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

Related posts:

1. Introducing: Audio/Video/Production Blogs!
2. Why Design Matters: Designing with a Purpose (And With Very Little Budget) for the Sake of Your Ministry
3. Lyric Presentation for Worship: The Series!

In celebration of the newly released ProPresenter version 4, I wanted to take a few minutes and introduce everyone to the incredibly powerful and user-friendly lyric presentation software that’s being used in churches and ministries around the nation. However, in order to understand the ease of use and power behind ProPresenter, it’s important to know what the alternative could be or has been, and how ProPresenter has solved many of the problems of the past.

Printouts, dual computer systems, and a ton of mistakes. . .

For the past seven years I’ve been involved in lyric presentations for worship in some way, shape, or form. I started in the early 2000’s helping with XLT, a weekly prayer gathering for teenagers from parishes all over the Diocese. Way back then (when AOL was still cool) we were using Microsoft Powerpoint. At that time, Powerpoint hadn’t begun to utilize ‘Presenter Mode’ yet and when you were in the middle of a presentation, you weren’t able to see forward or back to know what lyric slide was coming next. This made operating the presentation and being accurate nearly impossible. Not only would you have to know each song being sung inside and out, but you’d have to be familiar enough with the lyric slides to know how much of the next line, verse, chorus, etc. was on the next slide. Timing was difficult and mistakes were abundant.

Before I came on to help, the initial solution for this problem was to save a final copy of the full presentation and print out all of the slides in Powerpoint. There was also a master excel spreadsheet – in alphabetical order – with the corresponding slide numbers that would need to be referenced initially and then the first slide number inputted to jump to that slide. The only way to know which slide you were on was to number them in a color just lighter than the background and to reference that against the book-sized printout of slides to know what was coming next. For the tools given to them, the guys running the lyrics presentation did an excellent job. That being said, it was a cumbersome and frustrating process that allowed for very little flexibility to include or delete any of the slides during the presentation. We finally upgraded our process about six months later. Instead of printouts and spreadsheets, we included a second laptop that had an identical lyric presentation file saved to it. Instead of cross-referencing the spreadsheet and following along on the printout, we were able to use the secondary computer as a guide for the primary. This increased accuracy and timing, but it didn’t fix everything. This continued to be our mode of operation for the next couple of years, but we weren’t able to progress much further using Powerpoint as our main presentation software.

A breath of fresh air.

Many of you are most likely familiar with the Passion movement in the Christian church (and if you’re not, check out www.268generation.com for details). If you’re familiar with the Passion movement and the Passion conferences, then you’re most likely also aware of their progressive and technically advanced worship presentations. Many ministries follow the lead of Passion in ministry and worship presentation – including several that I’ve been a part of. In 2006, I was able to attend one of their conferences in Nashville and was introduced to ProPresenter and ProVideoPlayer by Renewed Vision and in 2007, it became the primary presentation software for the Matt Maher band. Impressed by it’s quick learning curve, multiple features, and powerful performance, we immediately knew that it would become the fore runner of worship presentations around the country and were excited to get to know the program.

Over the past 3 years, I’ve used ProPresenter on over 500 occasions, in both small (20 people) and large (100,000+ people) formats, and for concerts, talks, presentations and more. ProPresenter is incredibly versatile and has virtually endless possibilities. With that being said, let’s take a look at a few of the key features:

Getting Started

*Note: For the sake of this blog, I’ll be referencing ProPresenter 3, but if you’re interested in what’s new about ProPresenter 4, check it out here.*

Getting to know the user interface is the biggest change from a Powerpoint or Keynote type platform. Because ProPresenter is used solely as a lyric presenter, the interface doesn’t have different views, just different frames with the varying parts of the program.

As you can see, the layout is quite different. In the top left is the Program Screen. Across the top half is the Foreground Element window and below that the Background Element window. It is important to think of these two windows as layers in your presentation. The foreground element will ALWAYS be layered over your background element. Lyrics will always be in the foreground and the background is reserved for pictures, videos, or graphic loops to liven up the presentation.

Click to Enlarge

Following the windows clockwise, you’ll see a notifications window where messages can be typed in at any time and shown at any time if necessary. *Note: this message will ALWAYS supersede the other elements. If lyrics are being presented, the notification message will layer over the top anyway.* Above the notifications is the Playlist Window and above that is the Lyrics Library. As song are added into your library, you can drag and drop them into a playlist to create a specific list of songs to pick from. Much like a playlist on iTunes, this creates a filtered list of songs to select from, keeping you from having to search through the entire library to find your songs.

