SPEAKING
By Kent Morris
Worship Production:
The Church As a
Multimedia Incubator
Greg Atkinson was hired at Wor- A Techno Tool arena. The result is Shout Music Manager,
shiphouse Media due primarily Dan Homp knew other worship lead- a solid, tweaked-out and comprehensive
to his experience as a media user ers faced the same challenges he did. With program able to ease the burden of any
in his local church. He led worship and dozens of team members rotating in and worship leader in any church setting.
hosted an online forum where he relayed out of each week’s services, the scheduling Shout Music Manager is a scheduler,
his experiences with the commercially challenge he confronted was enormous. programmer, charting device, selection
available video clips and backgrounds he Additional chores, including song selec- arranger, and time manager in a single
had purchased. The management team tion and charting as well as equipment al- framework. While generic Microsoft Of-at Worshiphouse Media read his reviews location and team communication taxed fice programs can handle the same tasks,
and thought enough of his expertise to
hire him as an unbiased judge of product quality and usefulness. As Greg has
shown, the local church is once again
considered the incubator of the arts.
Worshiphouse Media’s willingness
to look to the local church for inspiration highlights a renewed vibrancy in
the church community. This strength was
demonstrated during a recent Worship
Foundation mentoring network conference. Karen Lafferty, composer of “Seek
Ye First,” has lent her impressive talent
and decades of experience to Martin
Allen’s venture. The Mentoring Network
matches artistic veterans with fledgling
partners who seek to improve their life
and craft. Aided by master mentors Stan
Endicott (Mariner’s Church, Maranatha!
Music) and Monty Kelso (formerly of
Coast Hills Church), Allen is forging a
comprehensive framework designed to his ability to finish before the upcoming the effort required would challenge even
ease and define the mentoring process. weekend services. As with other full time the most tech-savvy professional. Homp
From programming expert Nancy Beach staff, the process began anew each Mon- has revised the program to deliver conto accomplished dance choreographer day morning amid his myriad meetings sistent, detailed output of the who, what,
Karyin Borman, the Mentoring Network and rehearsals. Dan, a self-starter with when, where, and how necessary to pres-has harnessed the best practitioners in strong computer programming chops, ent the musical and dramatic portion of
every discipline to under-gird the ex- set out to write a program capable of cor- the service. Five music search engines, in-panding arts community within the ralling the unwieldy and repetitious du- cluding one designated “Ranked Search”
Church. ties of a worship leader into a reasonable for user specified importance, make
