 Okay, good morning everybody. Welcome to BC 314, Media and Technology and Ministry. We are making progress, learning how to use the tools that are available there for us in the area of media and technology and of course use it to serve God and serve people. Let's pray. Then we're going to get started. I just request somebody to please unmute your mic if you can and just pray with the class and we get started. Friends, why don't you thank your mics fine. Thank you. Thank you Lord. Thank you this time Lord. And this morning we submit in your hand Lord as we are going to learn and this subject Lord help us to learn that we can apply in this many in our ministry that this is a very technology, but how we use in our ministry help us to learn and Holy Spirit get us and guide us also submit a posture for all the students in your hand. Thank you. Alright, so today and tomorrow so basically both the classes this week. I want to talk to us a little bit on some guidelines. You know, we would say best practices are some standards that we should keep in mind as we use graphics and videos. As part of our media ministry. Now, of course, you know, the graphics and the videos will most likely be designed and created by the people who know how to do it. And so you will have somebody doing this. They're helping you. They may be volunteers, they may be staff. When we started APC, I'm going back in the early days. We just had volunteers, you know, somebody would do some graphics for us. And then we had a paid consultant that means this person was not working full time. They were just, you know, charges for the pieces of work they did, you know. So we went, that's how we started in a very small way. We just had, you know, initially it was volunteers. In fact, our church logo was designed by a volunteer. He is, we didn't pay him for it. We're still using that same logo that he did for us. Of course, he's now gone overseas. But, you know, those early days, it was just volunteers who were helping us for various things. And then slowly, you know, we were able to pay for somebody to do the work for us. And then later on, we were able to have full time staff because the amount of work also increased. So, you know, so you will have people helping you. But what at least I've seen in my own experience is that these people are good in their work. They know how to design graphics. They know how to do videos. They know how to do it. But they may not always think from the church perspective. They may not see things from, you know, the way you as a Christian leader or you as a pastor would see. They may not know what's important necessarily. They may not know the guidelines within which to do their work because, you know, really when you're creating a graphic or you're creating a video. When it goes out, it's not only communicating a message. It's also representing your church, your organization. And so that has to be kept in mind. So they may not always think like that. And so over the years, you know, we had to, there's a lot of learning, you know, both from my side or as a pastor, as a leader and then from their side as technical people who do the work. You know, so we had to learn a lot. Okay. But thank God over the years, you know, and also out there on online, there are a lot of churches, a lot of Christian ministries who are sharing their knowledge. They're learning over the years in using media, meaning using graphics and videos. They're sharing it and so we can learn from them as well. You know, what is the right way to do graphics for Christian church, Christian ministry, what are some things to keep in mind when you're doing videos. And so I'm just, you know, going to share those guidelines today and then some other things tomorrow when you are creating graphics and video. These are things that you need to communicate to the people doing the work and then you're to hold them accountable to this, you know, to do these things. Some thoughts so although you're a pastor or a Christian leader and you're not doing the graphics and you're not doing the video. These are things you must keep in your mind because you know, one is you need to check these things. And obviously, you know, I don't always check every graphic or video. I've communicated the standards to communicate the guidance in the early days, you know, I used to check because before the videos or the graphics go out, I used to check myself. But then after that it became too much and I stopped doing that. But through that, I learned, okay, these are the things that, you know, I need to tell the people, look out for, don't do this, do this, do it like this. And so we documented a lot of these guidelines and, you know, put it in writing. So now I don't check, I just let them do the work. Certain things I might check they still would ask me some questions, but these guidelines have been documented. So the team knows the teams, the people know and they try to just follow it. So I want to share this with you so that you can also think like this. And even though you're not doing the work, the graphics or the video, you can share it with the people are doing the work. And also keep these thoughts in mind so that the media work that is put out. Must, you know, follow certain standards and guidelines to represent the church or the ministry correctly. So let's look at that. Look at some of these things and I've shared the PDF in the classwork section. So you have this available. And so we'll cover some today and we'll pick up tomorrow. So guidelines for graphics and videos. So part of our media technology, you're going to be using graphics and videos. And what are some of the guidelines? So there are some useful websites you can go to. I've just given two links, but there are