To Be Continued

I could continue to open up and explain ProPresenter, but the truth is there’s just TOO much for one post! Next time We’ll focus on the process necessary to open the program, load the library, load the background elements, and create playlists. If you’d like to follow along, I believe you can still demo Version 3 through Renewed Vision’s website: http://www.renewedvision.com/downloads/ProPresenter3.5.5.dmg. The demo is fully functional, with the exception of a watermark that exists on the Program screen. This will go away if you decide to purchase the software. Also available for download is the brand new version 4 here: http://www.renewedvision.com/downloads/ProPresenter4_b3479.dmg.

Related posts:

1. Introducing: Audio/Video/Production Blogs!
2. Readers Poll: What Software Are You Using?
3. An Interview with a Pro: Jayme Braun – Audio Engineer

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?

Related posts:

1. Guest Post: Why New Media Will Make You Holier
2. Gain Reader Suggestions: Use Skribit
3. Why Should I Invest Time and Money?

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.

Related posts:

1. An Interview with a Pro: Jayme Braun – Audio Engineer
2. Gain Reader Suggestions: Use Skribit
3. Lyric Presentation for Worship: The Series!

Some of you out there may be avid bible readers, others may casually browse it, and some of you might be so intimidated that you haven’t started because you just don’t know where to begin. If you fall into one of these categories, I want to introduce you today to a really cool new tool to help you, no matter which category you’re in – YouVersion. There are a variety of ways to go about reading the Bible, and YouVersion.com offers 21 plans to choose from in order to help you. You can read the Bible through chronologically, a combination of Old and New Testament readings each day, or a variety of other methods.

I also think YouVersion represents the future of online Bible apps in the sense that it involves and encourages community interaction. As you study, you can make notes and share them with others in a social networking feature they include on the site. But the coolest part of the site is that they have spent a lot of time developing versions to all you to access YouVersion on your iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Java, and/or Mobile Web.

I came across YouVersion recently and here is how simple it is for me to read it on my iPhone:

So I invite you to check out YouVersion.com. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy it.

Related posts:

1. Handle Information Overload: Diigo
2. Connect through Text: Part I

One of the main goals that we would like to accomplish on New Media Ministry is to provide youth ministers with some new tools and resources so that they can in turn get to work in implementing these into their ministry. Chris Faddis wrote two weeks ago about the importance of connecting through text messaging, and I hope that many of you have given a shot at trying text messaging in your ministry. If not, read the post and try out the service for free that we recommended.

I wrote a review of a cool product last week called YooStar. YooStar is basically a video kit that allows you to superimpose yourself in the place of some of your favorite characters in videos. This is a great product for creating hype and promotion in your ministry.

I wanted to take a quick look today at a few ways that you can and need to begin utilizing video in your ministries. You might be a little intimidated to try and get involved in ministry because you think cameras are real expensive and editing takes a lot of knowledge, etc. But times and technologies are changing. We’ll cover this later on down the road.

Getting Started

If you’re in ministry of any kind, one of the things I’m almost certain you struggle with at every event is getting people settled and transitioned from gathering and hanging out to getting your event started. In our church, we begin every youth night with dinner. Transitioning from the kids eating and chatting with their friends to actually getting the night going is one of the hardest parts of the night.

Videos are great for filling in this void and easing the transition. Create a short 5-10 minute video skit of something that is loosely tied to your theme for the night. Make it funny and engaging and you’ll have no trouble grabbing the attention of your teens.

Creating Hype

Last week I wrote about Creating Hype in Your Ministry. Utilizing video in your hype strategies can be very beneficial. Teens are going to watch videos, plain and simple. Post it on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, your website. Get it out there and promote it, and teens will probably come to the event. Read the article to learn more.

This is a video our very own Chris Faddis did for our youth group a few weeks ago to promote our semester event.

Recap

Nick wrote recently about the Youth Group Shirt and the importance of having a tshirt for a retreat or big event that you’re putting on. I think the same is true of a recap video. If you go on a weekend retreat, take a camcorder of some sort along with you and piece together some rough clips of a variety of events from that weekend. It doesn’t have to look like the sequel to Avatar, but presenting the option for a teen to remember the experience they had at that event can be a powerful tool to use in helping to prevent what I like to call the Retreat High – where you come back from a retreat or event feeling better and more committed than ever, but a week later you’re back to your normal ways. Giving teens the ability to watch a quick 5 minute video with some footage from that weekend can be very helpful in their individual journey.

