Tulsa Designer Uses Technology To Change Church Experience

By Rick Wells, The News On 6

OSAGE COUNTY, Oklahoma -- Imagine teaching Sunday School lessons using digital puppets that you control. An iPad, plus an iPodium becomes an iPulpit.

All are ways a Tulsa creative designer is using technology to change church.

"We got a lot of stuff, you know, that makes things happen," said Richard Carver of Little Mountain Productions in Osage County.

Richard Carver's been involved with happenin' stuff for more than 25 years: advertising, commercials, music videos, sets and set design. Then he heard a higher call.

"Started doing churches 16 years ago," he said.

He moved out of his downtown Tulsa studio into a creative oasis he's created in Osage county. He's designed interior spaces in churches all over the country, including Atlanta, Georgia and West Palm Beach, Florida.

They're working on a design for the new East Side Baptist Church in Fort Smith. They get the architect's plans and go to work.

"This is really the art for one project," Carver said.

So then they create a digital tour of the new facility before it's even built.

"It will look just like this," Carver said.

All of this is very fascinating to an old guy like me. What got me out here was a simpler idea, and ad I saw for an iPodium - a stand they designed for a iPad.

An iPodium plus the iPad in a church would make it an iPulpit. It's such a functional tool for any speaker, any presenter.

Designer Richard Carver knew the iPad was coming out, so why not design something to make it even more useful.

Like a digital puppet, designed by Brandon Sensintaffer, that operates using an Xbox controller. Add a microphone and:

"Anyone can be the puppet person, the puppet master," Carver said.

What a great way to teach kids using a medium they know.