Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; we can help.

Connection Cards: church service distraction or great ministry tool?

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Connection cards, are they a great tool or church service distraction?
Connection cards, are they a great tool or church service distraction--please share your comments.

I recently received the following email (only slightly edited for privacy) with a practical ministry question about Connection Cards and how to avoid the time filling out the cards and collecting them more than an awkward break in the service. Following the email, I have some advice, but PLEASE add your comments and practices in the comment section that follows.

Question about Connection Cards

I have a question or two concerning having the whole congregation fill out connection cards during the service time. I know you believe this a very important part of the Sunday morning church service. I have read several church leaders that agree.

I am Director of Administration for our church and have approached our Senior Pastor about doing this. He has been the pastor for 25 years so he is a very experienced pastor. When I first mentioned us possibly doing this he said he could not imagine having a break in the service where pretty much everything comes to a standstill while hundreds of people fill out these cards. He said he would think it would be a real "flow" breaker if you know what I mean...however he cares more about doing what is best for the body of our church than not wanting to try something new. So, he is willing to give this a try but I have a couple of questions that I'd like to ask you so I will have more information to approach him with...

What would you estimate the time to be to complete these cards? Each service would have around 200 people in it....Would you estimate 2 or 3 minutes or something much shorter like 30 seconds?

Also, when other churches do this do they have something going on at the same time or does everything come to a standstill while they are being filled out?

My answer

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Q&A, “Is it illegal to download YouTube videos for use in ministry?”

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The legality of use for YouTube videos
The legality of use for YouTube videos goes beyond the letter of the law for the Christian communicator.

The context of the following question was an email conversation that about downloading YouTube videos, shortening them, and using them in animoto. I highlighted the question.

Question:

I think it’s OK to do that  with a YouTube video [one she downloaded]. Do you know anything about it?  I’m not changing the content only shortening it.  Info. I have about copyright laws from the Canadian Council of Christian Charities says there is an exception for YouTube etc. videos in 2012 and you can use them to create other work as long as it meets criteria and says what that is.  Non-commercial purposes, info. about original mentioned if reasonable, it doesn’t infringe copyright, not a substitute for original and not a substantial negative impact on markets for original material.  I used www.keepvid.com to download the video.  Hopefully all OK.  It’s not easy getting exactly what I want.

 My answer:

To answer the question, I tried to get access to the copyright laws from the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and was unable to do so because I am not a member.

However, regardless of the opinion of that group, I researched the question, "Is it illegal to download YouTube videos?"

The short answer is "yes" it is illegal. No question about it. 

First I'll share the resources that support my conclusion that come from YouTube and a secular and then Christian web . In addition to sharing the sources that answer the question of legality, included are opinions of a couple of online commentators and finally some comments that I believe should be important to all of us a Christian communicators.

From: YouTube answers

In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed. However, you can download MP4s of your own uploads.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6035694?rd=1

From: PC Advisor website (good quotes of original Terms of Service)

Consider the fact that lots of the people who create YouTube videos rely on the money they make from the adverts displayed on their clips. And downloading video from YouTube does breach Google's terms of service, too. Within Section 5.1 it states: "YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service, subject to the following express conditions, and you agree that your failure to adhere to any of these conditions shall constitute a breach of these Terms on your part: you agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Website itself, the YouTube Player, or other means as YouTube may explicitly designate for this purpose. See also: How to download YouTube videos to your iPhone or iPod touch.

"You agree not to access Content for any reason other than your personal, non-commercial use solely as intended through and permitted by the normal functionality of the Service, and solely for Streaming. "Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of the material by YouTube via the Internet to a user operated Internet enabled device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be downloaded (either permanently or temporarily), copied, stored, or redistributed by the user.

"You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensers of the Content."

In other words, you are permitted to view YouTube video only through Google's own website and apps.

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/internet/3420353/is-it-legal-download-youtube-videos/

From:  www.communicatejesus.com website

I thought I’d check out the CCLI (Christian Copyright) website to see what they had to say about churches using YouTube clips. The only article I could find was from 2008 entitled – ‘Playing it safe – internet content and copyright‘and it said,

As far as I can tell, the long and the short of it is this – in most cases, it is not legal to download YouTube videos for church use, personal use, or any other use, . . . . Similarly, I discovered that should you (for some reason) want to reproduce (e.g. quote) comments made against videos, this too is a breach of the terms of use.

