Faithlife Free: Find and share completely free media for the church!

Bob Pritchett
Bob Pritchett Member, Logos Employee Posts: 2,280
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Summary

Need Public Domain / free media you can use at church?

Stock photography, slide backgrounds, video clips, document templates, etc.

Join the Faithlife Free group:

https://faithlife.com/faithlife-free

And then head to https://amberfile.com/ to browse the content and to contribute your own.

https://amberfile.com/?sort=rating will show you the media ranked by rating. (Add your own ratings!)

Background

We've been planning a variety of Church content-sharing sites for a long time. We have designs for some great user interface, nice organization tools, etc. But these projects often fall behind other initiatives.

So we're just going ahead with our internal digital asset manager. Join the Faithlife Free group and you'll be able to use the same tool we use internally to manage images, PDFs, Word and PowerPoint documents, audio and video files, etc.

Everything is Free

Everything in this 'Amber Vault' is either Public Domain, or licensed under the Faithlife Church Use License ("You may use this content in support of the Christian church. It may be used by churches, ministries, and other organizations serving the Christian church; it may not be used for secular commercial purposes.").

Together We Are the Creators and Editors

See an image without a useful description? Just type a new description. This photo needs tags? Add them. (The auto-completer will suggest terms from Logos' controlled vocabulary as well as Freebase, which contains almost every Wikipedia heading, to help standardize vocabulary.)

You can tag things with Bible references. Start typing a Bible reference in the 'Tags' field and then select the reference from the list of previously entered references, or under 'Logos Reference' in the drop-down. This will make the tag a Bible reference item, not just text, which allows smarter searching with range intersection.

It's also a good idea to tag with Logos Preaching Theme concepts when appropriate. They are labeled 'Preaching Theme' under the 'Logos' section of the tags drop-down.

Like an asset, and think it should be featured? Give it a star rating. (You can sort the view by rating, which represents the community's collective voting.)

Want to contribute? Use the New Asset button, or (with Google Chrome and some other browsers) just drag your assets over the window to upload them.

What Should I Upload?

Whatever you want that you're willing to give free to the Church at large: media, slide backgrounds, bulletin art, photos from your Israel trip, PDF documents of training material other churches might like, etc. (For now, though, please don't upload sermons here. We're working to improve sermon-specific support at SoundFaith.com.)

Did you make a cool slide for Easter? Mother's Day? A sermon series? You can upload it here.

We are also uploading Public Domain imagery and content from other sites, when we think it's useful for Church media. The advantage of re-uploading here is the Bible-specific tagging vocabulary; Unsplash has great photos, but here we can add tags directly specific to Bible passages, preaching themes, etc.

Can I Upload a .ZIP File?

If you want to share the source files for a finished asset, upload the finished rendering as a new asset, then double-click the asset thumbnail (or use the stacked lines icon that shows when you select it) and then drag your .ZIP file (or .PSD etc.) to the "Native File" section of the details page.

https://amberfile.com/assets/607377 is an example of a media pack -- the .ZIP file has source files, bulletin art, and multiple versions of the slide shown, all inside this Native File.

Explore

Amber doesn't have a lot of documentation yet, but feel free to explore. Blue links are links; tags and metadata that look like links run queries automatically. Try running a search, then using the faceted browser on the left. Don't be shy about adding tags, star ratings, and marking favorites! Change your view using the controls in the upper-right.

Want to use an image, but don't need something 3,000 pixels wide? Use Add new in the FORMATS section of the details page to have Amber create the version you need.

Remember that Amber also does full-text indexing of all the text (and EXIF information) in assets you upload. So if you drag in a PDF or Word document, it will be full-text indexable.

Changes are Tracked and Reversible

Amber is designed for live editing; all the changes are tracked (and associated with who made the change), and changes, including deletion, can be reversed. So don't be shy! Jump in and contribute -- you won't break anything!

Questions

Ask them here, or in the Faithlife Free group.

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