PowerTech BlogBeing a techie for God's Youth

As with all things, if you want to do something well, then we must take the time to learn how! A few months ago I started to delve I to the realm of Adobe products, in particular the CS4 Production Suite. Learning new programs typically comes pretty easy for me, not so with these amazing programs.

It takes a lot of time and dedication to be able to use these programs effectively. The first time I started playing with them it was pretty overwhelming! The user interface was very complicated and nothing went like I thought it should. But the more you get into it, the easier it becomes.

So how have I been learning? I started using Lynda.com for my training needs with the very basic tutorials and have been building up from there. I started with the one or two that most interested me and have slowly been improving my skills.

This got me to thinking about being a Christian and our walk with God. The first time you start reading the Bible, it may get a little overwhelming. But with time, patience, and learning, we soon begin to be transformed into the likeness of our Creator.

So as we work in church media and technologies, we need to be humble enough to learn what we can; admit when we need help; and be willing to spend time at the Master’s feet! So what are you learning today? Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald’s, used to say, “When you’re green, you’re growing!” are you growing to be the best Christian you can be, or ???? Fill in the blank. Take the time to learn from others and be the bestGod designed you to be. Blessings.

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As some of you may know by now, I am trying to blog about my experiences as a Tech Guy for our youth group, but also about learning Website development as well. All I can say sometimes is, “What did I get myself into?”

Okay, seriously, there is just so much to learn and do with web development that an entire year could be spent just learning the ins and outs of one particular program. My choice so far has been Joomla for the website stuff and WordPress for the blogs. This past week for Powerhouse I added in a whole new WordPress site and set up most of it for “Podcasting” in the future. For now though I am using it to stream or offer downloads of the sermons and special events of our youth pastor.

My first experience of using WordPress was great, but finding a plug-in that works well was the challenge. So I decided to go with the one made especially for sermons. Sermon Browser has been excellent right from the start for this new adventure. I had very little problems getting it up and running the way I wanted to. I was able to use my ftp file transfer program to transfer the sermon files onto my server using the recommend links. I even went so far as to make sure some of my files were “tagged” properly using the information I had available. WOW, it was really easy and everyone of the sermon .mp3 files I added worked without any problems. (I did have to add an audio player recommended by Sermon Browser.)

The podcast program I helped set up with our church’s website was not as easy and it is still having problems. Which is probably something we are going to have to change in the future. But as with all things, this is a learning experience and the more of it you do, the better and quicker you become at it.

So now that I have that process going, the next big thing coming up for me is the website developement of our School Website. I will let you know once that has been posted and it goes live. If you want to see the demo version, you may check it out at http://acslions.ashlandgbc.org This is just a play area for now until I can go live with the entire site. Hopefully that will be happening in the next 3 weeks. So keep your eyes posted and thanks for checking this site out.

By the way, I may not post very often, but I will keep posting some of my experiences and thoughts about Chruch Tech Media. I do have a few sites that I highly recommend. Check out the links on the side for some of them!

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Well, here we are again, with another new edition. Sorry about the delay, life sometimes happens faster than you may think.

Snow retreat was awesome and things went very well for the weekend. We were once again challenged by Pastor Jon Summers and Ward 9 come down and lead worship for us. We were able to do a few new things this year thanks to having a few extra computers. Powerhouse purchased a new computer this past fall to use Media Shout 3.5. I have been hearing some good things about the newest 4.0 version but have not tried it as of yet. Why?

Well, for the past 10 months, our main church has been without a worship director/pastor. So most of these types of decisions have been put on hold for a while. A few weeks ago, we had a candidate by the name of Ronnie Martin come out and lead worship. Funny how God works in these areas, and that is what I wanted to share today.

One of our secretaries has been a huge fan of  a “Tooth and Nail” record label group called “Joy Electric.” So as a way to promote the school that I am also associated with, she set up a concert with “Joy Electric”, “Travelogue”, and one other group. Ronnie Martin is the lead for Joy Electric. So while he was here, our secretary was telling him a little about the church and our need for a new worship director. Not thinking anything about him being interested or anything, he called a few days later and asked a little bit more about the position. To make a long story short, he applied; our Senior pastor and our church moderator went out to hear him lead worship in his church. A month ago, they asked him to come and lead worship here. He was called as our next worship director and now the rest is in God’s hand.

I am always amazed at how God orchestrates these things according to his plan and purpose. 6 months ago, we were anxiously awaiting to find someone, almost a year later, God has placed someone according to His will.

As techies, we can never underestimate the power of God or where it will lead. We must always try to give our best, and yet be flexible enough to change at God’s prompting. So, where is that leading me today? I keep trying to work on the website for our Powerhouse group, and now it is on to the new school website. I’m not sure how soon it will be up, but I’m looking forward to watching how God will orchestrate the changes and mold and shape us, myself included, to get the job done.

Blessings and more to come soon.

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I have looked and thought about blogging for a long time now. I just realized that I haven’t blogged since before the school year started. Well, hopefully that will be changing now. I have been immeresed in so many ways with school and all things tech related to teaching computers, Latin, and coordinating events for Powerhouse. So let me catch up for the past several months.

The school year started off with a really big bang. I hit an all-time high of 70+ students taking Latin courses from Sevenstaracademy.org  This is my “stay-at-home” job that can really keep me pretty busy at times. Plus I start my 2nd year at Ashland Christian School teaching Computers.  As some of you may know, I made a committment to work on the Schools Website this year, much like I did the Powerhouse Website. So in thinking about what I wanted to do with it, I heard about putting in for a grant through a local foundation.

