Church Tech Stuff is a resource we've created specifically for those who are engaged in church ministries where technology plays a role. All resources (videos, graphics, audio, etc) are all free. Plus, we'll continually provide training video resources. Check it out here

The Christian Musicians Summit is this weekend. We're heavily engaged in it. Check out their website here

'Tis the season for a Christmas production! For us, that season began quite awhile ago, but the big push is on right now to see it completed. We're now only 7 days away from the 1st show! 

This year is going to be different from last year in lots of ways. I don't want to spoil all of the surprises, but from a production standpoint we have some really cool stuff going on. 

As usual, the show will be quite video-intensive. We're creating a total of 10 custom video elements that will compliment the performance on stage. Many were shot with our new Canon 5D Mark II, which creates beautiful, cinematic imagery. We're working on an element that places a subject into a 3D composition to allow them to interact with some special effects. We also have a beautiful piece that will include hand-drawn sketches of scenes from the book of Luke that will transition into something really incredible (it's a secret!). There's a killer behind-the-scenes video created by our awesome intern Jerry. On top of that, we're renting a three projector blending system to create a 60' wide projection area on stage. 

Lighting will be stellar as always. This year, we have a total of 52 moving lights throughout the room, 24 color blast LEDs, and 32 ACLs. The whole setup allows us to paint the stage however best fits the moment, allowing for the creation of a visually powerful show that compliments the musical performance. 

The production team and set designers have been working hard to create an incredible look for the stage. A large choir riser, set pieces, and a full blown orchestra all need to fit on the platform. This year, to add additional space and to allow the action of the show to connect more with those sitting in the audience, we've created a large thrust off the front of the stage that spills into the seating area. Most of the soloists, dancing, and other action will take place right down front. We have a few other surprises up our sleeves including a custom dry-ice setup that looks incredible. 

It takes a ton of people to pull this production off, serving in all kinds of different capacities. I'm so excited to see this whole thing come together next week! If you haven't gotten your tickets yet, you can get them online at www.thechapel.com/tickets

So much to update you all on! Take a read at what's been going on...

Renovation 101 Material

This project was started over 14 weeks ago with the goal of creating new video teaching material that could be used to train and equip ministry staff, lay leaders, and small groups in the concepts of renovation training - that God is on mission to reach every man, woman and child with the gospel of Christ and that we, in our spheres of influence, get a chance to and are called to be on mission with him. 

This was the first large-scale project for The Chapel shot in HDV (720p) using 35mm adapters to achieve a more cinematic look and feel. After 12 shoot dates and hours of editing, color correction, audio mastering, graphic design work, review sessions, proofing and output, it is done and will be released on DVD and BluRay next week to our church as well as several other churches across the country. We're really excited about this project and what God will do with it.

"One Name" Worship Album

This is The Chapel's first major release of current worship music being sung on Sunday mornings in all three of our campuses. Chris Kish is producing, engineering, and mixing the final product with the help of several on the media and worship and arts team. It is an exciting process! We're finishing up the artwork for the packaging and listening through semi-final mixes this week. The project goes to mastering on Friday and is expected to be released mid-October. 

VOC - Vintage ONLINE Campus

The official launch of VOC was this past Tuesday night and we saw close to 100 people watching, some connecting from over 17 areas outside New York State (and some even half way around the world). It is an exciting new adventure for Vintage, as we aim to reach college students right where they are. We're encouraging believers who find themselves in a college dorm or surrounded by college friends in an apartment to form a "hotspot," a small group that meets weekly and engages in the worship and teaching at Vintage through an internet connection. Here at the CrossPoint campus, we're now running a full camera crew and hope to see many people connect to Vintage through this new ministry outlet.

There is so much more happening in the media ministry. Most ministries here at The Chapel have or are planning to hold a fall kickoff, we're partnering with several churches in the area to assist them with installation and improvements to their systems, we are planning a redesign of some of our key online resources, and a whole lot more.