really a lot more. What I mean is churches and Christian organizations who are sharing their learning. You know, they have already done a lot of work in graphics and videos and media. And they're sharing that learning with the rest of us. So it's good to go and learn from them. See what they're doing. So some general thoughts is it's good to stay current. That's what's happening in media and design globally. You know, so you may, if you are interested, you may do this. But surely encourage your team members, you know, the media people, the IT people to stay current. You know, one simple way is you just see what others are doing. You know, what are other churches doing globally? Like I said, many of them are actually sharing their experiences. They're sharing their learning so we can learn from them. You know, what are the right or wrong way to use media, graphics, videos. But of course, you know, we need to stay rooted in the Word of God. That means while our work is contemporary, we are not compromising as far as the Word of God is concerned. Then understand that graphics and video is actually a communication process. That means you are actually communicating something to people. You know, so don't just think, oh, I have to do a graphic to make, you know, because I have to put something on the website or social media. No, there's actually a message going out in every graphic in every video. I'm sure we know this, but that means you should be very clear. What is your message? That's what are you trying to say to the people and who is your audience? Who are you actually targeting in that particular graphic, even a single graphic that's made or a video that's made? You know, who is your, who are you speaking to? That must be very clear. What are you trying to say? And who are you speaking to? Otherwise, the graphic would be just a jumble of things or the video maybe you're putting things together. The message may be very confusing or may not be clear. Some of the simple things that keep in mind is the fonts that you're using in your graphics and video must be simple and readable. Go for simplicity. And otherwise, the graphics people may, they may want to go with something fancy and you can't even read it. Sometimes, you know, I, in the early days, I should tell, I should, this was such a simple thing to me, but I should just send things back to the teams. Hey, change it. You can't even read the font. It's so difficult, you know, so you're always thinking from the end viewer perspective. That means the person who's going to see the audience, they were going to read the graphic or watch the video. The font has to be readable. It's got to be clear. It's got to be the right size. It's got to be simple. Right. Similarly, the color choices, you know, if you just leave it to the media person, they may just choose all kinds of colors. They may not be thinking in terms of being relevant. And sometimes certain colors have certain meanings and connotations. So you've got to be also sensitive to that. You know, so, so in the use of certain, and this is depending on which part of the world you are, of course, you know, so be sensitive in the use of those colors and how it's being used. For instance, in India, the saffron color is very sensitive. Right. So, you know, if you're using that, you have to be careful because it has certain sensitivity attached to that color. And so those kinds of things. Be careful. You know, the graphic person may not think of thinking those terms, but you, as a pastor, you know, you got to make sure they watch out for these things. And also don't overcrowd, make sure that the graphics, the video is not overcrowded, you know, leave a lot of space around it. You know, otherwise, sometimes they want to put everywhere something and the graphic gets very crowded. This simple thought. And then, you know, use what is referred to as visual hierarchy. That means, you know, play with the font sizes for emphasis. So, you know, the most important thing should have the largest font, you know, and things that are of lesser importance can have smaller font size and be positioned, you know, in other places. So think about what you want the viewer to see first and how we want the eye to move. So the eye is going to move from the biggest to the smallest, from the heaviest to the lightest. So visually think about these things. So the graphic person may not know what is the most important thing you are trying, you want to stand out. For example, the conference team may be the one that you really want to stand out, you know, that maybe the conference team is on power evangelism. So you want that to stand out. The graphic person may not know. For him, power evangelism is just two words that have to be on the graphic. But for you, that's the main thing you want to get across. So you need to tell the graphic person, hey, power evangelism should be the biggest font because I want that to hit the eye first. You know, and then, so these are things that as a leader, you have to make it very clear to the graphic person because they may not know these, they may not be thinking along these lines. What is the most message you want to come out on the graphic? So, okay, so once the graphic is done, you need to look at the graphic as a viewer. You know, is the message coming across? What I want to say as a past as a leader, is that message coming across to my audience? Or does this graphic appeal to the people I want to read? Suppose you are going to have a youth conference, you tell a graphic person, hey, can you design a youth conference, a graphic for my youth conference, but he is using images of older people. You know, hopefully they won't do it, but I'm just saying, then you immediately know that images that are