Art Focus Friday- There's A New Conductor In Town

Wow! Watch this video. Amazing technology is in play here. I wonder what Dr. Burton would have given him in conducting class?
We may all be replaced one day!

What Is The Pulpit For Father Phleger?

I know I may be stepping off into deep waters here, but I think this must be said. The Pulpit (the platform, the podium, whatever you want to call it) should never be sold, subjegated or stolen for the sole purpose of advancing a political agenda, issue or forum. It is abhorent to me to watch this video.



Regardless of what the issue is (be it political or personal) the privilege of standing in the midst of the sanctuary of God's people should never ever be used for 15 minutes of fame or defemation as is the case in this example. Where is the proclamation of the Gospel as he was introduced as being such a wonderful messenger? Where is the teaching of scripture? Where is the exposition of the Word of God? I heard none of this here. I hear political rhetoric in the forum of the church--and frankly it is disappointing and disgusting.

Every church must guard whoever steps into the light of the title-speaker, preacher, teacher. It's biblically mandated to guard the teaching of the church---and I'm afraid that in this instance, the elders, deacons, pastors and leaders who were charged with this mandate were asleep at the wheel.

HT: Chicago Sun-Times

Creative Chaos-Family Camp

Sorry I'm late to the Chaos today over on Carlos' Ragamuffin Soul--where creative ideas are shared  every Thursday.

This is from our Family Camp 2 years ago--and we're doing it again this year.  The camp was so successfull two years ago with about 12 families that this year we are closing in on over 20 families from our church alone.  The camp is for Families (K-12th Grade and beyond).  We have joint worship sessions, breakout sessions for Parents, Children and Youth.  Another church is teaming up with us and they are bringing some of their empty nesters to come and take care of the Pre-Schoolers.  All of it is mixed with fun at the beach in the afternoon, special family times of worship and just great interaction with other families.

Our theme for 2006 was Reel Life. We asked each family to represent themselves in a Movie Poster for an ice breaker; recorded their family sayings to my Mac for a SoundBite section on words and how they sound and ended with family communion on our own in rooms.  My kids are still talking about it.

I'll blog from there July 30-Aug.3 this year.  Have you ever been to a family camp?

Intersecting The Culture

This is from the Christianity Today series on Intersecting The Culture. You can see the materials here It's a six session DVD with curriculum for small groups to watch and discuss. Very interesting. What do you think?

Something Old, Something New

Even though today is Memorial Day, I can't miss the opportunity to give my Monday shout outs to the blogs that I read and that I've recently found.  Here goes:

Something Old:  Fred Mc Kinnon   Fred is a worship leader, blogger, producer and general Renaissance guy.  He has his hands in lots of projects and is the worship leader at St. Simons Community church in Georgia.  Fred is a guy of great experience in worship and the worship community.  I'm always interested in what he has to say.

The Ballad of Mr. Fun  Reid Greven is the associate music director at North Point in Alpharetta, Georgia.  He's always giving an inside view of  the music of North Point.  I appreciate the peek behind the curtain.

Something New:

A Visual Trademark:   CJ Mills and I connected this week through a posting I made on Carlos Whittaker's CREATIVE CHAOS.  He's a creative who works for American Specialty.  He's also the proud of father of Asher (a premie baby) who's getting ready to come home soon.

What new sites have you found?

Memorial Day

We remember!

Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery--where my father-in-law is buried.

My Father-in-law was retired military.  When he died suddenly in 1990, we buried him at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery.  It was an amazing site to see all of these graves.  He was buried in a fairly new section then (but now it's one of the older sections).  I believe this site says that there are over 110,000 soldiers and dependents are buried here.

Worship Post-Fessional May 25, 2008

May 25, 2008

Today was the closer of our series WINDS OF CHANGE.  Seems just started it, but that was April 6--time flies.

Our focus today was all about the Names of God. We pulled together our large banners that hang across the back wall and placed them on stage in the loft.  We had a lot going on visually today (add in the Lord's Supper tables too).

Here's the set for today

Because of Your Love (week 2 for this one--I think it will be around for awhile--people love it)

New Doxology-Gateway worship.  (week1--well received since it's so close to the original. love the new lyrics)

Your Name (we've done this one a lot during the series--so we'll rest it until the fall)

Be Unto Your Name ( always good-)

Sermon--which ended on the name YOU ARE (Everlasting).  I had mentioned in staff meeting about Mark Roach's song--YOU ARE--not knowing how well it would tie everything together.  Got to teach a little of this song to the congregation--we'll save it until fall

You Are--Mark Roach

Awesome God (MWS arr)

How Great Is Our God

How was your Sunday?

Art Focus Friday--INDIANA JONES

Tomorrow, my son and I will venture to see this EPIC film. He was recently introduced to this series and is ready to see the sequel like his old man.

I found this tonight on You Tube...sing along!

