Our new Romanian friend
A couple of weeks ago, the worship staff had a unique opportunity to invest in a worship leader from another country. Raul Chirica is from Iasi (pronounced Yahsh), Romania, and was in the states for a couple of weeks. Our team had the great privilege to get to know him and spend time learning from one another. We always welcome the opportunity to meet with worship leaders from other countries. One important part of our ministry is to invest our resources and time into training and equipping people for ministry outside of Brook Hills. When we meet people who are already doing the work of Christ in another part of the world, we jump at the chance to spend time with them to share information, methods and to encourage one another with what God is doing throughout the world.
Romania is a country roughly the size of Oregon, in Central Europe with a population of about 21,400,000. The major religion there is Eastern Orthodox. Evangelical Christians there are very misunderstood and sometimes persecuted. A year or so ago, a small group from Brook Hills took a mission trip to Romania and met Raul. One of our musicians was on this trip and began a friendship with him. Raul plays guitar, piano and cello, has a great voice, and writes music. He leads worship in his home church where his father is the pastor. When the Brook Hills team was there, the worship ministry was contacted to see if there might be a possibility of us working with Raul at some point.
So, a couple of weeks ago, Raul came into the office for a couple of days and we spent some time together. Our team met with him throughout the week showing him how we do different things in our ministry. He spent time with us doing some day-to-day tasks such as stage reset, rehearsals, meetings, etc. We also had some practical training times.
We studied the Biblical Non-Negotiables of corporate worship together. In a nutshell is says:
1) God is more pleased with purity than professionalism, substance than style, and attitude than appearance.
2) Worship seeks to please God rather than man, and our evaluations should be based on what He thinks rather than what we think.
3) Worship involves a rhythm of revelation (who He is) and response (our reaction to that), so that the Word must be central in worship.
4) We are a community of faith, not just individual worshippers, so participation is vital. 5) Worship should reflect the unity (we belong to Christ) and diversity (every nation) of heaven.
There was a songwriting time where we encouraged him to make the Word central in writing songs, to write for the purpose of corporate worship and edification of the church, as well as some practical things (song structures, choosing the right key, etc.) We talked about how the goal of our songwriting is not to come up with “great songs” for the sake of great songs, but to encourage and challenge our congregation to seek Christ and to be active in our faith.
We also spent time talking about purity in our lives and ministries. We must pursue purity in order to know God more and in order to be an effective example in our ministries. One of the struggles that Raul faces is that in Romania, he has experienced fame. He is a well-known musician there. Not only does he lead worship in his local church, but he also plays in a band outside of the church. Many people recognize him from television and he must continually keep his motives and humility in check.
Raul was able to see how we go about planning worship services, working with our pastor, leading our volunteer teams, rehearsing and recording. His situation is a bit different than ours. He has a smaller team that he leads worship within a smaller church. We were able to share some ways to lead our teams effectively as we seek to honor God.
One of the most encouraging things about our time with Raul was hearing about the ministry he has back home. His church is very involved in the community. There is an area in Iasi called the Phantom Block. Most of the members of his church are from this area and because of the poverty there, it is a great opportunity to show the love of Christ. People are coming to faith in Christ and then ministering in these areas. There are a lot of children there who have HIV. They are the outcasts. Raul ministers to these children personally and shared about how God has changed him to be able to love these kids. He also leads a small group of younger boys where he is sharing his faith and challenging them to follow Christ.
We also were able to have some “fun time” with Raul. The weekend that he was here, our staff and families went down to the lake and spent the day on the water. Raul had his first jet-ski ride and his first inner-tube ride. We had a lot of fun just hanging out and having fun. Afterward, he wanted to eat pizza for dinner. There was a funny moment when he asked where the ketchup was. He was willing to try ranch dressing instead, but exclaimed… “This is weird for me. I not like.”
We really enjoyed getting to know Raul and training him in some areas as well as learning from him. We are praying for him and his ministry in Romania. On the following Sunday, we were able to lead worship with him. It was such a great picture singing with him…us in English, he in Romanian. Truly a small picture of what worship in heaven will be like…people from every nation and language.
