 brass, piano, synth, electric and bass guitars, drums and 10 vocals. The band sounded great and they seemed to have a great time with each other.

Jon Linton did a fabulous job on sound. There was so much going on I don't know how he kept it all sounding so good! There were numerous compliments on the quality of the sound. And he still had time to even out the mix for the record feed.

Garrett Joyce ran solo as a video director for the first time. He has sat on the board a couple times with an experienced director calling the shots. He showed up for service expecting to be a camera op, but Julie Borkosky, after finding out he has been training for director, offered to move to camera and let him take the reigns. Again, I had numerous compliments on the video directing. You would have thought he was a seasoned veteran. The camera shots were creative and the transitions smooth. Oh, and he turned 21 on Monday!

I had no CG operator this weekend. Sue Johnson stepped up and offered to cover an extra weekend. Once I teach her Photoshop, there will be nothing she can't do. She dealt with several last minute additions and was responsible for cueing the director for all the slides, including full screen, lower thirds and videos during the message.

The lighting designer, Tom Doklovic, also ran lights for the weekend. Creating a mood, and keeping the lights at an intensity that make the cameras look great is a weekly challenge. And Tom is up to that challenge! He has gone above and beyond by researching and coming up with ideas of his own.

On the lighter side, Garrett's mom, Sue, was one of the vocalists. At one point he was talking to a camera op telling him the iris was a little high when the camera was on his mom. He kept saying, "she's hot." We had a good laugh about that.

A Moment

2010-06-25T00:27:00.006-04:00

I've had several unforgettable moments in my walk as a Christ follower. That moment at 4am, when at the age of 14, I accepted Jesus. That moment during a Spring Concert, when we reenacted the raising of the flag on Iwo Jima. That moment under a hot August sun, when I and my wife got to baptize our daughter. And now, I have a new moment.

Last Monday evening, we had a gathering of people who sponsor kids through Asia's Hope. This is the beginning of the 2nd year that we have sponsored a child at the Battambang 3 orphanage in Cambodia. Everyone who sponsored last year, signed up again this year. We've sent teams over twice so far and plan to send one every year. But this meeting was different.

I set up a computer and sent a signal to a large flat panel monitor on a wall. As people arrived, there was an air of anticipation in the room. This is more than just a check we send each month. More than just a picture hanging on our refrigerators. We've sent and received letters. We've sent Christmas and birthday gifts. And tonight, we got to meet our child. I had tested a Skype session the previous evening. And now, we were were set to Skype with our kids.

Darlene Rudrick, our Go Missions coordinator, started with a PowerPoint presentation showing pictures of what life is like for the kids. About 20 minutes into the presentation, the Skype phone rang. I answered. On the screen was Savi, the house father for the orphanage. As Darlene talked with him, we could see the kids gathering around him, watching the screen at their end in Cambodia. One by one, the kids were called up to the camera. The sponsors came to the camera on our end. There were smiles and laughter. There were looks of joy on the faces of the sponsors. There were looks of happiness on the faces of the kids.

Then came the moment. Ron, Lori and Joci Biddle, with huge smiles on their faces, took their turn in front of the camera. Ron had been on the last trip our team took and the kids loved him. Joci, and her brother, Eric, had gone over before Ron and stayed for a month. This was Joci's 2nd visit to Cambodia. But the moment came when the teenage girl she supports burst into tears. Joci showed her the ring she was wearing.

They had exchanged rings when they were together. The girl showed Joci her ring also. Both girls had their rings on. Both girls had tears streaming down their faces. (read Lori's blog.) As I looked around the room, I saw smiles all around. Then I saw the tears that were flowing on so many people's faces. Then I realized I too had tears in my eyes.

When I came on staff at Crossroads 8 years ago, I never dreamed my life would be impacted by the use of technology. From the hundreds of videos I've created or Skyping across an ocean, God is using Crossroads to create a moment for someone every single week.

Cool Video

2010-06-24T20:17:00.000-04:00

Dad Life from Church on the Move

Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

Weekend Update

2010-06-22T21:53:00.000-04:00

Interesting weekend for me on Father's Day. I was back in the director's seat for the weekend. I had 1 camera op who was in a wedding and couldn't make it for the Saturday service. Luckily I had another who offered to fill in. None of the ops for this weekend had ever ran our main camera, a Sony DSR250. Not worry, I have trained the guys on the basics so it's was just a matter of getting used the differences from our other camera, the Sony HVR-Z5U.

All in all, a job well done by each of the guys...Dan, Jimmie, Mark, and Shane.

Pastor Tim continues to recuperate from his back surgery so Wendell Anderson filled in for him. He did a wonderful job describing how a father should be and we should be with our fathers. We had a drama that led into the message...
During the Saturday night service, one of the actors forgot to give a dollar bill that was being used as a prop back to the "dad" character. When the time came for him to ask the "dad" for a dollar, "dad" had to pretend to hand him the dollar. It was funny to watch from my end!

We also shot a video for announcements. Bill Hill used to do announcements live nearly every weekend. Lately he hasn't been on the stage as much, but we shot a video with his sons giving him the day off to sleep in. Look for more announcements on video in the future. To take a look at other videos I've produced, click here.

Weekend Update

2010-06-15T11:15:00.001-04:00

When I was leaving home to come to the church on Saturday, I had a little problem. I couldn't find my keys. I hunted for about 15 minutes, then sat down and thought through where they could be. I recalled that I had them the night before when my daughter picked up her kids. I had brought them home after their baseball game. When my daughter got off work, she stopped to pick them up. I gave her my keys so she could get their ball gloves out of my car. She handed them back to me and I put them in my usual place on the key holder just inside my door. That's when I thought, "I bet my wife took my keys by accident." I texted her, then called her. No reply. I waited a half hour, then called again. This time she answered. At first she thought the keys she had were hers, until she found the second set of key in her purse. Luckily, my son was at the house and I was able to catch a ride in with him. I suppose I could have waited on Maureen to come home, but there were a few things I needed to get done before the volunteers arrived so I'm happy that Zack was there.

This weekend went really well, especially considering all the technical issues we had to deal with. When I arrived, the auditorium was warm and humid. I leave the thermostat set at 72 degrees all the time. But with all the rain we've had, it becomes really humid and takes a long time to clear out. I turned the thermostats to 68 at 3pm. By 5:30 the temperature was about 69 but it still felt very humid. I climbed on the roof for the 4th straight weekend to make sure the units were running. Everything seemed fine. I determined that the units were bringing the temperature to the appropriate level, but not pulling the humidity out of the air. I ended up turning all the thermostats to 66 degrees. This brought the temp down a bit more and made it a little more comfortable, however, I noticed that while some people were fanning themselves, others were putting on light jackets.

The other issue with the humidity was with the house sound. It sounded ok, but we just couldn't get that "powerful" sound we usually have. I believe it was from 2 things...the humidity and the loud stage noise. Both of these are issues for another post...

The Saturday service went well, although one of our cameras didn't seem to be responding correctly when we changed the iris, and another camera seemed to lose it's proper color balance. By Sunday, I had all the cameras working well and both services came off without a hitch!

We started the service this weekend with announcements on video. We use a very sophisticated teleprompter when shooting these types of videos...

This weekend we'll be doing announcements on video again. For those who have attended Crossroads for some time, you'll recall when Bill Hill was our regular announcement guy. Look for his boys to give him a hand this weekend.

Weekend Update

2010-06-10T18:57:00.000-04:00

I haven't given a weekend update in 3 weeks! It has been a very busy time both professionally and personally. As the school year has come to an end, my daughter had several things going on that I wanted to attend. This pulled me out of my regular schedule. But don't worry, I still managed to put in more hours than required! I have 2 grand kids playing baseball this year so this has also pulled me out of my regular schedule.

Pastor Tim has started a new series from 1 Corinthians. This will be a long series, but is broken down into shorter themes, all of which are taken from the book of 1 Corinthians. The first week of the new series we tried something a little new for our announcements. Bill Hill (who has been our announcement guy since the beginning of the church) came out live after the message. As he finished up his announcements, 2 guys walked out with laptops strapped to them. They were there to help with advertise CCB, our online community for the church. They had webcams strapped to the hats they were wearing. They have the ability to take your picture while you are standing there, upload it to CCB and update your profile. We ended up using Skype to get a live picture from the "hatcam" and broadcast it to the auditorium. Cool stuff.

The following weekend was Memorial Day weekend. Tim continued his series on 1 Corinthians. And we again tried something different for our announcements. Using Skype, we had one of our members, Staff Sergeant Nicole Blakley begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting, do a live remote broadcast from Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. I was honored to be able to be involved in using a member of the armed forces in this manner. And it was cool! Her husband stopped by the control room and had a chance to say hello to her. Nicole was gracious enough to make herself available for all 3 of our services, even though they are 7 hours ahead of us. On Saturday, it was 2am her time!

Finally, this past weekend, we used a video for our announcements. We try to keep distractions to a minimum in our auditorium. We get complaints about babies and small children in our services pretty regularly. So after coming across a video on Youtube, we decided to make our own version using our own people. Streeter Clow and Tim Powell were the actors. I shot them in front of a green screen and keyed them over a shot of chairs in our auditorium.

In addition to getting the laptops configured for mobility and with webcams, and getting Skype up and tested for live broadcast to our auditorium and shooting/editing video for the baby announcements, I was also up to my ears in electronic issues. The converter for getting the analog signal to the computer for our live feed during services quit working. I had to order a new one but it wouldn't show up until the following week. I had to pull a DV deck from my office so I could get the feed to our recording Mac. The laptop I'm using right now is used for our live feed on the weekends. We found a desktop and got it hooked up for this use. But still couldn't get it working so we skipped the live feed for a week. But we're back up and running now! Thanks Michael Knisely!