Here is a video from a summer retreat that we put together for our teens:

Teaching Tools

Video is the up and coming medium of communication I think in youth ministry. Ever notice how a handful of teens seem to tune you out while someone might be giving a testimony or delivering a message? It’s inevitable that you’re not going to be able to capture the attention of all your teens. Video gives the audience something different to focus on. After listening to the same person over and over for years, they’re going to get tired and bored of you. Sorry to break the bad news. But video keeps minds engaged because they can tell a story much better than you can sometimes because you can only describe an event, place or a person, but a video can actually show them.

So i encourage you to give video a shot in your ministry. Stay tuned over the coming weeks for some more resources helping you with video including products I think you’ll want to take a look at.

Related posts:

1. Creating Hype for Your Ministry
2. Youth Ministry Fun with Yoostar Entertainment System
3. Introducing: Audio/Video/Production Blogs!

Unless you have been living in a soundproof cave for the past few weeks, you are probably well aware that Wednesday was what I like to call another “Stevenote,” or an Apple product launch keynote. There has been tons of hype growing in the interwebs over the last month or so about whether or not Apple will be launching a tablet, what the features will be, pricing, availability, etc. Below, we’ve taken a  a closer look at the hype and how the rumors have resonated on Twitter, YouTube and blogs over the last 30 days. According to data provided by Sysomos, for example, Twitter users sent more than half a million messages – with an average of 6,545 tweets per hour – with both words apple and tablet in them.

Blogs

Sysomos also found almost 50,000 blogs posts. The post that resonated the most in the blogosphere, according to Sysomos’ data, was yesterday’s article on the Guardian’s Technology blog about Terry McGraw leaking information about the tablet on CNBC.

YouTube

In the last 30 days, YouTube users also posted over 5,391 YouTube videos that used the words Apple and tablet. The most popular one was a roundup of tablet rumors from TechnoBuffalo that currently has about 700,000 views.

Sentiment

Overall, the blogosphere’s reaction to the Apple tablet rumors has been extremely positive. Over 81% of all the tweets and blog posts in the past 30 days were positive about the tablet.

What Does This Mean?

Whether it’s a trip to see the summer blockbuster at the movie theater, a Super Bowl party, a youth group trip or even just a youth night, people more times than not respond to the hype not only with extreme interest, but also with their checkbooks. Plus, when you take into consideration the ever-stretched under-funded budgets of youth ministry, hype more times than not costs little to nothing, but can often times have a greater return than any type of true marketing.

Hype is a form of buzz marketing. Hyping a product, service, event, etc. pre-launch creates buzz which also creates curiosity and expectations. Hopefully your followers can write things on Facebook, send out Tweets, talk about it to their friends, and even more. Before you know it the word gets out to multiple people all hearing how great this product, service, event, etc. is, or is expected to be. This gets them excited and they can hardly wait to experience it.

With hype can also come backlash, it often over-inflates expectations. For example if you as a youth minister tell your teens about this great breakfast place you found around town. Over time, you keep telling them it was the best place you had ever been to and that you wanted to organize a group to go and experience its deliciousness. You are in effect building hype and a preconceived notion in your teens minds of this wonderful place that was going to be unlike anything they had ever experienced. Well, often more times than not after you take your group, some of them are going to be let down. It’s not that this place wasn’t any good, it just didn’t meet the expectations that they had set in their own mind based on your hype.

Creating Hype in Your Ministry

So how can I create hype in my ministry? Well, luckily for you, new technologies are changing the way that we can hype products, services, events, etc. and how we can connect with those to whom we minister. From running promotions on Facebook, holding a photo contest or something on Flickr, releasing videos on Youtube, to more, the possibilities are endless.

Whatever you do to create hype around your product service or event, remember and utilize these keys:

• Leak small details
• Give sneak-peaks
• Create marketing pieces that are still vague, yet help promote your event such as a logo to be used on downloadable Wallpapers and Icons, etc.

The overall key to generating hype is to give small bits of information over a period of time. You want to “wet their chops” per say and keep them coming back for more. You want them to yearn to know what it is. The emphasis needs to be on releasing details about whatever it is you’re hyping over time.

