First of all, thanks to the guys at fwbmedia.com for inviting me to share some of what I have learned on this blog. I am grateful for the opportunity to share anything that might help someone else in the ministry. I am no expert, but I have attained knowledge through experience and mistakes. I hope by sharing some practical ideas and methods I can help any church do a better job of implementing what I believe is one of the foremost tools for spreading the gospel today… Multi-Media.

Over the coming days and weeks I will begin a 5 part series dealing with topics that can help ANY size church begin to use multi media for the first time or simply increase your church’s effectiveness when it comes to multi-media. Topics will include:

1. Planning – The nuts and bolts of equipment selection, budgeting, and installation issues.

2. Vision – The art of casting vision for a multi-media ministry and how to bring change without breaking the unity of the church.

3. Funding – How to do multi-media on any budget and how to raise funds to start a successful multi-media ministry in less time than you think.

4. Staff – How to build a team of dedicated volunteers to help run your new ministry. We will also address topics related to paid staff vs volunteer.

5. The Long Haul – How to continue to build and sustain a growing media ministry for tomorrow’s church.

I hope these topics have sparked your interest and you will check fwbmedia.com often to see what other fwbs are saying about these and many other topics affecting the church today.

In my last post, I explained how to record audio onto your computer.  In this post, I will explain how to play audio from your computer through your church sound system.

You will still need the cable that has the 3.5 mm plug to RCA plugs that is connected between your computer and sound board.  However, you will need to change the 3.5 mm plug to the “output” of the computer sound card and the RCA cables will need to be in the “input” of  the sound board.  Using software such as Musicmatch Jukebox or Windows Media Player, you can play audio from your computer through your church sound system.

A word of warning: The computer volume DOES indeed affect the volume going through the church sound system.  Trust me on this, I have experience in accidentally cranking up the computer volume. 

Following the installation of the CD audio recorder, we still had a need to edit the audio for our worship services.  Oftentimes, our workers in the sound room will receive requests for excerpts from certain worship services (i.e. specific songs, etc). 

To remedy this issue, we connected our sound board into our computer.  To do this, you need the following:

1.  Cable:  3.5mm Mini Plug to RCA
2.  Computer Software for recording audio:  Audacity

On your church sound board, find an RCA audio output.  Connect the “red and white” RCA cable into this jack.  Connect the other end of the cable (the end with the 3.5 mini plug) into the “audio line-in” on your computer soundcard.  As far as the connections, you are ready to go.

However, you still need software in order to record the audio onto your computer.  You can go to http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ and download the FREE audio sound-editor “Audacity.”  I’ve used this program for a few years and it has greatly served my needs.  The program is pretty straightforward and easy to use.  Audacity allows you to record audio and then convert the file(s) to WAV or MP3.

We often use this setup to record sound effects for plays & dramas at the church.  A few years ago, we used Audacity to record our church’s radio broadcast.  Using a computer microphone, the Pastor was able to record his teachings directly into Audacity and then I was able to mix soft music into the background to create a professional radio broadcast.  The folks at the radio station were amazed at the quality!

If your computer has a CD recorder, you can dump the WAV files onto a CD to play in your CD player.

This is a quick and easy setup that can be done for under $10 (taking into consideration you already have a computer and sound board with audio outputs).

A few years ago, my church had to make a crucial decision on how to proceed with audio recordings.  Our cassette tape library was growing, but the shelf life of cassette tapes is not very long.  Our library goes back to the early 1990s and, as a result, the quality was very degraded.  After much discussion, the church was in agreement that we needed to upgrade our recording equipment.

The church now has a CD/Cassette recorder combo that was purchased from Long’s Electronics.  Although a little pricy, this unit has proven to be a workhorse for our audio recording needs.  We can dub from cassette to CD and from CD to cassette with the push of a button.  The CD also has a feature that will automatically begin recording the next track when there is a momentary pause in the audio.

All in all, we are very pleased with the transition to CD recordings.  As compared to cassettes, CD storage is also a great spacesaver!

My next post will be on recording worship services on the computer.

We are really excited to have Jeff writing for FWBMedia.

Here’s a little more information about Jeff in his own words…

I am 28 years old and live in Mount Hope, West Virginia.  I am a member of the Kilsyth Free Will Baptist Church.  I am the webmaster for my church (www.kilsythchurch.org) and the WV State Association of Free Will Baptists (www.wvfwb.org).  I am also the director of Hope Outreach which is a community-wide benevolent ministry that operates out of my church.

Outside of helping the needy through Hope Outreach, my passion is helping people create a quality media service for their church.  Rather it’s a church newsletter or a church video system, I enjoy helping folks reach outside the box to promote their mission.  One of my biggest frustrations with technology is the learning curve associated with teaching a non-techy individual.  Many people are excited to have a church website or a church video ministry, but very few have the patience to learn the software or learn how to operate the equipment.

I have been blogging for approximately 1 year.  I am fairly new to the blogging community, but I have learned that it’s a great way to communicate ideas.

My love for technology requires that I work in the secular world.    I am an accountant for the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority (PBS).

If you benefit from Jeff’s posts please leave some comments.  Thanks!

I’m really excited because we have some guest bloggers who will be posting in the next few weeks on a variety of subjects that relate to media and the church.  We’ll try to introduce our bloggers as they start posting so you’ll have some idea of who is sharing.

If you’d be interested in blogging here at fwbmedia, please shoot me an email.  travis@fwbmedia.com

Thanks.

We are looking for some FWB bloggers to help us with content on our new site.  If you are a FWB blogger or know someone who is, please drop us a line.

travis@fwbmedia.com