Other issues I ran into included Photoshop wouldn't run on INCA or CG machine, bogged down, and required a restart several times. Monitors on pastor's podium quit working. After tearing it completely apart, we determined it was 2 bad cables and not the monitors. We put it back together and ran a temporary line to get both monitors working, then bought a new metal drill bit, bored out the holes, and changed out the cables. The moving lights have been acting up too. I've had to start up and shut down several times each week to get them to react to my commands.

And the most perplexing problem was with my Mac. Final Cut Pro shut down unexpectedly 9 times while editing the baby announcment video. My Mac almost never has problems like this! I expect it from a Windows machine (after all, what do expect when you have to click "start" to shut it down!) but not from my Mac. The next day, it was fine and I haven't had a problem since.

We found out on Friday that Pastor Tim had hurt his back again and would be unable to speak this weekend. I had everything ready for his message. Pastor Wendell came to me at 3pm with his notes for creating the slides for his message that would replace Tim's. So, after fixing the lighting issue and helping put the podium back together (thanks Dave Matthes!) I started on a brand new look for Wendell's slides. After about an hour of experimenting, I found a design I was happy with. Another hour later and his slides were ready.

We found out today that Tim will be back in the pulpit for this weekend! At least his slides are done.

Fox and Friends

2010-06-09T15:57:00.000-04:00

Lately, facebook has been changing their privacy settings. Below is a video explaining how to set your privacy settings in facebook.

I Know It's Been Awhile

2010-06-06T13:13:00.000-04:00

It's been a very busy couple of weeks for me. I promise I'll have some more updates this week. I'll get into more detail about all the things we've been doing. Several videos shot, equipment issues and a new set.

And I want to send out a special Shout Out to Sue for the cookies this weekend. I'm not supposed to eat them, but they were really good!

Cool Video

2010-05-18T23:07:00.000-04:00

This is one of the coolest videos I've seen in quite awhile. I loved the motion graphics and how they really blended with the poem as it is being read. The story really drew me in...

Two Inches to the Right from Matt Frodsham on Vimeo.
The video is by Matt Frodsham and the words by Mat Lloyd. You can find more information on each of them at the following links...
http://mattfrodshamfmp.blogspot.com/

http://www.mattfrodsham.com/

http://www.matlloyd.com/

2010-05-17T20:11:00.001-04:00

I never knew Zac Smith. In fact, I only found his story while looking at Twitter followers for some of the people I follow on Twitter. I was very touched by his attitude and love for Christ...

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

Weekend Update

2010-05-17T17:27:00.000-04:00

I still remember the first time I took communion as a teenager. I was raised in a Lutheran church and had to take a "communion class" before I was allowed to take it. I learned a little more about it in my catechism class but after that I never really learned much about the sacrament of communion.

At Crossroads, we take communion once each month, on the first Wednesday. We have a time of worship music, followed by a short teaching, taking of the elements and then a time of prayer with our elders. This weekend we had a service dedication to teaching and taking of communion.

Usually, I don't get started on the slides until Thursday afternoon or evening. I've talked to designers at other churches who tell me they sometimes don't get the notes until the day before, sometimes even less than 24 hours prior to the service. I'm very lucky to be able to work with Tim. He is very organized and extremely creative. He constantly pushes me to be more creative. This week, Pastor Tim had his message notes to me on Wednesday so I was able to get a jump start on the slides. I decided to use a moving background with the text keyed over it. I started with one background, but after seeing how it looked with the light setting, I decided to find another. I found a background I liked, but then I had to reformat the look of the slides. I changed the font and position of the text, as well the position of the spacing, number of lines of text and position of the scripture reference. I then redesigned the lower third graphics, giving them a simpler look.

People don't realize how much is involved in preparing for a weekend service. They know the band and the singers have practice, but they probably don't realize the personal rehearsal time. They don't realize the time needed to create new graphics for a message series, or a new countdown or new walk in slides. They don't know about time invested in designing the order of the service, picking out the music or the meetings while we put it all together week in and week out. They don't know about the time involved in designing the program, or printing and folding it. And they don't know about the group of volunteers who come in every Friday to finish preparing them. This is a little off topic, but it needs to be said. The number of volunteers who put in time to prepare for our services is larger than some churches! Look for another post on volunteers soon.

I knew it was going to be a good weekend when the tech volunteers showed up early. I was still positioning cameras lights over the communion tables so it was big relief to have everyone show up ready to serve. We had a few minor tech issues...one of our cameras wouldn't output to the switcher (fixed it just in time for our run through) and the monitors on Tim's podium wouldn't work (he not to worry about it for the weekend), but other than that, it was a fantastic weekend.

Weekend Update

2010-05-11T23:31:00.001-04:00

Last week was a very intense week. I've mentioned before that when we start a new series, I have to create a new countdown, new walk-in slides, a new template for message slides, plus anything else that might need to be included for the upcoming weekend. It gets busier when we have a couple of stand alone messages. The previous weekend we had Kay Warren speak, next weekend is a message on communion and this weekend we had Pastor Tim's wife, Michelle. She has been our speaker on Mother's Day for years. That's 3 stand alone messages, plus the next series...all of which have to be designed individually.

I really look forward to Michelle's messages. She is an excellent speaker and is always very creative. This is the first time in quite awhile that she didn't use my wife for a drama. This worked out well since Maureen is starring in a show at the Mansfield Playhouse, which happens to open this coming weekend...but I digress.

This year, Michelle spoke about scars...not the physical ones we all have, but the emotional ones that come from our life experiences. She taught on the lessons from the life of Joseph. We shot 4 separate testimony videos that I combined into 2 videos for use in Michelle's message. The first introduced the persons and their particular scars, while the second helped show how their faith helped them heal.

Usually when I shoot a testimony video, I edit it down to around 3 minutes to tell their story. This one was extra challenging. I had to edit 4 stories to about a minute each in order to fit it into the allotted time. The videos we play in our auditorium are saved as .avi files. The problem I ran into this weekend is that when I exported the videos, the audio went out of sync with the video. This is a problem with hi def, apparently. I spent about and hour researching the issue with no solution. Finally, I decided to try a something...I saved them as QuickTime movies, then placed them on a standard def time line. Then I exported them back out as .avi files again. This time they played fine. It wasn't the solution I wanted, but at least I found a way to work with them. I'll keep looking for the correct solution.

I also had to create a new countdown and new walk-in slides for the weekend. While I enjoy being creative with both, it's challenging to do it 4 weeks in a row!

The last video I had to create was a welcome/announcement video. We had discussed making this one a few months ago so I was excited to be able to finally shoot it.. We contacted several parents who had young children and asked them to come in for a video shoot. I sent some ideas of what I might have the kids say ahead of time, but as you can imagine, they really didn't understand what we were doing. I just had the kids get in front of the camera and lights and I fed them their lines as the camera recorded. I shot 36 minutes of footage. After editing out everything I couldn't use, I still had over 7 minutes of material. I knew I had to get it down to around 2 minutes so I started cutting. And cutting. And I cut some more. I knew a lot would end up being cut, but it was still painful to leave so many cute clips of the kids on the cutting room floor.

Here's a few bloopers...

Happy Birthday, Audrey Hepburn

2010-05-04T20:46:00.007-04:00

Today is Audrey Hepburn's birthday. If she were still alive, she would be 81. A few years ago, my daughter had to write a biography on Audrey Hepburn and do an oral presentation. She dressed up as her character from Breakfast At Tiffany's. The pictures were taken by Michelle Armstrong of Michelle Armstrong Photography.

Weekend Update

2010-05-02T20:00:00.005-04:00

If you didn't catch Kay Warren at Crossroads this weekend, you missed a great message. The worship was powerful, as usual. And the tech team was really on top of their game.

I knew it was going to be a good weekend when the tech team had all arrived early on Saturday. There was a feeling in the air and everyone was ready for the opportunity to serve. We all pitched in and fired up the equipment and got all the last minute equipment checks done. I love to see the team working together to make sure it all comes together.

Kay's plane didn't arrive in Columbus until around 4pm, so we knew it was going to be a bit tight on time for her sound check. We moved our run through up a bit. After the band's normal rehearsal, we took a quick 5 minute break, met for prayer and started the run through. One of the things we have to do is time the first 2 songs so the band knows when to begin playing during the preservice countdown. There was a slight confusion about what was to happen to end one of the songs and we ended up having to guesstimate the time they were to begin, but the rest of the run through went smoothly.

Kay arrived with less than 15 minutes until the doors were to open. We had to get her mic'd and sound checked. She took a quick look at her slides, sound checked and then gave me a DVD she wanted played to wrap up her message. I had just enough time to sound check the DVD and get the doors open.

Service went well on Saturday, although we missed bringing in the fill ins for anyone who was filling out the program insert. I guess we got a bit spoiled having message notes when Tim is on! But we had it figured out for both Sunday services.

There were several minor tech issues this weekend. It can get a bit confusing as we were sending 3 different feeds to 3 different places...2 separate feeds in the auditorium and our record/web feed. We hit the wrong button a couple of times, but nothing too bad. Any time there are last minute changes or additions you run the risk of having a tech error. Adding the DVD into the message, caused 2 minor issues. First we couldn't take the lights down since they are all preprogrammed. Not really a glitch, but more of an inconvenience. Then, the remote didn't work when I hit play and I had to hit the play button on the player itself. At the 11am service, we accidentally took the wrong the feed and played a moving background for the first few seconds. We recovered quickly and no one really noticed.

The biggest issue I had was the sound coming into the control room. It sounded like I was mixing underwater and I couldn't get a good mix all weekend. Time to get some more training on using the matrix with Studio Manager.

I mentioned to a few people that we had some technical glitches, but everyone looked surprised. Sometimes I think we knock ourselves too much for the little things that happen. We seem to be the only ones who really notice.

A Weekend Preview

2010-04-30T17:20:00.005-04:00

I've been extremely busy the past few weeks, as you can probably tell by the decrease in my posts lately. I've been doing to some video production work for a professor at Ohio State and we've increased the number of videos I'm working on at the church!

