By David Grindle

Whether your technical staff consists of paid employees or volunteers, it’s good to know if they have the basic skills they need to do the job you’re having them do to support the worship experience.
That’s why USITT is developing the eSET program, Essential Skills for Entertainment Technicians.
While worship is not entertainment, the same equipment is being used in both environments. eSET will offer an entry-level system of information and testing across several technical fields.

The goal is to give employers and supervisors confidence that someone who has an eSET certificate is familiar with the basic skills and knowledge in an identified subject, like basic electronics or basic rigging.
USITT began by forming eSET working groups composed of people from the entertainment industry who hire entry level workers, as well as people teaching these programs in our academic institutions. Many of these people have a strong background in worship. Together they are creating a certificate that can get buy-in from both sides of the training/hiring equation.

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Butterflies flown in the centre of Italy’s second largest city

Milan (Italy) – A 40,000-strong crowd recently filled the huge square in front of Milan cathedral for a unique concert staged on the church’s steps, featuring the 500-member Italian Gospel Choir, the 12-piece Italian Big Orchestra, guest director US songwriter, producer, composer and recording artist Donald Lawrence and Scots MC Malcolm Charlton (aka Nick the Nightfly), one of Italian FM radio’s top personalities, a recording artist
on his own right and artistic director of Milan’s Blue Note Club.

To ensure the inspired music’s intelligibility for the huge crowd, audio, lighting and stage/support system contractor Cipiesse s.r.l. of Rezzato (Brescia) deployed a setup comprising two main hangs of twelve Outline Butterfly enclosures, flown one on either side of the fifty metre wide “set” and sixteen Outline Eidos positioned along the cathedral steps (which doubled as main stage) on front fill duty. Four Outline Subtech 218 subwoofers were flown on either side, alongside each of the Butterfly arrays and the rig was powered entirely by Outline T-Seven amplifiers.

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The Aeon UST (Ultra Short Throw) is an EDGE FREE® fixed frame screen that uses Elite’s newest StarBright CLR™ (Ceiling Light Rejecting) material. It’s serriform micro-structure negates 95% of the washout effects of ambient lighting from overhead sources. This highly specialized design enables the material to provide contrast levels that are 100 times greater than that of standard matte white projection screens. The StarBright CLR™ material is specifically designed for ultra-short-throw projectors to provide a large-screen performance in the close quarters of most residential or office training environments. It also dwarfs today’s flat-panel displays but does so at a fraction of their cost. Aeon UST offers a wide viewing angle, neutral color temperature, and enhanced picture contrast in a theater-grade image instead of causing the eye strain caused by the excessive glare radiating from flat panel displays in similar lighting environments.

Elite Screens, Inc. an innovative company that specializes in quality projection screens, today announced the launch of its Aeon UST (Ultra Short Throw) EDGE FREE® fixed frame screen with ceiling light rejecting properties.

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An elderly worshiper at Frazer United Methodist Church said he could hear a recent sermon the best he had in a long time since the church added new sound equipment in the main sanctuary as part of a technology upgrade that also impacted the Frazer television ministry.

Frazer’s Kim Hendrix said the sound and lighting improvements were part of making worship in the main sanctuary better as well as programming on television where shut-ins and others are reached weekly.

The project had been a need for years, and the church’s debt-free condition reached in January created an ideal time to move forward, Hendrix said. Several benefits have been already noticed.

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By: Chris Surrat

A few months ago, I wrote about a new curriculum tool that Lifeway Christian Resources was launching called – SmallGroup.com. SmallGroup.com is an online library of over 1300 Bible studies that you can completely customize for your church’s context and needs. All you have to do is plug in your pastor’s topic or main scripture, and it builds a discussion based study that you can then change as much as you need to. You can also request a custom written study if there is not one already on the site.

Instead of staring at a blank page every week after you get your pastor’s notes, you have a biblically solid study to start with within seconds. They have now added video content, so a small group could do a Tony Evans study and have everything they need within SmallGroup.com.

I loved the idea so much that I signed up for a year’s subscription the day it launched in February. The first message series I built with SmallGroup.com was an all church campaign. It saved me hours of time, and delivered better content than I could have ever come up with on my own!

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Point Source Audio’s EMBRACE™ Microphones 

MSRP:  $530

Point Source Audio’s new EMBRACE™ Microphones offer a custom-fit with “staying power.” Houses of worship can now access the best mic’ing technology and techniques in live theatre—allowing even novice audio techs to master the art of concealing microphones in seconds. EMBRACE is perfect for churches when the pastor doesn’t want the “popstar” stigma of a boom across the face, or when it wants to elevate its Easter and Christmas productions with concealable mics.