Category: Blogging

There is an outstanding article at Christianity Today’s FaithVisuals.com entitled:

The Copyright Blues
How to make sure your church isn’t in the wrong when it comes to copyright
by Willow Creek Community Church – DuPage Campus Producer/Programming Director Greg Wallace

Hat Tip (H/T) to Taylor communication professor Kathy Bruner for forwarding me the article. 

Wallace warns us against using photos that aren’t ours to use.  Why?  Because photographers get paid for these photos and if you use them without paying, you are stealing.  Ouch.  But you knew that already . . . but just chose to ignore it. 

In fairness to you (and me) some photographers have the philosophy that any publicity they get is good for them.  Others are even more gracious (or stupid financially) and "just want their photos to be used for the glory of God."  So what do you do? 

Well, there are at least four things you can do.  I will give you examples of how I have done this.  See Wallace’s article for many more practical hints of free ways to do things!  It is very helpful.       

1. You can use some free photo sites like Stock.XCHNG.  See the energetic discussion at Church Marketing Sucks to a post called Stock Photography Sucks.  Most people commenting think stock photography is the way to go.  
2. You can buy CD’s with photos like Emergent/YS Worship Image Gallery of 700 Images from 2003. 
3. You can take your own photos.  I posted one on Taylor University’s Wikipedia page.  (At Wikipedia, you have to have taken it yourself or it has to be proven to be in the public domain for it to be posted).  You can also do your own art!
4. You can ask permission.  I have done this with Taylor University photographer Jim Garringer.  Check out his photos of the great social justice leader John Perkins from last month at Jim’s site.  You may win some friends.  The artist may think, "Finally someone appreciates me!" and you do! 

I know you didn’t want to be reminded that using all of those photos was illegal.  But make the positive decision to: check out some legal free options, take some photos yourself, hug your favorite photographer, learn PhotoShop or some other artistic thing, and open your wallet.  The results? Artists will get a little richer.  You’ll still get great creative stuff.  And you will model for others the right way to do this kind of thing.   

The answer to your question is "Yes, I do need to look through my blog and see if there are illegal photos." 

Grace and peace to you (and me).

Other related subjects:

I have written about video clip usage at Guidelines for Using Movie Clips in a Sermon and How to find movie clips to use in your sermon

I have written about finding song lyrics and music at CCLI’s SongSelect – Why Every Church Should Pay $179 and Get It

I am teaching my Christian Educational Ministries "Program and Curriculum Development" students how to blog tomorrow.  (I talked more about the books for this course here). 

They have already had to make comments on two different blogs because that is a good way to familiarize yourself with blogs.  (For inspiration, see my list of the Best 70 Church Leadership Blogs). 

Tomorrow we are meeting in a computer lab and they will all be setting up a blog on WordPress.  I have told them that they can set up a fake ministry blog or a personal blog. 

Here are three reasons I am teaching them to blog. 

1. Churches and ministries need websites and the blog is the easiest way to get a basic website going.  Even for one event they may want to be able to do this.   

2. I want these students to get over their fear of doing web design.  You don’t know if you are good at it and like it until you try. 

3. Even if they don’t do it the future, they need to be able to work well with designers and they will do that better if they have done it a bit themselves. 

Here are the basic instructions for them.

If you are new to blogging, this sequence of tasks may be a good quick way to try your hand at it.    

The screen photos are on the attached Microsoft Word handout here if you are interested.  Download WordPress_Blogging.doc 

My sample blog which I practiced with tonight is: http://ced352.wordpress.com/

1. Go to http://wordpress.com/
2. Click: Start a blog in seconds »
3. You need to figure out a Username and Email Address and click the legal box and then click gimme a blog. 
4. Then you need to come up with the url for your blog and the name of the blog and whether you want it to appear publicly or not.  The url will not be able to be changed but the blog name can be changed later.
5. Check your email for the confirmation email. 
6. Write a post.  Then click Publish.
7. Upload a post with a photo.   
8. Update your profile.  Change your password to something you will remember. 
9. Presentation.  Pick a new theme.
10. Presentation.  Do a Custom Image Header by uploading a photo.  You can only do this for some themes. 
11. Go to Manage . . . Pages . . . Edit your About page. 
12. Under Manage . . . Pages . . . Create a New Page

It literally took my students less than 10 minutes to get blogging.

Lots of people in the blogosphere are recommending the new book The Blogging Church by Brian Bailey (who has a blog here) and Terry Storch.  That is the best place to begin probably.   

I just wanted people to know that Blogger is getting new features.  They just announced this yesterday.  See Blogger Buzz: Blogger in Beta.  So if you are thinking about switching from Blogger, don’t do it yet.  If you are thinking of starting a new blog, do it with Blogger. 

I switched from Blogger to TypePad for some of the features Blogger will now have!  (See my post here about that).  It seems Blogger will still be free and the version of TypePad I have costs $80 per year.  Blogger is owned by Google which is a pretty solid company to put your bets on.   

If you are interested in learning more about how I blog on TypePad, click the category "Blogging."  I try to keep the conversation mostly about Church Leadership but I do digress to explain a bit about blogging from time to time.