So I dreamed big for the grant and did some research. I wanted some graphic design software and tools that would make my job easier in the long run for the school. So I applied for a grant to cover the cost of Adobe’s CS4 Production Suite. A month later, I recieved notification that I was awarded the large part of the funding for the grant. Now several months later, here I sit completely amazed at the power and creativity that God has unleashed in my life. Needless to say, this is one of the hardest programs for me to get my thoughts around. Photoshop and AfterEffects are amazing programs. It is going to allow me to do exactly what I was hoping it would, but the learning curve requires a lot of time. So needless to say, I have been a student, a teacher, a tech-coordinator, a father, husband, and everything else in-between, all while trying to keep my walk with God alive and fresh.

So for the past several months, I have been finding so many tutorials and websites that teach some pretty cool things. One of my favorite websites has to be Brad Zimmerman’s Church Media Design TV. Brad does a weekly video pod-cast showing some of the “tips, tricks and tools for you, the media designer”.

Another website that has been a great resource for me in learning all of the in’s and out’s of these great programs has been Lynda.com. I got a free month of training as part of the Adobe Suite’s bonuses for registering my product. So I gave it a try and have falling in love with the “One-on-One” training videos that they offer. Sure it may cost $25.00 a month for the basic subscription, but it is so worth every bit of it. I have learned a ton of stuff already and will continue to do more with it.

So, that brings me up to current life experiences. The past several weeks have been spent getting ready for Snow Retreat 2010 with our Youth Group. This year we are inviting two FCA groups from some local schools and another church. Trinity Baptist Church will be joining us this year as well. Already it is shaping up to be a great weekend with Ward 9 coming once again and Jon Summers will be leading the sessions. So more about that hopefully this week.

Thanks and blessings!

John

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For anyone checking us out, I need help creating a new playlist that is different from the one below. This playlist will be for recommendations for any of our youth to share some of their favorite types of music by adding in their songs into a new “group” playlist. Interested in helping? Sign up with Playlist.com and start adding to the GBC Powerhouse Group. GBC Powerhouse Group.

Let’s see if we can create a cool music player for others in our group!

John

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Another update on even more changes. After looking through a ton of templates for Joomla 1.5, I decided to get a template maker, after all, there will be a few more websites that Cara and I will be moving along soon. I have the basic structure in place, now all I need is an opportunity to do some more editing and putting it all together.

I am trying to create a decent banner using Photoshop and some pretty simple java script commands that I came across earlier today. It should be interesting to see how this all pulls together. Only a few more weeks and I would really like to have the website officially up and running. So how am I coming along? Well, I am getting there, but not 100% yet. I am at about 20% ready for the new and improved website.

One of the things I did manage to start working on this week is a Calendar for our website. You can check it out anytime you would like to. The current address is Calendar. Hopefully the link will work.

As for the main look of the page, I wanted to try to pull together some of our current colors taken from our shirts. I would also like to include the fancy logo that we purchased a little while ago. But I am sorely finding that my photo-editing skills are not where I would like them to be just yet. I am learning some of the basics. For example, earlier tonight I learned how to cut out someone’s head and shoulders so I could overlay it on top of a cool background. I was amazed once I got to working with this, just how amazing Photoshop is. Have I done anything like this before? NOPE, this was a new thing for me and it was a lot of fun! I may actually turn out to be a web-developer, at least for Joomla, by the time this is done. Now if only I could find some more cool things to add into the site and for Pastor Greg to set me up with the wording and descriptions he would like to see.

Only a few more weeks and we will be back in full-swing at the church. On a side note, just wait until everyone sees some of the other major changes coming! This past week I have felt really pumped up by the changes that Pastor Greg and the elders of our church have approved. Not only are there changes going on in the room, but we are also getting some much needed upgrades as well. Our new sound system ROCKS! I can’t wait to hear it in the Powerhouse Youth Room. I think everyone at that end of the building is going to hear us without all of the crackle and snap from our old system. Get ready guys, it is going to be fun!

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This is not easy, that’s for sure. I have spent the past few days looking for a new template to use for our Website. I am using the Joomla 1.5.3 version to run the site, but trying to find a template that fits our needs is akin to finding a needle in a haystack.

One of the biggest problems with our youth is developing a site that they will want to come back to again and again. It should be simple, easy to use, and offer things that the students are most interested in. For example, a calendar that they can use, music that they like, and basic information that they can share with their friends. The site should be easy to navigate and utilize the themes that we are looking for. This blog will hopefully be something they can use as time goes on to communicate ideas and thoughts some of them would like to share. We could even get updates from others whom we support or reach out to.

Currently, our youth group reaches out to about 200 teens in our area, but not all of them attend on a regular basis. We are hoping that a system like this will allow us to reach more in our area and give them someplace safe to check us out with out feeling pressured from the adults or other students. We want to keep our information fresh and share upcoming events, like Momentum, or Beyond! These are two of our yearly highlights for the students in our church to attend.

So when you are developing a template complete with themes, colors, graphics, and other such things, what are you trying to convey about your church’s youth group? What message do you want the kids to get from visiting your website? As we continue looking for these things, hopefully we will satisfy some of their needs and desires to connect with each other, but most importantly, connecting with Jesus! After all, even websites should point out the obvious and give a clear presentation of the Gospel Message, the Good News of Jesus Christ.

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