Less than a year ago, Faith Promise took a new step of faith and started an Internet Campus. This weekend, because of ice and snow, we were forced to cancel our services on our Pellissippi Campus, and all of our weekend services happened exclusively online.
Here’s how it all played out: On Thursday, the weather report predicted massive amounts of ice and snow for the area, and since Pastor Chris already had the message ready to go, we set up cameras in the Worship Center, and he preached to four cameras and an empty room.
After he was done, our video guy, Matt James, edited the video to include the weekend announcements as well as several songs from a recent Wednesday night worship service. All of this was done before the weather got bad – just in case the weather forecast was right.
When the ice made our hill-top campus inaccessible, and we canceled all Pellissippi Campus services, Brad Roberts helped me rewire the iCampus for six worship services.
The services online went very well, and Pastor Chris got to experience the iCampus for the first time. It was really great to see he and his wife take an active role in the chat room over the weekend.
Online numbers are difficult to judge since each video connection likely represents multiple people – especially when people are snowed in at home. From what I can tell, I’d guess that at least one third of our congregation (and possibly over half) connected online over the weekend.
Crazy stuff! Who would have ever guessed that a whole congregation would be worshiping together online?
Yesterday’s post made me remember a funny prank that I played on Josh about eight years ago. Someone from the local jail left a message on my answering machine, and I recorded the message and spliced in my name so it sounded just like the message I had received. Then, I called Josh when he wasn’t in the office and left the message on his answering machine.
I found out tonight from one of my brother-in-laws (Nathan, AKA Great Gorilla) that Keri’s Uncle Paul decided to talk a little smack during a sermon the other day. I downloaded the sermon and cropped out the comment to share on here.
Yesterday I woke up feeling pretty terrible, and I spent most of the day shivering while wrapped up in a fleece blanket. But before that, we managed to take a visit to see some newborn lambs at the farm where Keri’s sister works.
Just for the record, baby lambs are even more cute than you might think.
There are quite a few blogs that I follow on a daily basis. Keeping up with friends and family as well as trying to stay sharp in the area of technology and communications. One of my favorites is a blog called ChurchCrunch. Because of that, I’m pumped to be a guest blogger there today.
Maybe not the most exciting article unless you’re into video, but it’s cool to get to contribute there today.
I thought it would be fun to look back over the past year to pick out my favorite posts from 2009. What a fun year! Here are my top 10 in chronological order:
For several years, we’ve drawn names to give Christmas gifts with both my family and Keri’s family. This past Christmas, someone from Keri’s family came up with the terrible fantastic idea of creating a surprise handmade gift for “our person”.
I drew Keri’s sister, and after a few weeks of making no progress, Keri suggested that I make her a bird house. After a little research, I decided to go the route of decorating a birdhouse that I bought at a hobby store nearby. Here are a few pics of my project in action:
The bad news of the story: I think they want to do hand made gifts again next Christmas.
For Christmas, we decided to mix things up a bit. Before my parents arrived on the 26th, we traveled with Keri’s family to South Carolina and rented a house on the beach for a few days.
It was pretty cold, but Nathan (A.K.A. Great Gorilla) and I managed to get in the ocean for a few minutes.
