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You may have been wondering why we have recently been video projecting our sermons live onto the screen above the stage on Sunday mornings?

After all, couldn't it be said that this is intrusive or distracting? I remember a similar comment being made some 25 years ago when we wanted to have extra microphones and better loud speakers etc for our singers, musicians and congregation. "This place is looking more like the BBC than a church" said someone (who is no longer at GBC). To many, this would not a bad thing. "Why," you ask? You may not completely agree with my reasoning but the short answer is—the church is striving to be evangelistic (spreading the good news of Jesus). This, of course, is made easier when more people start coming to church.
As leader of the video crew in GBC's Multi Media Ministry, what follows is not only the way I understand it, it's also very much my passion and ministry!

A few years ago someone did a survey of non-church goers. They were asked 'what were the most important characteristics they would look for if visiting a church?' The results were, in order of importance 1) The friendliness of the people and 2) There should be multimedia there.

So, experiencing multimedia is pretty important to new visitors to the church building, and as you can imagine, especially so for the "MTV watching", video game playing, cinema and theatre going, TV viewing and "retail therapy" (shopping) generations. That doesn't only mean teenagers; it includes those in their twenties to sixties and upwards—after all who doesn't enjoy going out to watch a blockbuster at the movies, watching their favourite series on the TV or buying that new pair of shoes at the shopping centre?

For many non-church goers then, coming to church events and services can be thought of as an alternative to these forms of entertainment. They may come to GBC for a baptism, wedding, carol service, New Year's Eve Celebration, Easter service or an International Evening. As far as multimedia is concerned we need to compete well with the secular entertainment outlets. We thank God for His multimedia provision at GBC in terms of people, skills and finance.

The benefits of us having multimedia equally apply to our Sunday morning meetings. Recently we have benefitted from having a borrowed second hand video mixer which we use to project the images of our two professional video cameras (one is the church's and one is mine) onto the big screen above the stage. Sermons have never looked so good before, especially for those sitting at the back, or perhaps behind someone who is tall or who has a big hat!

It's also great to see close ups on the screen when people come on stage for birthday greetings or to give testimonies, or when our Sunday Club children or young people sing, dance, do a drama, poem or rap.
I love getting interesting and artistic shots during the sermon when I am on the B camera (the one nearest the stage). These may be wide angle shots of the congregation laughing at one of Steve or Denise's jokes or close ups of people responding to David's questions. Some of the shots we record are more intimate—close ups of people responding encouragingly to the preacher, maybe nodding or mouthing 'Amen' or perhaps just looking interested. However, our policy is not to project these images onto the screen as they can be distracting or embarrassing to those in the congregation. These more intimate cut-away shots may be included in the sermon videos on our website. This all helps our web visitors when they watch our sermons to see that GBC is made up of nice, ordinary people who are 'just like them'. And if they are looking for a church to join, what better way to making them feel relaxed and welcome when they first visit. They will feel like they already know us!
You'll be glad to know that before the sermon videos are uploaded to our website at gbc.org.uk and gbcweb.tv we carefully look at the content and wherever possible edit out anything that the editor says shouldn't be there (like a member of the congregation dropping off to sleep or saying something inappropriate).

And by the way, if you are really camera shy and don't want to appear either live on the church projection screen or in the website sermon videos, (and watching the sermon videos at home instead of being in the congregation during the sermons is not an option), you are quite welcome to sit behind the B camera and be guaranteed complete video privacy. There are always chairs there—just come round the corner and make yourself at home.

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