Introducing Media to your Church Part 2:
The Computer
(This is Part 2 in a series. To begin and the beginning, go here)
The Intel 486 that some well wishing parishioner dropped off (rather than throw it away) isn’t going to do it. You’re going to need more firepower than that to get those images up and flying through the air. If your church is portable, then a laptop will do fine, but if you have a permanent home, I’d recommend a desktop. You can get more desktop for your money and it’s good to have a computer that’s always present, hooked up and dedicated to working as your church media center.
To get started using media in your church, all you need is a computer that can run PowerPoint. PowerPoint is a good starting place because it allows you to get up and running in a hurry. Chances are you or someone you know is familiar with PowerPoint through work or school. So there’s a low barrier to entry. But as soon as you want to start putting worship lyrics up over moving backgrounds and playing videos off the computer, you’ll quickly realize PowerPoint’s limitations. It’s simply not designed with the worship environment in mind.
For that reason, I recommend that you start looking into buying an application specifically designed for use in a church worship environment. There are a number of good programs on the market. Three that come to mind are Media Shout, Easy Worship and Sunday Plus. Media Shout and Easy Worship offer a free trial version that you can download and try. And Sunday Plus will send you a demo version that you can try. If you want to go more in depth on choosing the program that’s right for you, check out eBibleTeacher’s excellent Worship Software Selection Guide here.
Quick Note: These programs might seem a little expensive up front, but what you get for the price is an incredible value. What these programs can do used to take a whole room of equipment with people trained to run it, and it used to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. So, the power in these programs is well worth the price. With the latest software, you can import PowerPoint slides, put up text over moving backgrounds, and play video clips from different sources (including live sources such as a camera in your sanctuary). In other words, you can pretty much do whatever you need to now or in the future.
Wasn’t this post about computers, not software? Yes, but in order to know what kind of computer you need, you need to know what you want to do with it. If you’re planning on running video, you’ll need a computer that can keep up. The last thing you want is the blue screen of death right in the middle that is supposed to set up your message. Each program will have its’ own System Requirements, but if you get a computer capable of running one of the programs well, I’m sure it will run them all. Just to get an idea of the ball park, I pulled the Recommended System Requirements off of MediaShout’s website. Here’s what you need to shoot for if you want enough power to move forward into the church video age:
OS: Windows XP (Home, Professional, or Media Center Edition)
CPU: Intel Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz (or equivalent)
RAM: 512 MB
Graphics: One DirectX 9.0c Hardware Accellerated dual-head graphics card/display adapter with 128 MB VRAM
Other: DVD drive, quality sound card; video capture card or FireWire port (IEE 1394) for external video feed
I’d also recommend getting an extra 512MB of RAM to get you to 1GB out of the box. You can find great deals on computers online in places like tigerdirect.com, overstock.com, and Frys.com. And CNET is a great place to read reviews if you want to know more about how various computers rate with the experts.
Again, don’t let all this tech talk get you down. You can do this. Looking past all the technical details you don’t understand and the money you don’t have to spend, the first step is hugely important. If you have a computer that can run PowerPoint and was made some time in the last few years, you’ve got the tools you need to begin. Just keep in mind where you’re going and be thinking about the tools and resources you’ll need to get there.
So you’ve got the computer. All you need now is a projector and something to point it at (aka a screen). Up next in this series of missives: Projectors.
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