Methodists reach the 21st century

Today, the United Methodist Church in Indiana had a live webcast in all 92 counties of Indiana. We are discussing the unification of the North and South Indiana Conferences into one new Indiana Conference. We feel this to be an important step to reorganizing ourselves for a new day in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ.

It is also a surprising statement by our Conferences' leadership that we are committed to using relevant, new technologies for communication. The webcast was well planned with information coming in appropriate time. The support and methodology was simple yet very solid. It was done well. The tech team was also very responsive to technical questions and potential difficulties.

I am glad to see that we have taken a leap of faith and tried, successfully, to communicate to all 92 counties across Indiana with a live webcast. As United Methodists, we are woefully behind accessing and relevantly using modern technology and communication. Hopefully, this will be a catalyst to even better use of existing and future technologies and communication methods here in Indiana. Being a connected, heavily structured church, it is imperative for us to grow in this useage.

I would like to offer some positive comments and some constructive criticism for future communications.

Positive:
1. The very idea of the webcast.
2. The identification that we needed to hire a company to help us do this.
3. The technology and support staff were well prepared and excellent at resourcing the host churches.
4. The live and interactive model allows virtual real-time communication across the state of Indiana.
5. The answering of questions was done well...the persons seemed very comfortable.

Things to Improve:
1. This is a state-wide communication; therefore, we needed to be purposeful about those communicating the info. Perhaps using prompters instead of notes, rehearsing more, more eye-contact with the cameras would have been much more natural. It was obvious that the presenters were not comfortable with the process.
2. We had a static coming through the webcast. We're not sure from where it was coming. The sound was also a bit muffled; though that would be part of the very streaming, is there a way to sharpen that a bit?
3. There was a slight blink whenever we went from video to slides. This was distracting, but minor.
4. Why were there so few people in attendance...especially from other UM churches?

Things to Consider for the Future:
1. Make it a two-way webcast...of course for 92 counties that would be a bit much; however, we need to train our churches and MANDATE our pastors to learn how to do this effectively.
2. Make it flashy...this is very important for a media savvy culture/society.
3. In a day where communication is THE vital "structure," perhaps we need to staff more around communication and communications technology.
4. Live webcasts need to be in EACH church. That is the very point of these new technologies.

These are just some of my thoughts as I sat in the webcast. I was proud to be a part of a church trying to catch up to new technologies. I was saddened a bit by the lack of attendance from the different churches. 3 of 25 in attendance where from a church other than ours. Overall, though, the webcast was well done, and it communicated the information effectively.

I look forward to this becoming standard practice for meetings and conferencing in the future. Welcome to the 21st century Indiana United Methodist Church...It's a fun and exciting time to do ministry. Let's get to it!