Doug Young had a genius idea. Find five or six standard guitars and mount tons of different acoustic pickups in them. Record each pickup in a state of the art environment and put the mp3 results up on the web so others can hear the tonalities of each pickup. Check it out here.

I know, I know you think it’s old and outdated. We are still, in our situation, fans of PowerPoint. Why you ask? For several reasons:

1. Non-linear ability. Despite naysayers, PP can be run non-linearly by either using a dual screen mode or ol’skooling it printing out 9 slides per page and numbering them. Then to skip from say slide 2 to 24 you hit 24 enter. Several of our techs run them this way actually.

We put our songs in forward click layouts. Rather than simply putting one slide of verse, one of chorus and one of bridge, etc., we input the songs in the actual structure order in which we do them (ex. V-V-C-V-C-B-C-C). It drives me nuts to have the slides to a song change after we hit the new section (the dreaded “late click” that you so often experience in the “more flexible” programs while the tech tries to figure out where you went in the song). If we do audible, it tends to be at the end of a song and our crew knows what is probable (repeat a chorus, etc.). I’d rather have that moment of “late click” instead of having it throughout the whole service. Late Click Syndrome is fine if congregants know the song well, but we want to create an environment that as inviting as possible for newbies who want to worship.

2. Inclusiveness. One of our values to include as many people in the worship ministry as we can. Most folks have at least dealt with the basics of PowerPoint. We can get them up to speed and involve them quickly as a team member.

3. Aesthetics. We really tweak our fonts, typesets, and where the font sits to match our metaphor for the current series (more on that concept soon). PowerPoint does this better than the other programs we have experienced.

4. MPEG stuff. “It won’t cue a service mpeg video from the presentation software,” you say. Our screens are really big and we can only use a very clean mpeg4 source (think DVD quality or better) or it looks very grainy so the ability to do this from a presentation software doesn’t help much.

“But it won’t put moving mpeg’s in the background.” Okay now for a brief soapbox. About two years ago I was asked to critique one of our church plants (their WL rocks and their church does too, so they shall rename nameless in this post.) They were doing a series related to Jonah. During the musical worship time, they had random backgrounds of candles playing. The text of the songs had nothing to do with that. Later, I asked my friend, “Why didn’t you use some water backgrounds?” They hadn’t thought of it. Many WL’s don’t use mpeg backgrounds to reinforce the content of worship. Instead, they are used meaningless filler candy simply because it can be done.

Will we use PowerPoint at NorthWood in our 2,000 seat sanctuary due in November? We will have three giant screens which can all receive an individual source. So, don’t know. I am not the biggest fan of image magnifying the vocalists and band members. It can sometimes reinforce a performance environment rather than the participatory environment we have spent so much time designing our room to be. I know it can be used well if done right. We’ll have to see. Who knows, maybe Gates and the MS boys will come along for the ride or we might be forced to turn to the darkside…a Mac. Above all, we feel they are merely tools to get things onto the screen. The worshipers want to meet God and don’t really care what you are using if it is distraction free.

I love to see believers not following and imitating culture but leading…another example:

This is posted by them so no copyright infringements here.

We are always trying to find new music. Whether new worship songs, finding a special , or just for ear candy. the problem is if finding new music can be very expensive. But thanks to the digital revolution, it can be cheap, and we are not talking about pirating.

We subscribe to Urge for $9.95 a month. It has an extensive catalog with CD quality music and you can listen to all the songs all day long. Plus three users can be on at a time. Then once we find a must have song/CD, we open up ol’ faithful, itunes, and buy a specific track for 99 cents.

You can listen to thousands of records a month for $9.95 with urge, or you can buy one record a month on itunes. You do the math.

[Update Sept 19.  Urge is no more and has been subsumed by Rhapsody.com]

Sometimes you just need to compare fonts side by side to make a decision for layout.  http://typetester.maratz.com/

No doubt we are fans (like half the world) of Seth Godin. In a recent Godin post Brent showed me, I saw instant worship implications. Read the post and then leave your opinions on the following:

1. Our services do need “emotional resonance.” While they are not primarily emotions’ centered, you should allow and design for people to emote. How would you feel if your spouse always responded to you out of a sense of discipline, duty, and logic and never any emotion? It is a relationship with God, after all.

2. How do we teach people to expect to meet God and expect Him to do something? We have recently changed our welcome time at NorthWood from the prefunctory, turn of cell phones and greet someone, to a “guided tour” inviting worshipers to realize that God’s presence is really among us. It is making a difference in outward participation (only God can judge the heart).

3. How do we become predictable in the sense that people know there will be a worship environment that is conducive to them meeting with God while being unpredictable week to week in what exactly that experience will look like? We all have the tendency to turn “good services” into permanent monuments. “Well, last week we had an open prayer time after the sermon so of course we are going to need to do that again.” That is where liturgical churches actually have an advantage over “free models” because the liturgy tends to build in permanency yet change. We can learn much from our High Church brothers and sisters.

As we do these things our Church will establish a “brand” for being a place where people can really meet God and not just attend a Sunday Show.

Have you ever laid down at night and though, “OH NO, I forgot to……..,” and then you can’t fall asleep because you are so stressed?

