What's up friends? Welcome to this special edition of the PD podcast. Today I am doing a both and I'm running this conversation for the podcast and I'm also facilitating an Instagram live video mainly because I want to hear again tonight from some folks with a very particular question as we're all five weeks in to our remote church everywhere streaming from home church online rhythm. What I'm curious to discover tonight is what is the general public's opinion about how and where their churches stream from.
This is a conversation that's happening everywhere when it comes to the methodology of how we are creating our services. Some people choosing to go exclusively from their home and kind of edit together and at home experience of both worship announcements and the sermon. Some churches going like nothing has kind of changed and running everything straight from their churches main stage where all their camera and production equipment exists. And so the question I'm asking tonight as we've got several people on Ted Vaughn on as usual and a few other church leaders that I'm hoping to back up.
The first thing that I'm going to announce into this conversation is what is your preference or what are you seeing as the pros and cons when it comes to where we are seeing our church weekend services programmed from right whether they're being filmed from a pastor's living room because that's all they've got. Maybe they were in a set up tear down. Maybe they're in a school environment and they're no longer able to access the school and now they've pivoted to their home. I was just watching a good friends live live video.
It was prerecorded but they ran it for their Sunday service and he was on the rooftop of their building with the city of Los Angeles as the backdrop. I was super pleasing to the eye, at least in my opinion. There have been other people who have not shifted a thing. They ran just as if they were preaching off of their normal church platform.
They're utilizing all the existing tech in place. And this is my question for the night and this is going to be the topic of conversation for this episode is what's your thought when consuming this as both an engager, somebody who is watching, somebody who's a part of the church, somebody who's in a very different norm, you're not able to come to church. And so when you see your pastor's streaming or recording or preaching from wherever they're streaming from, do you feel alienated? Do you feel some sense of comfort because you're seeing a place that you're familiar with?
Is it a both and have you never even thought about it? Is it something that we need to be diving deeper into when it comes to the ethos of how we're recording and making our content? Or is it just whatever it needs to be because the message is the most important thing? This is my question for tonight.
And if you're on with me on Instagram live, I've got my phone tethered to a roll of gaff tape and it's aimed at my laptop because I'm recording both of these conversations. So without further ado, here's what I want to do. I want to ask the question is this live. That's right.
Daniel, it is live. Watch my hand go from the screen, which is in front of the camera in front of my cell phone. I just happened to have one pointing at the other so that I can kind of manage both together. So if you're joining us right now, this is going to become an episode for the PD podcast, but the question that I'm asking tonight and I know there are several production managers on the line.
There are several people who are having to kind of make and navigate the decision of where and how we are going to produce weekend content. Certainly we've tried a few different things. I like certain things more than I like other things. So this is the question I'm putting out there tonight.
What does the weekend service look like to you with the church that either you're helping produce or the church that you're watching? And what is your preference? Do you have a preference? Do you like seeing the worship environment that you're used to?
Or have you started to kind of expect to see more of your church leadership, the church personalities that you're used to seeing in real life? Have you started to see the expectation of the shift that they're going into more of a domestic environment, right? Shooting from their home or maybe shooting from their neighbor, their backyard, their kitchen, their living room, their driveway? I'm curious to know what you're seeing.
And I'm curious to know what your mind and what your perception is as you're seeing these things come out. So hi, Tech. Kevin McPeeke. Thank you very much.
If you saw it in person, you'd laugh because it's just a DSLR running through my laptop and my cell phone pointing at the screen as I record both of these. So Kevin, let me ask you the question. Since you're on the text thread, you've been managing the look alongside of a few other folks for nine churches, including ours. And for some situations, you have streamed from the large stage, the platform, and then in other situations, you've made major pivots because some of the churches inside of our network were utilizing a rental in a set up, tear down situation.
What's been your guts as you have been kind of navigating as the producer in all of these situations for each of the churches? And what's your preference as you've now been on both sides of the coin? You've been producing services and you have also been exploring other churches and what they've been doing? Any thoughts in your own perspective?
And while I've got the Facebook live, I'm sorry, the Instagram live going. I'm sure I can get an interview on here. If somebody's willing to give their two cents, all you need to do is type in the comment section. I've got an idea or I'd love to give some feedback.
I'll tether you in. You won't be on video, so you don't have to worry about that. I'll just be capturing your audio, but I'd love to get some other opinions in this also. I've got some opinions rolling through.
