One of the ways I mentioned before about how churches can use technology was to add digital musicians to your worship team.  I wanted to go into a little more detail and share how we’re doing that at Journey now.

First a few key things to understand:

Generally speaking, I’m not in favor of replacing key instruments digitally. Our normal team consists of drums, bass, electric guitar and keyboard. Even if one of them were missing, I wouldn’t be comfortable replacing any of them with digital musicians because they’re too important. However, this does depend largely on your circumstances. If you’re just starting out and you have only a guitar player and vocalist (and they’re both you) then you’re going to have to find a way to enhance your sound. There are options for this such as Worship Backing Band.

Also, to do this well will require you to spend some money, though not as much as you might think. Yes, in an ideal world we would use in-ear wireless monitors, a variety of software and other expensive equipment to make it work. But it doesn’t have to cost thousands of dollars. In fact, it shouldn’t cost a lot unless you just can’t get where you want to go without spending more money.

Our Setup at Journey

Part 1: Keeping Everyone Together

The most important thing about adding digital musicians to your team is that you have to play perfectly in sync with them. Usually this involves playing to a click track (like a metronome). While this series of high-pitched “beeps” keeps the team playing in time with each other, it’s distracting for the congregation. This means having some method of getting the sound directly into the team’s ears. Wireless in-ear monitors are great, but if you don’t have a few thousand dollars lying around to outfit your team with them, pick up a headphone amplifier for around $20. I picked up this four channel amp for under $20 on Amazon. Add a few 20-foot headphone extension cables and some cheap headphones and you can send the click to up to four individuals, each with their own level control.

A note about the headphones: Spend the extra $.50 and get headphones that hook over your ears instead of the simple ear-bud style. The first time I used the ear-buds while playing I spent half the song keeping them from falling out. 

Cost for all the pieces: under $50. 

Part 2: The [Digital] Musicians

There are several options for adding digital musicians, from playing backing tracks or multi-track recordings of the songs along with your team to loops and sequences generated by computers or keyboards. While we haven’t taken the step into using loops yet, it’s certainly something that I want to get to one day.

What we do is more like having a digital orchestra play with us. I use Finale (you can also use Sibelius, though I am not as familiar with its capabilities) to edit and print sheet music and over the years, they have made huge strides in their digital instruments – to the point where their Garritan Personal Orchestra sounds awfully real – real enough for use in a live setting!

Using Finale, I arrange the orchestra to play with us. While every instrument is available, I generally stick to strings, flute french horn and maybe percussion like timpani or bells if it fits. I use trumpets, trombones and other brass sparingly or I pull their volume down since they are the first to sound fake if they’re too loud.

Where do the arrangements come from? If you’re skilled at arranging or want to get better at it, try doing them yourself! For simple or soft songs that could benefit from a gentle string section playing chords behind the band, give it a whirl! If you’re looking for something more impressive sounding, PraiseCharts.com and WordMusicNow.com offer orchestrations of many current and past worship songs.

Once the music is arranged, I pan the audio of all the instruments to the left and create a click track on the right. The version of Finale that I have doesn’t allow for split tracks with their built-in effects (unless I’m doing it wrong, in which case, someone tell me the right way!), so I bypass the effects in Finale. Then, using some recording software on the computer, such as Garage Band or Cool Edit, I record the Finale file and apply effects like reverb here. It takes some fiddling around to get the settings right the first time, but through trial and error I’ve found the settings that work for us.

Playing It Back:

On stage, I use my laptop to play back the tracks. I have a small table next to my keyboard with the laptop and headphone amp. We’ve used the tracks for several months now and it works pretty well for us. We usually just use it on one song in the service but as we get better at playing along with them and get more songs built up, we’ll start using them more.

A few of my favorites so far are:

Our God from Chris Tomlin’s album And If Our God is For Us. The strings at the beginning set the tone for the song and it builds to a huge crescendo! The sample audio here is from the middle of the song (“And if our God is for us…”). 

A Mighty Fortress by Christy Nockles. Another song with an epic string section – especially the last two choruses with the massive glissando after the dramatic pause. The sample here is from the last chorus.

Lord I Need You by Chris Tomlin. This is a softer song with a great soaring string line on the choruses. The sample audio here begins at the second time through the bridge.