If all we had to do as Worship Pastors/Leaders was to strum chords on Sunday mornings, then we wouldn’t have those freak out moments. But the truth is, the majority of us have to cover a myriad of details, making sure there is music, pastoring your team, training leaders, and making sure front of house has not slipped in a Petra CD for pre-play while simultaneously remembering your wedding anniversary. A lot of worship guys are artsy-fartsy and would rather sit around composing the next worship hit and sipping lattes, but if you are going to work in a church, you do not have that luxury. Work will come at you faster than you can do it and you need a system to process tasks. We discovered an incredible system that lets us know all details are recorded and the next step action is in place, and this has exponentially boosted our productivity. The system is called “Getting things Done” or GTD. The system is advocated in David Allen’s book “Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity”

Allen contends that stress comes from all the internal commitments that you have made to yourself and others, but have not completed. He shows you how to build a system that gets all those thoughts/”open loops” out of your head and into a system that you trust. Because the system is sound, you know that information will be there when you need it so you can relax and actually get things done. This system has more benefits such as working in “contexts” not just by projects.

Jordan and I have both adopted this system and have seen unbelievable benefits. We use Vitalist as an online tool to implement the GTD system, and have found it as essential to making the system work (Tor the record, we are giving them free advertising, they do not pay us, that should tell you something. They have a free and premium version). GTD has a huge following around the tech and blogging world. Just Google getting things done or GTD and you will see its popularity. If you are stressing about all the details, get this book and see if it works for you.

Wikipedia entry

As we are moving into our new 2,000 seat auditorium (with a radical thrust stage design), we are looking for an EXPERIENCED technical director to:

Pastor our tech team
Oversee technical elements (audio, video, 3+ camera shoot, stage design and lighting)
Creative Design input
Implement tech upgrades, etc.

If you or someone you know is experienced and interested, please email a resume’ to:
jordanfowler(at sign)northwoodchurch.org Of course change the atsign to the @. Take that you filthy spambots.

We hire in the following order of importance: 1-character 2- chemistry and 3- competence. Background checks will be done. Please no applicants with current problems in the areas of sexual indiscretions, personal financial trouble/heavy debt, or “EPP’s”…extreme pride problems as those are automatic disqualifiers. Thanks.

“Pull the thistle.”  We have heard that phrase from our lead Pastor Bob Roberts 1,000 times at NorthWood.  He means, in his East Texas roots way, that if you don’t deal with an issue, gossip, behaviors or negative comments quickly and directly the “wound” will soon get infected, fester, and possibly even affect other areas of the body; but most of us dislike or even dread conflict and confrontation, so we let things go that shouldn’t be let go.  I am not advocating not offering grace, but making it clear that grace is being offered and that there is an issue at hand.  Here are some principles I have learned about dealing with conflict from watching Bob Roberts and listening to leadership guru Bobb Biehl:

1.    You can deal with something all out, and it will be messy, or you can not deal with it and have the person’s little messes fall on you for years.  I learned that difficult conversations, though hard, are much better than the constant tension of denial over a long period of time.

2.  Only sadistic people like conflict, I prefer clarification. (more…)

Several of you have asked how we keep track of song rotations. Remember that we design theologically rather than primarily from a “radio play” model. Nevertheless, it helps to have a reminder of what songs have been done. Sometimes a song would fit perfectly but we simply forgot we had done it. Oftentimes a song that landed well years ago can be retreated and repeated, using sytlistic changes to help worshipers focus their mind’s attention and heart’s affection on the Audience, God.

It ain’t pretty but it works… Song Statistics Excel Spreadsheet

A big way to have corporate participation drop is to “outpitch” the song for most people’s vocal ranges. Songs are often mimicked off of the original recording CD and existing charts, whether CCLI songselect, songdiscovery, worshiptogether or even web tabs. Many times this places the range just too high for the average congregational vocalist. Many of the original artists even drop the key for live performance, but there we stay stuck to the recording with vocals in the stratosphere. People will just quit singing when it gets too high.

A general rule: “Never” make the congregation sing above a C .
Middle C for men and Treble C for women. Of course some songs pop a note or two above briefly which is allowable.

This can present a challenge. Here are a few things to check before you transpose a song: (more…)

We put tons of effort into our Good Friday services. They utilize heavy symbolism and a rich theology each year. This year’s actually turned out better than we had ever envisioned it. The service was called The Cup and focused on Jesus’ “take this cup from me” statement in the Garden. It is actually an OT reference (Jer. 25 and Isa. 51) to the cup of wrath pointing to God’s wrath and judgment against sin. As you can see from the sample video, the service features four pourings of the cup of wrath over the cross. It was a powerful moment. The basic flow after an opening and explanation is narration, animated slide, followed by a pouring (4 movements of this). We have included an excel cue sheet/production notes, a script, pics of how the cross was built, and the powerpoint that accompanies the service. Put it in the hopper for next year. Feel free to hack it however you want. If you have questions, leave a comment and we’ll answer them.

The Cup Cue Sheet and Production Notes

The Cup Powerpoint

The Cup Narration Script

We will post our graphics packages and our cue sheets for The Cup, our experiential Good Friday Communion Service along with some pics and any tweaks we recommend.  We will also make available our On The Third Day (Maher’s version) complete with click track so you can use it as a bg video that we are using on Easter.  We pray strength for all you guys and gals this weekend. Nine services in 5 days for Brent, a new record.  Of course Cristian got the blue screen of death this week from a lovely microsoft auto-upgrade he thought he had turned off right as we were finishing all the Easter stuff and a new small group curriculum.  And me on every allergy medicine known to mankind…but so worth all the sweat and effort.  For my debt to Him should never be repaid, nor even attempted.