Steve Fogg wrote in with the following comment:

“…it is actually illegal to play this kind of thing [YouTube videos] in a church service or public space unless you have written authorization from the ORGINAL copyright holder

Which means if people who put together videos for YouTube sample vision or sound from somewhere else you need their expressed written permission.

CCLI who give license for music offer video license for most major movies which gives you rights to play a clip for a sermon. Outside of this, if you don’t know created the video or don’t have their express permission as copyright holders it is breaking many intellectual property laws and could break a small churches bank totally as fines for these kinds of thing are massive.”

http://www.communicatejesus.com/2009/08/only-two-legal-scenarios-to-download-youtube-videos/

A troubling trend in many of the answers

Because I did not want to cause confusion, I quoted the resources above that made clear, statements about the stated legality of the practice.

However, those were not the only kind of answers I found that were similar the one above, that after clearly stating it was illegal and against terms of service to download the videos, had a link to an article for how to download them to your iphone or ipad. Did you notice that? I had to reread it several times, because I couldn't believe that after telling people it was illegal to do this, they gave a link to an article that told you how to do it. In addition, the one below is typical of many others:

 From: Yahoo answers

Well if it's music or music videos that you don't own, then yes it's technically illegal, but if you use a YouTube downloader or Keepvid.com to transfer them, nobody's going to know anyways.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110118162831AAVjWmG

The idea that yes it was illegal to download videos, but "nobody's going to know" so it is OK to do what is illegal if you don't get caught, was a common theme in the answers to the question and is sadly a common theme for so much digital content today.

But for the Christian communicator who seeks to honor God in all his or her work, it isn't OK.

There is no such thing as not getting caught for a Christian. Our work is open to our Lord as are our hearts and motives as we do our work. We might wish it were different when it is very frustrating to work hard to find the right video or piece of artwork to illustrate the message we want to illustrate only to realize when we take the time to read the fine print of rights and terms of use that we can't use it or download it for our purposes.

But we must always remind ourselves that we are doing what we do to honor our Lord and advance His kingdom and that isn't always easy. The hosts of heaven are watching us.

Reminder of a temptation long ago, but one that always returns

In situations like this I always remember when I was first starting out in desktop publishing. Young Life, where I worked as senior editor, had shut down their in-house communication program. I was on my own, single, and desperately poor. I was making my living as a Christian free-lance designer and the resources I needed to do my job were very expensive. At that time, my laser printer cost about $5,000 and individual typefaces cost hundreds of dollars. To do freelance work I needed more than the few that came with my Mac and someone offered to give me a pirated copy of the entire Adobe type library for free.

I am ashamed to admit I had to think about it overnight before I turned her down.

Today when more typefaces than we want or need junk up our hard drives, it's hard to imagine how difficult that decision was, but I now suspect it was far more important to the health of my soul than it was to the health of my financial state. Typefaces might be free today, but there is always something that tempts us to betray what we know isn't right for reasons that make perfectly good sense when we are tired and stressed to finish a job.

Money is still an issue (You mean I have to PAY for clip art? Every year???), but so is time (You mean I have to look for hours for something legal when I can find, download and paste any image I want from Google in minutes?). Since both are in short supply, I have lots of excuses to cheat--or so it is always easy to tell myself that. 

But as I thought back then and have to still remind myself today: how can I do the Lord's work with stolen tools?

The question isn't trivial because, as C. S. Lewis reminds us:

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”

It is not a small, insignificant decision whether to follow copyright and fair usage rules or not as you create church communications.We don't get a pass because we are tired, stressed, or didn't have the time—all of that is a given in ministry. Our work involves the eternal destiny of the souls entrusted to the care of our church or ministry.  The little decisions we make as we do our work will be reflected in the quality and integrity of the result and in how the Lord will use it. As much as is possible, in everything we do, we need to remember:

Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.  2 Timothy 2:20-21

We want to be clean vessels so that the Lord can use us and bless the work we create to help people come to know Jesus and to grow into maturity in Him. Ultimately the success of our communication work never depends on time or money saved, never by "might or power" but always by the blessing of His Holy Spirit, who touches hearts and changes lives through the communications we create for Him.

