The Session accepted the recommendation of the Search committee and extended an invitation to Adrian to serve in this position. Adrian has accepted the invitation and will begin this ministry in August.

Thank you for your prayers for the search committee and the Session as they sought Christ’s direction in this. Please continue to remember Adrian and all those who minister to the children in our congregation in your prayers.

Instructions for recording the sermon onto a USB drive on the x32 mixer are located here.

This tutorial is based off the free audio editing software Audacity. You can download for Mac and PC here.

Preparing the Sermon Recording

1. Place the USB drive into your computer and copy the R_yyyymmdd-hhmmss.wav file onto your desktop or somewhere convenient. If there are multiple files, the naming convention is with R_, followed by the year, month, day then the time of the start of the recording. Note this copying step is optional but may speed up the operations later in Audacity.
2. Open the (copied) .wav file in Audacity. You should see a window open with two audio tracks.
3. Select menu Tracks>Stereo track to Mono. A progress window appears, and afterwards you should be left with one audio track.
   
4. Only the scripture reading and sermon is posted, so select the extraneous sections before and after the sermon and delete. Use the zoom buttons and scroll bars for more precise cursor placement. Select the audio to delete by click-dragging left or right, then select menu Edit>Delete or press Del on your keyboard. Then click outside the audio track area (I use the grey area beneath the track) to make sure no audio is selected.
5. Select menu Effect>Normalize. Ensure the checkbox for Remove DC offset and Normalize maximum amplitude to -1.0dB  are checked. This will analyze and amplify the audio evenly so that the loudest peak at -1.0dBFS. Click OK and a progress window will appear.
   
6. At this point, I usually like to fine-tune the audio by cutting out extra silence before and after the scripture reading, so that the audio starts immediately with the scripture passage and followed closely by the sermon without too much silence.
7. Select menu Effect>Leveller. Options selected: Degree of Levelling: Heavy, Noise Threshold: -70dB. Click OK and a progress window will appear. Levelling (like compression) smooths out the dynamic range of the recording so that soft whispers are amplified and loud passages are reduced resulting in a much more pleasant listening experience.
   
8. Play back the audio to ensure it is correct and nothing is being chopped off or has prolonged silence.
9. Select menu File>Export Audio. Save the file to a convenient location. Ensure the settings are correct, and click OK. The resulting MP3 file must (and should) be under 30MB. The filename is yyyy-mm-dd <speaker’s name> <language>.mp3. Use the speaker’s full name, and language is e-English, c-Cantonese, m-Mandarin. So Rev. Paul Johnston speaking in English service on May 24, 2015 is 2015-05-24 paul johnston e.mp3.The MP3 options are Bit Rate Mode: Variable, Quality: 4, 145-186kbps, Variable Speed: Fast, Channel Mode: Joint Stereo. Click OK, then save.
   
10. In the next Edit Metadata screen, fill in the information as below. You can also download this generic template and click Template:Load to pre-fill most of the fields.
    

Uploading the .mp3 sermon file to the MCPC website

1. Log into the mcpc.ca website at www.mcpc.ca/login 
2. In the Dashboard menubar on the left side, select Sermons>Add New.
   
3. Enter the title of the entry as <speaker name>: <sermon title>. Use Rev. and/or Dr. when necessary.
   Next, put in the theme verse(s) in the large content field.
   On the right under Publish, click the edit link for Publish. Enter the date the sermon was given and the time of the service.
   Just underneath in Sermon Categories, select the language or service spoken. For joint service, select Special.
   
4. Scroll down to Featured media – add Audio File and click the upload button. Select Upload Files and drag and drop the .mp3 file, or click Select Files and open the .mp3 file to upload.
   
   
5. When the file upload finishes, you’ll be in Media Library window. Make sure the file you uploaded is correctly listed on the right side, then click Add Audio File.
   
6. The Featured media section should now have a URL and an icon with a red x below it.
   
7. Double check to make sure all entries are correct (you can edit the entry later, but rather let’s do it right the first time!) and click the blue Publish button  near the top right of the page.
8. If the publish is successful, you’ll see the results on the top notification bar as post published. You can click on view post or visit the main mcpc.ca page to verify that the sermon is successfully posted.

UPDATE:  Thanks for all the applicants for showing interest in serving the Lord.  The 2 positions has been filled.

Daylight Saving Time starts on March 8. Move your clocks forward 1 hour before going to bed on Saturday!

Spring FORWARD, Fall BACK.

September 28 at 1pm.

Please come out to our English worship at 9:30am to hear Pastor Paul Johnston’s Preach to the Call. A vote follows at a special meeting at 1pm in the sanctuary. Please click here to read more info about the event and Pastor Johnston.