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A year ago, Great Hills Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, installed a new digital projection system in its 3,400-seat auditorium. Colin Lambert, director of media ministries at the church, says the 5,000 ANSI-lumen large-venue projectors have enriched the worship experience several ways:

They offer a unique way to present announcements. Videotaped announcements are shown before or after the service so they don't interrupt worship. The presentations are a lively, entertaining, and fun way to get people interested in various ministries of the church.

They project the words of hymns, songs, Bible passages, and liturgy. This gets people's heads out of books, hymnals, and bulletins and into worship. "It increases the intensity of participation," Lambert says."

They allow image magnification of singers or speakers. Great Hills Baptist is so large that many people could miss the expressions of worship leaders. Video projectors allow the kind of close-up views that help people feel like they're a part of what's going on.

They add images or outlines to illustrate the pastor's message. "Visualizing various points of the sermon increases your memory of those points," Lambert says.

In addition, video projection can help you offer:

Graduation highlights. With a digital camera or photo scanner, you can use a program like Microsoft Power Point to create a slide show that highlights graduating seniors. On the slide you can show senior pictures and tell what each senior plans to do after graduation.

Baptism portraits. Digital photos can be taken of adults and children who are to be baptized, then shown during the ceremony. If a church has more than one service, pictures of those who were baptized at other services can be shown.

Missionary updates. Project a picture of a missionary and the country in which he or she serves. Include a list of specific prayer requests.

Pre-worship videos. Get permission to show videos of beautiful scenery along with a prelude or with CDs of appropriate instrumental music played over your sound system.

Spring Arbor Free Methodist Church in Southern Michigan uses videos in its worship services. Steve Flint, minister of music at church, was the driving force behind installing video projection in the church. But Flint pushed for a system that would augment worship, not detract in any way from it. "If we had decided to do projection because numerous other churches were doing it, the purpose would have been all wrong," Flint says. "Rather, we looked at our worship style and envisioned how projection would enhance our worship experience."

For help in doing that, the Spring Arbor church enlisted the services of a multimedia consulting company. Rob Stam, former technical director of Christ Memorial Church in Holland, Michigan, worked up the final design for that projection system.

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