New Media Ministry » Blogging

An Interview with a Pro: Jayme Braun – Audio Engineer

Nick Heller — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:15:46 +0000

Welcome back everyone! I hope you’re having a wonderful week. I just returned home from a great night out with my wife, and good friend Jayme Braun. He was in town with his band for a gig they had at the FBR (Phoenix) Open and invited us over to see the show. It was great to see him and witness the expertise he brings to production work and the industry.

An Interview with a Pro

I asked Jayme a few weeks ago if he would be willing to take some time and be a guest blogger here at New Media Ministry and he was very excited. Without further ado, I wanted to share some insight he gave me in a recent interview about production, ministry, and the marriage of the two:

Me: Jayme, I’ve known you for a few years now. We became friends while working on a short ministry tour for ADORE Ministries, Matt Maher, and others back in late 2007. For me, it was a first experience with larger scale tour productions, tour buses, the whole nine… for you, it’s a pretty normal occurrence. Tell me first – how did you get involved in production?

Jayme: I was the singer in a band just after I graduated from high school. Our drummer had a friend that had a recording studio and had a bunch of live sound gear. He taught me how to hook it all up and let us use it when our band played. I was the only one there the day he showed me how to use the gear so I was the one that always ended up setting it up. I really enjoyed the tech part of it so I started working for my church doing the sound for many different services. My church in Florida was a large conference center and had a lot of bands and speakers come through, so I guess I cut my teeth there. It was a great experience and is what lead me to go to school for Audio and Film Production.

Me: It sounds like, then, that church and serving as part of a ministry have been a part of your life for awhile. How did you first get involved in ministry? And how do ministry and production work together?

Jayme: I grew up as a Preacher’s kid, so I have been around the ministry my entire life. Even though it was always a part of my life, it wasn’t until 1995 that I really started to understand and serve God with more then just my lips and fear of my dad’s disappointment. I began to understand that it was about a relationship with Jesus – not just a list of do’s and don’ts, or even how often I went to church. When I started getting the relationship thing down, that’s when I began to be more involved in ministry. As I spent more time with God on my own, it birthed a new vision and passion in me: a vision to help the body of Christ in the things of the technical, and a passion to do it with excellence.

Being a sound engineer and a Christ-follower has given me the opportunity to serve in so many different arenas – from mega-churches to traveling the world with worship leaders from all walks of faith. It has really given me the ability to serve the Kingdom with my talents and make a difference in both a church and secular setting.

Me: I’m right there with you. Our God and His people deserve our very best. You’ve taken that idea to the next level. With the help of your partner and co-founder Tim Ranson, you’ve created a company called Winning in Worship. Tell me about that.

Jayme: Winning in Worship came out of a time in my life where God was speaking to me about the spiritual climate of the United States. He said to me, if just 25% of His people could corporately reach His throne every week, the spiritual climate shift would be staggering. And then He said this: The problem is in the Technical. That blew me away because that’s what I do. That’s my job and my talent. He then told me that every week the church as a whole is losing in worship because of the technical. I felt compelled to ask God how to win that battle in worship and the response was to train people – like me – that are behind the scenes to serve with passion and excellence.

It was shortly after that Tim and Jenifer Ranson came into my life (Tim owns Delta Stage and Lighting in Nashville, Tn.). It was obvious right away that we both shared the same vision to serve the body of Christ with passion and excellence, and Winning in Worship (WIW) was born. WiW is a technical training company started for the purpose of training the volunteers and staff that run the sound, lighting and video of churches and conferences. We also do full service installation of audio, video and lighting. There have been so many installation and training companies that have taken advantage of churches in the past that we wanted to offer excellence, integrity and quality with a cost efficient approach.

It has been such a blessing to serve the Church with our gifting and train others to do the same. We have seen first hand the difference that a well-trained engineer makes during a Sunday worship service, as well as for concerts and conferences. We developed a DVD series for both Audio and Lighting that could be considered similar to a 101 level course for any engineer. Whether you have never touched a sound console before or you have been mixing for ten years, the DVD series can benefit anyone.