The first one is I supplement my learning from several different pastors online and they use different platforms to shoot from. One is a studio. The other is an office and I can imagine it doesn't bother people as much as I'm guessing as much as we're asking. I appreciate the in-house approach says Daniel Scottie feels like we're all together.
Hey Daniel, can I click you in? Would you mind elaborating on that? I think that you've got some stock in the game since you helped produce Saddleback's service. This is the Saddleback purpose-driven podcast.
Can I click you in? I'm not even going to like wait for your answer. I'm just going to go and invite you to the conversation. Here it comes.
Get ready. Coming in hot. Daniel Scottie! This might be my first.
Hey, I appreciate your courage to step into the conversation. So as I adjust my microphone, you guys are producing, you shifted. You're doing some worship stuff at first. It was from your guys's Lake Forest main platform.
Then Rick made a shift to his garage. Yeah. Well, we actually tried to film. So most of the stuff that was in the worship center that we pre-ed.
We saw things starting to shift pretty quickly. So John, our worship app, decided to say, hey, let's film like about three weekends worth before we go into a potential mandate. And most of our worship up until Easter was all pre-recorded before California and it happened. And then for Easter, I'd have pushed us into how do we continue to escalate?
How do we abide by those things? And I guess showcase that even through our expression of worship and push our A-tip B-N. If you haven't seen Saddleback's Easter worship, you should go check it out. I feel like it's a mass collaboration of multiple video editors, multiple audio engineers remixing stuff, people dropping equipment off at other people's homes and doing our best to kind of embrace that like, hey, if you're at home, we're at home.
And that's okay. And I feel like more than ever people have been able to lower the bar in sense of the high production and kind of give grace to, I mean, you're seeing it on the Tonight Show and all these other networks are lowering their bar. It's had to, based off of their studios and stuff. So for us to try to do that.
So, yeah. That's really good. Now, has that presented? What do you think have been the largest challenges?
Because for us, personnel-wise, it gets really difficult to try and get everything ported over to somebody's home. I realize I've had to shoot a lot of stuff on my own. Right now I'm shooting this 100% solo, nobody helping me out. And so it does take a little bit of a technical baseline.
How have you guys been navigating that? Yeah, I feel like it's varied. Sometimes it's just like an iPhone is good enough. Do a take with your iPhone and then do audio recording separately.
You know, only a few people. We've kind of like, kind of self inventory of like what equipments that do different worship leaders have. It has different like microphone interfaces and stuff like that. So it's kind of been a mix of all of that.
What's been your preference personally as you've now been on both sides of the coin? You started pre-recording at the like, lake forest location. I saw your guys's recent mashup that had everybody everywhere and a really creative edit across all these like multiple like mobile devices. It looks super sharp, sounding incredible.
For seeing the next six weeks, what permissions are you giving yourself as a team? And what are the things you guys are trying to aspire to as you continue to do what everybody else is trying to figure it out? Yeah, man, that's we're all still trying to figure out what's that look like. There's again, it's been a huge collaboration of just different creatives within our team and trying to figure out the best next steps going forward.
And how do we continue to deliver a great worship experience, but still find ourselves in these mandates and regulations and stuff like that. So we're still sorting it out. I think because of some of the stuff we learned from Easter, it will be based off of like what equipment people have and trying to do our best to reshoot. And I know there's a lot of Zoom calls and video calls and phone calls like testing throughout the week.
So my role isn't super involved in all of the like planning and filming and editing and stuff like that. So for me, when we were watching our Easter service, it was actually the first time I was able to view it, which was really moving for me to be able to see the team was able to create it in that way. That's awesome. Tell me how impressed you are with my current setup right now.
It's pretty cool. I'd love to see the behind the scenes of it. I feel like that's really worth it. I'll be able to see how.
Hey, let me give you a solid zoom out so that you can see it. You ready? I'm moving. You see that?
That is the behind the scenes action right there for everybody to see. Hey, Daniel, I really appreciate your perspective. Personal preference. I don't know if you're at Liberty too, but when you sit down and you consume something right when it's not on your watch or it's something that your team is putting together.
Do you resonate the most with when you're watching a weekend service? That's hard. I mean, I feel like I miss corporate worship. So there are times where I love being able to see people together.
But I also appreciate the in-home like they're there. I'm here kind of thing. Like I get it. Like we connect that we're both in the same situation.