You can check out what I've been doing for Dr. Blake Wagner at his YouTube channel...ndcounseling, beginning with the Take Charge of Your Life video.

This weekend we have Kay Warren, from Saddleback Church, teaching at Crossroads. Here's a preview of one of the videos that will be running this weekend...YouTube/cccvideoguy

Weekend Update

2010-04-25T22:17:00.000-04:00

What a great weekend! Pastor Wendell finished up our series, Amazing Jesus. The tech team likes it when he teaches...his notes are precise and he sticks to them. Easy to follow along...

I had to chance to get back into the video director's chair this weekend. When I began volunteering at Crossroads it was as a video director and camera op. I love it when I have to opportunity to get back into that area!

As a bonus, this weekend I began training Dave on the switcher. He has been coming in regularly for several months learning my job. He started as a camera op, worked into the CG op position and is now learning video directing. He also began learning to program lights this week! I'll be keeping him busy for as long as he can stand it.

I'm trying something new with lighting. I brought the overall intensity down. It really made a difference. The team was still lit well for the live audience, but the big difference was on camera. With a minor tweak of the iris, the picture looked great and the colors on the stage really stood out.

A moment to remember happened at the Saturday service. Dan, our worship leader was supposed to stay on stage when Wendell started the message. About 5 minutes in, he is supposed to read a passage of scripture. But, he forgot and left the stage. There was a short moment of panic as we tracked him down and got him back on the stage just before Wendell needed him. The really funny thing is that Wendell never even noticed he wasn't there. If Dan hadn't made it back on the stage...now that would have been funny!

We continued our live broadcast of our services on Ustream. Lori jumped on my laptop and mixed the sound while I worked with Dave mixing the video. After the service, I set up to shoot another testimony video for Mother's Day. A storm came through and we had wait about 30 minutes for it to pass. The sound of the rain was coming through loud and clear!

Something is happening at Crossroads. I don't what it is yet, but it's gonna be good. I can feel it.

Kay Warren Coming To Crossroads

2010-04-24T10:32:00.006-04:00

Kay Warren, author of Dangerous Surrender as well as many other books, will be at Crossroads the weekend of May 1 and 2. Be sure to invite your friends to come see this powerful speaker as she teaches at Crossroads. She attended California Baptist College and earned her B.A. from California State University, Los Angeles, California. She is an accomplished writer, speaker, teacher and is a cancer survivor. She and her husband, Rick, founded and lead Saddleback Church in southern California.

Cool Video

2010-04-20T08:14:00.002-04:00

Weekend Update

2010-04-19T13:23:00.003-04:00

Things are finally getting back to normal...as normal as can be at Crossroads! As usual, we were drawn to worship by our fantastic leader, Dan Fleming. We have been performing 2 preservice songs as the countdown to the beginning of the service runs. It reminds of my youth when our church organist played a prelude, although I like our music better. We time the music to end with the countdown.

Travis Turesson, one of our long time members did a voice over welcome as the first praise song began. Travis is originally from Australia and his accent was a cool way to begin the service. Tim continued his Amazing Jesus series and we used an original drawing from our artist team for the title slide. Service went very well for all three services.

We had a new camera op debut this weekend. Bob, the video director, gave him a crash course on the camera and turned him loose. We moved another one of our cameras backstage and hooked up intercom. Thanks to John and Mark (no, not that John and Mark) for filling in so we could man the extra camera. There were very few slides during the message so Bob also had our CG operator (aka Mini Me) run the video switcher for awhile. All in all a good weekend.

The weekend was capped off with time spent with 2 of my favorite groups. First, Lori Biddle and I had a special job for our new photography team. We listened to a song that will be done in a few weeks, then I sent them out to shoot pictures that inspired them based on the song. I'll be using these for a music video when the song is performed.

Then, later that evening, we had small group with the drama team. I have a great time whenever we get together, but this evening we laughed and laughed! At our last meeting, we tried a concept we learned from The Skit Guys. We talked as a group about our memories of baptisms past. We jotted down our thoughts and ideas, then posted them on CCB so we could refer to them later on. Jimmie, one of our new actors, came to me with an idea for a drama based on what we had talked about. I told him to write a rough draft and send it to Lori and me. It was great! We did a read through using each actor trying out different roles. What a great time! We'll be shooting it for video in a few months.

Cool Video

2010-04-16T11:08:00.003-04:00

Technology is so cool these days! I follow a guy on Twitter who lives in Columbia, TN. He is a tech director at a church down there. His wife is currently in labor and is at the hospital. He's been tweeting her progress and all of the tech guys across the country that follow him are able to keep up to date. I've never met @churchtechhelp but hope to someday. He is truly a tech geek...he posted a video and I wanted to share it...

Cool Video

2010-04-14T21:30:00.004-04:00

Weekend Update

2010-04-13T22:15:00.007-04:00

You'd think that a week after Easter would be easier. I had as much to do this week as I did the prior week! Well, maybe not quite as much. After service on Easter, we set up for PROCLAIM! This is the second time we've done this. At 2pm on Easter Sunday, we started reading the Bible out loud. Starting in Genesis, people came in and read for 20 minutes shifts, although some read for much longer. We broadcast it live on Ustream as well. I had a chat room open but had to close it when someone decided to invade and attack our beliefs with words of hate and profanity. PROCLAIM! was supposed to end around 4pm on Wednesday. After realizing it was going to take longer, we decided to have it lead right into our First Wednesday communion service. This meant no time to program lights or do a sound check. I have to say that this was the most amazing, awesome service I can remember in quite some time. All went well and I even had to opportunity to read the passage from Luke for the Tech Team as we took communion together.

I worked diligently this week to prepare for the weekend. I took Friday off so I could help my son move. This meant working a bit harder (or smarter?) earlier in the week to have everything ready. Pastor Tim used several pictures and videos from our trip to Israel last March. Our artist small group has been creating original drawings for the message slides. This weekend's drawing was a beautiful rendition of the storm on the Sea of Galilee by Tim Gorka.

Requiem For a Console

2010-04-07T20:55:00.001-04:00

I'll just let this one speak for itself...

Weekend Update

2010-04-06T15:17:00.004-04:00

It's been a long, productive week. Easter preparation is one of the greatest parts of my job. I have to say that the preparation we did definitely paid off. The comments I've heard from people make all the work I do worthwhile. I am so blessed to be used by God in this position.

We added a service for the expected large crowd this weekend. Tim likes to refer to this as the "Superbowl" weekend for churches! Despite the prep work I did, prior to the first service on Saturday, it turned out that there were a few technical problems. Some of the lower third graphics didn't have transparent backgrounds. They were showing up with a black background that didn't key out on our INCA machine. I fixed them in Photoshop but then had problems getting them to refresh. I ended up just re-inserting them at the end of the presentation. At the same time, I noticed that the Kryptons (our moving lights) didn't come on. The lighting guy hadn't noticed since he wasn't able to make to the Thursday rehearsal and didn't know what the lights were supposed to be doing. I had him so a complete shut down and restart and the problem was fixed. Just prior to the beginning of the 7pm service, the projector in the town square went out. Too late to replace it until after service!

Our Creative Arts group was out in full force this weekend. The message was based on the Woman at the Well. The team did a painting in Town Square while people arrived for service. A new painting was created for each of the 4 services. In addition, Shawn Smith (who also played bass for the services) created a painting on stage using 6 boxes. He painted each of the boxes, then rearranged them to show Christ's face.

We did have a few issues during the services that I'm sure no one noticed. At the 5pm service, one of our singer's mic wasn't on. We used wireless hand held mics for all the singers this weekend, including one we rented. We think the singer didn't realize it was never turned on. At rehearsal Thursday, Milo's amp overheated so he had to use a different amp for the weekend. At the first service it wasn't working correctly and he had to leave the stage during worship to fix it. But all was fine within moments.
At the beginning of the 7pm service. The band wasn't on stage on time. We started 4 minutes late. We made some changed between the services so I was concerned about time as he went about 6 minutes long at the first service. But the service started and no one in the crowd had any idea it wasn't supposed to start the way it did! We never had a chance to practice the changes we had made. Tim was to stop at a point in his message, walk off, and the drama was to begin. However, I didn't realize where in the message he was leaving and got caught off guard. We recovered quickly and, again, no one in the audience had any idea. I've got such a great tech team!!

A brand new group I've started also got going this weekend. Our new Photography Team was snapping pictures all over the place. The creativity is absolutely amazing and I can't wait to see what God has in store for us the rest of this year.

You may have noticed that this post a bit late getting here. I've had to give up my laptop for the first part of this week so we can stream a 74 hour Bible reading live on the internet. As soon as the weekend services were over, I got the message ready for encoding and uploading to our site, then set up for this fantastic event. There have been a few minor bumps but it has been very cool being able to log in from home and watch this event as it takes place. But I do miss my laptop!

The Longest Week

2010-04-03T23:34:00.003-04:00

Some random thoughts from this week...

1. The week leading up to Easter is the longest week of the year for me.

2. It's also the most rewarding.

3. I like to stop and remember why I call myself a Christian. Calling myself a Christian is easy. Remembering to stop and remember why isn't.

4. My wife is a saint. She puts up with my absence and my grouchiness. I owe her big time.

5. The volunteers at Crossroads are the reason I can do what I do. They put in extra hours for set up and rehearsal on top of their regular work week. I don't thank them enough.

6. I tend to get grouchy by Thursday. I've already put in a full week and now it's time for rehearsal. I've done this long enough to know how it is supposed to work. Why can't everyone just do what I say? Uh, maybe I'd better go back and look at #3 again?

7. I am very blessed to be able to serve God as my vocation.

Have a Happy Easter weekend!

2010-03-29T19:17:00.004-04:00

I was on Facebook today and saw a post about Ricky Martin. I was surprised but my wife and daughter weren't. So I read the news report and saw a link to another one...

Back in 1996, there was a copyrighted song similar to General Larry Platt's "Pants On the Ground." I took a listen and found myself liking it. Take a listen...

