Damaris
a resource in Children | Media | Mission & Outreach
Damaris is a UK based educational charity with a Christian foundation and works with people of all faiths and none. They operate in three departments, Churches, Schools and Media.
There are some great resources made by Damaris including Tools for Talks, RE Lessons & School Assemblies and Podcasts. They’ve also got some great resources for churches and schools based on Chronicles of Narnia.
http://www.damaris.org/cm/rss.php?type=44
DIY Podcasting on WordPress
a resource in How-tos | Sermons | Tech
We use wordpress to run my Church’s site including the sermon podcast, and being the geek that I am (!) I set it up myself.
I could have used a plugin such as PodPress or Sermon Browser, but I decided to do my own thing! So I thought I’d share how I did it. It’s a bit geeky, but rather nice!
It uses a few WordPress plugins, some javascript and some custom WordPress templates!
First of all I use a category called ‘Sermons’ and every sermon is a new post within that Category. I then use Category Templates to change the way that the Sermons cat looks, so I can have an audio player, etc. of the posts just for that cat.
If you’ve not come across Category Templates before, they can be very useful. You can custom design and name template files so category/archive indexes and single posts within that category are then used by WP automatically.
For category/archive indexes the template files are named like category-X.php (X being the ID of the category).
For single posts within a category it’s single-cat-X.php . (You need the ‘Post Templates by Category‘ plugin to get it to work for single posts.)
So that way I can have the category index and single posts for sermons looking just how I want them!
The main plugin used is called ‘Get Custom Field Values‘ and it allows you to put information in WordPress ‘Custom Fields‘ into posts/category archives.
When adding a new sermon, I use a ‘custom field’ called ‘enclosure’ and enter the url of where I’ve uploaded the MP3 file.
So in my template files (both custom category index and single) I use the custom field twice and have:
<ul>
<li class=”player”><a class=”media” href=”<?php echo c2c_get_custom(‘enclosure’); ?>”>Listen to the Sermon</a></li>
<li class=”download”><a href=”<?php echo c2c_get_custom(‘enclosure’); ?>”>Download the Sermon (mp3)</a></li>
</ul>
So it looks like it’s just going to put display the link to the sermon MP3 file twice, but it doesn’t! Because the top one displays an online player.
For the online player I’ve used the excellent jQuery Media Plugin to do all the player embedding and coding for me. It’s having the class of ‘media’ on the link which kicks the media player into action! (jQuery, is a javascript library that can make doing nifty things with javascript much simpler!)
If you want to display the date archives in a list in the sidebar, but only want to show them for a certain category (which makes sense in this case), the ‘Archives for a category‘ plugin is excellent.
I can then take the feed for just the sermons cat (in my case it’s http://www.minehead-baptist.com/category/sermons/feed) and run that through the wonderful FeedBurner to burn the podcast feed. It them becomes the feed for the sermons & podcast: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MBCSermons
On my site you’ll notice that the date archives in the sidebar and ‘How to listen’ sections are toggled/faded up and down by clicking on the relevant link. This is also done using jQuery. As I’m already loading the jQuery library to make the media player work, I can also use it to do the toggles!
The html for the toggles and links is:
<p><a href=”#divtotoggle” class=”toggle”>Link to Click</a></p>
<div id=”divtotoggle” class=”toggle”>
<p>The additional information to show goes in here</p>
</div>
And the javascript (best placed in a seperate .js file linked in the <head> section) is:
$(document).ready(function(){
// hide all reveals
$(‘div.toggle, li.toggle’).hide();
// toggle reveals
$(‘a.toggle’).toggle(function(){
var toggle = $(this).parent().next(‘div.toggle, li.toggle’);
toggle.fadeIn();
}, function(){
$(this).parent().next().fadeOut();
});
});
This looks for links with the class of ‘toggle’ and toggles the next <div> or <li> it finds that also has a class of toggle.
I hope that’s not too confusing!
I know it sounds complex, but it isn’t really and I can add a new podcast post in about a minute!
If you’ve got any questions, please let a comment!
Using WordPress for Church Sites
a resource in How-tos | Site Builders | Tech
The great guys over at Church Communications Pro have a great series of posts on how you can effectivly use WordPress to run a Church site.
Although some of the information is a little out of date (due to new versions of WordPress), it’s still well worth a read and covers most of what you’ll need to know!
They also run a sister site with many good WordPress theme – ithemes.
http://www.churchcommunicationspro.com/using-wordpress-to-run-church-websites-tutorial-series/
TED
a resource in Leadership | Useful Stuff
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an annual conference that brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.
There’s a great archive of the talks on the site from a wide variety of people, including Billy Graham! You can download many of the talks (as mp4 movie files).
Control Arms
a resource in Make a Difference
Control Arms is joint venture by Amnesty International, Oxfam and IANSA as they are campagining for a global, legally binding agreement – an Arms Trade Treaty to control the unregulated global arms trade.
You can find out more about the campaign and join the Million Faces Petition.
Sermon Browser
a resource in Sermons | Site Builders | Tech
Sermon Browser is a plugin for the popular blog/cms software WordPress.
This great little plugin allows the easy addition of sermons (audio, video and text) and podcasting to your wordpress installation.
For the audio, you can either upload mp3 files via the plugin or you can link to a file/embed on another server/hosting such as Amazon S3 or Odeo.
For video you can link to a video on site such as YouTube or Google Video.
You can add the times of services and speakers, etc. to make the adding of sermons very simple. There are also customisable templates for how the sermons are displayed on the site.
http://www.4-14.org.uk/sermon-browser
(1 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)Covenant Eyes
a resource in Church Tools | Tech | Useful Stuff
Covenant Eyes is a Christian based software company that provides (pay for) accountability and filtering software for computers (filtering Windows only).
The accountability software is designed for use where internet pornography is a problem as it monitors a person’s internet use and emails a report of all websites visited for Accountability Partners to view. Accountability Partners are trusted individuals selected by the member to review reports and discuss how the Internet is used.
The filtering software can be used in the home, Churches, schools or anywhere else (!) to selectively filter and block sites or portions of sites.
You can also use the two services together for maximum screening and reporting.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)FoxFilter
a resource in Church Tools | Tech | Useful Stuff
Foxfilter is a great, free add-on for the brilliant Firefox web browser that allows you to custom filter access to sites and content on each individual computer.
The filter uses a combination of keyword filtering and ‘black lists’ to sort the good from the bad. There’s also a ‘white list’ where administators can set a list of ‘always safe’ sites that other wise might get filtered. Admins can also change the keywords and black lists.
The filter settings are also password protected for extra safety.
http://inspiredeffect.com/FoxFilter
The Church Media Community
a resource in Design | Media | Tech
The Church Media Community is a forum where you can talk about all things to do with the Church and media!
Audio & video editing and production, graphics, photography, powerpoint and presentation and worship software.
City Gates
a resource in Site Builders
City Gates is a ‘hosted’ Church CMS with a full range of features including blogs & podcasts, calendars and file uploads.
You can choose from an existing design or build your own (if you know css).