Me: I’ve had the opportunity to watch a few of your short tutorials and they’re really great. I might have to pull your arm a little in the near future and get those posted here at New Media Ministry! Thanks for your time. I look forward to featuring your blogs about audio and your experience in production settings, but I think I’m more excited to continue to share your story and passion for serving God’s people.

Jayme: You got it. I’m excited to contribute and be a part of New Media Ministry in any way I can. Thanks for having me.

=====================

Jayme Braun has been an audio engineer and production manager for several years, serving several highly publicized bands (Switchfoot, Israel & New Breed, Emerson Drive). He is co-owner of Vanguard Recording – a live recording company based out of Nashville and co-founder of “Winning In Worship” – a training company dedicated to bringing technical excellence to the Church. Jayme, his wife, and their beautiful new daughter reside in Brentwood, Tn. They attend the nearby Oasis Church where Jayme also serves on staff.

* NOTE: Jayme actually gave me some GREAT content on common mistakes/pitfalls he sees when working churches/venues. I’ll be posting that information early next week. *

For more information on Winning in Worship, please visit: www.WinningInWorship.com.

Jayme is also co-owner of Vanguard Recordings – a live recording company. Information about Vanguard Recording can be found at: www.vanguardrecording.com

What’s the ‘buzz’ about Buzz?

Chris Faddis — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 21:17:03 +0000

If you are a GMail user, you most likely have seen a new little icon pop up on your menu bar for “Buzz” – or perhaps logged on and got a pop up message about setting up “Buzz”.

So what is Google Buzz exactly and how is it supposed to improve my life? Is it the same as “wave” or something entirely different? Many friends asked, “So is this like “Facebook News-feed” in Gmail?”

Well, the answer to all of those is yes and no.

Buzz is essentially both a “micro-blogging” and “chat” tool all in one. You can post news and updates to buzz just like Twitter or Facebook, or you can post your thought for the day, pictures, videos, links, etc. It is entirely up to you. You can make your posts public or private and even set up private groups to have a threaded conversation. Buzz can pull in updates from other social networking sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Picasa. It also will automatically share your “shared items” from Google Reader.

Google still has work to do

While Google is obviously doing its best to compete with services like Twitter and Facebook, it has a long way to go before Buzz will be much of a comparable option. Personally I am not sure how much time I have for yet another service to help me social network. I already use Google Chat, Facebook, and Twitter, plus run three websites and co-manage another. How do you find time to have real conversations when trying to manage all of these virtual ones?

Buzz has its place

I do think it will find its place in my life and probably many others. I can already see how it would be beneficial when working with a team on a project. To set up a private conversation that can continue in nested form, would be very helpful. For youth ministers, I could see this being a great tool in communicating with your core team members. I could also see this as being well utilized in communicating amongst staff members.

Open Up!

One thing that Google did not do with Buzz that would make me more likely to use it is to make it more open. As this PC World article points out, it is “open except for when its not.” An open social networking platform is one that allows you to post to other platforms simultaneously. For instance, when I post to Twitter, I can set it up to post directly to my Facebook account at the same time. I can also set Facebook to do the same thing in posting to twitter or other platforms. With Google Buzz, you can’t do that. You can however, post a note to Twitter and it will appear in Google, as well as post a video to YouTube or pictures to Picasa and those will also post to Buzz. Why Google didn’t set it up to go the other way is beyond me. I can only hope that they are moving in that direction.

Buzz operates within Gmail, which is good if you’re like me and your entire life (email, calendar, documents, reader, etc.) is run through Google applications. It makes chatting or commenting on posts that much easier. However, what is not good about that is that you can’t invite non-gmailers into that conversation and since it isn’t an open platform it will not be shared in other social networks.

Other Concerns

A few other sites and bloggers have also raised several privacy concerns. For one, while Google claims you can set your status to be private or public, having a private status essentially means you can’t be a part of any conversations. So, if you are set up as “private” and your friend posts something that is listed as “public” then you will not be able to comment without making your status public. Melissa Wiley has raised some very valid concerns regarding this set up for parents. You can read more about that here. You can find some guidance for setting up privacy settings at MSNBC.