Weekend Update

2010-03-29T09:24:00.009-04:00

What a great weekend! Our youth pastor, Jesse Rider, taught our congregation on Palm Sunday. And as usual he did a fantastic job! Despite this only being his 3rd time teaching in the auditorium, he seems to be a natural from the pulpit.

This was also our first service broadcast live on the internet. We are planning to broadcast our services each weekend as well as special events as they come up. A few people took the time to search out the broadcast on Ustream.tv. Since this was a test, I didn't advertise the web address but a few people still found us and commented on the good quality. That was very encouraging! If all goes well, you'll be able to see the broadcast on our website this weekend.

For the last couple weeks, we've been running a 10 minute countdown to start the service. The band has been coming out and doing 2 songs prior to the beginning of worship. The response has been wonderful. It really adds an exciting element to our services. This weekend, however, it was even cooler! They performed 2 original songs! Milo is working on a recording studio and our song writing team has been hard at it. Soon, we'll be recording a whole CD worth of our original music.

After the preservice music, we ran our version of Easter Invite. Click here to see our version. Click here to see the Skit Guys version.

Julie, our video director did a great job! She'll be on again this weekend for Easter. The tech team has really been stepping it up lately. I am so proud to be leading such a great team of volunteers.

This morning our sound guy, Bryan, came in and got the stage wired for the Easter services. As were talking, he told me one of the worship leaders (who shall remain nameless so he's not embarrassed) came to him and said his wireless mic needed a new battery. He changed it himself but it still wouldn't work. Bryan took a look at it and found the black caps still on the battery in the mic pack! Bahahahah!

A Weekend Preview

2010-03-26T16:35:00.004-04:00

Here's a quick preview of a video we are running this weekend. We're re-doing a video by The Skit Guys that will begin our service this weekend. Here's some bloopers from last Sunday's video shoot...

What's the Problem?

2010-03-25T19:17:00.001-04:00

Singing Fail - watch more funny videos

New Things a Comin'

2010-03-24T22:42:00.004-04:00

Today, I tested live streaming of the signal from our video switcher. With the help of Mike Knisely, we had a successful test using Ustream. We'll be doing a steaming test of our services this weekend and will be broadcasting PROCLAIM!, a 74 hour Bible reading. This event starts on Easter Sunday at 2pm and continues until Wednesday, March 7 at 4pm. Look for more info on the live steam very soon!

Fox and Friends

2010-03-22T17:30:00.000-04:00

Worried about privacy on the internet? Think Google knows too much about you? No problem...watch this video to learn how to opt out and secure your privacy. ;) Thanks, Jon, for the link!

Happy Birthday, William Shatner

2010-03-22T11:15:00.001-04:00

Today is William Shatner's birthday. He is 79. Today is also International Talk Like William Shatner Day! Amuse your friends by doing your best Captain Kirk or Denny Crane.

A few facts about Mr. Shatner:
1. He is Canadian.
2. In 1954, he was cast as Ranger Bob on the The Canadian Howdy Doody Show.
3. He once guest-starred in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in an episode that also featured Leonard Nimoy.
4. In 2006, Shatner sold his kidney stone for $75,000 to GoldenPalace.com.
5. He has a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
6. The mask that Michael Myers wears in the original Halloween is a Captain Kirk mask.
7. His third wife, Nerine Kidd, accidentally drowned in the swimming pool at their home in Studio City.
8. He is fluent in French and Esperanto.
9. His version of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was voted as the worst massacre of a The Beatles song ever in May 2003.

See if you can make it through the entire video...

Weekend Update

2010-03-21T22:22:00.000-04:00

After spending Friday night and Saturday with my granddaughter, I headed back to work. Another great weekend of worship but with a few unexpected moments.

The tech team seems to be running short on camera ops every week. Fortunately, this weekend, we had a new camera op join the team. Welcome Jimmie! Plus, one of our ops who has had to take some time off offered to help fill in. Thank you Louise! Steve, the video director, did a fantastic job as usual. I don't know what we'd do without his expertise each month!

On Saturday night, someone disrupted Pastor Tim during his message. He was talking out loud and was agitated. He got up and left, disrupting a part of the congregation. Our security team was on him immediately and monitored him the rest of the evening. No harm was done, but it was a chance for us to see how we should react if someone disrupts a service.

And of course, our volunteers brought in food again. Hot dogs, brownies and Rice Krispy Treats! We love food at Crossroads!

Sunday went off without a hitch, except for a malfunctioning camera. We use an overhead camera for a creative angle. It was supposed to get a shot of our drums at a specific point in worship, but the power supply has a short in it and it stopped working. I got the lift out and got it working but after I came back down and reset the chairs, it stopped working again, so we didn't use it.

After service, our drama team headed over to Deering's house to shoot a video as a promo for Easter. I think it must be good since Deering and Jean were laughing as we shot it!

2010-03-20T11:06:00.004-04:00

As we move into Spring and Summer, I've been busy researching and learning new tools and technologies for taking Crossroads to new heights. Blogging, live streaming on the web and social networking are just some of what I've been looking into.

I started writing this blog for several reasons. It was time. Blogging has become a normal part of the online experience. As a tech guy, it is part of my job to stay up to date with new technologies that affect me and my ministry. I believe the internet and all it has to offer is a huge part of this. I write about what is happening behind the scenes at Crossroads as well as items I find interesting or think others at Crossroads might find interesting.

There are several staff blogs you can check out...Lori Biddle's blog is www.loribiddle.com. Lori is the programming director at Crossroads. She writes daily about many things going on at Crossroads, in her life and in her mind. And she has a very busy mind!

Also, be sure to check out Pastor Tim's blog at www.timarmstrong.org. This blog is for the spiritual growth of the people of Crossroads Community Church and all those who follow Christ with us. His postings are an extension of his weekend teachings. This is a very exciting new tool that he will be using!

Deering Dyer, Small Groups Pastor, has a blog at www.five42.com. A great resource for small groups and others wanting to know what is going on at Crossroads.

You can see or listen to our services at our website www.crossroadswired.com. Did you know you can see the entire service, including worship or choose to simply watch the message only? Soon, you'll be able to log onto our website and see live streaming of events and services. Look for PROCLAIM! a live reading of the Bible from beginning to end. I'll have more to say about the live steam soon!

Social networking has become a normal online experience for many. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Tangle are just a few tools we are beginning to use to expand the ministry of Crossroads. If you are on Facebook, be sure to friend me and request to join the Crossroads Community Church group.

Check back regularly or subscribe to this blog for more information on each of these areas as we increase our presence on the world wide web.

Happy Belated Birthday, Albert Einstein

2010-03-15T17:12:00.007-04:00

Yesterday was Albert Einstein's birthday. If he were still alive, he'd be 131 years old. He was very smart. Smarter than me, I can tell you that!

Yesterday was also Pi Day. Unfortunately, I missed it. I knew it was coming but forgot about it. What is Pi Day, you ask? I'm glad you asked.

Pi, (), is the symbol that stands for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Pi Day is celebrated around the world on March 14th. Rounded off Pi = 3.14, hence the reason it is celebrated on 3/14.

Pi is an irrational number, this means that it can't be expressed as a fraction and that its decimal representation will never end or repeat. It will go on and on and on...and on, and on, and on. Forever.

Here are the first 100 digits of pi: 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993751058209749445923078164
062862089986280348253421170679821480865132823066470938446095505822317253
594081284811174502841027019385211055596446229489549303819644288109756659
334461284756482337867831652712019091456485669234603486104543266482133936
072602491412737245870066063155881748815209209628292540917153643678925903
600113305305488204665213841469519415116094330572703657595919530921861173
819326117931051185480744623799627495673518857527248912279381830119491298
336733624406566430860213949463952247371907021798609437027705392171762931
767523846748184676694051320005681271452635608277857713427577896091736371
787214684409012249534301465495853710507922796892589235420199561121290219
608640344181598136297747713099605187072113499999983729780499510597317328
160963185950244594553469083026425223082533446850352619311881710100031378
387528865875332083814206171776691473035982534904287554687311595628638823
537875937519577818577805321712268066130019278766111959092164201989380952
572010654858632788659361533818279682303019520353018529689957736225994138
912497217752834791315155748572424541506959508295331168617278558890750983
817546374649393192550604009277016711390098488240128583616035637076601047
101819429555961989467678374494482553797747268471040475346462080466842590
694912...

Next year, I think I'll get the t-shirt!

Weekend Update

2010-03-14T21:58:00.004-04:00

We tried something different this weekend at Crossroads. The band performed a couple songs as people arrived for service. I created a new 10 minute countdown and the band started with only colored lights on the stage. It was an interesting and fun way to begin.

Dave Matthes, one of my long time volunteers has been learning many of the duties that I perform. This weekend he had the opportunity to shadow me and called cues for the tech team during services. Dave has been a true blessing to serve with and will be covering for me anytime I'm not around.

I also took advantage of the opportunity to sneak back to the youth room for a few minutes. Milo Sgambellone, one of our full time worship leaders worked with his youth band and they really rocked. The kids were really engaged! I love to see the teens as they worship. They don't come in with preconceived notions; they just worship our Lord, Jesus!

Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris

2010-03-10T21:34:00.010-05:00

Chuck Norris is 70 today. Chuck Norris doesn’t blow out his birthday candles. The fire flees out of fear.

I used to love Chuck Norris movies back in the '80s. He was the All American Hero. The first film of his I ever watched was The Octagon. If you like martial arts films, you should check it out. When Arnold says the line "I'll be back" in the first Terminator movie it is implied that he is going to ask Chuck Norris for help.

Chuck Norris is so tough that he sleeps with a pillow under his gun.

Chuck Norris CAN believe it's not butter.

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because Chuck Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.

Chuck Norris can divide by zero.

Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer

Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.

Chuck Norris doesn’t wear a watch. HE decides what time it is.