To those of you who serve in the media ministry, THANK YOU. The growth we continue to see can only be supported by a fantastic volunteer team and I'm so appreciative that we have that such a great one here! Continue to pray as we serve Christ here and watch Him move in incredible ways through this ministry.

September 7th has been on our calendar for a long time, a date we've been looking forward to as a very special event for the Vintage ministry at The Chapel. "Live and Outside," as it was titled, was supposed to kickoff the fall season with an outdoor concert in front of The Chapel at CrossPoint. This morning at 8:30 AM, we met to re-evaluate our plans since the weather report was not looking so good. With a forecast of thunderstorms and high winds starting at 7:00 PM, we reluctantly made the decision to move the event indoors.

One of the great parts of the day was the creation of a video with Darryl Johnson to announce the switch to an indoor event. It was hilarious! You can check it out here.

ALL DAY the weather was beautiful! Sunny skies and high temperatures made us continually feel remorse for choosing to move it indoors. The plan by the afternoon was to still have a game outside that would be covered with outdoor cameras and shown indoors to help keep the outdoor feel. We had a camera on the roof for an overhead shot of a shopping cart race that was supposed to take place around the circle out front. 

Around 7:30 PM however, the skies opened up. Lightning, thunder, wind, and lots of rain hit our area. We scrambled to cover and move the small bit of equipment we did have outside. We were still able to have a live outdoor element though - Joe Hammann provided us with a "live weather look" from outside. The camera crew had to suit up in full rain proof gear which mostly consisted of borrowed jackets, gaff tape, and garbage bags.

Despite the weather, the event was fantastic! Great message, incredible music, and a look that was fantastic! Plus, we ran a preview of our new Vintage Online Campus which will launch next week and be offered as a weekly broadcast to groups meeting in dorm rooms wherever a group decides to form. God is good! I can't wait to see what He does with this!

Last night we held a work night at The Chapel and the list of projects was quite ambitious. In one 3-4 hour period, we accomplshed the following:

- Large TV used for confidence monitor taken down and re-mounted in another part of the building

- Small projector taken from a room in the building and hung under the booth area to replace confidence monitor

- Complete rewire of intercom system including the addition of a new panel by the tape rack

- Recessing of all intercom panels in the control room into counter

- Rewire of computers in control room and mounting of those machines to underside of counter

- Hanging audio monitors in control room

- Removal and sorting of tape archives

It was a huge amount of work to accomplish in a short amount of time. I'm so appreciative of everyone that came out and helped. We had a giant crew of hard-working, servant-hearted people and it make the work fly by.

Check out some pictures of what happened: http://gallery.me.com/chapelmedia#100010

What an incredible weekend we’ve had! Good Friday and Easter Sunday are some of the busiest and most demanding days of the year for the Media Ministry. It is also one of the greatest opportunities for the ministries of The Chapel to reach people and share the news of the gospel. Couple this with week 1 of a brand new campus in Lockport and you have one special week.

As far as the tech went, all systems were good! For the last few weeks, we’ve streamed a live broadcast to the Lockport campus and all has been successful. However, this week was the one that counted so there was extra concern on my end – just praying that God would allow this to all go smoothly. Along with the broadcast, there were other logistics. Sunday was the 1^st week for a fully operational campus at Lockport. This means King’s World and SHINE were in full operation across the street, all with their own technical challenges and needs. Plus, being it was Easter, the Lockport music team utilized some of our same video elements being used at CrossPoint and were playing them to a click. Those are a lot of variables for a first week! Back at the CrossPoint campus, we also ran two overflow venues for additional seating during two of the four worship gatherings.

If things weren’t crazy enough with all of these additions, how about adding live animals to the stage? Yep, that’s right – a real live unpredictable goat would be part of Pastor Jerry’s message on Sunday!

Well, as I said, it was an incredible weekend! Overall, we saw 8,600 people on all of our campuses, a whole bunch of them new people. Most importantly, 65 people acknowledged that they had received Christ into their lives – some of them responding in the overflow rooms and at Lockport! 65 people!!! How awesome is our God? Amazing!

