January 2008 Archives

The prototype video download project I've been working on getting online at LifeWay has been the Influencing Like Jesus project.  The videos are complimentary to the Influencing Like Jesus product, by Mike Zigarelli, that we just released.  This video was done with Chris Johnson, the Editor-in-Chief for a lot of our undated Bible Study products.  This interview was a lot of fun as Chris was willing to answer some tougher questions, like the difference between "influencing" people and "manuipulating" people...

As a part of my job at LifeWay, I get to work with placing our media on iTunes.  Typically, I'm a bit at the back end of the process, loading things up once production on a disk is finished (this is going to change, soon).  Back in December I got a frantic call about needing an ISRC code for the new Twila Paris CD that LifeWay was putting out.

Curious about such a large project for us, I began to ask around about who I could talk to about the album.  Ended up that the best person for the job was Mike Harland - the director of LifeWay Worship.  So not only was this the first time I've done a video interview with a director, it was the first time I did one with someone I had never met before.

You can purchase "Small Sacrifice" by Twila Paris on iTunes here: 

Jason Hayes is the Young Adult specialist at LifeWay. He came on board about a year ago or so, and has been a great addition to the team. He gets to build relationships with churches across the country, helping them understand the needs and culture of young adults, as well as learning from churches that are having positive young adult ministries.

In this video conversation, Jason talks about the upcoming Connect conferences. The conferences will be limited to 75 participants and be regional, hoping to get church leaders from nearby areas to come together and share their young adult ministry knowledge.

Michael Kelley is an editor for the Threads team's (undated) Bible study products.  Before he began to work for LifeWay full-time, he wrote a study for us called "Tough Sayings of Jesus," which spotlighted four times in the Bible where Jesus doesn't seem to be quite as nice as we might normally think (from the Tough Saying webpage: the rich young ruler in Mark 10, the Canaanite woman in Matt. 15, the unforgivable sin in Matt. 12, and a contradiction about who Jesus is in Matt. 10 and Luke 12).

Patrick Watts is one of the more forward-thinking people here at LifeWay.  Since I've known him he's always been open to exploring new ideas and is willing to have hard conversations about what the future of worship and music might be like in our churches.  Patrick is getting to head up one of the more high profile initiatives here at LifeWay, our LifeWay Worship project.

This project is big news for us, as it is a part of the new Baptist Hymnal.  The worship project is bringing in more new, contemporary songs to the hymnal, and bringing in a huge amount of talent to record over 1,000 songs.  When the LifeWay Worship project launches, users will be able to go online and purchase the recorded audio and matching pieces (video elements, sheet music, etc); worship leaders with a keen ear will even be able to manipulate the songs to customize them to the needs of their worship service. The Worship Project is one of the most technologically advanced initiatives that we have done here at LifeWay, and is truly breaking new ground in the way that worship leaders will be able to plan heir services and get the musicians and choirs ready for Sunday gatherings.