Creative Chaos- Google Sketchup:The Tool of Pros

I was excited to see in the latest issue of LIVE DESIGN magazine that the Set Designer for American Idol, Adam Walmsley, uses Google Sketchup for his intial drawings and presentations for his set designs. These are a few examples from his site.

I found Google Sketchup last fall and have done some preliminary planning and drawing with it for our set design.  That post is here.  I'm most impressed with it's ability to model situations using Google Earth (you can look up your site and model your building given the parameters of Google Earth's information for your location).

You can learn the tutorials at the Google site or the www.go-2-school.com portal which has excellent teaching resources.  The two DVD's from Go-2-school would probably be worth it since individual classes for these courses are $300 or more.

Just passing along to others where I've found the goods.

This post is part of Creative Chaos on Ragamuffinsoul.com.  Thursday's are the days that creatives share the tricks of the trade on Carlos' site.

Pray For Steven Curtis Chapman Family

Please pray for the Steven Curtis Chapman family--they lost one of their small children today in a tragic accident in their Williamson County home (Nashville). You can read more about it here.



He wrote the new song, CINDERELLA, about his smallest girls (one of them was killed today).More of the story of Cinderella



I look back through Steven's music and I'm amazed at how many of his songs have ministered to me (His Strength Is Perfect, Be Still and Know, and many more). I'm just praying tonight that God is showering he and his family with so much love and grace that they are overwhelmed with His presence. Pray that for them tonight before you go to bed. And kiss your children and tell them that you love them.

Water Cooler Wednesday- Not Your Mama's VBS

In a little over two weeks, we'll be deep into the Vacation Bible School season.  This annual event on most every church calendar brings excitement and some fear into many adults who staff and coordinate these events. 

When I was growing up in the church, VBS was marching in line with the flags and the bible; cookies and kool-aid; and those neat crafts that you could do with the dishwashing bottle (you know the blue water that you added oil to and it became a tidal wave!)

About 3 years ago, our children's minister at the time (Sherry Gray) became burdened that our VBS was only serving the purpose of ministering to the children inside the church.  We spent the largest portion of our children's ministry budget on VBS, yet we weren't reaching the kids of the community.  She had the vision to take our VBS out of the church and into the community.  We met (and continue to meet) at a local community center and have grown in our attendance and reach in the community (250 the first year and almost 450 the second year).

It wasn't easy.  Some of our traditionalist were appalled at taking VBS and changing it.  It brought some hilarious conflicts to the surface (letters to the editor in the local paper, a phone call to the police department--because we were having games with food,etc).  But it was worth it to see the faces of these kids as they came through the gates each night.  Determined to go on--we did and we haven't looked back.

Here's what the Standard Publishing site says about the Summer Camp material

Why should I choose CAMP for my church?

It’s kid-tested, and kid-approved!
It’s a volunteer recruiter’s dream!
It’s written by Children’s Ministry expert, Tracy Carpenter
It’s completely customizable, all files are on CD-ROM
Meaningful experiences in every session!

All of it is true! We probably have more people involved in this VBS than any other we've ever staged. Men are a big part of it as they help in cooking, recreation, set up, security and small groups. It's no longer jus the ladies doing VBS. We do it from 5:00 (feeding the kids) until 8:00pm Mon-Thursday night. On the final night we'll do a big dinner for the parents,feeding close to 600, and then finish up with a presentation of the gospel to the parents while the kids finish up in recreation. Our big finale is a MESSY game which finishes with the local Fire truck coming to wash the kids down. Granted, it's not a pretty-VBS, but we have people talking about it for months. It gets us outside the walls of the church to meet people and form relationships.

I don't think we'll ever head back to the days of the stand up, sit down chorus.

This post is part of Water Cooler Wednesday over on Randy Elrod's site, Ethos. Check out what other creatives are talking about.

Found Object Art

This intrigued me as I noticed it on this site.

How much art could be created from the "junk" that we see around us?  What about metals and rusty things that we see piled up around our communities?  How could they be used,remixed and reborn as art?  Open your eyes today to see the potential in things around you.

William Christenberry's work, rooted in his Alabama upbringing, is born of things familiar and deeply felt. Whether in paintings, drawings, sculptures, constructions, found objects, or photographs, each expression gathers meaning from a specific time and place through which we experience one man's collected and recollected journeys. They are meditations on universal themes of loss and isolation, memory and comfort, creation and change.

HT: Art Knowledge

Father's Day Gift

I know it's early, but I think I've found my Father's Day 2008 gift.  (and a new website)

HT: Think Geek

Wi-Fi Signal Status for You and the World!

Here at ThinkGeek we're pretty lazy when it comes to technology. We expect our gadgets to do all the busywork while we focus on the high level important tasks like reading blogs. That's why we hate to have to crack open our laptops just to see if there is any wi-fi internet access about... and keychain wi-fi detectors, we would have to actually remove them from our pockets to look at them. But now thanks to the ingenious ThinkGeek robot monkeys you can display the current wi-fi signal strength to yourself and everyone around you with this stylish Wi-Fi Detector Shirt. The glowing bars on the front of the shirt dynamically change as the surrounding wi-fi signal strength fluctuates. Finally you can get the attention you deserve as others bow to you as their reverential wi-fi god, while geeky chicks swoon at your presence. You can thank us later.