In the end I think Google will figure this all out and find its way into all of our lives with yet another tool. But, they have a long way to go. I’d love to hear how you decide to utilize Buzz and even your initial thoughts. You can post your comments below.

Questions to ponder:

What are some good uses for Buzz that you see down the road?

Can you see this being a valuable tool for ministry?

What concerns would you have about using buzz for ministry (especially with youth)?

Do you plan to use buzz?

Introducing: Audio/Video/Production Blogs!

Nick Heller — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 07:00:41 +0000

I’m finally back!

Hello readers and friends,

It’s been a few weeks since I last surfaced here at NMM.com. Please, forgive me. It’s been a CRAZY hectic time in my life (my wife and I bought a house, I’ve been knee deep in work for the Cardinals even though its the off-season, school is back in session, various other design projects are stacking up on my plate, etc…sigh… that’s alot!). I am VERY excited to be back with you and am also excited to bring you the newest installment to my contribution to the new media ministry blogisphere.

Drum roll please!….

Oh, that’s right. You probably already read the title! Welcome to the Audio/Visual & Production side of my blogs!

I’ve got some great segments in store. Everything from quick lessons, and video tutorials… interviews with guests who lead in the industry of Christian music and presentations (on the production side of course. No interviews with Chris Tomlin YET), as well as reference guides and some tips from my experience over the past 5 years, there will be PLENTY to talk about.

I’m excited to share this part of my life and most especially the passion I have for creating quality and memorable moments in ministry settings that can be achieved through A/V & Production skills. Please check back often over the next few weeks. Loads of new content/interviews/information will be coming your way.

I need YOUR help.

Leave me a comment. Or have the guy/gal who volunteers to run the sound board at your church for your service or mass… have him/her leave a comment. I want to know what you all need help with, would like to hear about, or have recommended to you. Comments are a great help in preparing topics and blogs that fit the need of you – our most important readers.

Thanks again and God’s peace.

Becoming a “Digital Evangelist”

Chris Faddis — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:55:17 +0000

Building Relationships and the Ministry of Presence

I have been in ministry for twelve years now. Most of that time has been spent working in parish youth ministry. One of the best things about parish ministry is the long term investment in people’s lives. Getting to know not only teens, but families and watching them grow. It is amazing how time and presence can lead to some incredibly life-giving relationships. I still am in touch with so many of these teens and families from over the years, and while I wish I would have been a little better at keeping in touch with more of those beautiful people that I’ve encountered I am ever grateful for those who I have been able to keep in touch with.

As a Catholic speaker it is very different. You go into a parish or event, you spend a couple hours, or maybe a day or two with a community and hopefully inspire and enliven their community. Then, you leave. Sometimes you come back, but most times you don’t. I often felt a bit of guilt going into a community and then leaving with no way of keeping in communication. I would leave a community and feel a longing to keep in touch, to leave behind something to help them continue the journey. Some communities didn’t need that because they had vibrant ministries going on to serve the people, they just needed a little spark or spiritual boost. For some communities, they didn’t have much going on in the way of active ministry for teens or adults. Often, this was the only retreat they got. I often wondered about the teens and adults that I would meet at these events, those who came forward for prayer or wrote to me later. I often wondered how they were, where they were, and if they were still on the journey.

Entering the New Media Age

A year ago I realized that I was missing out on some incredible opportunities to minister and write (which is a long time passion of mine) through a blog. At the time I had no clue how or if it would go anywhere or if anyone would actually read my blog. I wrote a few articles here and there and enjoyed the new found medium. My traffic was of course extremely low but I was finally writing on a semi-regular basis which is something I had wanted to do for some time.

Shortly after beginning to blog I learned more about Twitter and began to utilize it. Within two weeks I was connected with a couple hundred like minded people and my blog traffic began to jump. Aside from the little ego boost that came with a blog with regular followers, the most amazing thing was how I came to see that this new found ministry was helping people and that I was able to minister to people I had never even met before. Through emails I received, direct messages via Twitter and comments on my blog people were reaching out for help, for guidance, and mostly for prayer.

