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In 2008 we witnessed some amazing developments within media and technology. Such items include: full deployment of digital over-the-air television, the end of the high-definition disc format war, more location/GPS-based devices (such as the iPhone) in the hands of consumers, high-definition video saturating the internet, the rise of twitter, and much more.

And don't forget about the live holographic interviews we saw during the 2008 election coverage on CNN. While I don't think that we will see this in many churches in the near future, I don't think it's too far-fetched to say we will see something like it not too long from now.

These new technologies have been interesting to watch and exciting to use, but what does it mean for the church and how can we expect to see church media change this year?

At any conference, you can find attendees taking notes on their laptops. Imagine people coming to church with their laptops, PDAs, and Smartphones—using them to interact during the service. Congregants could open their web browsers to the churches internal web portal where they could take notes, ask questions, obtain next steps for further study, find links to scriptures, register for a related small group, sign the attendance sheet, etc. There is a long list of possibilities for churches who would like to implement this type of interaction. Using these tools would not be a requirement for everyone, but it would be an enhancement for those who choose to engage in that way.

Even if a full example of this doesn't happen, one way or another I believe we will see new uses of social and interactive media within church services. A few churches have started exploring the potential for text messaging during services, but I expect more churches to begin incorporating this and taking it to the next level in 2009.

In 2009 the use of video in churches should continue to increase. More and more churches are going high-def, using image magnification, doing bumpers and trailers, using videos for sermon illustrations, and much more. We also will see many churches using video as their primary teaching method either on various occasions or every Sunday. It doesn't matter if the church is multi-site, multi-venue, or a single-site; video teaching is being used in churches across the globe.

I believe we will see some exciting new developments for Church Presentation software in 2009. Effects and techniques that used to take multiple switchers, keying software, and other hardware are all being done with software-based applications now. Applications like ProPresenter from RenewedVison are eliminating the need for churches to own lots of expensive gear in order to have elaborate video presentations during their services. This year we should see new ways of controlling presentations, new ways of integrating video into worship, support for multiple video feeds coming in and being switched via software, and much more.

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