kylegilbert

Things on the Internet Campus have been going great, and I’m very super-happy to report that starting this weekend we’re adding an additional service. That means that you can now connect up with Faith Promise Church each Sunday at 10 am or 11:45 am (Eastern Time).

In addition to that, there’s some fantastic top secret stuff going on for the iCampus that I really hope will come together in the next few weeks.

Just in case I haven’t said it recently – I love my job. I get to work with amazing people and work on fun projects.

One huge project that’s been slowly coming together over the past few months is Faith Promise’s Internet Campus. Basically, it’s video of the worship service, a virtual lobby area where people can interact through chat, and a place where people can be ministered to through one-on-one prayer. I know there will be skeptics, but I believe God will use it to spread His fame and bring people to faith in Him.

Well, after a lot of work and effort (Brad Roberts has again played a huge role in this endeavor), we’re launching the iCampus this weekend, 4/12/09, with rebroadcasts of Sacred Storm at 3 & 8 pm Eastern Time. Beginning 4/19/09, we’ll begin broadcasting each Sunday morning at 10 am Eastern Time.

What’s really cool is that like our physical campus, this ministry is going to require the help of volunteers. We need greeters in the chat area to welcome people and build relationships, and we need prayer operators who are ready to share the gospel, encourage people, and lift people in prayer.

Please join me in praying for people all over the world who will be exposed to God’s Truth and love through our Internet Campus.

For several weeks now, we’ve been planning towards launching our Internet Campus this Easter weekend with a rebroadcast of Sacred Storm.  There’s still a lot to do to get things ready, but tonight Josh and I decided to push the envelope a little further and do two services on Easter Sunday, 4/12/09.  We’ll broadcast at  both 3pm and 8pm EST.

Honestly, this is terrifying, and the potential for failure just got cranked up a notch, but so did the potential of making an eternal impact in people’s lives.  Now, not only will we have six amazing productions in Knoxville, we’ll also have two productions that are aired globally.  That’s amazing, and it’s worth the risk!

As you pray for these productions and invite people to attend, please also pray for my great friend Brad Roberts and I as we continue to build the Internet Campus and get it ready to roll.

One part of my job that I really enjoy is working with amazingly talented people at Faith Promise and leveraging the internet and social media to promote the ministry that is happening there.

This weekend I had the opportunity to put together a really cool website. Sacred Storm is the dramatic Easter production that our church has done for the past few years. I’ve not personally watched it, but from the photos and the testimonials of my friends, it’s pretty amazing. This year, we’re doing Sacred Storm the weekend before Easter (six productions), and if things go well in the development of our Internet Campus, we’re going to rebroadcast it the afternoon on Easter Sunday – probably 3 pm EST.

Great weekend at Faith Promise! The rap below (featuring the Pastor’s two sons) came right before Pastor’s hard-hitting sermon.

Tonight was an awesome night of worship at Faith Promise!  We set a record for a single service with 1,226 present (1321, if you include the kids in Preschool) .  That’s pretty full, especially when you take into account that there are only 1,000 seats in the auditorium.

One of the songs was, For the Glory of it All, and it really made me miss all my pals from the West Campus.  I love you guys, and I think about you all the time!  Come visit, when you have a chance!

Over the past couple of months, my life has been consumed with preparing for the launch of the new Faith Promise Church website.  I am thrilled to report that tonight we will redirect the name servers to point to the new website.

This has been a mammoth project, and even with a couple of us working on it almost daily for weeks, we still missed our desired launch day of Jan 1st (but not by much).

I want to thank all of the people who have helped see this project through.  Evan Crass got the ball rolling even before I arrived at Faith Promise by pulling together a bunch of people who were eager to see the site go to the next level.  From then on, I’ve been amazed at the talent and skill found at Faith Promise.

Special thanks to Jeff Lowe for tracking down all the DNS info and so faithfully uploading audio files to the site each week, and Brad Farrar for your excellent worship photography that is featured on several pages.  Toe, thanks for your encouragement and expertise, and Heather,  thank you for designing the amazing sermon series graphics and logos.  Thanks also to Josh for entrusting this project to me and empowering me with the necessary resources.

There are many others who have contributed, but none so much as my new friend Brad Roberts.  His skill and expertise as a developer is outstanding, and it’s been a joy to work alongside him on this project.  Meetings (both face-to-face and internet), phone conversations, and many late nights have been poured into this site together.

If you click the link and still see the old site, take a moment to look around and tell it goodbye (the name servers take up to a couple of days to update across the internet).  Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the new site.

This is probably silly, but I’m really excited about some Faith Promise window stickers I just had made.  My hope is that the members of our congregation will put them on their cars, filing cabinets, lockers, or any other place that can be a conversation starter for people they encounter each week.

We plan to give them out in January, but in the meantime, they’re sitting in my office.  Come by, and I’ll hook you up (I’ve got 3,000 – four spools).

I know this photo is pretty lame, but it’s hard to take an on-the-sly photo when you’re ushering and all you have is an iPhone to do the job.  I’m standing about six rows from the back left corner and facing the screen on the right side of the stage.  You can see a glimpse of the balcony on the right.

I love the atmosphere of worship and anticipation in this place.  People are excited to be there, and yes, it feels a bit like a rock concert.  I love it!  (Why should that feeling be reserved for only concerts and football games?)