West Pres Burbank
Burbank, CA
Summary
The Risen Media church presentation software significantly improved the ease of developing and the quality of the Sunday morning worship presentation at Westminster Presbyterian Church. Risen Media gave the pastor more options and flexibility than his previous software, made it easier for other staff and volunteers to contribute to the program, and saved him thousands of dollars as he could eliminate software redundancy.
THE CHURCH
Westminster Presbyterian Church was established in 1948 in Burbank, California. Westminster is a part of the Presbyterian Church of the USA (PCUSA), the largest presbyterian denomination in the country. The church currently has an average membership and attendance of about 130 people each Sunday (The sanctuary capacity is only 160.) The church is known in the community for its small, intimate, and creative faith community. The annual budget is $371,909.00. The Reverend Paul Clairville has served as the Senior Pastor since 1996.
THE PROBLEM
Westminster is a small church with limited staff and budget. Because of this, Pastor Paul had to put together his Sunday morning worship service by himself, only using Microsoft PowerPoint. This involved creating sermon and worship slides by himself, including cutting, pasting, and formatting worship slides. This was time consuming, and because the program could not be shared, no one else could work on the presentation from other locations. In addition, it required a volunteer to run the program and advance the slides while he led worship and preached his sermon.
THE RISEN MEDIA RESPONSE
Another pastor in Burbank suggested that Paul try using the Risen Media Media program that was being developed by two local entrepreneurs who were looking for pastors and churches to BETA test their program. Pastor Paul agreed to meet with the Risen Media developers (Michael-Paul Terranova and Arbi Stepanian) and was introduced to the many advantages of the Risen Media software, including the accessibility and adaptability of the Cloud based program, the extensive image and music library, and the ease of use and set-up. The Risen Media staff quickly showed him how to connect Risen Media to his church WIFI network and develop his Sunday slides for announcements, worship lyrics, sermon slides, and speaker notes.
THE RISEN MEDIA IMPACT
After using the Risen Media program for about two years, Pastor Paul has seen the impact of the program. His new Administrative Assistant has been trained to use the program to prepare his sermon slides and the Sunday program, saving him many hours of work each week. He has seen how quickly his young, tech savvy administrative assistant has learned the program and all of its unique features and shared that “it will be a game changer” for how Sunday presentation programs will be developed at Westminster. In addition, Paul, his volunteer graphic designer, and his administrative assistant can add or edit the presentation from any location and on any device. This has all made the process of putting together a worship service easier and more efficient, while improving the overall quality.
Pastor Paul especially appreciates that he can easily advance his presentation slides by himself using a remote control (no longer needing another volunteer) and the unique Side Slide feature that allows him to show separate images on different screens in the sanctuary.
THE RISEN MEDIA IMPACT ON TIME, COST, AND QUALITY
- Time; The time to put together a worship service presentation has decreased as more people can participate in the development of the presentation using Risen Media. Pastor Paul no longer has to do it all himself. The Sunday morning set-up and utilization is also easier.
- Cost: Using the Community feature on Risen Media, that provides a church people database, calendar, email communication, and other updates, will save Westminster about $2,500 per year. (He previously used the Subsplash program for the tasks that cost $214 a month.)
- Quality: The overall quality of the worship presentations have improved as Pastor Paul and his staff take advantage of the image and music libraries, the side-slide feature, and the easy video integration.
CONCLUSION
The goal of the Risen Media is to provide churches with a software program that can be run on any inexpensive device, to develop and present everything needed for a Sunday worship presentation, while improving quality and efficiency. Westminster Presbyterian Church has experienced these benefits while using Risen Media and the benefits are increasing as more people use the software and its abundant features.