You would have cried too...

Simply beautiful.

Gospel Per Ear: How much would you be willing to pay?

How much should it cost a church to get the Gospel into the ears of it's community? The obvious answer is that it will cost something in resources (funds, time, energy, personnel, etc.).

You've heard the saying...if just one person comes to Christ, all that effort was worth it.



I disagree if it means it was done inefficiently. Allow me to explain...

If I had a choice between spending $10 a person verse $5 a person to get the Gospel into their ear...I'd pick the $5 every time. Would you? So would any smart organization - that way they have more resources to do it time and time again.

For example, at Topeka Bible Church we had 2,075 vehicles come to our light show this year. That's a 13% increase over last year's traffic. How many people do you think were in each car on average. We use the figure of 3 people per vehicle...but let's be very conversative here and account for an average of 2 people per vehicle. If the budget this year was $6,000 for the light show...so do the math, $6,000/(2,075 vehicles x 2 people per vehicle) = $1.45 Gospel per person.

Some would say we didn't spend enough compared to the rest of the church budget. Yet others would say, invest more in the ministries which have the largest impact (this is what wall street brokers do). Yet others are content to spend just enough to feel like something was done, but not too much to be a sacrifice.

Is $1.45 per person worth the Gospel? If not, what is? If you'd have been willing to pay more, what's your ceiling? Well, if it help to have a frame of reference, it's one of the lowest cost per person I've ever been a part of. Historically, at other churches, it's taken $80,000 to get the Gospel to roughly 8,000 people. That's $10 a head.

Here's another question, "How much did it cost God to reveal the Gospel to us?"

A BIGGER QUESTION is WHO were those people that we just invested $1.45 in. Do they attend TBC? Do they attend another church? Do they already know Jesus? Were any of them guests that a TBC person invited? We will survey this week to find out just WHO these people where and what connections, if any, they have to TBC or other churches in our community.

THE BIGGEST QUESTION... "If TBC doesn't get the Gospel into the ears of the community, what will that void be replaced with?"
Take your pick:
1. No one will 2. Another church who cares people enough to throw resources at it 3. Another organization who might not communicate the Gospel

QUESTION FOR MYSELF Is Bryan Nelson willing to get the Gospel into the ears of the community? If not, why not? Is it costing me anything to do it?

Video of two worship bands synchronized playing in different locations at the same time

Here's a quick new of this last weeks rehearsal with the Main Auditorium (MA) band and Lower Auditorium (LA) band.

Worship Tip and Rewind: November 1, 2009 #sundaysetlist #sundaysetlists

(If you are reading this in your RSS feed, then you'll want to hit the actual site to catch the video.)

Topics in this week's worship tip & rewind:

• find a way to communicate to the entire worship arts family
  
• out of sight, out of mind
  
• getting hit by a bus (do your job and replace yourself)
  

Subscribe to my YouTube stream to catch all future tips automatically.

Set List:

• Beautiful One (Hughes)
• Our Great Savior (Prichard, arr. Cottrell)
  
• In Christ Alone (Townsend, Getty)
  
• How Deep the Father's Love (Townsend)
  
• How Can I Keep from Singing (Tomlin, Redmen, Cash)

Watch/listen to last weekend's message

Links to other setlists:

• Fred McKinnon
• Rick Kirkpatrick
• Twitter #sundaysetlists or #sundaysetlist
  

Worship Tip and Rewind: October 18, 2009 #sundaysetlist #sundaysetlists

(If you are reading this in your RSS feed, then you'll want to hit the actual site to catch the video.)

Topics in this week's worship tip & rewind:

• take your musicians/techs to lunch (relationships are more important than music)
  
• final song was not planned (This World Is Not My Home)

Subscribe to my YouTube stream to catch all future tips automatically.

Set List:

• Psalm 145 (The Message Remix: Scripture Reading)
  
• Rising > Baloche, Redman
  
• Sing To The King > Foote, Home
• Praise to the Lord the Almighty > Gesangbuch (Cottrell arrangement)
  
• Ancient Words > DeShazo
• This World Is Not My Home > The text and the tune (I'm Just a Passing Through) are both of unknown origin. Sometimes they are attributed to Albert Edward Brumley (1905-1977).

Watch/listen to last weekend's message

Links to other setlists:

• Fred McKinnon
• Rick Kirkpatrick
• Twitter #sundaysetlists or #sundaysetlist
  

Click-Track production prank with musicians at the Topeka Bible Church light show

Here's a little something that will prime your pump for this year's Light Show at Topeka Bible Church.

What do you get when 16 musicians (that can't see or hear each other) are playing to a click track that speeds up? The following is the result from last year.



The production crew simply couldn't wait to unleash the musicians on this prank click-track that gradually sped up. What you are hearing in the video are the actual musicians playing along. What fun to hear them try to keep up.

