Cedarville Magazine, Spring 2019

for them.” From Ohio to Japan, chapel’s livestream capability offers a unique opportunity for parents to share in the daily experience of their student’s life in real time. MOMENTS WITH GOD Steve Brock ’93, Assistant Director for Live Productions, who runs the chapel production every day, shared this vision of creating and sharing Cedarville’s daily heartbeat. His personal mission and philosophy is “to create environments where people can experience God.” Brock’s hand in the process is all about stage, set, and lighting, and he also has a hand in sound and video, his eyes and ears always tuned in while the live chapel unfolds. “I love being a part of creating moments for people to move closer to God,” said Brock. “That’s the core of it for me.” Chapel has come a long way from physically splicing audio reels together, and continues to expand as far as online technologies allow. Mark Mazelin ’95, Director of Web Services, has helped lead efforts to expand the chapel experience into emerging technologies. “To be clear,” he said, “getting daily chapel online involves the coordinated effort of many different teams across divisions at the University. It began with Dr. White’s passion for chapel and a Marketing and Communications Division goal to broaden chapel’s reach.” Mazelin knows all about today’s digital equivalent of splicing together audio reels. He took the time to describe the nuts and bolts and many hours that have gone into streamlining the systems at work behind the scenes. He also looks excitedly forward to forthcoming venues: “The livestream of chapel is highlighted and available on our website and Apple TV app during the 10 a.m. hour. Chapels are then tagged with the message title, speaker, topic, and book(s) of the Bible to power the search capabilities and related chapel logic on the website and app,” Mazelin explained. “On-demand plays are tracked to provide a list of ‘Popular’ chapels. Within the app, you can also create a ‘My List’ of chapel services you want to watch later.” According to Mazelin, the new Chapel Plus app provides live and on-demand streaming of chapel and selected campus events for iOS and Android. “In 2019, we plan to make chapel available via Alexa-based devices like the Echo,” he said. “I’m most excited about this. Imagine being able to ask Alexa for the latest chapel, the most popular chapel, to listen to the live chapel stream, to find the latest chapel by a particular speaker, topic, or book of the Bible, or find out the upcoming chapel schedule. “We will also tie these various systems together so you can access your watch list on any device or have the capability much like Netflix, where you can start watching chapel on one device, pause it, and then pick it up on another.” As could be expected, social media also plays an important role in chapel’s continued impact. Sarah Gump, Cedarville’s Digital and Social Media Manager, spoke to the spirit behind bringing the in-person chapel experience as fully as possible to the online community. “The daily chapel at Cedarville is what makes this campus so special,” she said. “Since we believe in the power of daily coming together to examine Scripture, we also believe in the importance of sharing this experience on social media. The viewers on Cedarville’s Instagram stories The livestream of chapel is highlighted and available on our website and Apple TV app during the 10 a.m. hour.