Finally I was doing what I had longed for when I was traveling and speaking – I was building relationships with God’s people even if they didn’t attend my church or live in my area.

The Digital Evangelist

I realized about six months into this “digital ministry” how much impact one could have just by sharing their faith on what Pope Benedict has termed, the “digital continent”. I would post a note on Facebook with one of my blogs, or a recorded talk and I would get an email a few days later from an old high school friend sharing about where they are or thanking me for my faith, or asking me a faith question. I would write a post or post a note on twitter and get a heartfelt response from a person two thousand miles away who said it was exactly what they needed in that moment.

Recently after reading Pope Benedict’s message for World Communications Day which is May 16th, I realized what we who do this “online ministry” are, we are “Digital Evangelists”. We are like St. Paul, Timothy, Titus, Fr. Keno, and countless thousands of missionaries and evangelists who walked this earth to spread the message of the gospel. Only we don’t walk. We tweet, we blog, we Facebook, we chat, we Skype, we podcast, we Ustream, we text, we youtube, we webcast, and the list goes on.

In his message for World Communications Day, Pope Benedict writes, “Priests (and laypeople) are thus challenged to proclaim the Gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources (images, videos, animated features, blogs, websites) which, alongside traditional means, can open up broad new vistas for dialogue, evangelization and catechesis.”

A couple of weeks ago we posted an article by Todd Lemieux, titled “Why New Media Will Make You Holier”, in which Todd points out that the new or digital media can make you Holier because it offers so many opportunities for information, community, support, encouragement, accountability, and more. Todd is absolutely correct, the new media has provided a whole new opportunity for people to connect with the Truth.

The Problem is that there still is a lot of noise out there. In fact, there is probably one hundred times more noise and false truths available online then real truth.

That’s why the Church needs to rise up and evangelize this “digital continent”. If you are in ministry, or you feel called to ministry and you are not currently involved in “digital evangelization”, then start praying about how God might use you for this great work. This work will not replace the face to face, life-long evangelization that is already going on, but it is needed to supplement it.

We need to rise up and, as Pope Benedict put it, “give a soul” to the “digital continent.”

Stay tuned over the next two weeks as I break open how to be a “digital evangelist”. I would love your ideas and feedback on how you have “walked this digital continent” as well. You can leave comments here or email me.

Where Do I Start? – Publishing Your Website

Matt Brown — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 14:45:53 +0000

Today we continue our series on the site called “Where to Start?” Where to Start? is a step by step series that helps you build a website from scratch on your own by giving you a variety of options to choose from.

Follow the Series Step by Step:

Now What?

So you’ve spent a few hours working on setting up your new WordPress blog. You’re now (hopefully) more motivated than ever to get your site up and running to help manage your ministry and put some resources online. But there are still some things to do before you’re ready to go.

We’ve put together a quick run through of some things to work on before launching your site. As always, if you have any questions, give us a shout in the comments.

Add Categories: Add the categories for your blog. Remember to keep it neat and add not more than 15-20 categories. This helps to organize your site as your amount of content grows over time.
Add an About Page: An about page is one of the most important pages of a site because readers need to know about the person who’s site they are reading and what the site is about.
Install All In One SEO Pack: Install the latest version of All In One SEO Pack WordPress plugin and optimize your new site from the beginning itself. Remember to visit the plugin’s option page.
Customize Permalink Structure: Choose a good Permalink Structure and stick with it. Here are some examples of good Permalinks: /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/ /%postname%/ If you change your permalink structure after you have been linked by other sites, those links won’t work anymore. So remember to stick with the Permalink Structure you chose in the beginning. We use the /%postname%/ permastructure here on New Media Ministry, which allows posts to show up as “http://www.newmediaministry.com/nameofthepost”
Create a FeedBurner feed for your site: Login to FeedBurner and create a FeedBurner feed for your new site
Install the FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin: The FeedBurner FeedSmith plugin detects all ways to access your original WordPress feeds and redirects them to your FeedBurner feed so you can track every possible subscriber
Put a RSS button on your blog: Choose an RSS button and put it on your site linking it to your FeedBurner feed
Start Writing: What’s a website without content? Start writing content for various pages!
Install the Google Sitemaps plugin: This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress site which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. Download the latest version of the plugin from here.
Add your Sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools: Add your new site to Google Webmaster Tools and then your sitemap too. Once you add your site, you will be able to find when Googlebot last successfully accessed your home page, web crawl errors, etc.
Set preferred domain: Select your site from your Google Webmaster Tools dashboard and set your preferred domain (with or without www) by going to Tools>Set preferred domain.
Install Akismet plugin: Download and install Akismet plugin to catch comment spam. Akismet has caught 200 spam comments on this site in the last 3 weeks since we launched.
Add a Contact form: Install a plugin that adds a contact form to your blog so that your readers can get in touch with you. We use C Forms WordPress Plugin.
Install Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a great free way to check your site traffic. Signup for a free Google Analytics account, install this plugin, configure it for your site, and then voila, you’ll be able to track who all comes to your site.