So I kind of go back and forth between it. Personally, I feel like in this season, I've really appreciated just the authenticity of people being in their homes on their couch doing the best they can with what they have. If it's just a guitar and their iPhone video and people going live, I feel like connection right now is troubling quality. So if we're able to stay connected and people are feeling like, hey, I'm not able to go out and worship with my church family like we used to, but being able to see familiar faces from your church kind of in their home.
It kind of brings you into their life a little bit as well. So there's some personal connection. You got to see people's couch preferences and stuff like that, which you typically don't see on the platform. So there's some personality in it naturally when you're in those environments.
Yeah, that's really great. I super appreciate your perspective, Daniel. Thanks for always delivering. I think a great perspective balancing what is arguably some of the best production stuff coming out of the West Coast, what you guys put together.
And then really that authenticity part of not leaving people high and dry when it comes to saying we're with you in this scenario also. I think you guys did a great job of balancing that this last Easter. Thanks for your opinion. I appreciate it.
Go ahead. Good to see you bro. Talk to you soon. That's a great perspective.
Daniel Scott is one of the production leads at Saddleback and does a great job of helping kind of marry both the worship content and what we see inside of their, you know, their largest building their lake forest auditorium. So great perspective from Daniel. I would love to pop in an old faithful friend. I bet you if if he's not cooking or eating, he'll jump in with me.
And I bet you've got something worth adding to the conversation as I wait for him to dive in. If you've got something, yes. Back at it again, my friend. Hey, this time I'm trying to find myself out of the out of the throngs of my garage and in a little bit better lighting with a little bit better set up.
You've been doing a ton of really great work tweeting some of your perspectives as we're five weeks in churches navigate this new normal. What's your take when it comes to from the platform versus from the living room? Is that is there too much going into the process? What's your take on it?
I think there's been something refreshing about going home. I think post Easter to see people in their homes. I do wonder about logical connection people have their sanctuary and the inability to be there and the value in seeing that. I don't think I think people are articulated and say I really value my pastor in the sanctuary.
But I think there is something that feels right familiar, consistent about that. And I wonder if this plays out for another two months or longer potentially if that won't elevate in importance versus the at home. I think we're going to see more Facebook lives. I think we're going to see more zoom or at home connection opportunities.
So I wonder, and again, this is a question and less a preference. If there won't be an increased desire or value on the message or some portion of that we can service coming from the sanctuary. Yeah, I know for some it's just a matter of how in how little option you have to move what gear you do own. Right.
So many houses utilize like a Clark or an installation organization where they hard wire everything in. So you can just pull out a $5,000 camera to take to your living room. So the the the both and has I think presented itself at least from the angles that I've seen at some places can't move. And so they've got to utilize what they've got where they're at.
And then the desire is to supplement other parts of the program in places that do kind of tell the story of we're in this with you also. Back to what two of the churches I work with regularly are doing this Sunday. They're keeping the message anchored at the sanctuary that they're doing worship in a whole environment and they're doing announcements in a different environment and then they're doing a family interview in another home. So they're going to have lots of different homes.
There's going to be a lot of authenticity. Frankly, it's harder to get all of that balanced and done well. I think versus just having everybody in the sanctuary. But I also think there's the optics right of don't want to have churches that have 12 people on the worship stage bouncing around.
I think that's beginning to be problematic from an odd point. Yeah, I think that's subliminally it's saying that, you know, we're throwing off the concern of helping see this thing solved sooner than later. Stephen Cooper, you know, Stephen Cooper, he commented and he said, I've felt like worship in the normal space is important. It keeps a connection between people.
I do think that there are these visual cues you and I've talked about him before about maybe instead of just recording from a normal place that you always lead from. Maybe readressing your room, maybe going to the back of your auditorium and kind of showing that long shot of what people usually walk in and seeing or maybe going to the backstage or even going to your lobby and shooting from your lobby to utilize. Switch it up. They walk in.
You hear the feed at journey of them coming in the facility. I think this is an opportunity to innovate and take creativity to all new levels. But I do think at least the feedback I'm hearing like Stevens, more people are resonating and appreciating that sense of tether or continuity with their sanctuary. I think there's an emotional psychological thing happening there that may grow.
My theory is it will grow more and more valuable the longer we're in this this. Yeah, that's really good. Ted, you have your own podcast that you have been recording to and people want to catch your content in a more direct way. How do they do that?
I was telling you up. I was saying that you recently launched your own podcast. So if people want to catch you and more of your perspective, especially since you helped so many churches out, how can they find you? It's in the process of being built.
