kylegilbert

From time to time I get emails and phone calls regarding our Internet Campus setup at Faith Promise Church, so I decided to put together a post to serve as a starting point for people who are interested.

Video Encoding & Broadcast

• We simultaneously capture and encode the service in real-time using Flash Media Encoder on a couple of PC workstations (one to capture the regular video feed, and one to capture the sign language video feed).
• Files are captured via BlackMagic Design DeckLink cards being fed an SDI signal from our switcher (thanks to Matt James, and the rest of our awesome tech team).
• Encoding settings: 720 x 486 pixels at 500 Kbps
  29.97 frame rate
  quality: best with lower framerate
  keyframe: 5 seconds
• PC specs: Win XP, Dual Core 2.19 GHz with 2 GB RAM
• From there, we upload the video files to LightCast Media.
• From our own Internet Campus backend, we update the LightCast consoles to the current week’s date, time, and video file.

Development

• Our website and Internet Campus are both built on ColdFusion & MySQL.
• I’m not a coder, so all the heavy lifting has been done by my great friend and volunteer at Faith Promise, Brad Roberts.
• I add upcoming sermons and series directly through our MySQL database.

Chat Room

• We tried a ton of third-party chat solutions, but every option had significant drawbacks, so we ended up just developing our own chat room.  It runs on AJAX and ColdFusion, so it doesn’t require plugins, and it’s built so that the admin can log in through the chat window.

Live Prayer

• Prayer support occurs through PhpLive! support software that we’ve installed on one of our servers.  Using this, logged-in volunteers can connect one-on-one with people who need someone to pray and encourage them.

Volunteer Base

• Although I personally coordinate several services each weekend, we also have a couple of volunteer service coordinators who oversee particular service times online each week.  As we expand to additional services, my plan is to continue using volunteers to head those up.
• We also have prayer volunteers each service (see above) and volunteer greeters who help keep the conversation in the chat room lively and who greet everyone as they enter.

Design

• We faced several challenges with regard to incorporating new features while still maintaining a clean interface, so we hired LiftUX to help us create the current design.  Honestly, I couldn’t be more pleased with their work.

Online Groups

• One of my biggest regrets has been that we didn’t launch our Internet Campus with online groups from the beginning.  We’re late to the game, but I’m committed to quickly building up opportunities for people who attend online to connect into online small groups.
• Our groups use Tokbox.com to see each other as they connect via webcam.
• Because of the challenge of webcam microphones and the propensity for feedback, we opt to mute our webcams and call in to a free conference call line instead.  A few services we’ve used are FreeConferenceCall.com, Rondee.com, and Google Voice.

Attendance Tracking

• We track our attendance through LightCast’s live viewers panel.
• Attendance is recorded by the maximum number of simultaneous connections per service.
• We maintain our weekly online attendance figures in a Google Docs spreadsheet that is shared with our service coordinators, Internet Campus volunteers, and Executive Team.

Multiple Campuses

• Since each of our campuses has the same approach and philosophy of ministry, we decided to use class tags in the HTML to show and hide content based on the campus selection.  We’ve not been using this for very long, but at least for now, it feels like the right approach.

Online Giving

• We use FellowshipOne Technologies for our church management software, and we utilize their online giving module to make this happen.

Group Listings

• FellowshipOne Technologies also powers our groups directory.  We’ve already migrated a few of our groups to their very cool Groups 2.0 module.

Calendar

• We use EventU to schedule resources across our campuses, and we use their API to pull calendar data to our website.
• Featured events are added manually to the home page and events pages of the site, and they feature start and expiration dates, so we never have out-of-date events.  We coordinate these events with our weekly printed worship guide, which we limit to five things each week.

Maybe this information will be helpful to someone.  If it is, or if you’d like more info, I’d love to hear from you.

To follow up on my previous post on illustrating, here’s a video that nearly made me pee my pants with laughter.

HT: ChrisWHill

One of my goals for this year was to start learning cartoon illustration, and this weekend I decided to take the first step towards that endeavor.

I really didn’t know where to start, so I started with a Internet search.  After reading up on some suggestions and looking at examples, I decided to give it a try.

After a few really bad attempts, I drew the following without using a pencil sketch.  (I was sitting with my kids, and we only had Crayola markers.)

Then, I did something I never thought I’d ever do.  I drove to Best Buy and purchased a Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch Pad.

Oh, yeah.  I think I’m going to like this new toy.

Graphic derived from photo by Lauren Manning

This morning I decided to start off my day with a quick run around the pond. It was a cool and misty morning – perfect weather for a good run.