Experience WordPress users: Have I missed anything? If so, give me a shout below and let me know!

Why Should I Invest Time and Money?

Matt Brown — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:31:00 +0000

If you’ve been following our new site for the last few weeks, you’re well aware that we’ve shared some great articles and resources with you (at least we think we have!). But, being in that we’ve all been involved in ministry in some way shape or form, we are all well aware of what you’re first reaction is – It sounds great, but I would rather spend my small budget in a better way.

Well, I’m here to tell you today why New Media needs to be one of the top items in your budget.

It’s Not Just a Fad

The biggest hesitation that I’ve run into both socially and professionally with my own clients’ hesitation to invest time or money is that they see things like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, Youtube, etc. as a fad. In their minds, as soon as they finally spend the money and finally get around to launching, everyone will have moved on to the next greatest thing. If you’re one of these people, I invite you to check out the following video. This video is put together with facts and data from Summer of 2009, but the numbers are astonishing. Simply put, you can probably be safe just doubling each number to find current data.

So Why Invest?

Hopefully, this video will help you realize that some of the social media facts and figures that are presented in here are hard to ignore. But you still might be asking yourself a few questions, especially given the current economic climate. Even though things are looking a little less gloomy, many of you are operating on budgets that are still crunched from the past year.

The folks over at MinistryBestPractices.com have come up with 3 ROI Quality Goals and Objectives for churches and ministries investing in Social Media. They identified three main reasons for you to invest in Social Media which we’ll expand upon.

Communication

One of the two main foundations of Social Media s the fact that it allows people to communicate. It provides simple foundations and tools for you to use to get your message out as well as the message of your ministry.

If you’re one of those people that says, “my church already has communication methods – we communicate via Sunday morning platform, bulletins, mailings, phone calls, emails, face-to-face conversations, television, radio etc…” I would challenge your argument with these few reasons due to the fact that Social Media has some unique benefits all it’s own in effectively communicating:

It’s Easy and Effortless – it doesn’t take much money or manpower to implement or use it.
It’s Ubiquitous – since it is so available and pervasive it isn’t hard for people to miss the message.
It’s Variety – social media takes many different forms, words, audio and image.
It’s Viral – the beauty of social media is that your message can expand well beyond it’s intended audience – therefore exposing and introducing new people to your cause and community.

Connection

I would venture to say that the biggest reason to use Social Media is connection: connecting with other people, other resources, etc. Social Media is all about sharing and connecting. In the same way you try to create a community-like environment in your own ministry, Social Media is another tool to use in your effort to connect your community.

Unlike some methods of communication, like bulletins, mailings, emails, etc, which most often pushes information in a “one-way” direction, connecting must create a conversation. Will Social Media create conversation within the community? Are people able to talk to you the minister/ministry team leader? Can they talk to one another? I think if you’re involved with ministry, then you will be able to answer yes to every one of these questions. Also, these are other key elements that play a major role in connecting in your ministry via Social Media:

Contribute – can others contribute in helpful and meaningful ways to the conversation? Are they even able to shape the conversation?
Collaborate - does your social media allow the benefits from the collective hive of experience, skills and knowledge from your community?

