In recent months, media and technology have progressed at surprising rates; new products line the shelves and fill network segments. The iPhone, Windows Vista, and Apple OSX Leopard emerged in 2007, and the One Laptop Per Child project gained momentum. High-definition video hit the "decks" with two new formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc. And technologies from recent years continued to advance: High-definition television boomed and became more financially accessible to the buying public as prices dropped, and social networking on the web hit all-time highs with services such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace becoming extraordinarily popular. How does the innovation in media and technology affect the church? And, perhaps more importantly, what changes can we expect in 2008?

It is nearly certain that 2008 will see social networking on the web grow to even greater heights than we have seen this past year. We will begin to see churches utilize the social networking platforms and integrate online communities into the flock. Imagine the website of your church as a place where people can communicate and interact daily. Immediately, your church's presence on the web becomes more than a digital brochure for a first-time guest. Now it is a hub for interactivity, discipleship, and community. Think about a Sunday morning video illustration becoming a viral video on your church networking site, or the site serving as a central forum for small groups to interact and share prayer requests and answers to prayer. The entire idea and concept of social networking is at the heart of the church: community!

Online video will rise to new levels in 2008. There are many churches already utilizing video on the web. It's great to see churches making that content easily available to anyone who wishes to access it. It's amazing that someone can go online to see and hear a pastor's message—perhaps even a message that God speaks through to impact the viewer. It truly is "discipleship on-demand."

Emerging technologies are the catalyst behind the increasing trend in online video. So many recent inventions are tying TV and the web together. IPTV (the internet delivered through television sets) is more than a buzzword now; it's here. Physical devices, such as home media servers and Apple TV, as well as web services like Joost and Hulu, are pushing TV shows and video to consumers directly from the Internet. This technology is quickly becoming commonplace today. Adobe's latest version of the award-winning media platform, Flash, has integrated a new "codec" called h.264. With this advancement, media developers can use Flash to deliver very high quality video across the web through very small file sizes. It is quite likely that some churches will begin to offer high-definition webcasts as this new technology becomes mainstream.

High-definition video also will appear on the screens of many more churches this year. The prices of high-definition cameras and equipment have become affordable, even for average-sized churches. Any church considering a move toward HD video has much to consider. And it might not be the best fit for every church. A church should first examine how important video is to its service experiences and how much it uses video each week. For some churches, a good, standard-definition video setup will perfectly serve the need. However, for any and all churches that can, I encourage switching from a 4:3 to a 16:9 screen ratio. This will help in several ways: It will help your setup to look and feel more modern and it will be a benefit in the future as content is increasingly developed for widescreen formats.

Church presentation software also raised itself to new levels in 2007 and should go to even greater levels in the year to come. No matter what presentation software you've used in the past, you should explore some of the new options that are out there. Church presentation software can now handle every aspect and element of your Sunday morning service—sermon notes, song lyrics, video backgrounds, illustration videos, DVD playback, nursery paging, and much more. And the software will seamlessly fade from one element to the next with no need for another piece of hardware or gear other than your computer. ProPresenter, from Renewed Vision, has really developed well during the past year. I would encourage you to check it out.

Some church leaders have avoided technology and rarely use media. Yet I believe that church leaders have an amazing opportunity to harness the tools of technology to spread God's message. From computers to video to web to print, there is more power to communicate the impacting Gospel of Christ than ever in history. In some cases, media will communicate better than word-of-mouth. We should cease being the last to adopt new technology and strive to leverage everything we can for God's purposes.

I pray that churches will innovate and devise new ways of using technology to help spread God's word. Keep in mind that utilizing media and technology is merely one way of being more effective communicators of Christ's message. We are using technology to help fulfill the Great Commission and to help us serve Christ more effectively. Let's make sure our motivation for using these tools is not because the church down the street does it—instead, let's be motivated to use technology to win the lost for Christ by any means possible!

Dave Clark is the media pastor at National Community Church in Washington, D. C.