Chris Lubei, Scott Deal, I'm on you. Yeah, we can do that recording content and I'm going to have to go live and I think in other three weeks. So for now, you know, all the bad Ted on that all the social channels will work. That's awesome.
I love it. Hey, if you don't follow Ted on Twitter, he's got some really great 160 character thoughts that come blasting out in the most random time. Thanks for your perspective. We'll talk to you soon.
Thanks buddy. Super good insight. It's interesting. Daniel Scottie, who was on the conversation earlier, he just wrote.
We definitely struggled with that. And not wanting to convene people together to film as much as possible. I think a lot of us are in that situation of kind of weighing the pros and cons of pulling people together. First of all, if you run a largely volunteer team, one, you can't force them to come together if they don't feel comfortable to get mandate somebody and you certainly shouldn't be threatening them to come together in order to accomplish whatever you want to record.
If you're on staff, you know, that's a different situation. We've been coming together. We reduced what is normally like a five or six person band, a four person tech crew down to just three individuals who are playing the worship set for the last several weeks. I'm doing the camera work and then I have one other person who's essentially editing in place real time.
So that's reduced what's typically been about 10 down to five. And if you look at any of our worship stuff, we're very spread out. I mean, overtly spread out so that people when they see us on video. I hope that it adds to the like, you know, that security of going there, taking as many precautions as possible outside of doing a lot of extra post production.
If you've never tried to record every person from their own home and then stitch it all together in a way that sounds worth replaying. It is a ton of work. So before you, you know, just lean in and say, well, how come people have never done that before? That is one of the reasons why it's so not done so often is because it's a difficult process to record everybody well from their own location.
And then have enough time to edit it all together, mix all the audio, push it all into a final video and then get it out to get it out to play. I'm certain that if you go look at the saddle back video, that was likely, I would argue, like probably 100 hours worth of preparation that went into that final product that played for four minutes and incredible four minutes, but it was a massive production just knowing what you have to do to produce something as basic as this and have it work well. That was quite a feat to put out. I love the quality of worship.
Thanks, Ted. I appreciate it. We nail it. We do work diligently to provide something that makes people feel like we're playing our part, both in the social distancing mandate, but also in not negating the power of coming together for worship.
And I'm not talking about the people coming together, but just instrumentally, when you've got all of those things working together, you know that there is a there's an energy, right? There is a there's something cohesive that happens when the band comes together, even if they're spread apart a ton that they build on one another. And I certainly feel like those have been some of our best online worship experiences when they're actually bumping off of the sermon. I think that everybody is kind of in that space together.
We understand the brevity and the depth and the magnitude of the situation we're in as a culture and then their their gifting comes to play together, even if it's streaming. I think that you notice when all of that comes together and everybody's aware of the moment. And I think that that's been some of the luxuries we have found ourselves in over the last several weeks. So, I think that's me speaking from my own from my own vantage point.
I'm going to tag in somebody else as we get in and through this. Let me look at well let's let's tag in Chad. Chad, I don't know if you're able to talk right now but I'm going to give you a holler. We haven't had you on the podcast yet.
Chad just became the executive pastor over at his church and chat if you're brave enough to get on the line. You won't end up being on the video for the live stream, but you will end up on my Facebook or my Instagram live video. Oh, Chad declined. It's okay.
Chad did nobody judging you. Throw me a thumbs up if you want to try you back. Let me get after just one more individual and then we'll see if we can't put a tap on this conversation. I'm going to tag in James Gutierrez James is a creative fellow.
We go way back in time. And James is a he's a chameleon. He can produce on the highest levels and the best largest ages he's been both the talent and the producer, but he's also able to do set up teardown situation. That's kind of the rhythm that he's been working in as recently.
James get to a place where I can add you into my livestream so that you and I can have a conversation. I know you can. Yes. Let me go.
Yeah, good to see you James Gutierrez. Hey, yeah, yeah, dude. It looks like an interrogation corner, but it's perfect. So you've been you've been listening to the conversation.
I'm not breaking the edit for the podcast. What is your opinion both as a partaker in ministry, somebody who's a part of a local church, but also as you've been helping people navigate what the look has been. Why don't you tell us who you're helping create content for and then give us your perspective. As me as exactly what.
Okay, so first of all, you've been we were all trying to figure out, you know, is it is it better to go from our main stages as we are producing content that goes live in that? Or is there an advantage to kind of taking it off the stage? Some have been going into their living rooms? You have been helping produce for a church.