Be encouraged Media Team! Great things are happening here in WNY and God is moving! Thanks for using the talents and gifts that He’s given you to make the media team run with excellence. We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, so get ready for it. The addition of a brand new campus in Lockport means more coordination, some changes to the way we organize ourselves, and a whole lot of new stuff is coming!

The entire schedule fell apart within minutes of the show starting, but what a night!

Before it began, months of planning and preparation went into last night's concert, though change and flexibility seem to have been the theme throughout. When first booked, this event looked completely different. A different band was scheduled to be the last act before they found out they had a conflict that forced them to cancel. NewWorldSon took their place and completed the line up - the Vintage Band, Alabaster Box, and NewWorldSon would make up the talent for a benefit concert raising money for clean water in Sierra Leone, Africa.

Sound check began earlier in the day on Friday and all three bands were in the building by late afternoon. Checks went well and were complete by 5:15pm. Being it was a three-band setup, the production team had a lot planned out to efficiently change the stage from Vintage to Alabaster Box, then from Alabaster Box to NewWorldSon. The show started with Brett Larson from WDCX introducing the Vintage Band. Once underway, we realized we had skipped the intro video that needed to play before the 1st Vintage song. A minor snag, Benji simply made a change and the video rolled right after the 1st song was over. 

While Vintage was playing however, we received word from backstage that Naarah, the lead singer of Alabaster Box had a medical issue and may need some more time before being able to perform. Vintage was only scheduled to play three songs, so after some giveaways from the stage, they extended their set to accommodate. All during this extension, tons of chatter was happening on the intercom - the question: would Alabaster Box perform or not? It was a question of great importance to both the flow of the night and the setup. A video was played out of order at the end of the Vintage set to add some additional time. Backstage, people were praying for Naarah as she received the care that was necessary. 

The decision was made that while we didn't have a yes or no on Alabaster Box's performance, we were going to switch the band order to give the medical staff more time and to keep the night rolling. This unexpected change would be a challenge for the stage crew, who would have to scrap the preset plan for stage setup. They began their work on making this happen. Then, we heard word that NewWorldSon was missing a band member and he'd be back in the building in 15-20 minutes! Debate bounced around over whether or not they could start one member short. Finally, an answer that they were all set.

Since this entire change up came with some confusion, we needed an MC to introduce NewWorldSon. I asked Joe Hammann, the evening's stage manager, to find either Brett Larson or Daryl Largis to kick off the band but neither was available. Joe, who is not shy of the stage in any way, offered to do this himself. Knowing how time is flying by, I say go for it. Joe walks to center stage with a mic in hand, intercom headset still on his head - "Alright ladies and gentlemen, give it up for NEW   WORLD   SON."

NWS played their full set and rocked the house. What a fantastic band these guys are. Totally flexible in the night's schedule and such a talented, christ-minded group of people. Their show was awesome, and the crowd agreed as they called for an encore song.

After NWS finished up, Pastor Jerry came out to explain to everyone why there had been so much confusion and change - Naarah had been brought to the hospital by ambulance. However, three of the five Alabaster Box band members offered to play an acoustic set. These guys did a fantastic job! What an awesome way to end the night - a great worship evening all the way around.

After the show, Joel from NWS called it "violent worship" and said he and the band had a great time.

The bottom line result:

- People who attended heard three fantastic bands and found themselves in a place where God was being worshipped.

- A bunch of money was raised to help the people of Sierra Leone gain access to clean drinking water in their country and to spread the gospel through this act of love. 