The wind was blowing past my face. I felt the rush of adrenaline as my feet pushed against the pavement.

I felt myself taking it all in – enjoying the moment.

For about 30 seconds.

Then, I remembered that I hate running. In a major way.

Honestly, I prefer just about any other form of exercise over running. Every time I try to do it, I find that my motivation is very short lived. Pathetic, even.

Because of this, I smile every time I read the Apostle Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.” (NIV)

Of all the things Paul could have chosen to illustrate the life of the believer here, he chose the imagery of a runner going into strict training to run a race (not eating ice cream, which I would have much preferred).

Here’s the connection: Like running, our spiritual life involves the steady discipline of participating in a relationship with God.*

So what does that mean for us? Each one of us has to come to grips with the priorities in our lives. Are we accidentally or intentionally placing our physical or mental conditioning above our spiritual formation?

As much as I hate to admit it, given some time and accountability, I could establish running as a regular part of my week. If I really put effort into it and disciplined myself, I could eventually grow my endurance and enjoyment of running.** The same is true in the spiritual realm. No matter how difficult reading the Bible, prayer, solitude, fasting, tithing, outreach, or any other spiritual discipline may be to you today, it doesn’t have to stay that way.***

——

*This relationship is initiated, grown, and sealed through Jesus – His life, death, and resurrection. More here.

**I assure you, I will never let this happen. I hate running.

***If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of spiritual disciplines, I highly recommend this article

****What the heck? Why all the footnotes? This is a blog post, not a research paper. Good grief!

As I’ve mentioned recently, I struggle with insecurity and trying to measure my worth by my abilities, characteristics, and performance.

When I was in elementary school, I was a dork, and some kids made fun of my hair.  Ever since then, I’ve struggled with insecurity about how my hair looks.  “Will people think my hair is cool, or will they think I’m a dork?”

Well, just over a week ago, my friend and fellow staffer, Michael Wallace, preached the weekend message at Faith Promise Church, and at the beginning, he included a comment about my hair.  Saying it was as compliment might be a stretch, but it still made my day.  In fact, I cropped out the video so I can watch it whenever I want to.

It’s embarrassing to write this post, but I’m doing it for a couple of reasons:

1) To thank Michael Wallace.

2) To make the point that our insecurities create a black hole within us that can never really be satisfied with compliments.  Heck, someone even mentioned my hair from a stage in front of hundreds of people, but that didn’t cure my insecurity.  Instead, we have to learn to think more about others and less about ourselves.  We can let our insecurities fill us with fear and keep us from connecting with others, or we can choose to ignore our discomfort and think about how we can make a difference in the lives of the people around us.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve wasted enough time worrying about myself.

When I hang out with my kids, we like to try to find new things to do.  This morning, we decided to do a little origami. We started out with a paper cube, then origami balloons, and finally paper hats.

But the best part was the skull and crossbones that my daughter drew on her doll’s paper hat. Awesome!

I doubt many would be surprised to hear that I have a special place in my heart for technology. I love the way our church websites, Internet Campus, and online groups extend the ministry of our church and allow me to connect with people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I love that I can stay in contact with many people by reading their updates via Facebook, Twitter, and their blogs. I love that I can use technology, like Skype and Facetime, to connect with my family and have face-to-face conversations even though we are geographically distant from one another.

But along with this amazing gift of technology, our society, and maybe much of the world, has now also taken on the mantle of hyper-criticism. I see it in the comments of many blogs I read, I find it on Twitter, and I’ve even watched it creep into our church’s online social spaces. Our ability to interact and give feedback has brought many to the point where they can’t seem to turn off their own commentary. And now, everywhere I look, I’m surrounded by criticism. Someone is ripping on a airline for bad customer service, or they’re tearing down a celebrity for the dumb choices they’ve made, or they’re complaining about the quality of some product. Everywhere I look on the web, someone is pointing out somone’s mistake.

We’ve taken the platforms of web technology and social media and turned them into our pedestals. Our opinions have become the commodity, and we have become self-important. We take everything personally, refuse to extend grace, and dish out negativity.

This can’t be healthy. Not for us, and not for our society.

I think it’s time for many of us, especially those of us who claim to follow Jesus, to take a different path. It’s time to climb down from our pedestals, remember that we’re flawed like everyone else, and begin using our influence to lavish grace and love on those around us.

Here’s a video of my nearly five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son practicing driving nails into a block of wood with their little hammers.  I love these little things that make our free time together so fun.