I just finished watching lifechurch.tv’s internet campus this morning, which airs live at 11:25/30a.m. It’s pretty cool. When you login, you are given a countdown that tells how long until the internet campus service begins.
There are opportunities to join a chat room, invite a friend to come sit on your “row.” Also, you can give your offering and write down notes to print off, email to a friend, or save for later.
They have made the internet campus as interactive as you could imagine, even including an interactive screen which sometimes posts “God is Good,” and the inet campus and click the “All the Time” link to interact.
The only downside is that if you are a part of a separate church, the only opportunity you will have to join in on a service online would be when you are sick or maybe out-of-town and you have inet available.
Once logged in, you can choose which worship leader you would like to worship with, Stephen Cole or Trent Austin. Since I saw Trent Austin live, I wanted to see Stephen.
It was definitely interesting. The band was Stephen leading from an m-audio 61-key keyboard, connected to his mac. He had two mics, one facing the audience that was for when he was playing the keys, and the other for odd vocal effects that was perpendicular to the keys and connected to the mac. The other two musicians were another keyboard player who had a 76- key triton and an 88-key Motif below, and to complete the ensemble, an electric guitar player added some crazy cool sounds (I think enhanced by sounds through his mac).
Every song was sequenced and it was very good. I don’t know what it would be like live, but watching online provided a lot of energy, even with the small speakers that accompanies the MacBook pro.
If you ever get a chance, check out the lifechurch.tv internet campus and see the what shut-in ministry will look like in the future.