This Sunday we celebrate Pentecost, the commemoration of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples after Christ’s ascension. Some call this the “birthday of the church”. If you’re remembering Pentecost in your services this weekend, these great mini-movies can help you tell the story:
The Story of Pentecost by Dan Stevers
Pentecost by Centerline New Media
Check out all of our great Pentecost media, including motions, countdowns and more here.
Hi friends,
It’s been a while, so we thought it would be fun to do a little trivia giveaway!
So brush up on your Memorial Day history, because we will be giving away a $25 promo code and 4 WorshipHouse T-shirts for the winner and their media team.
Leave your answers in the comment section! One winner will be chosen at random on Tuesday, May 29.
And don’t forget to head on over to the Memorial Day Seasonal Store, to check out all the beautiful new mini movies that honor those who have given their lives to faithfully serve our country.
Here we go:
1. Which historical event started the first Memorial Day in the US?
2. Who first declared Memorial Day a holiday?
Good luck!
Most of our motion backgrounds are loops, meaning that they play for about thirty seconds and then loop back around to create an unlimited seamless background. These are really great when you want to create a continuous feel that isn’t overly noticeable.
BUT… sometimes you want the image on the screen to be a focal point, to expand your worship in ways that only a moving picture can do. Here are a couple of ways I use long play motion loops in services to add visual depth to worship.
1. Take a song beyond familiarity.
At my church, we’ve done “Come Thou Fount” about 1,245 times. We do a slow version that lends itself to reflection, so – this week – I threw the lyrics toward the bottom of the screen and played the Wondrous Long Play Motion Background. Beautiful scenes of mountains and water add a depth of imagery to the worship experience. Use motions like this to bring a familiar song to life.
2. Deepen the Offertory.
It’s that time of the service. The ushers are passing the plate, and a musician has ascended to the platform to perform what is often referred to as “Special Music”. This will be a performance of some sort – a time when the congregation will not sing along, but will focus on the piece being performed. But, why not give the congregation a little something more to focus on? I like to throw a long play motion background on the screen to add some texture to the piece of music being played. If the song has to do with the cross, Shift Worship’s Cross Long Play is a great visual element to add.
You have these big screens at your church, and you don’t HAVE to fill them at all times – BUT – you can use the screens to add a little visual texture to your service. Long plays are a great way to do this.
I stumbled across an awesome post over at Churcm.ag today. The good folks at iMinistries crunched the numbers on the sites they build and manage for churches and ministries and found some really interesting data that we think will be super helpful for your church. They even made a cool infographic (below). Read the full article here.
There’s an incredible sale going at WorshipHouse right now that you do not want to miss! Through the end of May, you can get any (or all) motions from Church Motion Graphics at 25% off. This is a great opportunity for you and your church to stock up on some really great backgrounds and splash screens that you can use all year.
Check out the sale here.
Service Packs, Theme Packs, Matching Collections, Thing-a-bobs… whatever you call it… they are great! I use them at my church on the occasion I run media. Basically, they are a collection of media elements that match a theme. I love it when they have motions, stills, AND a countdown so all of the digital media (at least the more background stuff) can have a really cohesive look. I love them because the producer has already done the work of putting together your visual media and it is really cost effective compared to buying the individual loops.
I recently used a new service pack by Centerline New Media and below is a sample of the slides to give you an idea. I got a ton of compliments on the visuals that week, and highly recommend using one of these handy “Thing-a-bobs”.
You can see that they all have a similar look although they are a bit different and come from different parts of the worship service:
This is all from Service Pack Volume 7.
Let us know if you have used a Collection of similar videos or imagery and how it worked for you!
I’m really lucky. Our church is overflowing with all kinds of talented folks, and I get to split the service media responsibilities 50/50 with another guy (who has a great eye for design). Every other week I get to emerge from the booth and just participate in the service.
I realize not everyone has that luxury.
Having said that – stop thinking of some time off as a luxury, and consider it a necessity.
If you want to do something really good for your soul, take a week off every now and then. I’m not talking about vacation or a sick day. Take a day off and just sit in your church. Don’t critique your stand-in. Worship. Breathe. Enjoy the service without worrying about making sure everything goes off without a hitch.
This time of refreshing will make you a better media guy next week. And the week after that.
How do you handle time off in your media ministry?
If it seems like Mother’s Day was just yesterday… well then… I have news for you. It wasn’t! Mother’s Day is this weekend (the 13th). Thankfully you still have a few days to pick something up for that special mom (whether she be your mom, wife, grandmother, etc) to remind her of just how great she is! You also have time to pick out the perfect mini-movie to share with your congregation this Sunday if you haven’t already done so!
Once again Dale and Luke each take a minute to talk about three of their favorite Mother’s Day Mini-Movies! In fact, that is exactly what they do!
Dale’s Top 3 – humor edition
“Jedi Mom” by Shift Worship
“Your Momma” by Soul Refinery
“A Mother’s Day Moment” by Igniter Media
Luke’s Top 3
“Thank You Mom” by The Skit Guys
“In Her Steps” by Journey Box Media
“Very Special Mommy” By Steelehouse Media
background image still:
“Engage Paper Background” by Church Motion Graphics
For a while after I became a mother, I had a hard time. I was anxious all the time; I let myself get caught up in what other people thought, and constantly questioned my decisions. I struggled with my identity.
But sometimes at night, I would go into my sleeping daughter’s bedroom and pick her up. I’d hold her, pray for her, and think about how precious she is to me. And then I’d be reminded of how precious I must be to my Father. I hold deep value in God’s eyes. And so does every mother.
So I was really thankful to see this beautiful new Mother’s Day mini movie by Floodgate, The Value Of a Mom. I sincerely appreciate the shout-out to moms who don’t have it all together! And to those who do, this is for you too! We are all beautifully unique, and God cherishes every one of us.
Take a look:
Check out all our great Mother’s Day content in the Seasonal Store!
The following is a guest post from Helen Kendall. Helen Kendall is based in Manchester England and is part of the iSingWorship team for Innervation Trust. Helen has been with Innervation since 2001 working with schools bands and touring bands both performing and doing bookings and promotions. She has co-authored a series of 12 Youth Bible study guides and originally trained in California as a mime artist.
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For the last 25 years we’ve been working in Christian music in the UK, setting up bands and music projects that tour churches, schools, prisons and most other venue’s in between. We’ve been in countless churches, festivals and events all over the world and over the years we’ve been asked loads of times if we produce backing tracks for other people to perform or worship to. Back in 1999 we followed up an album by the World Wide Message Tribe with a series of albums called, “Jumping in the house of God” and, “RE:Source” that provided dance versions of popular worship songs as backing tracks for people to use. These were popular but we were really frustrated by the lack of flexibility in the tracks, how can you really worship authentically when everything about the song has already been decided?
We never really had an answer to the problem but felt there must be a better way of doing things, worship tracks for people without bands, but easy to use and flexible. Years went by and finally along came the iPhone 4, the App, the iPad and suddenly the game changed! We realized that by partnering our music production and industry experience with the skills of Lawrence Porter, a local computer programmer, something beautiful could happen! So, we dreamed together, planned together and finally after a lot of trial and error, recording, programming and testing iSingWorship was released in December 2011.
It’s the first of its kind, an App that provides totally flexible backing tracks for worship with lyric projection. You can repeat a chorus, let a quiet instrumental play or end a song by going back to the first verse. You can even turn off the guitar and vocal if you want to play or sing along. The music is as professional as any top worship CD and there are loads of development ideas for the future. It’s free to download from Apple’s App store and for a limited time there’s a free song up there so see what you think. If you like the app you can buy songs from the in App store.