used on the graphic doesn't connect with the audience. You're doing a youth conference, he's used images of older people, or maybe even professionals. You know, or he's having people in suits, but in a tie-in suit, but you are reaching out to, you know, youth, maybe teenagers and young adults. They're not interested in tie-in suit, and so there's a disconnect between what is used in the graphic and the audience you're trying to reach. So these are things you need to, you can pull up, you know, and say, hey, the graphic is not communicating my message or the message I want to the audience that I'm trying to go to. You know, so these are things you have to look up for. Okay. Just at a high level, keep these things in mind. Are you all with me so far? Yeah. Let me just check. Everyone's with me so far. You're getting what I'm saying. It's really for your response on the chat. Okay. All right. Okay. Let's go forward. Now, in terms of graphic design and software packages, of course, there are commercially available. This is Adobe Creative Cloud Suite is what is probably everyone's using, not everyone, but many people are using it for a shopping design illustrator and everything else that comes with that. That's something professionally you can use. And as a church, you would get nonprofit discount, which we also get. So it makes it very affordable for nonprofits. But if, you know, you don't want to pay for it, then there are free applications that you have applications that you can use for graphic design can genuinely and spark. So you could use these and they're free. So, you know, you could have people use them use these software packages just for you to know and just know that there are free web applications you can use. So you don't always have to go and pay, especially in the early stages when you're starting your ministry and you're having some volunteers do things for you or maybe you are having some even consultants. If they don't have their own software, you can guide them to do using any of these. Okay. Now, now we're getting getting a little bit more detailed some of the some other things that I want you to think about in terms of just the graphic design and then we talk about the video design. And tomorrow, I'll be talking about search engine optimization. That means when you are creating these graphics in the videos. They also contribute towards the visibility of your website and so on. So what are some of the things to make sure that, you know, when the graphics created or the videos are created and are put out there that they are picked up by search engines. So I will share that with you tomorrow. These are thoughts to keep in mind. They may be a little technical, but from my experience. Usually, these are things that the, like I said earlier, the media people, media people may not be thinking about from a church perspective, right. They may be very good professionally in their work. But they're not seeing necessarily from a church or ministry perspective and therefore you need to emphasize or you need to hold them up for these things. Right. So, from a style style perspective for graphic design, see what's happening. You know, there were a lot of new ways of communicating through graphics is happening around the world. So, you know, look at some contemporary churches, see what they're doing. Very important, you know, the images that are being used in the graphic here to be very careful. That's nothing suggestive questionable, inappropriate, violent, indecent, promocative. Right. So, you know, this again, you have to emphasize and re-emphasize to the media people. You know, this area of being questionable, you know, especially in your, in your context, that's something you only you can answer the audience that you're speaking to. Right. So, you need to be careful about the images you use. Yeah. Simple things like, you know, when you if you have the image of a man or a woman. And on which finger the ring is placed is actually sending a message. Now, we may not even think about it or the graphics. But in fact, just recently, maybe one thought, one thought to go. I had to correct one of them. I mean, I'd send one of the graphics back simply because it had the image of a person and the ring was on a question and on a finger that that actually was sending a different message. So, you know, when you have a ring on the ring on the ring finger, okay, this is saying I'm married. But if the ring is the color of the ring is different. And it's on a different finger. It's sending a different message. You know, so even that simple thing. The person doing the image doesn't is not thinking about it. They just, okay, I need somebody and they're not looking at that. But you will have to pick it up. And now if that goes on a church website or that goes on, you know, something you're doing in the minister and somebody who understands that will question. Hey, why is the church putting out the picture of somebody with a ring on this color ring. It was a black ring on one of the fingers and if you look if you actually Google it, you'll find out that a black ring on this finger actually is means this. And, and somebody who understands it will get a wrong message. Right. It's a very simple thing, but it's communication. You're sending a message to somebody. And so you have to be very careful of those, you know, these, these kinds of things. So what images are being used, you know, on on in the graphics, they have to be very careful. You know, font style and size, like I said, you know, use forms that are clear, legible, not too difficult to read. Another thing in graphics is being very uniform in the sense that you want creativity, but there's also got to be some sense of cohesion in the work you're doing, you