Google won't search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don't find Chuck Norris, he finds you.

When an episode of Walker Texas Ranger was aired in France, the French surrendered to Chuck Norris just to be on the safe side.

Chuck Norris invented black. In fact he invented the entire spectrum of visible light. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.

For more interesting facts about Chuck Norris, go to chucknorrisfacts.com.

Happy Birthday, Chuck Norris!

Fox and Friends

2010-03-09T22:08:00.013-05:00

If you've followed my posts for any time, you know that Fox and Friends is for the "untechnical" out there who want to learn a few tricks about computers and the internet.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some general computer shortcuts. Here's a few keyboard shortcuts that can help speed up your internet experience.

When you open a page and want to scroll down, press the spacebar to page down. You can press Shift+Spacebar to page up.

To find a word or phrase on a page, press Ctrl+F and type it out. Then, to find another of the same word on the same page, type Alt+N.

Ctrl+D will let you bookmark a page. By the way, I'd recommend keeping your bookmarks organized in folders. If you wait until until you have a large list, you probably won't get around to organizing them. And save the sites you go to regularly (like this blog) on the Bookmarks Toolbar!

Ctrl+T will open a new tab.
Ctrl+W will close a tab.

Ctrl+K will move your cursor to the search box.
Ctrl+L will move your cursor to the address bar.

There are so many shortcuts that can make your life easier when surfing the net. Use a post in note and write down the ones you want to learn. Leave it on your monitor. Refer to it regularly until you learn them, then take it down. It takes a little while to learn them but in the long run it is worth it.

Weekend Update

2010-03-07T11:28:00.005-05:00

Weekends like this are why I love what I do.

First, we tried something a little different by taking a live camera feed from the youth room. Jesse Rider, our senior high pastor, had several kids playing a game while he did the announcements. They were to sit still and try not to laugh or smile while he talked. Meanwhile, the rest of the kids were making faces at them in an attempt to get them to smile.

We've been experimenting with a hand held camera on the stage for some of our services. It adds a new element to the creativeness of the tech team. Our goal is to enhance the worship without being distracting. Eric, the camera operator, succeeded tremendously! I had someone ask me how we got those shots without having anyone on the stage. Bob, the video director this weekend, is one of the most creative guys on the team and does a fantastic job every time he is on!

The only glitch this weekend came at the beginning of the 11am service. Pastor Tim didn't feel like the audience was engaging so he stopped the music and encouraged the congregation to really worship. The entire dynamic of the service skyrocketed and we had a great time of worship! Then, in the middle of one of the songs, Tim called me on the intercom and said he wanted to do this as an additional worship song at the end of his message. The last minute change went off without a hitch and once again, God was present at Crossroads!

Fox and Friends

2010-03-05T22:34:00.004-05:00

The average body temperature of a sperm whale is 37 degrees Celsius. That equates to 98.6 Degree Fahrenheit. What does this have to do with anything you might ask? Today, our senior pastor asked our small groups pastor if he knew what the body temperature of a sperm whale was. Why he asked him that isn't important. What is important is that I was able to find out in less than 5 minutes.

I use Google every day. The other day I was discussing how far the internet has come in such a short time. I mentioned to my friend that I use Google every day. One of the features of the Firefox browser is the search box in the upper right hand corner. Currently the default engine for the search box is Google. You can easily switch to another search engine by clicking on the icon on the left of the search box and choosing a different search engine.

When I heard Tim randomly ask Deering about the body temperature of the sperm whale, I decided to look it up. I immediately used Google. I quickly found the body temp of a normal mammalian is about 37 degrees Celsius "while emerged in the frigid waters of the ocean." After a few more searches, without any more detailed information, I switched the search box to Yahoo and typed in the same search. Within 2 clicks I found the body temp of a killer whale is 45 - 65 degrees, although it can be much higher. I also used Google to see what 37 degrees Celsius converted to in Fahrenheit. Just type in what you want to convert (37 celsius to fahrenheit) and Google displays the answer.

The use of Google, Yahoo, Answers.com, Wikipedia and more has made finding information fast and easy. And the Firefox search box makes it even easier.

By the way, you can allow the bananas to ripen to the stage you like them and then put them in the refrigerator. This slows the ripening process down drastically. For several days after that you can take bananas from the refrigerator and enjoy the fruit inside. Please note: the skin will turn very dark in color after only a short time in the refrigerator…you can ignore that…the fruit inside remains just as it was before you put the banana into the refrigerator.

Weekend Update

2010-02-28T20:00:00.006-05:00

Another great weekend at Crossroads. I know I say that every weekend, but I really mean it. Growing up, I was bored during a lot of our Lutheran services. This is not to say that all Lutheran services are boring, but I just wasn't that into the style of worship. But now, I look forward to going to the services every weekend.

Julie, our video director, and Jackie, our lighting designer, each brought in food to share with the teams. Wow! There was fantastic salad, as well as potato salad and macaroni salad. And the deserts! Oh my, I ate too much. What a great way to start out the weekend! And it was heartening to see the way everyone stood around in conversation during the break between the practice and the run through.

After service on Saturday, we met in Pastor Tim's office and decided no real changes needed to be made. Then we continued to sit, talk and laugh for another half hour. Tim's wife had several funny anecdotes about him. It's fun to see how much we all really enjoy each others company.

We started with an instrumental version of Journey's "Separate Ways" that began during the pre-service countdown. Then Bill Hill, one of our announcement guys came to the stage for announcements. This is one of the most difficult elements to place in the service. Do we interrupt worship with announcements? Or do we break up worship and Pastor's delivery of The Word? Doing the announcements at the beginning means all the late comers miss them. Look for some up creative changes to how we do the announcements in the coming months.

We started our worship package with a new song by our own worship leader, Milo Sgambellone, called "Your Love Is Amazing." We've done a lot of original songs that Milo has written. I don't think our congregation realizes how many originals we've done. The rest of our set consisted of "God You Reign", "Everylasting God", "Everybody Praise the Lord" and a special sung by Cody Roland, "In the Light." Pastor Tim then continued his series "Deconstruction/Reconstruction of the Disciple's Life."
You can view the entire service online on Monday afternoon.

A Late Valentine

2010-02-26T23:17:00.012-05:00

Our monthly staff meetings at Crossroads consist of information, food, fellowship, food, a theme and food. This month was no different. Lori Biddle, the creative force behind our services, decided that this month's theme would be a staff valentine exchange. We all had to design a valentine's box for a contest.

Many of the staff brought their boxes in early and left them in the office area for everyone to see. Others, like myself, waited until the day of the staff meeting to bring them in. We also wrote out valentines for each other, expressing what we like about that person or why we are thankful for them. It seemed kind of corny at first, but everyone had a great time reading the valentine messages.

Charlene, our nursery coordinator won for best valentine box. She also won for best costume last October at our Harvest Party!

In addition, Lori had cookies baked with our names on them and our pictures framed at our seats. Everyone kept confusing Dan's (our worship leader)picture and mine. What do you think?

Fox and Friends

2010-02-23T18:53:00.007-05:00

Many people ask me to help them with issues on their computers. As I work on whatever is giving them a problem they see me using shortcuts. Most people seem to be intimidated by shortcuts or just don't want to have to remember them. I highly recommend learning some of the basic shortcuts that can make your life easier. So here is a random list of some Windows shortcuts that the average computer user should learn:

ALT+TAB: Switch between open programs. (hold down the ALT key and then press the TAB key to view the task-switching window) If you are working in Word, surfing the net and listening to iTunes, you can seamlessly switch between the 3 programs using this shortcut.

ALT+F4: Quit program. Wanna have a little fun? IM someone (or Facebook message them) and tell them to press ALT F4...hee hee hee.

SHIFT+DELETE: Delete item permanently. Delete selection immediately, without moving the item to the Recycle Bin. I use this all the time in my Outlook mail.

CTRL+A: Select all the items in the current window
CTRL+C: Copy
CTRL+X: Cut
CTRL+V: Paste
CTRL+Z: Undo. I use this all the time!

To copy a file
Press and hold down the CTRL key while you drag the file to another folder.

To create a shortcut
Press and hold down CTRL+SHIFT while you drag a file to the desktop or a folder.

There are hundreds of shortcuts that can be used in Windows. These are some of the ones I use the most.

Weekend Update

2010-02-21T21:48:00.000-05:00

Another successful weekend at Crossroads. It was nice to have a simple service that could be so powerful. And fun too. I feel blessed to have a job that doesn't feel like a job. I work with wonderful people from staff to volunteers.

We started out with an instrumental of the song Smooth. This was performed during the pre-service countdown. We time it on Saturday so that the band ends at 0 in the countdown. The band was to start with 3:40 left in the countdown. At the 9:30 service, I called ready for lights and...no worship leader! Milo had been in the town square and didn't realize the countdown started. No problem though, we waited another 40 seconds, and it was on!

Usually the crowd at the 9:30 service is a little subdued, but this morning they were enthusiastic and the service was full!

The message this weekend was from Ephesians 4..."Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."

During the message at the Saturday service, there was a typo on one of the slides. Usually, I or one of the many persons who check the slides prior to the service catch these. When the slide came up someone mentioned on the headset that part of the phrase "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit" was missing. I looked at the slide, then said, "yes, the word Spirit is supposed to be there...crap." I immediately realized that I had said "crap" while the pastor was telling us not have unwholesome talk come out of our mouth! I had the slide fixed in the next 30 seconds but it was too late for the Saturday service.

The video director, Bob, is one of my best volunteers. He is always prompt, makes sure all equipment is on and checked and is very creative. At the end of the final service, my boss, Lori, told everyone on headset what a great job they had done and how good everything looked. Bob, being his own biggest critic, said, "she must not have been looking!" Not true, Bob! You did another great job!

Surfing the Web

2010-02-20T12:45:00.005-05:00

My job is changing. The world is changing. When I originally came to Crossroads, Windows 98 was new. The mac was probably not going to be the computer for the future. The internet was filled with pages of text and very few pictures, let alone any video!

