Worship in HD

My last blog post gave 5 ways to improve the worship experience with visuals. But why is this important?  Why should we be constantly improving?  Most churches go through transitions (no pun intended), and I think they are similar.  How many of you started with Powerpoint on a laptop (I’m sure many are still there)? Why even go beyond this stage if it “does the job”?

There are many references in the Bible that talk about this very topic, as we are asked time and time again for our best efforts in all that we do.  The late J. Hampton Keathley III once wrote: “Spiritual maturity is a quest for character for which there will be little progress without the pursuit of excellence. Without pursuing excellence, life will remain bland, very vanilla, lukewarm at best. The quest for excellence fuels our fire and keeps us from just drifting downstream gathering debris.”

If we are to do all things to the glory of God, it should go without saying that this includes each aspect of the worship experience, right?  Each ministry in the church should have as their ultimate goal to pursue excellence.  No matter the vision, no matter the strategy, we are called to execute with excellence.  Pursuing excellence means going the extra mile; it means honoring God with God-honoring effort.  It is putting forth an effort which is whole-hearted, focused, and consistent.

But it is not perfection.  Edwin Bliss said, “The pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time.” Be careful to distinguish the two.

How do you pursue excellence in your ministry?  What about in your life?

Well, this is my first post for WorshipInHD, so I wanted to give a brief introduction. I run the video system at my church - Susquehanna Valley Evangelical Free Church in Harrisburg, PA. About a year ago I facilitated the transition to…[drumroll please]…widescreen format for our visual program. It was certainly exciting to make the transition, and now that we have I’m a firm believer in the format. I started this social network and marketplace to give churches a resource online when it comes to sermon/worship backgrounds for widescreen and 16:9 setups.

Specifically, I’d personally like to help church leaders understand widescreen and HD, why it can improve the worship experience, and how to make the leap.

My second goal is to build an online database of resources with a two-fold purpose:

1. Connect church leaders with one another in order to share experiences and best practices.
2. Connect graphic designers with our network, so we can start to develop some quality still backgrounds (and maybe additional resources down the road), specifically in HD and widescreen format.

If you’d like to contribute to our site blog, please send me a message, and I’d be happy to set you up as a contributor. As we work through our beta test, please give me your feedback, including ideas for future features and functionality as well as any problems you find. Thanks for checking us out!

Josh