As a Network church with LifeChurch.tv, there are times we have to preview the videos we receive. Since many churches have signed up for the One Prayer series and are now previewing the messages, I’m hoping today to throw out some useful Windows programs to help you along (I don’t have a Mac yet). Make sure to check out Media Ministry Matters as Charles has many useful tools as well. These are all freeware. If you have something that is better to use, go for it.

• The program we use to preview the .iso file is the VLC Media Player.
• You can use a DVD player to play the message, but we like to have things seamless.. We play the .iso file in Mediashout using Daemon Tools (thanks Bill) by mounting the .iso file and playing it as a DVD. Since LCtv videos come in HD, I couldn’t find out how to display them in the correct size. Searching around the net, I found the dimension we needed. You must change the file setting to “Custom” with a proportion of “1024×576″ for HDTV.

Hopefully, these two will help you during the One Prayer series and if you ever use a message from Open.

So what video tools do you use?

I am simply amazed at how God is bringing more and more churches to join up for One Prayer. Being a partner with LifeChurch.tv through Network, we’ve seen many lives forever changed at Elevation Church through Craig and the teaching team each week. As of this post, there are nearly 977 churches on board for One Prayer. In a time of divisiveness, God is bringing people of all races and denominations together to do something amazing. And we get to be a part of that.

Just before Jesus was crucified, we see him praying in John 17. He says these words:

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.”
John 17:20-22

God is gonna do amazing things through One Prayer. Are you ready???

Be there.

For more information, check this out.

Being a LifeChurch.tv Network Church is a blast for us. We get to hear from one of the best speakers in the country each week for free. We also get to be a part of something that is way bigger than us. As a new church, we get the encouragement that you can only pray for. Trust me, I have no regrets in being a part of the Network. We have seen many people become fully devoted followers of Christ. I LOVE IT!!!

We first began using LifeChurch.tv’s At The Movies material on July 1, 2007 (our first experience as Elevation Church). We noticed right away that we were going to love this partnership. Although it was our own experience, I did not speak. This decision was made months before July 1.

Alicia and I attended LifeChurch.tv in Hendersonville for about 6 months before Elevation Church started. During that time, we took notes on everything, served on various teams, and met with the leaders regularly. In one of my first meetings with Andrew, he challenged me with the thought about my speaking. “Could I give that up so that I can better pastor people.”

I’ll admit that I really like speaking. But I also knew that I could be a better pastor by changing the 20-30 hours working on a message to investing it in relationships. With my giftedness, I am better at building relationships and doing behind the scenes stuff. Now, I’m able to spend more time with people than I ever have as a pastor and that you can’t put a price tag on.

Making this decision was tough. Pride creeped in and said that “without me speaking, it won’t work.” There were also some financial implications with it. As a church plant, would our donors agree? So the choice had to be made. After much prayer, we decided that on day 1, we would use the messages from LifeChurch.tv. And we haven’t looked back. Our donors are still with us and the majority of our people too. I still give talks on occasion and get worked up like I always do. When I do, I still stay up at midnight on Saturday night worrying about it. Some things never change.

Andrew Statezny wrote a great piece a while back that helps define what it means to be a campus pastor. Check it out.

After writing yesterday’s post, I thought it would be a great idea to do a quick set of posts about LifeChurch.tv Network. Hopefully, this will help clarify why we decided to join the network and how we have benefited from it.

Alicia and I moved to Middle Tennessee to start a church from scratch. Quite frankly, we parachuted in. We knew zero (0) people and no launch team at all. It was the five of us, God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. We hired a musician and canvassed the community and were able to gather another family to come and help get our church started. We launched Goose Creek Community Church in Franklin on September 18, 2005 with 107 people. After a year, we noticed that the majority of guests came from Spring Hill. We live in Spring Hill. We made the tough choice to move the church here in November 2006.

Spring Hill is growing by leaps and bounds. As we looked for a location for our church, our team visited several area churches. We visited LifeChurch.tv Hendersonville and quickly became hooked. We loved everything about them. I had known about LifeChurch.tv through their Open site and also because of the multi-site approach that they used. Having attended Willow Creek’s Leadership Summit via satellite for three years made having a speaker on video not new to me. I did wonder what the team thought about it and they loved it. So, we decided to join Network during our pre-launch days.

Ultimately, the decision came down to me. Would I give up the “pulpit” or weekly messages to someone else via video? How could I still be the pastor and not speak? What would it all look like? Tomorrow, I’ll answer some of these questions and more.

What questions do you have?

I love our partnership with LifeChurch.tv. They literally share everything they can so that more people can find Christ. When a new series is introduced, we start production on the materials right away. The first thing that goes out is our invite cards. We use their graphics and infuse information that is relevant to Elevation Church. We print a map with experience times on each one.

Normally, we print about 50 invite cards and have some left over after it is over. On Friday, we printed 75 invites for Supernatural and only have 10 left. It looks like everyone at Elevation really caught the message of inviting people big time.

Also this weekend, we started our delivery of 10,000 door hangers to every home in Spring Hill. Click here to see what they look like. We were able to deliver around 2,500 door hangers on Saturday which leaves us with 7,500 to do this week. So far, our website stats are very encouraging. Out of 2,500, 251 hits have been made to myelevationchurch.com/open/ so far. This page went live on Friday, so the stats are from Friday until now. Of those, 71% went to our main page and navigated through it. So statistically speaking, we are having a response to the cards of 10% coming to the site and 7% sticking. Sounds good, but I pray that it’ll translate to bodies being present on Oct 14th.

You really can’t describe how different Elevation Church is from other churches on a postcard or a website. It truly is an experience like none other. We meet in a very untraditional location and do church in a very untraditional way. Some people have checked out Elevation and walked away saying “That’s not the place for me.” I agree. We invite everyone, but we’re not for everyone. Our goal is to lead people to become fully devoted followers of Christ. You can’t do that if you do 20th century church in the 21st century.