know, yeah, graphics that are coming out of this church, this, this one, this organization, there's consistency. So if there's a video and a graphic, you know, the fonts announcing the same event, this should be uniformity. Otherwise there'd be a clash. So for an event, all the, all the graphics, all the videos look if that event is being promoted or presented with cohesion with uniformity. Right. The other thing is when they're using people's faces, you know, you've been showing people use people that are relevant to the audience, you know, so for example, and that's something I had to correct recently. We've been announcing job opportunities at APC, right, to work in our Bangalore office. And our media team is using all, you know, Western faces. Now it has no connection. That's not the kind of people we're planning to hire to work in Bangalore office. It's, you know, we don't get visas in there. So I had to correct them, say, guys, they're announcing job opportunities for people to work in APC Bangalore office. But we are putting all the faces of people, you know, Western faces. And yet this announcement is going to people sitting in Bangalore. So you should use faces that are relevant like it should be, you know, the Indian faces because only those are the people who can work in this position. So it's a simple thought, but it's sending a message, you know, and somebody sitting in the audience watching this, what are they going to think, you know, hey, they're announcing a job for people to work in Bangalore office and showing all Western faces. There's a mismatch as a disconnect. Now, of course, if we are announcing our Bible college, yeah, I, you know, intensely tell them use faces with people from all over the world, because we, the Bible colleges, we want people from all over the world to come and study with us online, because it's an online thing, and it's happening on the e-learning platform. So you could just be free to do an intensely show a global setting, use pictures of faces of people from different parts of the world because we want that. And that's our audience, people from anywhere, everywhere in the world. So that video or that those graphics have people all over the world, but this video, this graphic context, who are we addressing, you know. So these are things that at least, and all this happened recent times, even though, you know, people have been working our media team, people have been some of them have been working seven years ages, you know, with us for a long time. Sometimes they forget, or they may not always think in those things. And so you need to watch out and tell them, hey, there's a mismatch. I hope I'm making sense. Okay. And, you know, these things will have to come from you as a ministry leader as a pastor, because sometimes the media team would miss it. Now very similar to graphics, very similar to graphics. We need to have some guidelines for video. There's a lot of overlap, similarity in this, right? Same thing in the videos, images and songs. You don't want anything inappropriate. And if anybody requests for anything that's inappropriate, you know, there should be a way to put some checks in place. And if we are using footage, video footage of our pictures or video footage of people from within the church, you know, show them well and don't show them in things that, you know, makes them feel uncomfortable. So that's very important, you know, because you are selecting photos or videos of people in the congregation, which you may have caught during events and then reusing it in video promotions. Always, you know, be sensitive to their feelings, use them, show them in good light, simple things like don't show anything that's, that miscommunicates things. So even, you know, if you're doing a video for children or video for the youth, you know, you've got to be sensitive to it, like don't show them doing things that they shouldn't be doing, you know, and so on. So these kind of things, you know, being very sensitive in, you know, what are the background images, graphics videos are being used, you have to be careful. Some other things, you know, I'm just going in through some of the details here. Keep in mind on the platform on which this is being used. So Facebook, Instagram, or even on YouTube Shorts, you know, you have those very short short videos. So here people are not looking, you know, the short of the video, the more impactful it is. Right. So the videos must be kept very short. So that's why, you know, we do different length videos we have, you know, for example, even for us sermons, we have, there is the full sermon video, which may be about 45 minutes long. Then we do a five minute key points. Then we do 60, 60 seconds or sometimes it's just 30 second sermon highlight. You know, so there are those who may want to watch the full sermon, there are those who want just a sermon highlight in five minutes. And then there's, there's some who just, okay, what was the main thing, the sermon highlight, which is in 60 seconds or less. So you're, you know, you're keeping in mind that there are different audiences, different platforms where you need different duration videos. Okay. So in, in videos, turn on subtitles, so that if there's no audio mode, at least they can get the text of what is being said. And you can also generate transcripts automatically on YouTube. So if somebody wants to just quickly glance through the transcript, they can do it. And the voices that you're using for videos use clear, exciting voices and relevant voices, you know. So just depending on what you're announcing, use voices that are appropriate and relevant to that announcement. And don't use voices that are dull and exciting, you know, you're losing the impact of that video. And