*All of these arrangements came from PraiseCharts.com*

Yes, on their own, they sound empty. But remember – we’re playing the guitar, bass, drums and piano live. These are meant to be played behind the existing team.

How are you using digital instruments with your team?

This has been a good start for us and in the future we’ll grow into using other tools and techniques to continue to enhance our worship.

We continued our Going Beyond Our Comfort Zone series this week looking at the area that everyone loves to hate: Giving. People seem to hate hearing about giving but what I think they fail to realize is that most churches hate talking about it as much as people hate hearing about it. But giving back to God is an important part of our relationship with Him. It’s a way for us to show our gratitude and a way for him to bless us even more.

This Sunday’s Setlist:

• All to You by Lincoln Brewster
• Beautiful One by Tim Hughes, By The Tree’s arrangement
• Holy is the Lord by Chris Tomlin
• The Message
• The Stand by Hillsong
• Offering & Prayers
• Nothing is Impossible by Planetshakers

This blog is part of the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com. Stop by and see what other churches did this week!

We started a new series a week ago called Going Beyond Our Comfort Zone, looking at things like Sharing Your Faith, Growing in Faith, Giving and others. We found a great graphic over at CreationSwap.com that plays off of a Twilight Zone theme, because going beyond your comfort zone can feel a lot like going into the twilight zone!

This week, we looked at Growing In Our Faith. This was a bit of a challenge because many people who regularly attend church feel like a message like this is just for those who are new to Christianity. They’ll tune out and decide that there’s nothing for them in this message. In reality, no matter how long you’ve been in a relationship with Christ, there is always room to grow. We kept this challenge in mind throughout the planning and delivery of the message and all the elements of the service and it helped us to keep focus and connect with everyone.

Sunday Setlist:

00:06:46 Israel Houghton - Lord You Are Good Israel Houghton - Lord You Are Good...

Open Up the Gates by PlanetShakers

00:04:14 Starfield - Hosanna ... starfield, will, go, hosanna, christian, music, hillsong, united, cover, new, album

The Message

00:04:21 Lead Me to the Cross-Hillsong United-With Lyrics For Lyrics Click "More Info" Savior I come Quiet my soul remember Redemptions hill Where Your blood... Lead, me, to, the, cross, lyrics, on, screen, hillsong, united, brook, fraser, christian, video, music, etc...

Offering and Prayers

00:03:20 Lincoln Brewster Love the lord(with lyrics) One of Lincoln Brewsters Songs. This song it the radio mix of the song ( which personally i think is... Lincoln, Brewster, Radio, Mix, Music, Lyrics, Love, the, lord, christian, Halo, Montage, runescape, fred, ownage, pwnsome, skills, awesome, owned, hello, oldies, stuff, failtage, randomness, bill, mr, beans, haliday, other, charlie, beach, boys, rock, skillet, chrsit, ltdan7777

This blog is part of the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival over at TheWorshipCommunity.com. Stop by and see what other churches did today.

5. Get On Facebook

Unless you’ve been under a technological rock for the last 5 years, Facebook is pretty much the biggest thing since, well, the internet. Right now, Facebook boasts some 800 million active members. In the United States, more than half of adults are active on Facebook. In short, if your church doesn’t have a presence on Facebook, you’re missing out.

What makes Facebook popular and why it works so well for churches is that it’s all about interaction. Websites are more one-sided: come here and read about or watch what’s happening. Facebook is a place for people to not only read about your church but comment, ask questions, start discussions and engage in community. Yes there are ways to do those things off of Facebook, but if that’s where people are, why not go to them?

Where do I start?

If you haven’t setup a Facebook page for your church, here’s a helpful guide. Also, consider integrating Facebook and your website using a variety of Facebook’s Social Plugins allowing people to comment, like or share pages of your site with their friends.

4. Encourage People to Use their Phones in Church

I’ve mentioned this idea before and it was met with resistance, mostly because when we see someone on their phone we automatically assume they’re texting or are otherwise disengaged from what’s happening. We need to reconsider the negative stigma and embrace using cell phones – especially smart phones – in church. First of all, within a few years, we won’t even need to say “smart” phone because it’s getting increasingly difficult to get a regular “dumb” phone. Smart phones are the future present. Secondly, nearly everyone carries their phone AT ALL TIMES. It’s a tool that’s at their disposal every minute. Why would you not leverage smartphone technology at church?!

