In this episode of the podcast, I’ll give you 12 more Ways to Use Video at your church and I’ll also give you some ideas on how to implement these elements into your services and the ministries in your church.
14. Devotions.
These can be very similar to your video curriculum pieces or even your Social Media videos. These can be quick ‘video blog’ style videos done by one of your pastors or even volunteers. These can be as produced or as striped down as you have the time and means for. They are a great way for your congregation to hear from your staff and to keep them engaged with your church and in the Word regularly.
15. Animated Lower Thirds.
Your church may not have the capability to key lyrics or graphics on top of your IMAG camera shots. If you don’t, I’ve seen some churches use full-screen name tags very well – they make a still graphic of the pastors name with the church or series branding and show it on screen when the pastor takes the stage.
Animated Lower Thirds are another way you can accomplish this if you have the capability in your set up. When your pastor takes the stage, you fire an animated movie from ProPresenter. The name tag animates in, stays for 5-7 seconds, and then animates out. It lets your congregation know who your staff members are. It also gives you a way to promote your staff twitter accounts, hashtags, or anything else you want to put with the name.
16. Song Support and Lyric Videos.
Song Support and Lyric Videos are one of my favorite elements in worship services. I’ve produced literally hundreds of these for churches and ministries. They are great tools to add a visual punch to your service or event. One major partnership we have at 12:30 Media is with Seeds Family Worship. They are a non-profit ministry that writes word-for-word scripture songs for families. Their music has been used in Children’s Ministries, Student Ministries, and in Family Devotions / Family Worship Time for over a decade. We’ve partnered with them to create song videos for every song on their albums. We’ll be releasing our third DVD together this month. You can find out more at seedsfamilyworship.com.
You can use song videos in your services in several different ways. You can create a song video that is tied to a click track so that the words on screen and music from the live band are exactly in sync with each other. The short version of the simplest way to do this is to use a click track when producing the video that you will use. When the final video is fired out of ProPresenter, have your audio guy at your console split the track from ProPresenter and send one side to the In-Ears of the band, and the other side can be either nothing or have instruments you may not have in your band. Another way to use Song Support Videos is using FLEXX files – files that are usually based on firing the video at the verse, chorus, bridge, etc.
17. Testimony Videos.
Telling someone’s story is one of the most compelling and powerful things you can do in video. You can use a Testimony video in your worship service, on your website, in a song support video- you can weave a song into pieces of a testimony story.
18. Commercials.
Similar to Promotional Videos in that you’re advertising an activity, an event or area of your church. You can use a commercial inside your service or in other channels to Advertise your new website, an upcoming event, a celebration of baptisms you saw last week, a building campaign.
19. Pre-Service Motion Graphics Loop.
Different Churches do announcement loops different ways. What about using Loopable motion graphics videos that work with each other to add some movement and life to your slides?
Each announcement is its own self contained video. You can pull one video if it’s an old announcement or not relevant and not affect the whole loop just like you would with slides.
20. Video Announcements.
Let me caution you here. Im going to advise you not shoot your own Video announcements if you don’t know what you’re doing. I have been in churches where honestly these are so bad. There are companies that do this. You can find them online. But don’t do these poorly. Really learn how to do them well or have someone do them for you.
21. Live Streaming Your Service.
Streaming you service – this can be something else that if done poorly it’s really bad. Spend the money. If you don’t have them money to do it well, don’t.
22. Archived Messages and Podcasts.
If you use IMAG in your services, consider packaging your messages as podcasts or archiving them for website visitors.
23. The “Welcome to our Website”
This video can be of your pastor welcoming people to your website. It could also be a produced piece with a voiceover. Use this type of video on your homepage to welcome visitors to your website. Keep these short and concise.
24. The “Meet Our Pastor”.
This can be a short bio piece on your pastor or staff. This video can show your pastors family and things about him your congregation may not know. Keep these brief and fun.
25. The “What to Expect”.
You can use this type of video to show visitors to your church what to expect when they visit. Show them what your music style is, what to wear, the kids or student environments and more. Give them a snap shot of what a Sunday would look like if they visited your church.
The Making Sunday Happen Podcast is the definitive podcast for those who plan, create and execute worship experiences all around the world. This is a legacy podcast where we interviewed hundreds of church leaders, pastors, authors, worship leaders, and church production staff.
