1 of 5

A few years ago, it seemed only large, wealthy churches enjoyed the benefits of videoprojection. Today those benefits are within reach of most churches, great and small.

With videoprojection, you can display announcements, hymns, Scripture, and sermon outlines. You can show videotapes, charts, movie clips—even helpful articles from the Internet. With video cameras positioned in various parts of the sanctuary, you can project larger-than-life images of the choir, drama group, or speakers. And with the proper equipment, you can transmit to TV monitors in other places in the church, to TV stations for a live broadcast of your service, or to tape for later viewing, editing, and broadcasting.

• First Baptist. First Baptist Church in Lathrop, Missouri, a small church of about 375 members, put together a videoprojection system five months ago for about $10,000. The system includes a single, digital front-mounted projector and a screen located behind the pulpit area. Church volunteers installed the equipment, solving such problems as ambient light streaming in from lots of sanctuary windows.

The congregation doesn't know how it could get along without the system today. As Jeff Pollard, media director for the church, says, "We use the system for everything."

• First Christian Reformed. The 440-member First Christian Reformed Church in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is also doing well with videoprojection. The multimedia system that the church installed for $126,000 nearly two years ago includes two ceiling-mounted 3M projectors and two screens that are specially angled to prevent distortion and provide better viewing. An elaborate switching arrangement allows the remote control of all operations, including six VCRs for real-time dubbing, input, and recording, and two videocameras.

The integrated sound, lighting, and projection system was a dream of Phillip Oostdyk, a member of the church. Oostdyk's son-in-law Jonathan Tislau, who heads up the multimedia program at the church, helped install the equipment.

The church provides edited tapes of its worship services to a local Cablevision station, audio tapes to a radio station, and VCR copies of the services to nursing homes. "We offer these services because it's the type of outreach the church wants to do," Tislau says.

PowerPoint software helps generate presentations, such as the words to contemporary music for congregational singing. "We also use the system for illustrations, Scripture, responsive readings, and sermon outlines," says church member Randy Hendricks. The youth group also uses the system to show videos of topics under discussion.

• Sugar Hill United Methodist. This 400-member church in Texarkana, Arkansas, recently in stalled a projection system, partly because Chris Bounds, senior pastor, who had used such systems at previous churches, thought multimedia would be particularly effective at Sugar Hill. "Our congregation is fairly young; more than 90 percent are favorable to multimedia," he says.

next page... |  1 of 5

share this page