Call to Action

The final goal of Social Media activity must prompt people to do something; it can’t be passive. You have to connect with someone or something, initiate some sort of conversation, and then have some result come out of those efforts Some of these calls to action might include:

Go - are you asking someone to go and serve others in some way?
Give - are you asking someone to give either of their time or financially to the cause?
Pray – are you calling people to act in concerted and persevering prayer?
Mobilize – are you asking people to spread the message of the cause to their friends and networks?

Conclusion

Hopefully some of you that are sitting on the fence about whether or not to start are helped by this article. If you’re one of those people that say “Hey, I want to start but have no idea where?”, I would recommend getting onto Facebook right now. If you want to get a little ambitious, get on Twitter. Run your ministry efforts there first while following our Where Do I Start? series to learn how to get your ministry website off the ground and up and running. Once we show you how to get a website, we’ll continue that series with a lot of cool other tools to intergrate to help you grow your online ministry.

As always, if you have any questions or hesitations, give us a shout – leave a comment below, contact us individually, send us a message on Facebook or send us a Tweet. We’re here to help you grow your ministry.

Guest Post: Why New Media Will Make You Holier

Todd Lemieux — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:00:01 +0000

This is a guest post written by Todd Lemieux. Todd has been involved in youth ministry for over ten years. Recently, he founded The Sainthood Project and The Sainthood Challenge as a way for people to come together to change the world. He and and his wife Dominique have been married for six years and currently live on Long Island with their daughters Gianna and Gabriella.

Why New Media Will Make You Holier

For all of the attention New Media is getting, I don’t see very many articles that are espousing the virtues of things like Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter.

What I see a lot of is how they are going to corrupt the world. How we will have too much access to each other and with that type of transparency and access, it is only going to lead to a gravitational pull downwards as we lose our grip on morality.

Hogwash.

I’m here to say that the internet has actually led me closer to Jesus. This is why:

Someone is watching. One of the biggest problems with sin is we think we can get away with it, that no one is watching. You seldom see people do things when others are watching unless they want the other people to see what they are doing. I have had multiple incidents in the last year where someone has written me or challenged me that my behavior may not be moving me towards sainthood. Voila! Ingrained accountability! Of course, this assumes that you are moving from bad to good to better to best when it comes to the spiritual life and moral virtue. If you have not made a statement that you wish to do so, then your scandalous behavior that you exhibit is only a cheap thrill for others who may laugh at you. So be better. Someone is watching.
Exposure to information. I have never seen a time when I have less of an excuse to know what is going on in the Church or what the Church teaches as revealed by God. Readings for the day? The Catechism? The Conference of Bishops? The Vatican? Catholic news? Moral teaching? Prayers? We are nearing a point when a degree is almost pointless since most anyone can get any piece of information that they want within seconds ON THEIR PHONE! Think about the statement you just read. 2000 years of Church history and documents on your phone. We no longer have the excuse to say “I didn’t know!”
Prayer. Prayer intentions are passed around at an amazingly fast rate. I saw this with my kidney donation. The power of prayer is exponentially increased by the access to prayer intentions. That being said, please pray for a young child under the age of two who was beaten and is in a coma.
The Darkness meets the Light. If someone is struggling, I haven’t seen a more supportive group of people then the ones on social media. They don’t even have to be Catholic. Or Christian. I posted a while back that I was struggling. The outpouring of support was tremendous.
Questions get answered. Have a question that you need answered about the faith? I don’t think you could have that question on Twitter for more than one minute without an answer. That’s impressive to me.
I know what’s going on. News. Events. The plain and simple fact is that I know what is going on. I work for a parish part time and they are going to be getting a dose of new media in the coming year. Every event in the parish on Facebook and Twitter. You are literally able to reach your entire “flock” in seconds. Emergency announcements, the entire deal. If there is a Bible study… I’ll find it.