I use my mac everyday. I use my desktop PC everyday. I use my laptop PC everyday.
I use Google every day. I use Firefox everyday. I use Facebook and Twitter everyday.

Last week I was discussing with another staff member the fact that I spend a lot of time on the internet at work. I check email, research equipment needs, order products and services and look for creative ideas for videos and graphics, etc. I mentioned that I almost feel guilty for spending time on the web instead of doing real "work." I'm just so used to the mentality of actually having a product (a video or a service) completed or a physical outcome (projector or speaker hung, lights moved and/or programmed.) But the thing is that part of my job requires me to spend time surfing the net. I guess this makes it real work.

Crankshaft

2010-02-16T10:25:00.002-05:00

Have you ever tried to solve a problem by starting at the wrong end?

God's Chisel

2010-02-14T21:09:00.010-05:00

God's Chisel from Steve Browning on Vimeo.

This drama, performed at Crossroads this weekend, is from a script by The Skit Guys. We had several actors in mind to play the part of God but none were available this weekend. With only about a week and a half to prepare, we finally decided to try it with God being a voice from off stage. Stephanie McAuley agreed to play one of the characters, but who to use as the voice of God?

Several people were considered, including Stephanie's husband, Chris. But in the end, the "role" was awarded to...me. I've done some voice over work and Pastor Tim suggested that I might have the right voice. My wife, Maureen is one of our actors/directors so with her help I tackled the role. I briefly considered trying to do the role live, but not having ever been in front of an audience, we decided it would be better to just stick with the plan of me being off stage. Due to the 2 snow storms that hit our area in one week, Stephanie and I didn't have much opportunity to read together. But Maureen and I spent some time doing a read through and she helped coach me to the right inflections and comedic timing.

Stephanie and I finally got to work together a couple days before the performance. I had already set lighting and blocking. I set up a mic, video monitor and music stand for my script on stage left.

Stephanie is great to work with. She has a natural talent and knows her lines and blocking like a seasoned professional. I was kidding her this weekend about being a "method" actor since she had me actually use the hammer and chisel on her so she would know how to react to the sound coming from off stage.

I used a single fresnel fixture straight on to light the character with changing colored backlight to set the mood as God spoke.
I usually meet with the tech team prior to the service but wasn't able to this weekend. I had Dave, my "Mini Me" take care of my pre-service duties. Lori called cues for me during the service so I could be available to work with Stephanie and sound. The tech team really came through. I only needed to give them few instructions and they took it from there. Great weekend, great message and great fun for me.

If you'd like to see the original version, click here.

Ch Ch Ch Changes

2010-02-13T22:52:00.005-05:00

The one constant at Crossroads is change. Tonight was no exception. Service was great, but we ran over by about 15 minutes. Not a big deal except that tomorrow we'll only have 30 minutes between services.

After the Saturday service, we meet in the pastor's office to discuss how things went and decide if anything needs changed. Tonight we made some major changes. First, we cut a song. Then we rearranged the order of the rest of them.

Easy enough for sound; just change a scenes on the Yamaha M7CL board. Easy enough for video and CG; just move the lyrics around in MediaShout. But for lighting and me as the Tech Director, it was little more work. We use a printed version of the MediaShout presentation for cues including lighting cues. I had reprint and recopy all cues onto the new sheets.

We use a Leprachaun LP-X48 digital lighting board. I have several volunteers who are able to program for a service or make edits as needed. I have come rely on them tremendously but they weren't around tonight. Besides, this is what I get paid for! I just needed about 20 minutes to delete and re-insert the cues in the new order, make a few edits and I was done.

After reprinting all the cue sheets with the changes, I passed them out to the band and tech areas, picked up a pizza and headed home.

A Contemporary Pastor

2010-02-13T11:03:00.002-05:00

Yesterday, I went into Pastor Tim's office to return a James Taylor CD I had borrowed. He had stepped out for a bit. I noticed his bible on the desk with his reading glasses. I thought this was a stereotypical look for a pastor's desk...until I noticed the Toby Mac CD sitting next to it. Quite a difference from my Lutheran upbringing!

Tech Director

2010-02-09T21:38:00.005-05:00

I'm the only tech person on staff. We have an IT guy who comes in once a week or so but I'm the one who takes care of everything tech. Up until about a year ago, we had another guy on staff, but since he left, I've had to learn many of the responsibilities he had. I've done two things recently that have helped me tremendously.

First, I've found an online forum of other church tech directors. These are guys who do sound, video and/or lighting as staff members at their respective churches. We use Twitter to follow each other and keep up with what's going on. But more importantly, we can post questions and comments about our respective jobs. I've found several guys within driving distance who share my experiences. I look forward to meeting and getting to know my fellow tech guys.

The second thing I've done is find a volunteer who is willing to put in the time needed to learn what I do. Dave has been volunteering as a camera operator for several years. He has also been very active in helping with special projects and tech repairs around the building. He recently stepped into a new volunteer position running our graphics during service. But now he has really stepped up. He is coming in weekly to shadow me and learn all the areas of my job.

Weekend Update

2010-02-07T15:47:00.004-05:00

We had a great weekend at Crossroads...except for the cancellation of our Saturday service. Roads were still kind of bad this morning but I arrived with a special anticipation.

Usually, on Saturday, I meet with the tech team prior to a band rehearsal. We discuss the elements of the service and then watch the rehearsal prior to a run through. The rehearsal is the band's time. The run through is the tech team's time. This is our chance to practice transitions, sound check videos and double check lyrics and lighting.

Normally, I call cues for sound, video and lighting. But one of our volunteer video directors got a new job and is headed for Ft. Wayne so I'm filling in until I get another guy (or girl) trained. One of our lighting guys, Bryan, called cues since I was in the video control room. I direct services on First Wednesday when we do communion as well. By the way, First Wednesday is a special time for the tech team as we take communion together at the end of service!

Since we had no Saturday service, we had no tech meeting or run through. However, I have such a great team of volunteers that they all came in early for the practice and everyone was "on" for the services.

We started off with an instrumental of the Michael Jackson song, Beat It. Last weekend one of my camera ops spent some time in Town Square asking people to give us their best "Moonwalk." I put together a video that played during part of the song. You can check it out Monday afternoon when our service gets uploaded to our website.

This was followed by our youth pastor, Jesse, doing announcements. We're looking for some dancers for some upcoming services so Jesse asked for our congregation to sign up. In my usual creative manner, I came up with a graphic to support his request.

The praise team was ready to lead worship as well! Due to time constraints we only had 3 songs but it was very powerful and a great lead in to the continuation of Pastor Tim's series Deconstruction/Reconstruction of the Disciple's Life.

Random Thoughts

2010-02-05T20:09:00.012-05:00

Pants On the Ground is a great song because it's true.

I love the snow.

I like wearing my "old man" slippers while sitting in my recliner.

Microwave popcorn is a good snack. Popcorn from a pan on the stove popped with olive oil and topped with butter melted in another pan is a GREAT snack.

Take care of your teeth. Brush at least twice daily and floss. Really, don't forget to floss.

My daughter is Audrey Hepburn reborn.
(photo on right courtesy of Michelle Armstrong Photography)

I'm a mac. My wife's a PC.

Four wheel drive rocks!

My wife...I think I'll keep her.

Thank you Funyuns. You put fun back in onions!

Why doesn't anyone at Taco Bell fix that darn sign? The message is "49 cent tacos on Sundays. It's had the O and the N separated for a year now!

A salad tastes better when someone else makes it.

While driving yesterday I saw a banana peel in the road and instinctively swerved to avoid it…thanks Mario Kart.

I like hardwood floors. I don't like carpeting in the bathroom.

I like cheese.

Comedy is my defense mechanism.

It's nice to be nice to the nice.

Star Trek is cool because it's true.

Shoe Fetish Continues

2010-02-04T17:18:00.004-05:00

Deering has written a couple of times about his experience with his new shoes. Check out his blog on facebook.

Deering - Day 1

Deering - Day 2

Shoe Fetish Part 3

2010-02-03T21:52:00.006-05:00

Deering has joined the foot cult!

Cool Videos

2010-02-03T21:28:00.005-05:00

I'm always looking around for ideas I can use for a video. Ideas for announcements, music videos, worship enhancement or just for fun. I found some really cool videos by Ryan Trommer who is a motion graphic designer for Willowcreek Community Church. Here is an example...

Village transition from Ryan Trommer on Vimeo.

One of my goals for this year is to learn several new programs that will help me take my editing capabilities to the next level...

Shoe Fetish Part 2

2010-02-01T21:28:00.004-05:00

The shoes have arrived. One with socks, one without...

Mother's Day 2009

2010-02-01T20:30:00.009-05:00

Last year on Mother' Day, I shot an interview video with a couple who had almost lost their daughter when she was born premature. As I was looking over some of the videos I've done in the last year, this one stands out. I was moved as I was shooting it. I was moved again as I was editing it. Even now, when I watch it, I am again moved.

I shot this using a Sony DSR250 and a Canon GL1. Both of these cameras have been workhorses for us. We had 2 of each and used them for live IMAG in our auditorium as well as field cameras for shoots like this one. The Canons were purchased several years before I even came on staff!

The Canon started acting up a few months prior to shooting this video. The iris, gain and shutter decided to rebel and now changes in the middle of shooting. We spent about a year using it as best we could. As you watch this video you'll notice shots that I had to do some color correction on as well as add some effects to compensate for the problems with the camera. Eventually both of our GL1 cameras developed the same problem. We've since replaced them and now use them as static shots in our services but no longer use them in video production.

3 Identical Services

2010-01-31T22:30:00.009-05:00

We have 3 services at Crossroads. Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 9:30 & 11:00. This weekend was baptism. We've done baptism outdoors in a pond and in a swimming pool and indoors in a swimming pool and on our stage in a baptismal. This weekend was an awesome time of worship and teaching culminating with baptism on stage at the end of each service.