Related posts:

1. Utilize Video in Your Ministry
2. Connect through Text: Part I
3. Connect Thru Text: Part II

What Is It?

The Yoostar System is a collection of the following pieces:

• A High-Resolution Camera.
• A camera stand and multiple camera clips.
• Green Screen Stand.
• Green Screen
• Remote

Combining all of these great tools allows you to be green-screened into your choice of old movies, to deliver the greatest lines alongside some of the greatest actors. The Yoostar isn’t just a camera, it comes with the necessary editing software and a six by six foot green screen (in its own collapsible nylon bag) that you can put up behind you.  Then, when you film yourself, you can be entered into the picture right alongside the greats.

How Good Is It?

While we weren’t able to get our hands on a test unit to try out ourselves, we’ve spent some time reading a variety of reviews around the Interwebs to get people’s opinions to see if this product is really worth the money. At $169.99, it’s not cheap. However, Amazon.com has a few of them available used from $125 to help save you some money.

The Yoostar video camera puts out crisp, high-resolution video. Although the video quality suffers when uploaded online, the original copies left for playback on your computer easily beat what most webcams produce. The camera also has no trouble picking up voices with a built-in microphones. In fact, you may find yourself turning down your mic volume when you speak louder than those who co-star with you. (I’m looking at you John Belushi).

Despite the high quality of the camera, it does have one major downside: The Yoostar camera can only be used with the Yoostar software. It has been tested with Skype on Windows-based machines and on Macs, but Skype apparently refuses to recognize the camera. It may only need additional drivers (which may come in the future), but at this point, I can see it being very frustrating to have a high-resolution webcam that’s not compatible with any other software.

Videos

The YooStar comes with 14 video clips preloaded on it.

• The Godfather
• Field of Dreams
• Some Like It Hot
• Forrest Gump
• Rocky
• Sabrina
• Blues Brothers
• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
• Animal House
• Back to School
• Saw II
• Up in Smoke
• Coming to America
• Sesame Street

Thousands of scenes from new and old videos can be purcahsed additionally from the Yoostar website for roughly $1 per scene.

The Verdict

The price is the breaking point for many, especially for those of us in ministry with tiny budgets. At $169.99 the Yoostar system isn’t exactly cheap, but the hardware is definitely worth the price. The quality green screen, stand and camera alone are worth $169.99. Sadly, since the camera isn’t able to be used with other programs, there’s a lot of wasted potential. If you think you’ll get lots of mileage out of the Yoostar systems capabilities, don’t think twice about purchasing it. On the other hand, if you think your mileage may vary and aren’t sure about making the jump, just keep in mind that it does bring a great green screen set-up that can be used for your own home movies. At $169.99, the Yoostar system isn’t cheap, but it’s still making you an offer that’s tough to refuse. Ask a few parents to see if they’ll throw in $25 to help you purchase it. It sure would make a great piece to help promote your ministry events, or even to get kids to come.

Related posts:

1. Friday Showcase: Catholic Youth Ministry
2. Utilize Video in Your Ministry
3. Lyric Presentation for Worship: The Series!

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:

1. Picking Your Site’s Backend
2. Why Use Wordpress?
3. Picking a Host
4. Picking the Perfect Theme
5. Publishing Your Website

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.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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”
5. Create a FeedBurner feed for your site: Login to FeedBurner and create a FeedBurner feed for your new site
6. 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
7. Put a RSS button on your blog: Choose an RSS button and put it on your site linking it to your FeedBurner feed
8. Start Writing: What’s a website without content? Start writing content for various pages!
9. 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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
12. 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.
13. 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.
14. 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!

Related posts:

1. Where Do I Start? – Why Use Wordpress
2. Where Do I Start? – Picking the Perfect Theme
3. Where Do I Start? – Picking a Host

Click here to read previous Friday Showcase Posts

This week, we’re going to change up the way we’ve been typically doing things in the hopes of highlighting multiple sites that are doing things well in terms of their interactive ministry. We’d love to know what you think of the sites below in the comments:

Stonebriar Community Church

Kingsfield Church

City Central

Edmond’s First Baptist Church

Church of the Open Door

Do you have a ministry website that you’ve come across that you like and want to recommend to us? Let us know below. Seriously, we want to hear from you.

Related posts:

1. Friday Showcase: Catholic Youth Ministry
2. Friday Showcase: College Park Church – January 1st, 2010
3. Friday Showcase: The City Church – January 8th, 2010