The point, in the end, is this. The choice to have a better prayer life, the choice to turn our will to God is up to us. The choice to have a better experience on the internet with new media is up to us as well. We can either decide to lie to others, be crass, and in general bring down the quality of the relationships we have via new media, or we can use it to build each other up.

It is the same decision we have to make in our everyday life.

If you are involved in ministry and you are not engaging the media to bring Christ to those around you, then not only are you missing out, but so are the people you serve.

Make the choice today to be better than yesterday. Not just in your life, but in your digital life as well.

New Color Trends to Watch

Nick Heller — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:00:35 +0000

“Should old acquaintance be forgot”? What kind of lyric is that? Why are we going to forget anyone? That seems ridiculous!! Okay. It’s not old, it’s auld… and I don’t even know what that means. What I DO know is that it’s 2010 and we’re at the front of a whole new decade; Happy New Year everyone.

With a new year and a new decade come new trends: trends in fashion, music, film and so on. It is vital to follow not only these trends, but also trends specific to design and marketing when creating pieces for your ministry. As I discussed last week, continuing to stay relevant is essential in the success of your promotional ads and artwork.

One of the best ways to follow design and marketing trends is to pay attention to color trends. Color can speak more than the information given if used well, and it can also turn your audience’s attention away if used poorly.

One of my favorite websites is www.colourlovers.com. Colour Lovers is a great resource for all types of designers. They offer a wide selection of information and content ranging from color palettes to patterns and to current trends. There’s a great section on trends in magazine and website design that shows current covers/pictures with their corresponding color palettes.

I try to use ColourLovers or a site like it in my research for projects often. In my book, there’s hardly anything new under the sun; just new takes on the old concepts. When it comes to color, use combinations that work and have worked in the past. Find palettes and patterns that have stood the test of large publications and websites.

Some helpful links:

Colour Lovers: www.colourlovers.com

Some Good Color Theory Concepts: www.colormatters.com

Pantone Colors for Print: www.pantone.com

Web Smart Color Wheel: www.ficml.org

Gain Reader Suggestions: Use Skribit

Matt Brown — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 15:00:56 +0000

As ministers, it’s important for you to recognize those who you are ministering to. You need to be able to interact with them and take their suggestions in as open of a way as possible. A simple rule of thumb to keep in mind is that a good minister is an accessible minister.

Being open and accessible transfers from your in-person ministry to your online presence. There are a variety of tools available online to help you with a variety of methods of staying accessible. However, there aren’t many tools to help you figure out what you should write about and the types of content that those who you minister to are most interested in you providing. That’s where Skribit comes into play – it takes reader participation to a whole new level.

What Does Skribit Do?

Skribit helps you get suggestions from readers and then others can vote for them. For example, one reader could suggest that you video-blog and other readers who like the idea can vote for it. Readers have a chance to easily drop in their questions/interests, and you get benefit as a blogger too – yes, you can get ideas for posts! Skribit can aid in beating writer’s block.

How Do I Get Skribit?

Upon signing up for Skribit, you’ll be taken to a page from where you can add your blog by clicking on the “Add New Blog/Website” option on the left side of your dashboard, which is pictured below.

You will then be directed to a page where you will enter the details of your blog or website. Enter a quick “elevator-pitch” of your blog in under 200 characters. Be sure to enter some tags that describe your website or blog so that your site can be found among other Skribit users.

You will next notice three checkbox privacy options below your blog details. Feel free to fill these out according to the level of privacy and security that you would like.

If you leave the “Allow Anonymous Suggestions” checkbox checked, you’ll be able to receive suggestions from all readers – even readers who don’t want to register themselves at Skribit will be able to vote and contribute suggestions to you using the widget. I highly recommend allowing anonymous suggestions.

On the next step, you’ll be presented with a variety of options to customize the widget that will appear on your website or blog. There are two options, a Sidebar Widget or a Floating Suggestions Tab. We have the Suggestions Tab on the New Media Ministry, which you will see floating on the right side of your screen.

Once you decide how you would like to present Skribit to your readers, make sure that the correct tab is chose on the right side of your customization screen – either “Regular Sidebar Widget” or “Suggestions Tab”.