For the morning service we had only 2 people for each service so we showed video of the previous services during the 9:30 and 11:00 services. We record each service directly to a mac. I edited each of the baptisms, adding a graphic explaining which service they were from and then exported them directly to our video playback. The audience responded as if the baptisms were live. It was very moving to see all the baptisms in the same service at our final service of the day.

Firefox and Friends

2010-01-29T09:34:00.009-05:00

Back in June I posted some information about Firefox and Xmarks. Firefox is a web browser from Mozilla. Xmarks is an add-on that allows you to sync your bookmarks (favorites for those of you on Internet Explorer) and passwords. You can check out my original post by clicking here.

Several other staff members look at me kind of weird when they see my computer syncing bookmarks and passwords. As I mentioned in my post, Xmarks will allow you to access all of your bookmarks on any computer. Now, if you don't want to switch to firefox, no problem. You can also get Xmarks for Internet Explorer, Chrome and Safari. Just click on the link for Xmarks and check it out!

Shoe Fetish

2010-01-28T23:03:00.006-05:00

On Thursday afternoons, our Magnification team meets to program our upcoming services. We meet in my office. It is set up with the ability to play videos from my Mac or PC as well as look at stage layouts, cue sheets and other documents relating to the upcoming services.

Tim, our senior pastor, likes to try out new styles of shoes. He has had a lot of cool shoes over the years. Today he had me look up a website, www.vibramfivefingers.com, so he could show us a new pair he wants to get. After seeing these ones, I told him I was worried about his shoe fetish! Does anyone else out there have a pastor like this?

This Is Too Cool

2010-01-21T23:55:00.003-05:00

Click on this link. In Bb 2.0
20 videos on one page. Start them playing and listen to the music!

Deering Dyer is a Funny, Funny Guy!

2010-01-20T21:47:00.001-05:00

Wednesdays at Crossroads means a short study time for the staff. At 11:30am, we meet to go over a short bible study and take some prayer requests. We meet at tables in the main office area. After the study, the tables and chairs are removed and put away.

Today, I asked Deering and Jesse (our Sr. High Youth Pastor) to leave a stack of chairs in my office since I was doing a camera training seminar this evening. I then left for a lunch meeting. When I got back, this is what I found!

I sent an email to the staff letting them know just how funny Deering is...Deering immediately replied that he didn't do it. Then Jesse came by my office and with a smirk on his face (you'd have to know Jesse to fully comprehend the look I'm referring to), innocently asked how my stack of chairs was. He then immediately claimed he tried to talk Deering out of it.

It became obvious right away whose idea it was. But I know Deering well enough to know that he helped. Deering Dyer (and Jesse Rider) is a funny, funny guy!

Anatomy of a Music Video

2010-01-18T21:35:00.001-05:00

So by now, most of you have probably seen the video we played this weekend prior to Tim's new message series based on Ephesians. My recent post gave a glimpse into the creation of the video.

I added up how much time I have invested in this video...12 hours. This includes preplanning the shots, locations and props plus shooting on Monday afternoon, Wednesday morning and Wednesday afternoon, as well as editing on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I finished the video on Thursday and the band rehearsed with it that evening. The song is very fast paced and the band had some trouble doing it at the tempo of the original. So, I recorded our band performing the song and did a few minor editing changes on Friday.

On Saturday afternoon, the band played Suzy's Diet...I mean Deering's Diet as the first song in their rehearsal. We played the newly edited version and they nailed it! The tech team had one more chance to practice it and it matched up perfectly.

Deering's Diet from Steve Browning on Vimeo.

A few notes about the video...first, we kind of got busted at Kroger. We went there to get the props we needed and shoot a few scenes. We got most of the shots we needed when we heard a code 179 or something like that come over the intercom. Deering mentioned we were probably busted and sure enough, a minute later the store manager and asst. manager asked us to stop shooting. You need corporate approval to video tape inside the store so we apologized, finished our shopping and left.

On Wednesday afternoon, we shot the scenes at Burger King. The manager came out and told us we couldn't shoot on their property either. No problem. I shot from the sidewalk! I actually laughed out loud when Dan did the last scene. I showed him what I wanted and he did a fantastic job!

I was not happy with some of the lighting. I should have recruited some help so I could have concentrated on directing the video and had someone else moving the equipment around. By the end of the day on Monday, I was running out of time and had to rush some of the shots. You'll notice more shadows and darker shots on Deering's face during these shots.

Watch the scene in the kitchen when Deering gets the milk out. I totally missed the fact that the light stand was in the background...and so was I! I placed the camera in the fridge and checked the viewfinder a couple of times to be sure I was getting the angle I wanted. What I missed was the fact that when I moved out of the way, I was still in the shot! Luckily I was able to blow the clip up to about 120% of the original and crop me out. You won't see me but if you look quickly you can see the light stand.

Also, notice the TV dinner. Milo changed the lyric to "Tim's Chicked Fried Steak" so I changed the box as well. I took this shot, saved it as a jpeg and then edited it in Photoshop. But in the next shot you can still see the "T" from the original box.

When Deering is eating the donuts and you see the closeup on his face, he has a 5 o'clock shadow. This scene was shot a few hours after the scenes in the break room...where he looks clean shaven. I guess Deering must be able to grow a pretty good beard!

Lastly, when Dan takes the bag out of the trash can, he actually had it hidden on him and pretends to reach into the can. I think this scene got the biggest laugh when it was shown in the 3 services!

Star Trek Phaser

2010-01-16T15:24:00.000-05:00

My son and I have been big Star Trek fans for as long as I can remember. He just sent me this video of a working phaser from the original Star Trek series. If there are any evil alien balloons out there, this will come in very handy!

My Day Off

2010-01-11T21:16:00.000-05:00

My day off this week consisted of working. Pastor Tim begins a new series this weekend so we decided to perform a song by "EverybodyDuck" called Suzy's Diet. We haven't done a video to go with a performance song for awhile so we decided to make this into a music video. We discussed several concepts including using a guy dressed in a fat suit as a woman. Ultimately, we decided to use one of our staff members as himself. Even though the song is "Suzy's Diet" we decided to make a minor change and call it Deering's Diet, using Deering Dyer, our small groups pastor.

The first week of a new series is a very time consuming week for me. I have to create a new template for message slides, walkin slides, countdown and lighting design. This is in addition to the normal prep time for a weekend. Coming off the holidays as well as 2 stand alone messages, I knew I wouldn't have time to shoot and edit a video during normal work hours. So Deering graciously agreed to come in on his day off as well.

Prep work for the video included making a detailed shot sheet, prop list and possible locations to shoot. After listening to the lyrics a couple of times I came up with a concept. I settled on a video that sticks closely to the lyrics. I was originally going to try to match the lyrics exactly. But since the song will be performed live and the shots will be fast cuts, I knew it would be better to just have some fun and not worry about matching up exactly.

One of the shots that will be in the video is Deering's weight. It will continue to get higher as the video progresses.

In order to show the weight increasing, I needed to have Deering hold items of increasing weight.
I gave him a weight, a drawer full of power supplies and even added the camera tripod wheels! I also needed to get a reaction shot when he looks down and sees how much his weight is. In order to light his face I need to reflect some light up. Turns out my shirt worked to reflect it so I didn't need to get a white board reflector.

After shooting 20 minutes of footage at the church, we headed to my house for some shots in my kitchen. I chose my kitchen since it is open enough to set up lights and have room to move around.

Poor Deering. He had to eat. And eat. And eat. He had to drink 2 Slim Fast shakes, Funyuns, Swiss Cake Rolls, Oreos, candy bars, Chicken Fried Steak, donuts, and more. As I was shooting the last shot, he said he didn't think he could eat any more. Too many takes, I guess.

Sitting Here

2010-01-07T22:22:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting on my couch watching the BCS National Championship game and surfing the net. Today, most of the staff left early due to a winter weather advisory. We have about 3 inches of new snow on the ground with 3 - 6 inches more predicted. I have a full can of fresh gas for the snowblower and am loving all this new snow.

I was somewhat concerned about my wife working in Ashland today so I gave her the 4 wheel drive Blazer. She loved it! Just in case the weather is too bad to work Friday, I copied some files onto my laptop so I can work from home if necessary.

My Day Off

2010-01-05T19:11:00.000-05:00

I managed to take 2 days off again this week! What a refreshingly novel concept...unless you get sick. Then it's just another day. OK, I didn't actually get sick. I've been feeling a little under the weather, weak and tired. But I did manage to get a few things done.

Monday afternoon, I had a few inches of snow in the driveway so I fired up the snow blower and got to it. I have a Craftsman 5hp 24 inch Dual Stage Free-Wheeling Track with electric start. This baby has 6 speeds plus 2 in reverse. You might ask, "why do you need 2 speeds in reverse?" Well, as I'm backing it out of my garage through the side door, I use the slower speed. If I'm backing up my driveway for another run, I use the faster speed. I need a powerful snow blower like this. I have a shared driveway so all the snow has to be moved to one end or the other and then off to the side my house is on. My neighbors love it too. I clear the sidewalks up and down my block with no problem.

I then took my Blazer in to get some wheel bearings replaced and have the radiator flushed and cleaned. By the time I got home I was wiped out and ready for bed. Except it was only 6pm. I ended up on the couch in my snuggie and watching television and dozing for a few hours, then went to bed. I also started taking Zicam.

Good stuff, than Zicam! I slept most of the night and woke up around 8:15. By 10am I was on the computer checking blogs and facebooking. By noon I had hit the driveway and sidewalks again (2 more inches of snow) and was bringing tubs from the attic to begin taking down Christmas decorations. In the afternoon, I caught up on bills (I absolutely love KeyBank online banking) and removed my DVD burner from my home entertainment system. Gotta send it in for repair. :(

Tomorrow it's back to work. Two services to prepare for (First Wednesday and the weekend), a music video to storyboard, and I've gotta get our storage area organized. It's gonna be a busy week.

