You definitely want to host!

[Randy Anderson]

I want to recommend to anyone who is thinking about hosting a Digital Storytellers seminar, to go ahead and do it. We hosted a seminar last year, and it was great! Not only was it an excellent way to educate our church, but it was very satisfying knowing that we were able to extend beyond the walls of our church, and play a small role in the media ministries of other churches in the area.

To anyone who is feeling anxioius about the commitment... pray about it, and be faithful. We almost cancelled our seminar, but during the week before the seminar, we had a rush of registraions to bring us to the number of registrations that we expected. God rewards those who are faithful. And remember, if God wants them at the seminar, they'll be there!

My ONLY disapointment was that one of our pastors was unable to attend. We have weekly design meetings, and have trouble getting him to incorporate the metaphor into his sermon. It would be so much easier if he had attended.

Every time I hear Len and Jason, I am renewed in my desire to communicate the Gospel. Not only do they give you the knowledge to move forward... they do it in such an entertaining way that you can't help but have fun. Have fun counting how many Star Wars references Jason makes!

[MPCC Media]

It is great!
Thanks for hosting them Randy!

[Len Wilson]

[Note: The preceding advertisement was not paid for nor requested by Midnight Oil Productions.] Thanks guys!

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by Len Wilson [Admin

][Note: The preceding advertisement was not paid for nor requested by Midnight Oil Productions.] Thanks guys!

However, they did provide the server space.

[char]

This past weekend, we hosted the MO Guys to do their "thing." We didn't have the turnout that we wanted or even anticipated, and even almost cancelled our event because of low turnout. But, we decided to stay on course and do what we felt God had led us to do in the first place... and boy, are we glad we did! Those who attended were so thrilled and excited about all that they learned, and it rekindled a fire within myself and my team to move further ahead and try some new and different things. Change is a scary thing, but the kind of change that metaphor imaging in worship can bring is only GOOD change!

The low turnout was disappointing at first, but the more I thought about it and prayed about it, God made it clear to me that it's not about the numbers, but all about the "message." If hosting this seminar made a difference for just one church in the way they do worship and think about worship, then it was worth every effort put forth to host this event. God can do powerful things when two or more are gathered in His name. That's what it is all about... sharing a new, and exciting way to share the Gospel and reach more people for the sake of Christ.

So... JUST DO IT!!
Grace and peace,
Charlotte Jones
Coordinator of Media Ministries
Christ United Methodist Church
Bethel Park, PA

[downeyflo]

So what's involved with hosting?

Obviously, providing space, PA, video, bathrooms, etc...
Is the local church/organization responsible for all the advertising and invitations? Is there a min. number of people to come? What are the costs (does the church pay travel for Jason and Len)?

There don't seem to be so many of these things on the left coast, so we might be interested. Any details would be helpful.

[Gene]

I've been waiting for one closer to the left coast, too. Or one closer to the places I have family (Florida in winter, Michigan almost any time). I've contemplated hosting one, but I've worried about being able to get enough attendees. There are plenty of churches in the SF Bay Area with projectors, but very few do anything beyond project lyrics and bullet points, so it'd be a lot of work to sell them on a seminar.

There's some info about what's involved here. Seems to me there was more info there before, but maybe that's what you get hit the 'Send More Info' link. Or maybe I'm confusing it with Tim's CMN hosting needs. Or maybe I'm just confused

[Jason Moore]

Thanks Charlotte!

The event in Bethel Park was smaller, but it was great. You just never know. Last time we were in Pennsylvania, we had 150, this time we only had about 30. Our average is about 85 or 90. That usually means that we have several events that are 80 or 90, a few that are 30 to 40 and even fewer that are 100-175ish.

We'd love to go to the left coast. It's been a while since we've been out there. Last time we did one it was in Santa Clarita at a Lutheran church. It was a great day!

Basically to host there are two options. You pay a flat fee and expenses, and you get to keep all of the income (registrations) from the day, or you pay expenses and we keep the income from the day. On option two if you get 75 people there we drop the expenses. With either option you can bring as many from your own church to the day for free. Also most churches provide snacks and lunch.

The church is responsible for promoting locally. Of course we send out emails and notices from our site. If there are denominational offices in the area, we always try to use their contacts to get the word out.

Believe it or not, most people choose the first option and make $1,500 to $2,500. Almost all spring our events were like that. Luckily for Charlotte she had chosen the second option.

We greatly appreciate our hosts. They're a large part of what makes it possible for us to do what we do. The harder they work, the better attended the event is. The local connections help tremendously.

Sometimes we're thrown a curve, and the host works hard and numbers are still low. Most of the time though, it's when a host who doesn't have much time to promote/work on the event that it suffers. That was not the case with either Randy or Charlotte.

By the way Gene, you're talking about 85% of our audience when you say "There are plenty of churches in the SF Bay Area with projectors, but very few do anything beyond project lyrics and bullet points, so it'd be a lot of work to sell them on a seminar." That's kind of why we do what we do.

If you're interested, let us know and Len can send you all of the info. We'd love to make it over to that part of the country again.

Jason

[psychsunshine]

I'm another one of the folks out on the "left coast".

I'd love to possibly host a seminar, but I don't think that our setup is up to par. We basically don't have an audio system.

Any possiblity that anyone else in Northern CA is going to be hosting a seminar anytime soon?

Emily

[lostone]

I would just like to weigh in on this topic.

If you can't host at least send EVERYONE involved to a seminar, including the pastors.

Only our media team was sent because the ones in charge of the design team told us that it was only going to be about graphics and the media team. Even though we pointed out that graphics and media team would be a small part of the seminar. Plus the two people in charge had been to Ginghamsburg and new everything already. We came back with a lot of great ideas, none of which we could implement or even discuss because by that time the media team had been shut out of the design team meetings. Why you ask? We were told the Media Team was not needed at them.

What was interesting about the seminar was Len & Jason pointed out all of the short comings of our design team. I especially liked the root word of Contemporary is Temporary, you must keep evolving.

It's funny, if we had a new idea we get "Oh, that's not the way Ginghamsburg does it", My response was always the same. "WE ARE NOT GINGHAMSBURG!!!" Personally I'm betting we do NOTHING like Ginghamsburg. I wanted to make a trip out there myself just to see exactly how they do things.

Sorry...ranting of topic again.

Lostone.

[pinball]

Lostone makes an excellent observation about the downside of going to visit a successful church: the temptation exists to try to be just like the church you visited.

When I started making visits for the magazine, I used to drive our pastors crazy. I had a different "new" way to do things every 4 months. And every "new" way was "the way", to hear me tell it.

Then I realized I wasn't practicing what I preach. The whole reason we do what we do it to help churches see some new ideas. They may or may not be able to apply them, but we're hoping to at least expand their horizons.

It's funny how much of the stuff I write is for me first. That's when we started a feature called "Apply It" to extract the principles from the stories. I needed those more than anyone else.