Whirlweekend

It’s been a great weekend, I recollect as I’m warm and cozy on my couch after a great Sunday. Joe Sangl brought a frenzied energy to the NewSpring stage today and a solid message to boot. Apparently there’s some sort of football game on, or that’s what they tell me. Today went well, especially with a few different production variables.

But the highlight of tonight was when I got home and checked on Gardner. He (of course) wanted me to tell him a story. Unless you live in my house, you probably haven’t heard this epic tale I’ve been developing with him for the past year or so. It began with a story of how he rides around in my Jeep Cherokee. Then it evolved. Then it evolved again (this time the cats are teaching him how to drive). A few thousand more iterations and I’ll just give you a glimpse, tonight Gardner requests this…

Can you tell me the story about the jeep and odyssey and ajala (those are our cats) and how we drived around and then the bulldozer and and the jeep is flat and then pancakes and we saw Tadbit (Gardner’s beloved stuffed frog) and Chick-fil-a and it was REAL LOUD and then Tadbit and little Tadbit were in the back and we went to Chuck-E-Cheese and then…

This goes on for about 3 minutes, a recounting of every minute detail ever told in a Jeep story to my son, all in one stream of consciousness utterance.

Of course, I’m then prompted to spin another Jeep tale, introducing new characters (tonight, we developed his green glowing night light character into a full featured actor with a back story) and new elements. I believe tonight they visited a factory in Germany where they make gears.

Why am I sharing this with you? Because I love being a Dad. And I love finding new ways to stretch creativity. Kids learn a lot from you (nearly everything in their first few years) and I love to show him what fun can come with just stretching your imagination. I don’t ever want Gardner to say “oh, I’m not creative.” I want to nurture his and Rainey’s little minds and allow then to grow rather than allow them to stifle. It really is a discipline.

PS – I totally got linked on Tony’s blog today.

Christmas 2007 images

Does this look like a normal Christmas Eve church video screenshot to you?

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Well, now that the services are over, I’ll share with some some of the media snippets shown in service. The series title is “Out of this World.” I’d love to share more details, and I will later this week. But now it’s Christmas Eve and I’m ready to get myself into the holidays. G’night.

Out of this World open
Crank it up promo
Transition1 (a short piece to move from the counter to the first song)
Grand Finale (this is the final piece that capped off the service. By far, it’s been our largest production undertaking to date).

We’re ready

All the pieces rendering by the stockings with care…

I’d thought I would cook up some clever Christmas rhyme to set up the fact that NewSpring Christmas services begin tomorrow, but I think my creativity may be tapped out for the week.

But tomorrow’s going to be a lot of fun. Come early, have some coffee at AWAKE (that’s where you’ll find me, or in the control booth)… you won’t believe this stuff.

The Perfect Kid

Next week begins The Perfect Kid, NewSpring’s parenting series. You may have seen the promo site by now. It’s going to be fun. This week, we ran a little promo the team put together… I’m pretty excited about this one.

The Perfect Kid Promo (Quicktime, 4.3MB)

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Wanna know how DJ and Will get those smooth camera moves? Curious as to who the perfect kids really are? Rumor has it there’s a brief “making of” on youtube.

what you missed Sunday

This Sunday we ran an ESPN parody video (a la “office linebacker”). It was pretty hysterical, and starred Clemson’s very own Jacoby Ford. It will be viewable online at the NewSpring Game Time site later this week. In the meantime, please enjoy these still shots of our production team peeps getting tackled.

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AWAKE?

Are you AWAKE? You will be tomorrow morning.

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Interesting people.

I don’t often feature or plug people here at the AV Club. Here’s one fella I think you should know about.

Stephen Grey is one of our directors of the main service at NewSpring. I’ve known him for a long time, since way back when we met at Anderson College. He was a student at Clemson, and I’m not really sure how he ended up serving on Production with me. Anyway, you should know that this fella is bought in to the vision of this church, and he really gets why we do things. I love serving with him. He’s always energetic (sometime frighteningly… we have a rule that he doesn’t get coffee). He’s always excellent, and he continually strives for more. I could go on, but here’s is an excerpt (posted entirely without permission) from Stephen’s blog:

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Church is over and it is always exciting to go and serve in an area that I can have such passion in. It is also a great comfort to know that the team i serve doesn’t hold me back and in general gives free rein on the extent i wish to serve the Production team. It is actually very odd, because during the week i am fairly laid back with only spurts of excitement. People at work tend to see me as a mature adult but know that I can kick back and have a good time. However, when Sunday morning comes around I pop out of bed like I am a bagel in a toaster. Unlike most mornings I have to drag myself out of bed kicking and screaming (thats a funny mental picture). Most mornings my wife will kick me and say, aren’t you suppose to be getting ready?! Sunday is different. I have have an uncanny amount of energy that is not encouraged by any narcotics or caffeine supplements. I just radiate energy and just get so excited about serving in Production at Newspring. People at church must think i am bat crazy…well I wont deny that. Today was a special day, as it was my last day serving from sun up to sun down. I will always remember coming into the Henderson building with a book bag full of homework and a zeal to serve. Even after graduation, i enjoyed being there all the time. However, times change and the needs of the team change. I welcome these changes as I am excited as to what God has in plan for our church and the crazy things the Production team gets to be apart off.

And just for fun, I finally convinced Stephen to try Twitter this week. This could be interesting. Get his feed here.

(Random of Stephen and his wife photographing the helicopter at our last Baptism)
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G’s better

Meg got back from the doctor today with some awesome news. Gardner’s better. They went to have more x-rays to figure out where the bolt was.

And it’s nowhere to be found.

Read that again, nowhere to be found.

Now allow me to expound on this. On Sunday night, my son swallowed a metal bolt. I saw the original x-rays. It was right there in his stomach. We’d agreed with the doctors to wait for it to pass through his system. The plan was to check the “output” for a few days to verify it passed through.

We’ve been praying for healing. Last night, Jake and my brother came over to lay hands on Gardner and pray as a group. I specifically prayed for a miracle, that his healing would be unexplainable and point to God and nothing else. We got just that.

The bolt is gone. I’m sure the doctors are convinced that it passed through Gardner’s system and we just missed it. Let’s think this through. Do any of you know my wife? She’s the most thorough person I know, especially when it comes to the health of our little boy. We went through every diaper. (and he’s not doing #2 on the potty himself yet). We never saw it, and we were looking hard. I can only explain it one way, from Gardner’s own words, “Jesus made me better.”

Praise God, and he gets the glory. Thank you for healing my child, and providing no doubt you are in control. Thanks everybody for your prayers, they were surely heard.

friday and waiting

It’s Friday morning. Rainey (my 13 month old) and I are hanging out in the kitchen. She just ate a wonderful breakfast of bananas, yogurt, and cheerios. Only about 20% hit the floor this time. We’re improving.

And we’re waiting.

Meg took Gardner to the doctor this morning. The screw from Sunday night’s screw-swallowing hasn’t materialized yet, and the doctor asked to see him before the weekend so we could decide what to do. We’d hoped it would pass through his system, and I hold hope that it still may. Today will reveal the next course of action. Other possibilities are to go through the mouth to get it out or surgery, if it’s lodged deeper.

Last night, we called Jake and Jason (my bro) to come lay hands on Gardner and pray over him. I believe in God’s sovereignty, I trust him, and I believe in righteous people asking for healing in Jesus’ name. Maybe that’s why Meg and I are so calm now. I would appreciate your continued prayers that Gardner would be past this incident quickly and with little discomfort. Thanks.

14a Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him…
James 5:14

Fellowship site

Nice little mini site from Fellowship Church, ineed2change.com. And for the ultimate in integration and Web 2.0-ary… they have included a Twitter feed.

NewSpring Mobile Rig

So, it’s no surprise that NewSpring is growing. There were 8,100 people here this past Sunday and, by the way, they were all asked to invite someone this next week. If you’re thinking of coming, might I please encourage you to attend one of the PM services in order to free up some seats.

Every time a record is reached, I love that people say “hey, cool.” Then they say “I wonder what God has planned next?” Our only plan is for God to continue to have his hand on NewSpring, and for it to continue to grow. More people equals more lives changed and impacted.

And so, I propose that our next growth strategy should be the NewSpring mobile rig. I have a full working concept drawn on one of my blue Hipster PDA notecards (the blues are for capture). View it here. Imagine, you roll in to a parking lot. You hear Transformer like sounds. BAM. Church is rocking.

I’m thinking if we got Peterbilt involved, maybe a Transformers tie-in. Imagine the possibilities.

run away.

I read this in my quiet time today from I Timothy. Good, sound advice for anyone who’d like to thrive.