Where do I start?

• With smart phone in hand, your people have the Bible wherever they go. During worship, we use YouVersion’s (the best online Bible app out there) Live Events feature to post our message outline where people can follow along, take notes, highlight passages and even interact with the message.
• Using a bar code reader app (which is nearly standard on every phone now) people can scan QR codes placed in the bulletin to take them off the page and to the website for information or to sign up. I’ve written about how we do this at Journey before so check it out if you want to get started.
• At Journey, one area we need to improve in is making our website mobile friendly. It’s overdue for an upgrade and one of the top priorities is making it easier to use on mobile devices and tablets. If you have the ability, making your church website mobile friendly will improve your user’s experience and will encourage them to come back to the site on their phone later.

3. Eliminate Paper Wherever You Can

Until iPads and tablets become cheap enough for everyone to afford you can’t go entirely paperless, though I often dream of the day when everyone comes into church, pulls out their tablet and downloads the bulletin on their device with no printing or copying required! Until then, we have to print stuff. The key is printing only what you must and eliminating where you can.

Where do I start?

I see a lot of churches abandoning their printed bulletins in favor of a simple one-page announcement sheet. If your church can do it and get away with it, great! At Journey, our bulletin is just one page. We keep the information concise and direct people to the website for everything else.

For us, the website is the central hub for information. By reinforcing that it’s where to find information AND keeping it daily updated, people will use it regularly. Using QR codes (as I mentioned above) help us to do this with minimal effort on the part of the user. While we haven’t done away with our bulletin, we don’t print up fliers or brochures for every event and every ministry. We put together a useful and informative page on our website and direct everyone there. Make sure your website is always updated and current both in content and in appearance. For most websites, a good rule of thumb is to review your design every two years. Two calendar years is roughly the equivalent of a decade in internet time. [citation needed]  A lot can change technologically and stylistically in a short time!

If your website looks like the MySpace of a 12 year old, it’s probably time to consider updating it…

Another way we eliminate paper with technology at church is by not printing music for our worship team. We use Planning Center Online to plan, schedule and distribute all the necessary materials for our team digitally. It has the added bonus of having a music stand app which turns any computer or tablet into a digital music stand. We’ve used this for several months now and our musicians especially love it. For vocalists, we use ProPresenter’s Stage Display. We’ve always used a monitor on stage for words, but it was the same as the screen for the congregation. Starting in ProPresenter 4.0, they added a stage display, which is essentially a teleprompter. The best feature is that it displays the current lyrics AND the next slide, so even if the slide operator is slow on the click, the singers have the words before they’re up.

Yes, there is a cost associated with Planning Center and ProPresenter, but it’s minimal. The benefit and savings in reduced printing, copying and time using Planning Center Online make it worth the small amount it costs. ProPersenter, with it’s incredible ease of use and stellar features, is worth the one time purchase cost. If you’re considering options like this and aren’t sure if you can afford it, take the time to consider the costs and benefits and even find other churches that are using them and pay them a visit.

2. Go Hollywood!

With decent cameras and video editing software becoming pretty mainstream now, there is no reason not to use these tools. One easy way that I would encourage almost every church to do immediately is replace their spoken announcements with video announcements. There are several reasons:

• It takes way longer than you think to speak the announcements on stage. If you think you’re going to get up and talk for just 30 seconds about the upcoming mission trip, think again. You’ll inevitably launch into a story or go into lots of detail that’s not necessary and before you know it you’ve spent 5 minutes and that’s not the only announcement you have to give. Scripting and videoing the announcements keeps them short and concise. No extraneous details – just what people need and the action steps they should take.
• It’s more captivating. The reason we talk longer than expected in person when giving announcements is that when it’s just words, we lose people quickly. It’s easy to look away or mentally move on to something else. When it’s a large moving image with helpful supporting graphics and information it makes it more engaging.
• It’s sharable. You can post your announcements to your Facebook page, on your website or YouTube to make them available beyond Sunday morning.

Where do I start?

Almost every computer now comes with some pre-installed video editing software. We use iMovie and Final Cut on our Mac. The latest edition of iMovie is nearly as powerful as our old version of Final Cut and it only cost $15. iMovie gets us through the majority of the simple editing projects we have.

