Creative Chaos 27 // Skype Video Baptism from Innovate08 in Indiana

This is my post for Creative Chaos // 27 (see also guidelines) over at Ragamuffin Soul for this week (which isn’t published quite yet over there but will be soon). If you haven’t participated in Creative Chaos yet there is always time to jump in.  It is a great tool to learn some of the new and innovative ways other churches and groups are being creative in their faith.  Even if you don’t post, just reading through a few of them is a real eye opener of what is done around the country and world in worship.

I have skipped a few weeks for this post but wanted to pick it back up again, there are always so many great ways people worship, and this week, we have a unique opportunity to combine our faith with technology of Skpye.  As much of a techno person as I am, this was my first experience using Skype.

As a full time eBay seller for many many years (a few years ago now) once eBay had purchased Skype, they started pushing it on their larger sellers (us being one of them) and at that point we were not interested in the slightest bit.  I had put it off for as long as I possibly could, and the video baptism from Innovate08 pulled me into Skype.  It has turned out to be a great tool and can be used for many different things, but this week we are using it for a baptism.

Skype Video Baptism from Innovate08 in Indiana

This week almost our entire church staff went to the Innovate08 conference in South Bend Indiana near Granger Community Church, leaving us lay people (gotroot and myself) back here to help with a baptism that, by necessity, had to take place this Friday while the staff was in Indiana.  The church decided that we were going to do the Baptism anyway, and do it through a video conference method using Skype.  We looked at doing the setup with Mogulus so we could capture the live video on both ends as it was happening but just couldn’t pull it off this time.  So, Skype Video, here we go.

The Baptism will take place this Friday afternoon with a community group around the person being baptized and our head pastor, Rusty Hutson, will be on the big screen doing all the officiating from up in South Bend.  This is certainly the first video baptism we have performed at this church, but somewhere, someone has had to have done this before.  If so, we would love to hear from you and to learn from your experiences.  If we ever do this again we would like to have some way to record the video exchange on both ends so we can later, at a minimum, publish it in house.

What’s Happening on Skype and Twitter This Weekend

Now that I am officially on skype I am sure I will find some other great uses for the service, but for today, it is Creative Chaos 27.

To follow the happenings at Innovate08 on Twitter just see a few of the headliners like @shawnwood, @timastevens, @innovate08 to name a few.  Of course you can always follow me on Twitter as well at @scottfillmer.  I will not be in South Bend this weekend but will post to twitter live from Jordan-Hare stadium for the Auburn vs LSU football game and of course ESPN GameDay (see ESPN College GameDay Comes to Auburn for Tigers vs LSU for details).