How To: Multi-Screen Video Display
Every now and then, I have people ask me how we display a video across multiple screens at Brook Hills. For the last series, “Love Story” we used three 7’x12’ screens all hanging in the same plane with a 1’ space between each screen.
Here’s a picture:
www.brookhills.org
We’ve done several different screen configurations, but the hardware and software we use is the same. Here’s what we use to do it:
Software-
Renewed Vision’s Pro Video Player. We have 1 HD license and 3 Network Node licenses.
Hardware-
3 – Apple Mac Mini
1 – Apple Imac
3 – Da-lite 7’x12’ fast fold screens
3 – Panasonic PT-DW5100U – we picked these up used at a great price from Elite Multimedia.
Here’s how the system works-
The Imac is the brain of the system, and it runs the HD license. It can be located anywhere on the network. Most of the time, ours lives in video master control. Sometimes we move it to front of house. The HD license allows the Imac to drive a projector, but we are not setup to do that right now.
Each Panasonic projector shoots onto a Da-lite 7′x12′ screen, and is driven by a Mac Mini that is strapped to the projector. All projectors are shooting a resolution of 1280×720. Each Mac Mini is hard wired to the network via cat5. If we are using the system to display a single still image that will not change, I can get away with using a wireless network. However, if we are going to run multiple images or video clips, I use a wired network. This assures that the images and videos stay synced correctly.
All of our content is built at a resolution of 3840×720 (3 screens wide x 1 screen high) and then broken out into three 1280×720 images or clips. Each clip is then loaded onto the appropriate Mac Mini and the Imac. Once the content is on the computers, I then add it to the Pro Video Player library on each computer and build the playlists.
Pro Video Player is very user-friendly. You can have multiple play lists, each with different images and video clips. When you click on a playlist on the Master computer, each Network Node moves to that playlist. Click on a video clip in a playlist on the Master, and each Network Node will start playing that clip. It’s that simple.
There are several different configurations of hardware that are available that can be scaled to meet your specific needs. There are also several advanced features in Pro Video Player that we haven’t used yet. I recommend browsing Renewed Vision’s website for more options and ideas.
-Matt-
Something to Check Out…
A member of my small group recently told me about a web tool you can download to help you study the bible called E-Sword. Despite the cheesy tagline (”the Sword of the Lord with an electronic edge”) it may be something worth checking out. I was looking around the website this week, and there are some cool features such as access to various bible translations, commentaries and dictionaries and even a parallel bible feature. That last one is what I’m most interested in. The whole software package is available to download for free, which is nice. I’m sure there are more flashy looking software packages out there, and ones that are available for MACs (this one isn’t), but this may still prove helpful. I’m going to download it to my PC at home and see if I like it. Visit their website if you’re interested: http://www.e-sword.net.
the point of it all.
“Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. . . . Worship, therefore, is the fuel and goal in missions.”
–from Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper
There is a truth ringing in my ears and with each day it gets louder and louder. The truth is that God Almighty is worthy of our worship, and there are places in the world where He is not being worshiped.
And so in response, we fill our minds and our hearts with the Gospel, save our money, buy a plane ticket and go to a strange place where no one speaks our language.
Why? Because God is not worshiped there.
John Piper wrote a book called Don’t Waste Your Life. In the first chapter, if not the first page Piper urges us to realize that we only have one life-that’s it.
“You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand. My entire lifetime is just a moment to you; at best, each of us is but a breath.”
-Psalm 39: 5
Visually, Psalm 39:5 makes me think of a little girl blowing a kiss to her dad. And just like a kiss that is tossed into the wind as soon as it is made, life’s final breath comes before we even realize what we are.
And what are we?
“the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
-Genesis 2:7
What does that mean? It means that the only thing that separates us from the ground we are walking on is the breath of life that God breathed into our lungs.
If that doesn’t give you an enormous view of our God, then I urge you to take a day off from your busy life and go lay on the ground and ponder Genesis 2:7.
When I think about where I came from (dust) and how long I’ll be here (seconds) I realize that there is no room for fear in the church. We’re all going to die, people. Let’s do it big. Let’s go to the hard places. Let’s not just say we love- let’s lose our lives for the sake of true love. Let’s take the Gospel to the ends of the world!