How and Why to Use Click-Tracks in Worship

If you are looking for the 100+ library of worship click tracks and audio loops - click here. But if you've wondered what in the world the musicians are listening to in their ears... read on. You can listen to an example of one of the custom click/loop tracks we used this past weekend at TBC for two of the songs (Sing to the King + Revelation Song). You'll hear click/cue track on the left (sent to the musicians' in ear monitor) and the loop/ambient track on the right (sent to the front of house system). By the way, a thank you to John Bowes for loaning me the eBay special electro-harmonix "Voice Box" he temporarily bought - very nice vocoder effect on Sing to the King. It's the "robot voice effect" you hear on the chorus.

WHAT is a click-track? A click-track is a metronome beat that follows the tempo and time signature of a song.

WHY use a click-track? There are a number of great reasons to use a click-track.

1. The tempo remains steady through the entire song. No fudging. Makes rehearsals less of a headache. No more comments like, "Hey, slow down...this ain't no freight train." "We are slowing down...speed up."
   
2. The tempos from rehearsal to worship are consistent.
3. Frequent use develops a sense of inner beat among musicians.
4. Musicians know at what tempo they'll need to play their intro, riffs, outro (especially the drummer).
5. There's no annoying "drummer-stick-click" - an' a one, an' a two...to get the song going.
6. If cuing is used, the vocalists can sing the beginning of each section with confiendence - rather than wondering (do I come in now...how about now...now?).
7. You can flow from one song to the next with no dead time - smooth patching of music sets.
8. You can sync up to a music video anytime you need to or want to (iWorship DVD sets, audio loops & click tracks, or a custom video that needs to have the band synchronized, or even synchronize two bands together).
9. Your band will be set for the recording studio when the time comes.
10. You can put together a 3-story drive-in light show with live musicians in windows who can neither see or hear each other in separate rooms.
    

WHAT is a loop? A loop is extra "spice" on top of what a drummer is playing. Sometimes it's a repeatability beat pattern with a high pass EQ. Sometimes it includes synth and other ambient "icing on the cake" elements that augment the band (and difficult to reproduce in real-time, unless you are an Ableton Live freak on the stage).

WHY use a loop? It can bring studio production elements into a live music setting with ease. It also can augment your band if you are missing an instrument.

There are some cons to using click/loops. You can lose of spontaneity (unless Ableton Live MIDI triggering is used), or you might have a drummer with their time keeping pride, or the time it takes to learn/train, or even the monitoring system it costs to make it happen. But that's for another post. If you've got questions about click/loops, let us know - we live with these clicks/loops on every song and every week. Many musicians have been saying, "I'd never go back now that we are here."

Worship Tip and Rewind: September 20, 2009 #sundaysetlist #sundaysetlists

VIDEO EDITION:
If you are reading this in your RSS feed, then you'll want to hit the actual site to catch the video. Topics in this week's worship tip & rewind (empowering others, orchestra, micing a guitar amp in isolation, virtual sound check). Get past the dork and listen to the content.

SET LIST:

• New Doxology with Baba O'Riley patch > Ken, Psalter, Miller
• Your Grace Is Enough > Maher
• From The Inside Out > Houston
• Your Name > Baloche, Packlam
• Friend of God > Houghton, Gungor

Watch/listen to last weekend's message

Links to other setlists:

• Fred McKinnon
• Rick Kirkpatrick
• Twitter #sundaysetlists or #sundaysetlist
  

Do your musicians care about the technicians?

Some musicians take the stage rarely having the thought about who set up the equipment to support them or even the staging they stand on. Other musicians know exactly what went into everything to get the material in place. And some special musicians notice enough to take action to say "thank you" in a tangible way.

Listen to this pleasant little song showing our love for audio guys and gals.

Check out this story from Grace Church (Lititz, PA) where Matt McElravy is the worship leader.

FROM THE WORSHIP TEAM TO THE AUDIO TEAM
A few weeks ago, Zach Ford, one of our electric guitarists, approached me with an idea. He noticed that our audio techs in the monitor room were sitting on a metal folding chair during Sunday services. He proposed that the members of the Worship Team pull together to buy the Audio Team a nice leather chair, since they sit back there for all 3 of our morning services.

I thought this was a fantastic idea, and I was quite impressed with Zach taking the initiative to see this need and suggest a solution for it. So, Zach drafted an email to all the members on the current worship team cycle and I distributed it. The funds graciously began streaming in from our Worship Team.

Then, several days later Mike Smucker contacted me with an idea of his own. He had just recently purchased a brand new leather chair that he no longer needed. He suggested donating the chair to the Audio Team to meet their need. This was excellent!

I spoke to Zach about the chair, and he agreed that it was perfect. We also agreed that, since Mike purchased a brand new chair out of his own funds, that we would take the monies we had raised and bless Mike with them as a way of saying "thank you" for his generous gift. I was able to present this gift to Mike this past Wednesday at rehearsal.

And I'm happy to report that there is now a beautiful new chair for the audio techs in the monitor room! What a beautiful thing it is when the body of Christ joins together to encourage and build one another up!

My sincere thanks and appreciation to everyone who donated funds and made this gift possible!

:: behind the scenes at TBC, what happens Mon thru Sat

Check out this video of what happens after you leave on the weekends.