A tool to help us in our work

There are many tools today that can help us do our work in time and cost-saving ways and one of my favorites is: animoto. This program is so easy to use, very powerful and free. CLICK HERE to go to an article that illustrates some vidoes made with it as well as a short video on how to use the program.

_____________________________________________

If you have a question, ask me! Just email yvon@effectivechurchcom.com

Just as the church communicator did who was the inspiration for this article did. I have a number of other questions that are in the pipeline to answer in articles in the coming week and I want to do this regularly. Send questions about any aspect of church communications to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.  I can't guarantee how quickly I will get to the answer, or if I will answer it with an article, but I will read all of them and send you a private response.

How to get feedback from your congregation via their mobile phones

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Poll Everywhere, an ap for congregation feedback.
Poll Everywhere is an ap for congregation feedback.

How often have you wanted to know what your congregation really thought about: the importance of daily devotions, the effectiveness of your teaching, how well you passed on important church information, and their thoughts on dozens of other topics? Christians are usually far too kind to share what they really think and that doesn't help any of us improve either our church communications or Biblical teaching. To solve this challenge, I found a great tool online, Poll Everywhere. Let me tell you more about it, show you a video of how it works, plus add a few comments at the end.

My search started with a question

I recently got this question sent to me via email (BTW I love your questions, send them anytime, and I will be including more in upcoming articles, email them to yvon@effectivechurchcom.com):

I wonder if you would have any suggestion for who to  use as a text messaging service.

Here’s what we are looking for:

1.The ability to have people text after a service (text YES to 12345 if you prayed to receive Christ).   We want to collect the phone number of that person so we can contact them.  Also, automatically send them a text back.

2.The ability to do a live poll during a service (text A, B, or C  to 12345.  The results would automatically show up online).

3.The ability to have people opt in to our lists so we could text them in the future.

After some research and discarding a number of options that took too much work, I found this great service: http://www.polleverywhere.com/

It allows people in your group, congregation, in any setting, to use their cell phones (they don't have to be a smart phone) to respond to questions. One of the most important things about it is that their replies can be totally anonymous. Having said that, the anonymous features is great for larger interviews, but people can also add more comments and I am assuming (though I don't know and you need to check with the software company for details), that the comments could only go to the organizer, not be on the screen if they wanted to share a phone number.

Rather than try to explain it more, on their website, is the video below starting with their description:

Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Oahu, Hawaii tells a story in a way that is so inspirational and fun, we wanted to share it with you. Pastor Wayne demonstrates perfectly how to engage an entire congregation with Poll Everywhere, and injects humor and levity to the traditional Sunday service. You can hear and feel the joy his congregation has at seeing their anonymous responses up on the live screen.

CLICK HERE to go to the page with the video for more about how to use it in a church setting. Their main site has other videos, a useful and informative blog, plus easy-to-find pricing info, all on an easy-to-navigate site. You can try the program for free.

Additional comments about this program and the question that prompted it

As a speaker and teacher, I do think the program would be tremendous fun and very useful to use. But beyond the fun aspects, for years I've encouraged churches to take surveys about how people were responding to communications, what channels they were using. In addition in our own ministry work my husband and I have often taken surveys to find out how often people were reading their Bible, what questions they had about the faith and many other areas. These surveys have always been tremendously useful in helping us plan teaching and communications.

But they were so much work to do, to duplicate, to get people to fill them out, and the worst thing of course, to tally the results. I've always advised that churches take any survey during the service, but this can be a challenge also (which the video shows in real-time how it can be done and how many questions can be asked). This software seems to solve many of the previous problems.

"Know your audience" is one of the prime requirements of any successful communication venture in business or ministry and this tool can help you gain immediate and useful knowledge of them. Please send me some feedback if your churches uses it or any similar system--if you put your comments below that would be a great to help others.

Texting without the program for spiritual interactions

When I was having trouble finding something useful, I realized that a simple answer to the question asked initially would be to simply have a number that people could text to during the service (or really anytime). It could be staffed by a real person or a team ideally 24/7 so that when people might have questions or have made a decision to follow Jesus, they would have someone to text. Their number would automatically come up in a system like this so you could call them if you wanted to.

The important thing about this system is that a real person would be there who cared and who would respond. Technology is exciting and a tool like Poll Everywhere could be a great benefit to ministries, but in our use of technology, we need to remember to also offer opportunities for immediate, caring, human, one-on-one interaction.