Product Features

Glowing animated shirt dynamically displays the current wi-fi signal strength.
Shows signal strength for 802.11b or 802.11g
Black 100% Cotton T-Shirt
Animated Decal is Removable (with hook and loop fasteners) for Easy Washing
Battery Pack is Concealed in a Small Pocket Sewn Inside the Shirt
Runs for hours off three AAA Batteries (not included)

Things You Can Do With Pegboard

Read this article.  This is why I love this blog.

HT:  Cool Hunting

Something Old, Something New

Time for SOMETHING OLD-SOMETHING NEW. I've been doing this for a while and it's sometimes hard to remember which ones I've highlighted and which ones I haven't.  Just a note- it never fails that I hear from the blog authors on the day that I post about them. That always makes me feel good.

SOMETHING OLD:   Pied Piper Piping  This is the site of Nathan Gaddis, Associate Minister of Music at FBC Naples.  Nathan (Gaddis as we call him) is a fellow Recreate attendee and I've enjoyed getting to know his ministry.  He's a songwriter, creative and new daddy (welcome Jovie!).  I was invited to attend his staff meeting last week via Mogulus!   Check Gaddis out!

SOMETHING NEW:  Radio Shakin' is the site of Matthew Singleton, who is Creative Director at Cross Point Community Church in Nashville, where Pastor Pete Wilson preaches.  Matthew is responsible for the creative elements in the service and has some marvelous examples of Sermon intros on his site (with Pete of course!).  Take a look at his work

Cool Hunting is a portal that looks for things in the realm of culture, creativity and technology.  It is always scanning for trends in design, art, exhibitions and culture that are thought provoking or engaging.  I really like reading this blog.

Any new ones in your reader?

Prince Caspian--Story Is Essential

This afternoon I took two of my kids to see Prince Caspian.  I didn't know what to expect in this movie, as The Lion, Witch and Wardrobe had so much advanced hype through the church in 2005.  I was not surprised at the line of people going to see it--our little theater was almost full this afternoon.

What I found was an engaging story that kept me on the edge of my seat until the end.  What a fantastic movie and story line to follow.  It reminded me of what a narrative really means to a good story.  It's essential to any lasting work of literature to have a cohesive story line that one can follow and be immersed in.  So many of the works today have very little if any story or narrative quality or nature to them.  From the opening scenes to the end, this Movie was consistent in it's narrative and true to the form of the narrative.

This what makes movies, theater and poetry have longevity--narrative, story.  Sadly, it's something that we're losing today as less and less creativity is encouraged in our schools and in our art.  We seem to think that special effects will carry the line.  It won't.  The only thing that the special effects did in this movie was to amplify the story  and carry it to another level.  I could think that even if someone was simply on screen reading this story to us, it would still have the impact that it did this afternoon. C.S. Lewis was a master of the narrative.

Now-on to Indiana Jones this Friday.  My 10 year old has discovered these films over the weeken and is waiting to see the next installment.  I believe that this series is just as dependent on narrative as Narnia.   Long live great film making and great narratives.   Narratives impact the culture.

Congregational Singing--Diction Please!

I've always said "Words are important!" Consonants are a must, especially in congregational singing, because some who are unfamiliar with the texts could be confused by the words they think they hear.

Listen--and laugh! It's meant in jest--but give you a pause for thought.




HT: SuperSimbo

Worship Post-Fessional May 18, 2008

Today was Graduate Recognition day.  One of those days on the calendar that we always say "how can we do this better?".  We chose today to begin with a video congratulating our Sr's --then right into the recognition.  I think it worked well--then on to worship.   We included them in the sermon and a challenge to them.

Set:

Sr. Recognition/Prayer time

Because of Your Love

The Solid Rock (1st verse)

In Christ Alone

The Solid Rock (last verse) 

                            Blessed Be Your Name

                            Enough

                            Amazed

Me-Simpsonized!

This came from John Volez's site- Vertizontal. He asked us to Simpsonize ourselves and post about it. You can do the same thing here


I was never a Simpson fan, but if I were--this would be my character.

Painting A Cathedral

WASHINGTON, DC - Swiss lighting artist Gerry Hofstetter projected images ranging from abstracts of the Cathedral’s stained glass windows to faces of people of all races onto Washington National Cathedral as a call for national and global unity in a project entitled “Lighting to Unite.” From sunset to midnight on three evenings, May 9-11, the Cathedral’s south and west sides were illuminated in celebration of the Cathedral’s centennial, illustrating its mission of reconciliation and spotlighting its role as a spiritual beacon for the nation.

HT:Art Knowledge