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I thought about wishing you all a Happy Halloween, but I know many of you don’t celebrate Halloween because of it’s ties to the occult.  Then I thought about wishing you all a happy Reformation Day, but many of you are Catholic.  It’s not even fall for all of you, so I’m left with wishing you all a great last day of October.

I’m back from Chicago and Kurt has passed the blogging baton back to me for our final article in the Sounds from the Church series. Last week we resurrected the idea of a sermon blog, which can be a great resource including sermon audio as well as notes, links to additional resources, and suggested next steps.  Once you go from simply posting sermon audio on your site to including it in a blog, a natural and very simple next step is to podcast your sermon audio. (more…)

I’m up in the Chicago area this week for the Acts 2 Conference put on by Willow Creek Community Church.  The conference is an interactive learning experience in which 5 innovative ways of doing church ministry are presented and then discussed by a panel of forward-thinking pastors.  Ideas being presented include the come-as-you-are culture, multi-cultural outreach, and community impact ministry.

Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, spoke about multi-site ministry.  LifeChurch.tv has 8 physical campuses in 4 states plus an Internet campus.  Each campus has its own live worship band and its own campus pastor, and through the use of satellite technology Pastor Groeschel can teach at all 9 campuses simultaneously, including the Internet campus.  To see a physical church making a real effort to create an online church really sparked my interest. (more…)

Over the past couple of weeks we have been addressing the hows and whys of putting sermon audio on your website.  As I was writing those blogs, I was reminded of a blog article Paul wrote a couple months ago entitled “Supercharging Sermons with a Blog.”  I thought it would be a great addition to our theme for this month (and an easy blog for the week;)  Putting sermon audio on your website is just the tip of the iceberg.  There are many ways you can use your website to enhance your congregations experience and understanding as well as the effectiveness of the sermons.  In Paul’s article he addresses several ways you can do this.  So without further adieu: (more…)

Last week we discussed the why’s of putting sermon recordings on your church’s website. (Last week’s article)  So you got all fired up, went and recorded the sermon this week and now…oh yeah, I didn’t really mention anything about how to do it.  I figured that’s a pretty big part of putting sermon audio on your website, so that’s what this week is about with some tips and instructions on sermon audio.  (Here’s a little secret: These tips will also be useful with other types of audio. Shhhh) (more…)

Last week we looked at how to better involve your congregation in your church’s ministry and enhance their worship experience through your website and your worship team.  That applied to many of today’s churches, but not all, since there are still many churches that are purely traditional.  This week I want to discuss something applicable to every church.  Whether traditional, contemporary, a home church or an Internet church, every church has a sermon or message each week.  The sermon is another sound of the church, which should also be a sound of your church’s website. (more…)

Here at OurChurch.Com, we have wrapped up September’s theme, Musicians Month, and are transitioning into October’s theme, Sounds from the Church.  Since I’ve been playing music virtually all my life, have a masters degree in music composition, and currently lead the contemporary worship band at Family of Christ Church in Tampa, FL, Paul asked me to take the blogging baton for this next series of articles about using audio on church websites.  I told him I wanted a 25% bonus and a new Martin D41 acoustic guitar.  He said he’d give me a quarter and a slick new pick.  I think I need to work on my negotiating skills.

Many churches these days have or are starting a contemporary worship service.  This can mean many things, but one general commonality is the use of contemporary Christian worship music with praise and worship bands.  These bands come in all shapes and sizes doing Gospel music, worship songs, folk songs or Christian rock.  Some groups have just one worship leader with a guitar while other churches have a full band with an orchestra.  So how does your worship team relate to your website?  There are many ways to promote, facilitate and improve the musical worship experience in your church both for your worship team and the congregation using your website. (more…)