Interview: Change the Way You Create and Collaborate

We recently interviewed Jared Schwyhart, a volunteer media technician for Garnett Assembly of God and Praise Assembly Deaf Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A few months ago, Schwyhart’s church started using Proclaim. Schwyhart has a degree in computer animation from Full Sail University, and he currently works as the video producer for Tulsa Community College.

How has Proclaim changed the way your team creates services together?
Proclaim has improved several aspects of the media-production pipeline. When I came on board to help the media team at my church, they were using a mix of PowerPoint, Keynote, Quicktime, and iTunes. Proclaim is an all-in-one media-presentation package for churches, and it has helped us create high-quality presentations more efficiently. The outcome is less stress and a better presentation for our audience.

How many people work on a given presentation at your church? How does Proclaim help you delegate roles and responsibilities?
Currently, there are six members whom I’ve invited to operate Proclaim for our church. On Sundays, there are usually three people who help create the presentation, and on Wednesdays there are one or two other people. Typically, one person creates the announcements, one person puts together the songs, and one person (usually the pastor) puts together the sermon elements.

Myself and the other main media technician are admins, and everyone else is a moderator. This allows our main media tech people to protect our presentations from being altered up and from moderators accidentally making charges in the media store. We haven’t had any issues so far, and most likely the moderators haven’t even noticed that they have restrictions, because they can do everything that we need them to do.

What is your favorite Proclaim feature, and why?
As whole, I think our team’s favorite feature is the cloud. Being able to have each team member work on their own machine to create their portion of the presentation is absolutely amazing. Compiling presentations takes half the time it used to. Everyone can work on the same presentation at the same time. It’s awesome!
The templates are incredibly useful too. We love the fact that all we have to do is add the information. The design of the announcement is basically done for us!

What was something that surprised you about Proclaim?
I kind of knew what to expect from church presentation software, but the things I wasn’t expecting were Smart Media and the functionality of Proclaim Signals. They’re just so easy to use!

What are your thoughts on the new text-customization options from the last Proclaim update?
I just love seeing that Proclaim is being updated on a consistent basis. The communication with the Proclaim team has been top notch as well.
I haven’t used the texture overlays yet, but I’m already starting to think of ways to implement them. It makes room for a whole new level of creativity. Proclaim has so many tools to make stunning presentations, and this most recent update just shows me that the Proclaim team can take their software to the next level.

How has Smart Media made creating presentations easier?
As I said previously, Smart Media is fantastic. Most of my team has very little time to dedicate to create graphics, and I’m the only one with any design experience and education. Smart Media is just one more way that Proclaim has helped my team step up the quality while making our presentations easier to create.

What would you say to someone who’s on the fence about purchasing Proclaim?
If you’re on the fence about purchasing Proclaim, I strongly encourage you to try it.
I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it. It’s pretty simple to use and there are excellent tutorials if you need help.

If you’re using PowerPoint or Keynote, this is a no-brainer. Proclaim is made for churches; those two presentation programs are not. When you see the things inside Proclaim that are specifically designed for churches, you’ll wonder why you haven’t already switched.

If you’re using another church-presentation software, I encourage you to check out Proclaim. It’s definitely worth a look.