We purchased a modest used HD camera a few years ago and it does a very good job. But before that, we used my old video camera that I bought years ago. I’ve even used my digital camera to record video to use in our announcements since it records in 720p. The point is, use what you have to get started. Fancy equipment can come later. 

When shooting announcements, keep it simple and short. When we first started doing announcements on video a few years ago, they were skits that setup the announcement. While they were often funny and people enjoyed them, they remembered the skits, not the announcement. We took a hiatus and retooled it to be like a newscast with one or two people sharing the information directly. The information is getting across better this way. Find what works for your culture and don’t be afraid to change it if it’s not working. 

1. Hire Digital Band Members

One of the latest ways we’re using technology at Journey is by adding to our instrumentation digitally. For several years worship teams have used loops or backing tracks for their teams. There are lots of different ways to carry out this depending on your skill level, the need and the time and money you want to invest. Since Journey is on a shoestring budget [read: we're broke] the only way we could make it happen is to do it spending next to nothing. I’m working on a full post with all the details about how we make it work for us, but essentially we use a computer running Finale to play instrument parts and a click track through the system that our band plays along with. The computer plays the instruments that we don’t already have – strings, brass, orchestral percussion, woodwinds, etc. It’s only to enhance, not replace.

Where do I start?

Identify what you want to accomplish by adding digital instruments. If you want to replace a key instrument that isn’t there you’ll need a different approach than if you just want to add some extra flair to your existing team. Since there are lots of different ways to do this, look for a post on this topic here coming soon!

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There are lots of ways to leverage new technology at church. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new tools or methods. Above all though, remember that technology is merely a tool to help us carry out our mission of reaching a hurting world with the saving Gospel of Christ. Don’t let the technology steal the spotlight – let it help reflect it!

At Journey, our mission is about helping people take their next step. For us as a church that usually means taking a next step in their relationship with Jesus, and EVERYone has a next step. When we stay in one place too long things start to stagnate – and that goes for all aspects of life, not just spiritual.

That’s why last fall, I decided to take a next step in my life. I decided to go back to school and continue my education. It’s something I’ve thought about doing for some time but never really knew how I was going to make it work. Working full-time in ministry is a lot like working two jobs at times – being in the office 40 hours a week, plus all the evening meetings, rehearsals and stuff don’t leave lots of time for going to school. And since I already have an Associate Degree in music and over 10 years of ministry experience it’s not exactly like I’m unqualified for my position. But regardless, I’d been feeling the need to take a next step in my education.

The only viable options for me were going to have to be online. Last summer I came across an article for West Coast Bible College & Seminary. I had seen different online ministry degrees before, but they were all expensive and didn’t seem to fit what I was looking for. However, West Coast was different. They offer a variety of ministry degrees at various levels and their format and approach is just what I was looking for:

• All of your classes are ministry related and directly connected to your focus. There’s no general courses to fill out the schedule.
• There are no traditional text books. The books needed for the courses are ministry books like what I already have on my bookshelf in my office. In fact, I already has a few of the books I’ll need for the courses. This means they’re practical, accessible and most importantly, not “text-book” expensive!
• You move at your own pace. There’s no defined start and end time for the course. If you can crank through it in a week, good! If it takes a couple of months, that’s good too.
• They count life experience. For me, this was HUGE! I was able to transfer my credits from my original degree and I applied for and received the maximum amount of life credits available. Because of that, I’ll have my BA in worships and arts in just 10 classes, saving me a bunch of money.
• It’s very affordable! If you were starting out straight from high school and looking to complete your BA, you’d be looking at about $1,200. That’s $1,200 total. For the entire degree. Not $1,200 per year. Yes books are extra, but you’re saving a significant amount of money over a traditional college. Because I was able to transfer my existing credits and apply for life experience credits, my degree will cost a bit less.

I’m almost finished with my first course and I can’t wait to get into some of the other courses. I’m on track to finish sometime this year depending on how quickly I can move through the courses. My plan is to complete my BA and then to continue to get my Masters in Worship and Arts. It’s going to be a fun journey, but it will be worth it to grow and equip myself for ministry.

So what’s your next step? What area of your life do you need to give some attention to and take some time to grow?