An Issue From the Weekend

2009-12-30T19:33:00.000-05:00

After church on Sundays, we take 1 of our 3 services and upload the worship and message to our website. We create 4 separate files. An audio file of the message, 2 video files of the message (1 for streaming, 1 for download), and 1 video file of the entire service including the worship.

This weekend, Pastor Tim was feeling ill. In between the Sunday services, he told me to be ready in case he wasn't able to be here for the last service. So I cued up the DVD from the 9:30 service to the beginning of his message. As it turned out, he was feeling better so we didn't need to run the DVD. As he came to stage, I called for the DVD to run as a backup just in case.

After the service I edited the 11am service for upload to the web. I left them exporting and went home. Everything was fine...or so I thought. Our receptionist, Alissa, uploads the files on Monday morning. Then, I access them from home and make them available on our site. Tuesday evening I received a call from Julie, Pastor Tim's assistant. She told me there was a problem with the audio on the message. As I listened to it online, I realized what had happened. When I called for the DVD to run, the channel it was on wasn't muted on the record feed. Our video director caught the error and brought it down, but not before about 25 seconds of Tim live and Tim recorded both ended up together on the recording.

When I got to work this morning, I double checked and found that was the case. So I took the opening from the 9:30 service, inserted it in front of the 11:00 service and exported and uploaded the new versions. All is fixed.

What I Do

2009-12-30T19:20:00.000-05:00

Just one more day and the first decade of the 21st century is over. I came back to work today knowing that I have 2 days to get ready for the weekend as well as Tim's next series. But I also had a few volunteers coming in to get some projects finished up.

Projects for Wednesday included:
1. Set up scaffolding, take down stars hanging above stage, move to storage above offices
2. Change lighting fixtures covering back area of stage
3. Check Color Command with light out
4. Change lamps in auditorium projectors, clean filters
5. Check connections on projector in 45 Room, check feed from DVD and computer
6. Remove DVD/VCR units in Nursery, Install new units, Change TV settings
7. Re-aim Family Ministry light in Town Square
8. Finish tech schedule for 2010
9. Fix issue with audio on website from weekend
10. Create graphic design for weekend as well as new January series
11. Program lights for weekend...no Thursday rehearsal so they need to be checked with CD as close as possible

So, with the help of several volunteers, all projects complete. Now for Thursday, I just need to get Tim's message notes and finish his slides, create a new service countdown, create new pre-service walkins, fix MediaShout lyrics and cues, copy to new cue sheet, print all needed paperwork, programming meeting for January at 1:30 then go home and enjoy New Year's Eve.

I Froze My Face For Nothing

2009-12-27T21:35:00.000-05:00

Well, the saying at Crossroads is "The only thing that never changes is change." When I showed Pastor Tim the rough cut you see in the video above, he liked the concept but wasn't thrilled with the background I shot while freezing my face off. So I came up with a few other ideas using some moving backgrounds I had in my collection. Below is the final version we used at the Christmas Eve service. It was a great way to start the service!

Christmas Eve was a blast! I had to finish some last minute shopping for a few items we forgot but still arrived at the church by 1pm. There were 2 other staff members there. I had to finish getting walkin slides edited and exported from FCP, then get files ready on both CG machines, check the HVAC and aim a camera I have in the ceiling above the stage. I finished up with time to spare and actually had a chance to enjoy the preservice time this year.

When the doors opened, the people poured into the auditorium...and they kept coming. I don't think we've had this many people for a single service ever. The Sleigh Ride instrumental started at the end of the countdown. There were 2 videos created as one started the song, then we showed the band live on the screens and ended the song with the second video and a thank you message from the staff at Crossroads.

Next up we had our Youth Pastor, Jesse, do a welcome and some announcements. Then came the first and really the only technical glitch in the service. We had a drama about putting up Christmas lights. A wireless mic on one of the two actors malfunctioned so the audience could only hear part of what her lines were. But Stephanie was very professional and simply talked a bit louder and leaned in towards Doug's mic. We have a wireless hand held mic onstage for use in just such an emergency! Our worship leader Dan, snuck up behind Stephanie and handed her the mic. Without missing a beat she kept right on with everyone able to hear. And just in time too! She had about a page of dialog where she was the only one on stage.

We usually have a sound assistant in the booth who could run up and diagnose the issue, but we were short handed on Christmas Eve. As this was all happening, I'm thinking I need to run up and take care of the problem. But that wouldn't work. The booth where I sit requires me to go all the way to the other end of the auditorium to get in. I could see that the door where I would have to come in had so many people sitting and standing that I wouldn't have made it to the stage before the end of the drama anyhow!

The only other glitch happened in the 2nd service...at the beginning of the drama again! Only this time it was my fault. The video control room said they couldn't get sound during the welcome/announcements. I had Jon, the sound guy bringing up an program that should have been on for them to hear. Meanwhile, Jesse finished up and was leaving the stage. I didn't realize he had wrapped up so quickly so I called for lights to go and a video to run...oops it wasn't time for the video yet! "Stop the video...go live, go live!" Meanwhile, the actors take the stage and begin their lines. But since I had Jon distracted, he hadn't brought up their mics. "Bring up the mics, bring up the mics." Luckily we only missed the first couple of lines and the rest of the service went well.

I was bushed by the time I got home and to bed. But all in all, a great service and a great Christmas.

The Karate Kid

2009-12-26T11:43:00.000-05:00

When I got my first VCR back in the '80s, one of the movies I watched was "The Karate Kid" Now, a new version is coming out. At first I thought they can't be serious. The Karate Kid with Will Smith's son and Jackie Chan? But the trailer actually has me thinking it might be kinda cool.

My Favorite Ornament

2009-12-25T21:10:00.000-05:00

When I was still working at Blockbuster Video, my employees would give me a new Star Trek ornament at Christmas. For years my mother would give my wife and and I a special Christmas ornament each year. This is a picture of what has become my favorite one. She took a picture of our house and then had it painted onto a bulb. We still collect ornaments and now give them to our children and grandchildren.

This year they all received ornaments I picked up while I was in Bethlehem, Israel last spring. The experience of having actually been in the town where my Savior was born really hit home as I watched my children and grandchildren opening them up this morning. As I looked over the wide variety of bulbs and ornaments on my tree this year, I thought about the memories I have of receiving them from my mother and of getting new ones for my family. My new ones for this year are genuine olivewood from Bethlehem. I will have a fond memory of this Christmas as I placed them on my tree for the first time. I still try to get a new Star Trek ornament each year and even put up a special tree in my office, but this one will always be my favorite.

The Best Christmas Practical Joke

2009-12-24T13:14:00.000-05:00

I saw this on the news and just had to share it. I wish I had this kind of time to be able to pull this off. Friends gift wrapped this guy's entire apartment...towels, clock, even the food in his refrigerator.

News story

YouTube Video

12 Days of Christmas

2009-12-23T10:25:00.000-05:00

Enjoy...

I Froze My Face

2009-12-22T23:01:00.000-05:00

Today I worked on Christmas Eve services. One of the fun things we are doing is a video during an instrumental of the song "Sleigh Ride." Lori put staff faces on bodies from a Jib Jab picture and I went out with one of my fantastic volunteers, Dave, to shoot some b-roll to use with the video.
He has a truck with a sun roof so while he drove, I stood on the seat and shot footage driving down the road. Another opportunity to try out our new HVR-Z5U camera.

The temperature was around 30 degrees. Except when you have your upper body sticking out the top of a truck while driving at 35mph down the road. This is where you really find out what wind chill is! As Dave slowly accelerated, the temperature was bearable. I took the shots I had envisioned in my head moving the camera from one side of the road to the next, zooming in and out. But as he accelerated it got colder and colder. I took it as long as I could and then when my face was frozen, I ducked back into the truck. The funniest part was when Dave asked if I was thawed out yet...he had the heat cranked up and was beginning to sweat as I was just beginning to get the feeling back in my face!

I'll post the video once it's completed.

My Top Ten Christmas Shows

2009-12-20T18:02:00.000-05:00

I'm sitting in my living room waiting for some friends to come over so we can watch "Christmas Vacation" on DVD. I love to watch specials and movies at Christmas.
Here are my top ten Christmas shows in no particular order:

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation
An American Christmas Carol
Scrooged
A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Christmas Story
How the Flintstones Saved Christmas (1964)(yeah, that's right, I love this show!)
Mickey's Christmas Carol
Miracle On 34th Street (the original)
The Polar Express

Christmas Eve

2009-12-18T18:56:00.001-05:00

Less than a week until Christmas! I love the anticipation of Christmas even more than the opening of gifts on Christmas Day. But what I really love is our Christmas Eve service at Crossroads. We will have 2 services this year...7pm and 9pm. Both will be packed.

Pastor Tim asked me to record several people for a radio spot we are running. I ended up using my wife's voice. He also asked me to record the ending tag. Here are 2 versions I created. One he liked, the other he liked but didn't use. Guess which is which...

version 1

version 2

Snuggie

2009-12-16T10:43:00.000-05:00

The Magnification staff at Crossroads consists of Lori Biddle, Dan Fleming, Milo Sgambellone, Bryan Summer and me. Lori is the boss, the creative force and the cheer leader. Dan and Milo are our worship leaders and Bryan is our sound guy. Every year she has us over for dinner to celebrate our accomplishments. And every year she gives us a gift with the Crossroads logo on it. Usually it is a shirt of some kind, but this year she decided to give us all Snuggies. When I got home, I decided to try mine out...did you know the remote control for DIRECTV will work through the Snuggie?

That's My Girl!

2009-12-13T14:32:00.000-05:00

We're having a few friend over for a small Christmas gathering. I asked my daughter to vacuum the living room and when I looked over at her she was vacuuming, listening to her iPod and texting at the same time!

Funky continued...

2009-12-12T12:33:00.000-05:00