Q & A What is best way to use music in PowerPoints or Videos?

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Music in PowerPoint Presentations
Music should enhance, not distract from the message of our presentations. The challenge is to find the right music that does that.

When I recently posted the video for Father's Day, I got this very interesting question/response from Barb, an ECC Member:

Here is something that I have noticed when there are certain presentations at our church on PPT: I am not able to concentrate on the written words on the screen when there is vocal music playing as background.

Some sort of classical music, or any instrumental music that does not evoke thoughts of lyrics, would be OK. I don't know if I'm alone in this problem or not. I've never heard of anyone doing any sort of study on it, either.

Summary answer

After research and thinking about it, my conclusion on music with PowerPoint (whether or not you turn it into a video) is to select it as you would a man's tie. A great tie on a man is one that you don't really notice, but that finishes his look perfectly without drawing undue attention to it. The result is that you see a professional man, not a loud tie.

It's the same with music for PowerPoint, if you choose to use it (and not every presentation needs it any more than every occasion requires that a man wear a tie), select music that does not overwhelm your presentation, but that enhances the overall experience. The content, the message of the presentation is what is most important.

I think that is useful advice, but here is the challenge: what enhances and what does not? Especially for Christian music—the vocals can be extremely powerful and we find ourselves listening to them more than reading the words. Even if we have an instrumental of a well-known song ("Amazing Grace", for example) we will hear the words. In some instances, and this was my purpose with choosing the song I did for the Father's Day video was to add an extra layer of challenge to Dads. But honestly, I also really liked the song "Be Thou My Vision" and have gotten distracted just listening to it.

Following are other comments from the web, how to insert music clips and a free music resource.

Please add your thoughts, ideas, comments, below.

Answers from around the web:

Music should draw your audience in, not jolt them.

PowerPoint presentations often use music to enhance slides or transition from one to the next. Yet when the music starts or stops suddenly, it jars the audience, distracting them from your message. You can edit your audio clips using an external application to prevent this, but you can also use PowerPoint's own audio editing tools. These tools will fade clips in and out, blending them more naturally into your presentation. They may also fade one piece into another, if a slide contains multiple audio clips.

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/fade-music-powerpoint-39688.html

 

If you plan to narrate over the slide show, it is important to search for some ambient PowerPoint music that will not distract the audience from listening to whatever it is that you are saying. The main objective of the presentation if for the audience to listen to your presentation, and not to the music! The music is just an added benefit, to help the audience relax, and enjoy the presentation better. Music is very relaxing, and a smooth, relaxing tune running throughout the presentation helps the audience to relax, and thereby enjoy your presentation better!

However, if you plan to do an automatic slide show that loops continuously, without you narrating during the show, then it is better to use some energetic music, which will in fact do the talking in the presentation! The energy in the music is sure to rid the audience of any fatigue, and may also prevent anyone from sleeping through the PowerPoint presentation! Adding music to your website is a sure means of making your site stand apart from the rest of the sites and to communicate a message in the universal language of music. In fact, there are some professional creators who adamantly agree that no amount whatsoever of eye-popping graphics or animation can convey as much emotional core of the PowerPoint presentation as a well-chosen piece of music can.

From: http://www.articlesphere.com/Article/Adding-Music-to-your-PowerPoint-Presentation-does-make-a-difference/64154

How to put music into PowerPoint

Office PowerPoint allows you insert various kinds of media in your slide shows, such as videos, photos and even songs. Playing a song throughout your PowerPoint presentation can give the slide show some flare, provided your choice of music does not distract from the content and fits the presentation's theme. Use PowerPoint's insertion options to add a song to the slide show and so it plays through your presentation.  Read more: How to Play a Song During a PowerPoint | eHow http://www.ehow.com/how_8226194_play-song-during-powerpoint.html#ixzz2TrIAE593

http://www.ehow.com/how_8226194_play-song-during-powerpoint.html

Resources of Free music for Power Point

http://www.brainybetty.com/soundsforpowerpoint.htm

Please let me know your thoughts or resources in the comments section below--thanks!

Yvon Prehn Interviewed on The Gospel Blog

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"Why bother to do church communications?"

"Who do we do the church bulletin for?"

"What are some of the biggest mistakes people make in church communications?"

"How did you get started in this ministry?" [Read more...]