But you, Timothy, are a man of God; so run from all these evil things. Pursue righteousness and a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.

Illuminate

Yesterday a great day at NewSpring (details on Perry’s blog). We ran a fairly standard order of service, especially compared to last week’s unique features. This week, Perry just brought a straightforward message that people just needed to hear.

The full Illuminate open ran this week (view it here). The audio track was by Autechre, from a Warp records compilation. The track is “Vietrmx (Plaid Mix)” if you’re into that sort of thing. And for the counter, we decided to go back to the classic smooth techno / trance tracks. This one was Bright Morningstar DJ Tiesto from “Elements of Life”

That. Just. Happened.

That. Just. Happened. Highlight from last night’s Blockbuster.

blockbuster / strong coffee / running dogs

It’s Summer Blockbuster week. What’s that, you ask? It’s NewSpring’s version of vacation Bible school. Each night, we have over 1000 kids (someone comment in with the correct totals if you have them) descending upon NewSpring. They have small group breakouts and activities, then they all pile into our auditorium for a 30 minute live drama that’s hysterical to say the least. Or team provides video and visual support. Ben Thomas is directing for the first major stint, all week, and his entire team is doing a tremendous job. Imagine, following one live speaker is tricky enough (or 7 band members who don’t move around a lot). But following a cast of 2-8 kid’s team members, jumping around and speaking at different time… another level of tricky altogether.

There was a fun blooper onstage last night that we’ll be putting online as video later today (if you were there, you know what I’m talking about). Watch for it.

It’s fun, but the days are long. It has me considering going back to coffee, if only for a few days. And When I DO go back to the bean, I like it strong.

On a sidenote, I’m running again. Late winter, I was on an aggressive exercise kick and dropped 15lb. It’s time to step it up again. I’ve plateaued for too long. My question, how do you deal with dogs when you run? There’s an evil mutt that’s come after me several times. I’m not afraid of dogs, unless they’re chasing me whist snarling. Freaks me out. Any suggestions?

Live Free. Live Loud. June 29, 2007

Some pictures up of last night’s concert in the Live Free. Live Loud. Gallery

weekend

It’s been an amazing weekend with about 1000 things going on. Meg and I had a “date day” Friday morning. We went to Greenville, she got an awesome new hair cut, and we had a little lunch before heading back home to spend time with the two most awesome kids you’ll ever meet.

We had a surprise birthday party for Suzanne. Seriously, SHE. HAD. NO. IDEA.

DJ and visited Ridge Stone Church today to shoot some video on their story. It was a fun trip.

With Matt’s help, I tore into the garage reformation, Phase I. (ever notice that my projects always have multiple phases). We built a storage loft, freed up floor space, and now have a dedicated “gym” portion. There’s a place for the heavy bag, so I can resume my boxing.

Finally, I just finished watching The Fountain. (wiki article). This is the most haunting movie I think I’ve ever seen, especially recently. The story of how the film was created is as equally as interesting, especially the macro photographic effects from Peter Parks.

Great weekend.

Willow Creek 04

Notes from Nancy Beach’s talk:

Looking at what’s right in the world. Then what’s not right. She focused on the duality of art… showing both sides, not just a glossy, inauthentic look at the Christian life. Most great art has this tension. Think of the secular, brooding artist who’s fully aware of his humanness and taps all emotions in his arsenal.

As she spoke, she had a person standing behind her, off to the side of the stage, reading scripture and passages from a book. It was creative and effective. It was also very artistic, and I wonder how our people would respond to something like that.

There was an interview with U2′s Bono, where he was defining worship: “all music is worship. It could be worship of self, of women, of God, but it’s all worship.” (technical note: the sound of the recording is incredible, very Barbara Walters in style, no background music)

Nancy spoke of duality and how that’s the mark of a lot of great art… it’s often missing from Christian art (we don’t show the struggle, we shy from the controversy). Some people see Christianity as people pretending that everything is great… it doesn’t ring true (look at Gospel music, everything is happy and perfect). Bono relates to the blues, or something more authentic. The world sees the religious life as a life that’s not honest, because it doesn’t recognize the other side of life.

“Living in the contradiction,” showing joy even when life doesn’t appear as rosy. Where are our songs of despair? David knew how to sing of hope AND lament in the same song.