- The team pulled together to coordinate and support the event regardless of the challenges we faced

Dear Media Ministry Members:

Another year has come to a close and God is still at work in Buffalo! There are so many exciting items on my list to think through for 2010, many of them brand new to this ministry and to this church. I’m especially excited to see God branch us out into new areas. The city of Lockport for instance, where we are actively working to make a new campus a reality in the very near future. On UB’s campus, as another example, where we will in January begin streaming that gathering live online so students in their dorm rooms, across campus, or at another school even can plug in and get connected. We’re in the process of designing a new building for across the street. We’re working on launching a website that will provide training for smaller or under-equipped churches to be able to leverage technology to help support their ministries. All of this, and so much more, is in store for us in 2010.

I really am excited, and I’m excited to serve alongside each of you as we do these things. However, I want to make sure that we don’t just look at the list as a list. Sometimes I think we don’t quite take the time to really marvel at all that God is doing. There is so much happening all the time, such a steady pace of events and new challenges, that our focus is shifted to those future things before the present things even become past.  Don’t let these things pass you by without thanking God for them. Think of the thousands of decisions that were made for Christ this year in this building. The tens of thousands of people that were reached through our television program and live web broadcast. The walls that were broken down between churches so that partnerships could form for the sake of the gospel. Think of the stories we don’t even know about; the great things that God was doing, maybe even using us as a part of it, to bless someone or spread the fame of His Son. Isn’t it so good to serve the Lord?

For 2010, we will be pushing forward. You can certainly expect a heavy load of events we will support, a good dose of new training opportunities, and some major change that we will continue to adapt to and need to become proficient in supporting. We’ll need all the help we can get, and we need each person on this team to be passionate about learning, serving, and expanding this ministry.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for being a part of this team. I am so privileged to be serving with such an incredible group of people. Praise God for everything He’s doing and for using us in the process.

"The Story of Christmas" production wrapped up on Sunday, and I have to say that I haven't enjoyed a Christmas production the way I enjoyed this one in a very long time. It was just excellent in every way. The soloists, the choir, the stage layout, the set - all great stuff! From the technical side of things, I'm really proud of what we were able to accomplish. The lighting was fantastic, the sound coming off the stage was high-quality, and the video elements we added I think really helped to tell the story and add credibility to this being a top-notch show.

We did rent a lot of gear to make this happen. Two 11.3' x 20' screens were rented to fly in and out during the show and were projected on by two 10,000 lumen high definition projectors (also rentals). We rented eight martin LC panels, which are low resolution LED video panels. They were hung four per side of the stage, framing in the main set. Rentals also included Vari-lite VL3000 moving lights and two haze machines.

New this year, we purchased a real dry ice machine. This added significantly to the "low fog" effect we could create. It was a bit of an interesting process, as we had to store the dry ice and then bucket it into the machine. This machine boils water so when the dry ice is dumped in, it creates a massive reaction. In under 5 minutes, that water is freezing cold and the machine needs about an hour to re-boil. Since we wanted to do this at least twice during the show, we had coffee machines full of hot water backstage. Our crew would change out the used water for pre-heated water making a double or triple use possible.

For one of the songs, "A Baby Changes Everything," we filmed a mini-drama film to provide imagry during the soloist's performance. That project alone took over 10 hours to film and a decent amount of time to create. It was filmed in high definition and shown on those center projectors.

Live camera positions were very different this year, and provided a much more condusive environment for great videography. The orchestra was setup on stage this year, which allowed the camera operators to move through the sections and pick out great shots of each instrument. Three cameras were on stage, each requiring two grips - that makes a total of 9 production people on stage just from the video crew. Two of those cameras were handheld, and the third was our steadicam. This change allowed for some dynamic shots that again also added to the credibility of the production.

The Story of Christmas will air on Channel 7 at 11:30 PM on Christmas Eve and on Channel 4 at noon on Christmas Day.

If you read the last entry on this site, you know that we've already been working on and testing options to broadcast live from VOC's meeting space on UB's campus. Our last test was successful in that we had signal and connected a feed to The Chapel. As you saw on the video we posted, it was choppy and rough. Mostly, that's because we didn't have a lot of time so we didn't even tweak settings. Maybe I was just ecstatic that we even made that part work off a mobile broadband card.

