Eagle Church Student Messages

As my blog readers have seen, I am involved in my church’s youth group. I have been for years. This past fall, our church hired a new youth pastor, Rob Chagdes. To have Rob with us has been a huge blessing not only to the entire youth group, but also the church. With a new staff member comes change and most of this change has been very positive and helpful to our youth group. One change, or addition really, is the video recording of our Sunday youth messages.

Naturally, I've been tasked with this addition, which has been rewarding. Knowing that the Sunday messages can be seen by people all over the world is pretty neat. In order to complete this task, there are several elements involved. On Sunday morning, we set up a tripod with a video camera on it in the back of the room. It's positioned to get the speaker, stage, and some of the audience. It also captures the TV slides (which I'll come back to). Audio is recorded separately on an audio recording device plugged into the soundboard (our video camera can't take any direct audio input). Once the message has concluded, the audio is uploaded to Drop Box and I take the footage home. I also export the slides and load them to Drop Box as well. From home, I download the footage off the camera as well as the items in Drop Box.

For editing, I add all the files to Final Cut Pro X. Side note, I recently got a new computer and it was unable to run Final Cut Pro 7, which I've been using for years... So I had to learn the new FCPX, which is a completely redesigned version of FCP. After a few starter projects, including this project I'm writing about, I've been able to get the hang of FCPX, thankfully!

In Final Cut Pro X, I sync the video with the audio, add the slides on screen as they are discussed in the message, and finally add an intro and outro slide with the message theme and date. Each message comes together pretty quick. Exporting from FCPX is also MUCH quicker than my previous computer. So once the message is exported I upload it to our Youth Group's YouTube page. I add a custom thumbnail for the video - it's typically the main message slide from that day.

Below you can see a Playlist of the youth messages I've filmed, edited and uploaded. With the help of students and other youth volunteers, we've been able to capture youth messages on a weekly basis. We have hopes to deliver podcasts in the near future. Technology is ever changing, and we hope to be able to continue to help students connect with Jesus in any way possible.

-The Media Buff