So what's that church and then to what's been your theory as you've been kind of creating that space for that online church. So it's a very difficult, but to produce even small scale things is difficult, but even in this Sunday for Easter seeing how many different churches have figured out creative ways to be able to actually minister to their own church families and be able to worship God through digital means and for our church and part of restore church in San Diego. We actually for good Friday, we were able to compile pre recording videos that different church members were able to be scripture and also our different worship teams are able to come together to get to play our five family of church. We have five autonomous churches that not only spag, but you can see it.
We both worship teams. So she leads in vocals and I'm able to back her up and we actually have a roommate that needs an amazing guitar. So we're able to do a set, even just three and being able to do that. Before things got really crazy with restrictions, we had we had to leave decided to record some things in our church face on a close set with the 10 to 12 different pounds roster to be able to give to our pastors know their hey on this Sunday based on the preach.
You have at least these to be able to choose from and the kids and and expose those we minister into that. I think it's so sweet. You can be able to have the people that we don't get to interact regularly with being able to use our gift to be able to serve each other. And it feels as honestly sound given that it's on screen is feels so much more intimate.
Yeah, there's just such value in that. And so I mean, we're here with each friend. We have to run iPhones, you know, like, you're right up a student on what you actually bring and she is like actually the first time it was requesting more songs and I'm like, it's absolutely like these, these people into our actual homes and be able to show that we can still have courage to me and that we can and we don't count it as a restriction. We can't do this.
That's a great word. When you know when you were saying when you talked about how it's like a timestamp right you think of it being a mile marker for our generation. The one time globally the whole church needed to pivot and figure out how to run Easter from not their normal spaces. That is pretty tremendous and you're totally right that is more than just for the service for that weekend.
These are now catalogs of our attempts at worshiping and bringing the local church together that I think is really powerful. What's your one piece of advice for a church your size, right? You guys what's your guys average weekend size just so the listener gets a like idea and then what's one piece of advice from the guy who's helping produce all this content from somebody else who's wrestling through it. Huge chance for people of the future to really step out of faith and be able to surprisingly enough like our context now I would say we have a good size worship team and we're close to family and we have been step out for each other more than just to be able to serve on Sundays.
So I think that through this process we're also learning of individuals that are willing to step out because of my advice so I would say don't feel like you don't have the resource that's there. It's worth the ask and this concepts as given people I think an encouragement and a courage to be able to say hey I can actually serve tangibly and if it needs I'm not standing physically on stage and maybe being in front of a screen is more or a camera gives me a little bit more to us and then let's do that. I think for this type of a time we need it more than ever. So don't hold that in the least you know I think that's a huge huge thing as far as practically creatively.
I think I've been doing things these days at home I mean I'm staying at home with my dog. I'm doing creative things because I just have time on my hands man and so do it try and make it something that I think will make it something that I think will make the difference or not if it gives you if it fills you up and use and use worship Jesus through it and go for it and makes you a more. James thanks for that perspective I'll talk to you soon. Love you too man.
Another great perspective from a church that's running in that 150 to 200 range. I love just his own perspective was how they discovered the abilities of other people who don't usually step into that space and how valuable is that especially as a church leader when you go. Yes you can definitely help us accomplish this goal especially somebody who's not usually active in that role what a great way to leverage. So that's an unforeseen talent and some unforeseen partnerships inside of your ministry as you know those who typically don't step forward into what would be like the lights or the production or on to the stage.
All of a sudden that level that playing field is leveled and several people can help make something happen I mean for us even in our space as simple as helping you know people coming in and help just set the set learning how to light you know like a light a key light is 45 degrees to this direction is 50% what the key light is supposed to be in the opposite 45 degree make sure you got a backlight which I don't have right now but usually it's the sum. Those things get taught right there there you can teach them and you can sit everybody down in the class but how much better is it when they're caught right when somebody catches it by just being with you and while we know that like the restrictions make it very difficult. This is a great season to bring some apprentices alongside and just allow them to see how it is that you're doing what you're doing so that as we do see those restrictions lifted you now have a fully equipped and fully savvy next grouping of people that can help you know what's going on. So friends I love you this recording will be turned into a back to back set of episodes.
If you join me on the Instagram live I can't say thank you enough for sharing your own vantage point but it gets you on this round I'll catch you on the next conversation absolutely love seeing the church innovate in this season. We are with you we're working out our own solutions so you're not alone I certainly am not the expert but I will and I always love facilitating the conversations from those who are doing it with all their heart. I love you guys and I'll talk to you soon.