To customize the widget, you’ll fill out the variety of options under the “Customize Your Widget” section on the left side of the screen. The options are fairly self-explanatory. This is where you will change the way the Skribit widget looks on your blog.

As you can see from the screenshot above, you can change the number of suggestions, the order of suggestions, the header text, the colors and basically “skin” the widget and make it blend in with your blog’s template.

You now need to get the code for the widget and add it to your page. Skribit provides a nice tool to easily copy the entire code segment by clicking the website.

If you are not very familiar with any type of website coding, you’ll want to follow the detailed instructions link provided below the box.

If you are familiar with website coding, you’ll need to copy and paste the entire code segment in your field somewhere before the tag. That’s all you have to do.

Readers who visit your blog or website can now leave their suggestions using your Skribit widget. Clicking on your respective Skribit widget, a text box will appear where they can type in their suggestions and click “Submit”. Once that’s done, the suggestion will appear on the widget. Other visitors will be able to vote for their favorite suggestions by clicking on the “Vote” button next to each suggestion.

You’ll be able to see the suggestions left by readers from your Skribit management page after you’ve logged in. Furthermore, you can also see who’s left the suggestion (must be either a Skribit user or an anonymous reader) and also check how many votes each idea has got.

Skribit will also email you every week with a report of suggested reader topics and votes. You can now estimate reader participation and interest, and what kind of posts your readers would want – thanks to Skribit.

How Can I Use It?

Skribit is a valuable tool. It’s original use was to provide a resource to help readers suggest content for you as a well to help prevent “writer’s block.” But from a ministry perspective, Skribit can also be utilized in a very valuable way. We all know that in the teenage years, different teens are at different stages in their comfort levels, so there may be a teen that is too nervous or lacks the confidence to come talk to you to suggest an idea or activity. Skribit helps to solve this problem because it is a medium to help present a way for teens to suggest, either anonymously or not, potential topics and activities that they would like for you cover in your ministry as well as on your website/new media sources.

How Much Does It Cost?

Skribit has both a Free Version and a Paid Version. However, if you use promo code “PSTAM”, you can get 1 year of the Pro account for only $1. This is only for a limited time so act fast.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for Skribit today!

Learning How to Communicate Your Message In a Very Loud World

Nick Heller — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 05:05:33 +0000

For any of you involved in a ministry, I am sure you are aware of the growing difficulties of communicating with people on a very real level. Yes, you can tweet them or comment on their Facebook status updates, but when it comes time to have what I like to call a little ‘heart to heart’ discussion, it’s getting more and more challenging to promote your message in a relevant and competitive way.

And that’s the REAL issue – staying competitive in your approach considering the vast amount of media intake the average person consumes on a daily basis. Here are a few statistics from a recent study at Ball State University:

About 30 percent of the observed waking day was spent with media as the sole activity versus 20.8 percent for work activity, while an additional 39 percent of the day was spent with media while involved in some other activity.
While television is still by far the dominant medium in terms of the time average Americans spend daily with media at 240.9 minutes, the computer has emerged as the second most significant media device at about 120 minutes.
About 30 percent of all media time is spent exposed to more than one medium at a time
Use of the Web, e-mail and phones is substantially higher on Fridays than any other day of the week.

Your audience of teens, young adults, and (yes even parents) are inundated daily by media. Television, the Internet, and cell phones dictate the schedules, experiences, and thought processes of the people of God. Look at the statistics! 69 percent of the day is spent involved in some type of media and at least 2 hours a day is spent on the Internet. Whether or not we like to admit it, it is essential to “live in the world, but not of it.” As of 2010, this means learning how to talk to your audience through mediums that they’re using 70 percent of the time.

Here at New Media Ministry, our goal is to shed some light on the ever-growing and ever-changing world of digital media and how it can be utilized to spread the Gospel and teachings of the Church. We will be breaking open Social Media networking, the use of web applications like WordPress, and the need for good design aesthetics in order to promote ministry and new opportunities.

We look forward to getting to know you and we are excited to share in the journey of NewMediaMinistry.com. Come back soon!