Well, last night was round two of testing. As I explained last time, we're using a mobile broadband card that works on cell phone networks to get the signal out of UB and to our streaming server. Last night, we used a demo version of this "Wirecast" software that is capable of a few cool things. #1, it can encode custom flash streams as well as quicktime, h264, mpeg4, and other formats. #2, that software can run on a Mac! #3, it allows for input switching right in the software. This means, I can fade a graphic in, then fade to the camera, possibly even a second camera - all from a laptop without the need for a switcher or any other complicated hardware. Our goal is for this to be a very simple, straightforward, reliable process.

The test went very well. We're considering it a very successful attempt. The video quality is exceptional, audio is good, and the delay was only a few seconds from live. Below, you see a sample of the test that we recorded. Note that the audio level's a little low, and you will see and hear a watermark since this is demo software right now.

Today we tested a very interesting solution to a project we've been working on. VOC (Vintage on Campus) has been talking to us about the possibility of streaming a portion of their service live on Sunday nights. We have run into multiple obstacles, mainly the fact that internet connectivity is unavailable to them in their meeting space. 

So, today we conducted our very first test of a live video feed over a mobile broadband card. Our solution is to utilize a card like this that uses cell phone connectivity to transmit and receive data via the internet. We haven't landed 100% on what we'll use to encode. I was more concerned with just having enough speed to get a stable connection. Well, we did! Below is the result:

Obviously its not nearly perfected yet. I didn't tweak any encoder settings yet. We'll run another bunch of tests to get this right. What is awesome about this though is now I have the ability to broadcast a live feed from just about anywhere. Any event that wants an audience, anytime we want a live feed of somewhere to show on a Sunday, its possible. Yes its certainly limited quality, but the price is right and the portability is there.

More to come on this and certainly more testing to be done, but it is cool! 

This is week 1 of our major efforts to promote "The Story of Christmas" to the general public. WDCX has been playing ads for some time now and we've already received great feedback due to their audience responding to these messages.Radio ads can now also be heard on WBEN this week and next week. Star 102.5 will be playing spots at the end of November, and will be giving tickets away on-air all day on 11/22 and 11/23. A total of 100 tickets will be given away!

What is amazing in all this is how God is moving in the hearts of our local businesses to partner with us to spread this message! Of course, WDCX has been wonderful in helping us and promoting this production. Entercom Communications, the parent company of WBEN and Star, has become a sponsor of the production and has donated a substantial amount of air time to us. WIVB (channel 4) just today contacted us to let us know they would like to donate 1/2 hour spot at noon on Christmas day to air a portion of the program.

Praise God! 

Today, we welcome a new member to our weekday staff team. Stephen Raglow-DeFranco begins an internship with us today. Stephen is a senior in high school and joins us as part of a school program requiring him to complete an internship, as he is aspiring to enter the film/broadcast industry once he graduates high school. We're excited to see him enter this new role, to assist us in the things we do, and to allow him to gain experience in the field he is looking at as a career.

The Media Ministry just began accepting applications for our newly formed internship program. Stephen is our first accepted candidate out of this system. The internship program, an unpaid program aimed at high school or college students looking to gain experience and willing to work alongside our team, remains open to applicants fitting this criteria.

What a great day this past Sunday was! Jordan Stinziano delivered a terrific message to our congregation here. We had a chance to see a bit of what God has been up to in the area, and people were able to connect with other ministries we're partnered with in the atrium.

If you weren't here, or if you want to see again, check out some of the videos posted below. You can find these and any other video at The Chapel by going to www.theonlinetheater.com or theater.thechapel.com.

The Chapel has assisted in 4 church plants. Here's a look at how each of them are doing: 

The Kingdom Come initiative has allowed us to partner with ministries around the world. Here's a look at some of the things these ministries have been doing. Footage is set to a song our choir performed live this Sunday.

Finally, here's Jordan's message from this past Sunday: