Blog location

For those who couldn't find it, this blog has moved to :

http://www.kimgentes.com/thinkjump/

All new posts and conversation are now online at that location..

thanks
kim

New Site

Friends,

after a little time, we have finally updated our home site to now include all our content, including this blog. Heretofor, the ThinkJump Journal (this blog) and other such content by Kim can be found at :

http://www.kimgentes.com/

All activities formerly on this blog will now move there (the blog section of the site is called the "ThinkJump Journal").

Kim

New Direction

For several years now I have felt the Lord speaking to me about planting a new church. Over the years you realize more and more what kind of things God has put on your heart and what are more just "extra fluff" that isn't really what God has called you to. For me, finding out God's callings is as much about learning what He doesn't want you doing as what He does.

The story starts off in 1997. Late in 1997 I felt God speak to me that I was supposed to quit my job and pursue Him in the area of worship. Being a software engineer at the time, I had been working almost 10 years for a large company and had enjoyed being in fast growing career. We had just had our third son, Cody that year, and there was lots of growing responsibility for myself and Carol (my wife). Towards the end of '97 I had a dream that seemed to indicate a new direction was coming. I felt like God said he was going to converge many of the areas of my life into a more focused direction. Over the year from 1993 through 1997 I had a growing interest and involvement with the Internet. Back in 1994, I helped start a email discussion group called the Worship List, which helped worship leaders and musicians to communicate and support each other. That developed into a website called the Worship Resource Center and later more online resources (http://www.praise.net/).

By 1997 I was seen as somewhat of an expert on the Internet in regards to worship and the online community. During 1997 I consulted with EMI CMG to help them market an online presence for a new worship band they were helping get exposure in the US. The band was Delirious. I helped do online marketing for their website http://www.praise.net/ . From that relationship, I later (1998) served as a consultant to help EMI launch the website http://www.worshiptogether.com/ , an online resource for their entire new modern worship label.

In late 1997 I felt the Lord say that I was to start a new online presence, called worshipmusic.com to use both my worship leading gifting and my software consulting and engineering skills as a combined skill set for helping resource the church. The first part of 1998, my company I worked for was going through a set of layoffs to reduce engineering staff in some areas. Though I was protected from the layoffs as part of a critical group of engineers in my company, felt the Lord prompt me to quit my job and use the opportunity to jump out and follow what He was asking me to do. So I resigned, took out my 401k and pooled all our money with my brother (Lockley) into a small fund that would be the basis of our new venture. We began Worshipmusic.com in March 1998. I spent about 6 weeks getting it up and running and it launched in April. Over the next several months the growth was slow, but sure. As our money ran dry, my wife was amazingly supportive, not worrying and upset.

After a few months it was clear that the company would be slower than we hoped at getting off the ground, at least it wouldn't be able to support me and my family quickly. So I began to look for work as a software consultant. I quickly found a contract. I worked for a few months helping to develop a database program for the Mac called Helix. But the job was short-lived, and I was looking for another contract by October.

During my search for that next set of work, in 1998, I met a man named Jean-Paul Parenteau during a job interview I was doing. JP (as he is called) was interviewing me. I found out that he was a Christian, and we immediately struck up a friendship. I also found out that he went to a Vineyard church in Tempe, a sister church of the local Vineyard fellowship I was serving at in Mesa, AZ. JP is one of those guys who is not only heartfelt about his personal pursuit of Christ, but is infectious with his passion, effecting everyone around him. Right in the first few interactions with JP, I could tell he was a person I enjoyed being around and liked working with. We worked on projects at that company and grew to become good friends. Several months later I was working at another company (Intel) and I was in the position of looking for more people to staff our development. So, I was able to help JP get hired into Intel, where we again reconnected and continued our friendship.

During this time, a mutual respect grew not only from our common interests in both professional lives, but our ministry understandings and vision. It was in that time we said that there may be a time coming where we could see we might work together in some ministry aspect. As the years past, and I found out that JP felt called to plant a church, we stayed in touch and I mentioned to him my interest in knowing how his progress would develop towards planting a church. I talked to Carol about it, and we both were encouraged, but waited for more confirmation and the sense of clarity and timing. The last few years, I felt a more clear sense that Carol and I would be going to help in a new endeavour. As we talked, we walked through various considerations, but kept coming back to the possibility of working with JP and Margaret in a church plant. A couple years ago Carol encouraged me that she felt good about moving forward with talking more seriously to the Parenteau's about a church plant. By this time, JP and Margaret were well along in the process of moving towards church planting.

In the last year, we made a commitment to work towards being a part of a church plant with JP and Margaret for a new Vineyard church plant in the SanTan corridor (along the 202/SanTan freeway area). In the last few months, a clearer time frame for a release from our current churches (us from the Gilbert Vineyard, and them from the Tempe Vineyard) has been established. We will be leaving for the church plant in the month of January 2008. Our plan right now is to begin meeting in small group settings sometime around October/November, and to be released to our own "church plant status" in Jan 2008.

While we are excited about this, there are still lots of cautions and things to consider. Leaving our current church will not be easy, as we have many great relationships with folks there. While those won't dissolve immediately, living and serving in a local church community is one of the things that draws people together, and we know that being apart of another fellowship on a weekly basis means we will not have the guaranteed times of seeing some of our friends that we now have on (at least) a weekly basis.

As a creative person, I am very excited about the church plant. I love new things, new challenges, new opportunities to try something different. I like change too, when there is the possibility of seeing a fresh wind from God's creativity blow through our lives. On the other side of things, having been a part of a church plant before, I think there is plenty of things gleaned from the experience (both good and not so good). I look forward to leaning more towards the good on this church plant :). I suppose we will see how that works out!

On the personal side of things, one thing that I am excited about is that my family is excited. Myself, Carol, Jordan and Cody all are excited at the chance to be going on this new adventure. Jared seems to be somewhat hesitant about it, and as a rule is the kind of person who just doesn't like any change all that much. Overall, what we are all looking for is God's will and God's provision and blessing as we embark on this new chapter.

We seriously desire your prayers and insights as you think of us. Should you have the inclination to do so, please pray for us and the new church plant. If you feel God has given you a specific reflection to share with us, we'd love to hear it.

May His Kingdom come,

Kim

Technology & Worship - a resource roundup

I recently taught a session on technology and worship and found that a lot of people are looking for good resources in that area. To help with getting some good information out there, I wanted to post a summation of a good list of resources for folks interested in this area. This is a list that is compiled by me, but includes my personal favorites as well as those of some of my staff at Worshipmusic.com. I hope it is helpful.

SOUND & MEDIA/TECHNOLOGY FORUMS

• http://www.churchmedia.net/ (both free and paid forums available)
• http://www.theworshipcommunity.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=12
• http://osministry.com/forum/ (techie idea exchange)
• http://www.churchsoundcheck.com/

SOUND & MUSIC TRAINING

• http://www.howaudio.com/ (professional training)

VIDEO & GRAPHIC TECH INFORMATION/TRAINING

• http://www.churchvideoideas.com/ (great for churches and video)
• http://www.lynda.com/ (professional training)

PUBLICATIONS/READING

• http://www.tfwm.com/
• http://www.churchandworship.com/

I especially like the writings by Quentin Schultze and would encourage you to read any of this writings and articles on technology and the church. Such as follows:

• http://www.byfaithonline.com/partner/Article_Display_Page/0,,PTID323422%7CCHID664014%7CCIID2238650,00.html
• http://www.calvin.edu/~schu/publications/hightechworship.htm

This is a good opinion blog on Worship and media- http://www.leadingwithlight.com/

VIDEO AND IMAGE CONTENT SITES

Many of you asked about image sites. I will be frank. I feel that a lot of Christian image/photo places are filled with predictable, or even cheesy images. Still there are some good collections that do have quality image and video collections. But regardless of that, every site will have its strong and weak images. And it will vary greatly on the type and artistic bent of your church.Here are some of the higher quality sites I use occasionally-

• http://www.worshiphousemedia.com/
• http://www.corbis.com/ (not Christian focused, but excellent quality image database)
• http://www.midnightoilproductions.com/
• http://www.istockphoto.com/ (again, not Christian-centric site, but contains good selection of useful images)
• http://www.sermonspice.com/
• http://www.bluefishtv.com/
• http://www.highwayvideo.com/
• http://www.barnafilms.com/
• http://www.worshipfilms.com/
• http://www.digitalstocksource.com

Here's another source of interesting content: http://www.nooma.com/
Nooma is the creation of Rob Bell at Mars Hills Church in Michigan. Each Nooma (there are now 17) are bite-sized 10-12 minute multimedia sermonettes. They could be used for small group discussion, on a Sunday morning, whatever.

UNIQUE TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS/RESOURCES FOR CHURCHES

What I will list here are some products that I have recommended and/or use personally. Again, I am listing the URLs of the products to my company for simplicity sake. You could use this just as a reference for the product information and look around if you want to price shop. My hope is that you will find this list helpful and some of it may pertain to your local church.

• PlusDeck2c - (hardware) A computer device that actually plugs into your computer (Windows/PC) and lets you convert all those old sermon tapes and music library tapes to MP3 files (or CDs) directly on your computer. It's a great technology device for churches wondering how they are going to get their history of teaching and sermon tapes on to the web or mp3 disc or such. You can see an online review of it at http://churchvideoideas.com/2007/01/09/plusdeck2c-cassette-deck-for-converting-cassettes-to-mp3/ or you can look at it directly on our site at http://www.worshipmusic.com/plusdeck2c.html (be sure to watch the demo video online- page down to half way down the page to view it).
• Transposer - (software download) Transposer 2.0 allows you to raise or lower the pitch of any MP3 song without changing the tempo. You can also change the tempo of an MP3 song without changing the pitch. The quality of the recording remains the same, within reasonable limits (pitch changes of 3 semitones higher or lower, and tempo changes of less than 25%). The good thing is, you can try out the software for free to see if it works for you before you ever buy it. http://www.worshipmusic.com/gen-trans-pc.html
• Sweetly Broken Video - (digital download) modern worship song with an example of a wonderfully Cross-centered theme, but with humanized video images. http://www.worshipmusic.com/sweetly-broken.html . Go down to the sub-section for video of this song in the right-middle of the page and choose the video format best suited for your church (there are online samples for each).
• Mediashout - (software) In my opinion, the best video display program for Windows computers. http://www.worshipmusic.com/9847100000.html
• ProPresenter - (software) In my opinion, the best video display program for Mac computers. http://www.renewedvision.com/pp.php
• EasyWorship - (software) the video display software that is the easiest to learn and get up and running in your local church quickly. But has some important high-end limitations. Good for churches who want basic video support, but aren't wanting to tax it with extensive live video, compressed video files and running direct from DVD (all things EasyWorship does not do, or does poorly) http://www.easyworship.com/home.php
• God Songs - (book) a great book and resource for songwriters. I know its not exactly technology specific, but its an amazing resource for your worship and music people http://www.worshipmusic.com/1933150033.html
• Finale Music software - (software) the best music software for notation, in my opinion. http://www.worshipmusic.com/software-coda-music.html
• Praise.net - (website) a free online resource with discussion forum for worship leaders and worshipers.
• WorshipMusic.com - (website) my online company that is specifically meant for equipping churches in worship, music, technology and tools that encourage and bless worship. http://www.worshipmusic.com/
• WorshipTeam.com - (website) a new online web service for weekly worship planning. (this is what I have been working on for the last 4 years :) ) This is a legal, authorized online service that brings a complete suite of tools into a single solution environment to meet the needs of local church worship leaders, ministries and their team members. This complete tool set includes scheduling, personnel, document mgt, communication, songs, and order of service/list development all within a unique "workspace" that integrates this for your team. This service is in BETA test mode right now, and any one can check it out for free. http://www.worshipteam.com/

I hope this is some help to you.
In Christ
Kim Gentes