This week’s Sunday was different than normal. On a typical Sunday I attend only my church’s services. I usually work in some capacity running camera’s and our live stream, or manning the sound board. Over the past couple of weeks I was asked to help set up new video equipment for two other churches. I wanted to make sure that they were up and running smooth so I was able to attend three separate church services, which to be honest was great!

The first was the 8:30 am service at my church. Each week I meet up with the rest of the light and sound crew. We have one that runs slides for the congregation to see, one that runs sound, and one that runs video. The text from the slides shown to the congregation also come in by NDI to the video setup to display lyrics and scripture to those watching online. We start by making title layers, graphics, and setting up whatever else may be needed for the day.

Our pastor has been preaching from 2 Kings and this week he was in chapter 17, with a message titled “The Tragedy of a Fallen Nation”. Israel split after the reign of King Solomon into a northern and southern kingdom. The passage covered the last king and final fall of the northern kingdom, and also the sin and reasons for the fall and judgement of the kingdom. It was a hard message to hear. I don’t think we as people like being put face to face with our sin, much less it’s consequences. As hard as messages like that can be to hear, it’s a merciful reminder to turn from our sin, and follow God.

Usually after a service is complete the next step is to prep audio for our weekly sermon podcast, this is usually done by doing some audio clean up in adobe audition. Once that’s complete we upload to anchor for distribution and occasionally we’ll send the audio to a local radio station. Along with an audio version we trim the video in premiere pro to send to local television stations and today’s service will air the following Sunday. There’s a lot of moving pieces but it’s all to promote who Jesus is and what he has done!

Following the service at my church, we traveled to another in the next town for their 10:30am service. They had hired myself and a friend of mine to make updates to their existing hardware and to set up new presentation and streaming software. I made the trip to make sure their first service with the new equipment started smooth. Tuesday, when we left their church we had their new system in place and working smoothly. When we came in this morning some wires had been unplugged, and the computer was locked out. After some debugging, running back and fourth we had things up and ready to go with only seconds to spare.

The last service I attended was also testing a new streaming setup I had put in place the day before; more importantly they had a big day with multiple baptisms. Their stream worked well and members that had to be in other states were able to watch the baptisms. The pastor preached a message on repentance and the gospel.

Overall it was a productive day, and one where I hope churches have the tools to get their message out to others through technology. More than that it was great to hear multiple messages asking individuals to look to Jesus.