along with the audio, that is the voice, wherever possible, also have text. So it's a double impact. They're not only listening, but they're also seeing and they're seeing if they see the text, that is also making an impact. So wherever possible, use both audio and visual to impact or get the message across. So like we said earlier, there should be consistency in the font usage across the same event, whether it's on graphics and videos, there should be consistency, you can watch out for that. And then, you know, other detailed standards. So these are standards we have given to our team, that means the way you display the date, time and year. So if it's things that you're putting out, you know, for, which is going to be seen by a global audience, remember the date formats are different, you know, in different parts of the world. So some people, you know, North America, they would use month, day and year. In other parts we use day, month and year. So it can be very confusing for certain people. So we have, you know, intensely used date, month, as in the three-letter word for the month, three-letter for the month, and then the full form for the year. So we follow that standard. So regardless of which part of the world, people who see that graphic or the video will understand, you know, what date it is. So these are simple things but are very important because, you know, when you're putting things out for a global audience, you need to keep this in mind. So we've given standards like, okay, for the day of the week, you know, use clear abbreviations, when you're displaying time, make it easy for them to know, right, it's 2 p.m. Others you say 14 hours, then they have to convert it mentally, or 14 is actually 2 p.m. And sometimes they may convert that incorrectly and end up at the wrong time. So it's always, you know, for everybody's convenience, it's good to state something explicitly and then we generate user-friendly URLs for people to go online, so on. So these are simple things you can think through on what would be relevant in your area and use that. Yeah, so this again, the casting, the use of people's faces, be very sensitive, similar to the graphics in the videos, be sensitive when they're showing the videos of people. Make sure it's relatable to your audience. If you're using people from the church, show them in good light. Be sensitive when you're using pictures of children or teenagers, get consent from the parents so that parents are aware that, you know, the pictures of their children or teenagers being used in certain footage or graphics, do it with permission, and so on. Okay, so there's a quick run-through on things for you to think about. You may not be using it, you know, you may or may not use all of this right away, but over the years we've, you know, tried to recognize the importance of having guidelines for your media team so that the communication, the message that comes out, you know, is correct and it meets certain standards. Everyone with me, Kiran, I see you sweating over there, what's happening? It's okay, you are, you guys are following? Alright, so I know I've covered just a little ground, you know, to help us think on these things. Any questions on this? Maybe you have, maybe you have had some experience, maybe you run into some problems with people who are doing graphics and media in your area. We could talk about it. Tomorrow I will continue on the same thing, but I want to just look at it from a search engine perspective, you know, on how we optimize these graphics and videos for search engines and also some things to keep in mind when you are uploading these things to social media platforms. You know, the quality of the things may change by the time you, from what is done and what is uploaded. So that's another thing to keep in mind. So we cover that tomorrow and then we will get into, next week we'll get into equipment. That means, you know, I just want to share as we go forward, what are the equipments we'll be using just to give you an idea that this is what goes into, you know, photography. Video, live streaming, audio, sorry, to audio, video, live streaming, also in-house public address system. So these are things that you go because a lot of these decisions people come to you as a pastor, leaders, what should we buy? And they may make recommendations, but and finally the money is you approve it. So you have to keep a few thoughts in mind. But any questions here from your experience with media people who are doing media for your church or ministry, any thoughts, any questions? Okay. All right, so we'll pick this up tomorrow and take this forward. Keep these things in mind so that, you know, at some point you can use them when you have media work being done for your church, for your ministry. Okay. Let's close for today. I'm going to just request somebody to pray with us and dismiss us. We'll continue this tomorrow. Conan, if your mic is okay. Can you pray? Or maybe... Can I pray? Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Go ahead, please. Father Lord, thank you for this wonderful time. Lord, I pray for each and every one of us. Lord, thank you for the good connectivity. Lord, thank you for the subject and understanding. Lord, give us a good knowledge about from this subject, Lord. Help us to learn more from this subject, Lord, in our coming days, Lord. Lord, thank you for Pastor Rajesh, Lord, and also those who people are at the cross, Lord. Lord, protect us in our ways, Lord, the rest of the day, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right. Thank you everyone. So I'll see you all tomorrow. We have three hours tomorrow morning. We do Revelation Daniel and then we continue with media technology. God bless. Enjoy the rest of your day. Bye now.