“It is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength”

“You hold the newspaper in one hand, and the Bible in the other (choose to look for what’s right, and admit what is not right). A broken hallelujah”

“Most Christians are better at condemning the world rather than being a ‘friend of sinners’”

“Who are you intentionally building a friendship with that doesn’t go to church, or isn’t a Christ-follower?”

“We’re to be creating houses of hope”

My thoughts: how are we doing with this? Do we create enough tension? I know Perry does this very well in his speaking, showing the emotion, the need, before relieving it. He doesn’t shy from it. But how about in the other areas of art? Do we recognize and identify enough with people’s pain and struggles? Some things to think about.

Willow Creek thoughts 03

Worship experiences

Saw David Crowder band live. It was awesome. His voice is so unique, and I love his style. The cool thing, during the instrumental, it sounded very much like Lee McD and the NewSpring band. That’s no knock on Crowder, but praise for the guys leading our worship team. They’re amazing, and it takes seeing other productions to fully realize it. And the guitar / keyboard tones… we nail it pretty close when we’re doing a Crowder cover.

I will say this, because it connected with me. When Crowder walked out onstage, they had Daft Punk’s “Da Funk” playing. Now, I’m a huge Daft Punk fan, and I even used this song in the 5:00 counter for Christmas 2005 (back when we were at AC). Then, he comes up to the mic, and was asked to answer the question “What is right with the world?” After a minute of thought, he goes on to describe Morningstar Farms. They make vegetarian options for people (chicken nuggets, veggie burgers, etc.). Now to most in the crowd, this is a little strange. But at the Wilson household, we live off of the stuff. We love it. Meg and I eat veggie options about every other day. Some I’m immediately connected to Crowder, and instantly miss my wife.

The worship experiences from the other days were equally as good, and a very diverse mix of styles and tones. Some songs were party style. A lot going on, (two drum sets, some additional percussion, and break dancers). Some were more contemplative, singer / songwriter stuff. From a production standpoint, I noticed three shoulder mount cameras on stage. They didn’t use grips (each guy carried his own cable). They have a “sky cam” shooting overhead. It’s only used a few times, but it probably pretty useful for certain sermon illustrations.

Their lighting is incredible, as is the stage set. I presume the giant sunshine is 30 – 40 feet wide. On a stage that size, you really have to build it up to look good, and they did.

That’s about it. Not all of the music was my style or tempo (by far Crowder was my favorite), but all was done with excellence.

Willow Creek thoughts 02

Part 2 (these are not in order)

Breakout session – Live Directing 101, led by a 3 man team. Greg:

Successful production ministries do three things:
- Call people to the team
- Retain people well
- Exit people well

The first two are obvious; I was curious about the third one. He explained. Their teams are structured, locked teams. There are 14 on each one, and it takes 14 people to pull off a weekend production (Wednesday night, Saturday night, and Sunday morning). The teams commit to do that every three weeks. When someone decided to leave (move, called to another ministry, etc.), they spend time honoring that person. They share how that person impacted them, and they wish them well. They don’t hold people in a tight fist, not letting them explore other areas. They never discourage people leaving. They’ve discovered that how they exit a leaving team member communicates a lot to those members who are staying on the team and really encourages them.

They also look at their teams as an evangelism opportunity. There are a few non-believers serving in production, and that’s often an inroad to the church and Christ.

For recruitment, they advertise at a church wide volunteer expo, they put specific ads in bulletins, and they use their volunteers to recruit friends and peers.

There’s value in rotating every three weeks. It’s the best frequency for relieving burnout, and for keeping yourself from getting rusty. There’s a 100% attendance requirement. Willow places the responsibility of finding a sub on the person who will be absent.

They have a “community time” before their Tuesday night practice. They have a meal together, and they have some interaction and accountability time with the team. The team almost acts like a home group or community group.

When they bring a new team member in, they train them at practice. They take on one member at a time, and don’t do a large team training. The person is started out on shader, as it’s easy to pick up, and them moved around the entire team over several weeks. Most team members are trained to do most every task, other than directing, which is handled by staff or a select few volunteers.

All in all, I learned a lot about the structure of Willow Creek’s production team volunteer structure. It was different in a lot of ways from our team, and I liked some of their ideas. I think we need to do a better job cross training our members across all areas of the team, and I’m interested to know if a locked-down team approach would be better for us. It would ensure more cohesiveness in our team, and by rotating positions on the team, may help people from getting bored.

Thoughts?