Rockin’ the NWLC

I haven’t blogged this week because I’ve been wrapped in thought about how to best sum up our amazing experience at the National Worship Leader Conference last week. Finally, with a lot of help from my trusty friend Lee, I figured the best way to sum it up was with a video. Remember, no one made you watch it :).

Teenage Affluenza Spreading Fast

Came across this video on YouTube this morning. From the view count, I’m far from the first one to see it (441,000 views and counting), but I wanted to share it anyway. It makes such a great point in such a creative way. I found myself laughing and feeling ashamed in the same breath. Very well done.

If you’re reading the fee, here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFZz6ICzpjI

Check out these shorts by Hallmark. The cinematography, acting, writing, direction. Man these are good. I want to be able to pull of shorts like this, to tell stories this well, to move people this much in our space. Man.

If you’re reading this on a feed, here are the links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRX7tdh1Ww4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-rMgkctHPo

These are two of my favorites, but you can find lots of these great Hallmark spots on YouTube.

Back to the old drawing board.

Better Off Rock’d Debrief

I had a great time shooting video this past weekend for the Better Off Rock’d Tour. It felt so good to be behind the camera again, finding those shots, trying to capture those moments. I really love shooting life. Along the way, I got to meet some fabulous people and listen to some awesome rock n’ roll.

Some highlights:

You may not get me on this, but the way the lights hit people onstage, the contrast, the lights coming into the lens and washing the picture out, getting those extreme close ups… I just dig it so much.

The performances. In their own way, Stephen Speaks, Nevertheless, Everyday Sunday and Seventh Day Slumber all gave fantastic performances. It was so refreshing to see good bands playing good music and sharing their faith, love and passion for God.

I wasn’t really familiar with these bands before this weekend, but now I’m a fan of each and every one of them. Being out on the road isn’t easy. Being away from family and friends. I really respect what these guys do and how they represent Jesus Christ in doing it.

I picked up a copy of Everyday Sunday’s latest album, Wake Up! Wake Up! after the shows. The album is fantastic. I’m digging it and find myself worshiping and crying out to God along with the lyrics on tracks like Wake Up! Wake Up! and Take Me Out. The whole album is just plain good. I got a chance to talk to Trey Pearson the lead singer on Saturday and we had a good conversation. We talked about video, what I do, what he does. There may even be some kind of music video collaboration in our future. That would be very cool, but it was great just to meet and talk and share the experience of doing what we do.

I also really dug and respected the way Joseph from Seventh Day Slumber works his testimony into their set. He has an incredible story of how Jesus Christ saved his life quite literally and pulled him out of a world of drug addiction that had led him to jail and to life on the streets. The fact that he is up there on stage sharing that story and playing great music… Our God is so awesome.

Anyway. This post is rambling. I just wanted to share a little bit. Check out the bands, buy the music, go see them if they come through your town. You won’t be disappointed.

We’ve been working on getting our new Memorial Day video, For Freedom up on our site and out to our various distributors. So, I’ve got Memorial Day on my mind. Meanwhile, my small group is studying through a John Piper book called Don’t Waste Your Life (great read, highly recommended). This morning I picked up the book to read and God did one of those things that He’s so good at. He brought the things in my life, on my heart, and in my mind together in a powerful way.We’re in Chapter 7 of Don’t Waste Your Life. The Chapter is called, Living to Prove He is More Precious Than Life. The chapter kicks off like this:

To make others glad in God with an everlasting gladness, our lives must show that he is more precious than life. “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Psalm 63:3)

In the chapter, Piper talks about what he calls a “wartime lifestyle.” He illustrates how what we do with our time, our money, and even our very lives is what shows others that “he is more precious than life.” He goes on to explain that during WWII, even the people at home here in the States made great personal sacrifices for the war effort. One of the mottos of that era was, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.” In his explanation of a “wartime lifestyle,” Piper exhorts us to remember we’re in the midst of a great battle and the stakes are very high. Given the fact that, in times when our nation has been at war, people were capable of rising to great levels of sacrifice, how much more should we, as Christians, rise up and sacrifice for the cause of Christ (which he calls “the greatest cause in the world). To illustrate the sacrifices people are willing to make, he pulls from the book Flags of our Fathers, which Clint Eastwood recently made into a film. Flags of our Fathers is about the WWII battle for the small Pacific island of Iwo Jima.

Iwo Jima was home to one of the bloodiest battles in our nation’s history. 21,000 Japanese soldiers died in the battle, but our Marines suffered 26,000 casualties in the process. This was the only battle in the Pacific where the invaders incurred higher casualties than the defenders. The Marines spent forty-three months fighting in WWII, and yet, in one month of fighting at Iwo Jima, one third of their total casualties occurred. Many of those Marines who fought so bravely there are buried in the Pacific. It’s here where I’ll pick it up directly from the book, Flags of our Fathers:

Thousands of families would not have the solace of a body to bid farewell: just the abstract information that the Marine had “died in the performance of his duty” and was buried in a plot, aligned in a row with numbers on his grave. Mike lay in Plot 3, Row 5, Grave 694; Harlon in Plot 4, Row 6, Grave 912; Franklin in Plot 8, Row 7, Grave 2189.

When I think of Mike, Harlon, and Franklin there, I think of the message someone had chiseled outside the cemetery.

Depression affects more than 19 million people each year in the US. In any typical high school classroom, it is likely that three students have made a suicide attempt in the last year. Among college students, there are an estimated 1,100 suicides per year (an average of 3 per day).

Those are some sobering facts. Better off Rock’d wants to do something about it. Started by a good friend of mine, Better off Rock’d is putting together their first tour to raise money for suicide prevention. This is a great endeavor and it’s being put together by a guy who has a real heart for following Christ and for young people. And they’ve gotten some of the biggest names in Christian rock involved. The bill so far includes Seventh Day Slumber, Everyday Sunday, Nevertheless, and Stephen Speaks. Check out their Myspace page and if you’re in the Austin or Ft. Worth area in June, be sure to check out a show. I’ll be there shooting video highlights of the event. I hope to see you there!

An Unconventional War

How real and present is evil? Why does evil seem to be concentrated more in some places than others? I know that most of us who profess Christ believe that satan is real and that demons exist, but I think the belief tends to be rather cursory. We feel tempted by satan. We talk in terms of the devil did this and tried to get me to believe that. But do we really believe that evil in the form of demons and darkness and hell is present in and around our every day lives? Really present?

I watched a documentary last night called An Unconventional War. It’s a remarkable story of faith and perserverance in the face of incredible evil. It centers on happenings in northern Uganda, where a rebel group calling itself the Lord’s Resistance Army has been terrorizing people in unimaginably horrific ways for over twenty years. The documentary is the story of how the faith, prayer and persistence of a small group of people reverberated and eventually broke the back of this incredible evil. Here’s how the film is described at the filmmakers website (The Sentinel Group):

A remarkable modern-day saga of prayer, forgiveness and deliverance.

For nearly two decades, a bizarre predatory cult known as the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted over 25,000 children and turned them into sex slaves and killing machines. The resulting carnage has displaced 80 percent of the region’s population.

This powerful documentary chronicles how fervent prayer and unique church-state cooperation played a pivitol role in taming one of history’s most brutal insurgencies in northern Uganda. It is a message of hope to lost and oppressed people everywhere - Issuing a challenge to invite God’s presence with abandonment and expectation!

I definitely recommend this video. It is an incredible story about the power of God. About how circumstances and things happening in the darkest of times can be used by God to bring about miraculous changes. Watch this video and tell me that the devil and demons aren’t real. More than that, watch this film and tell me that God doesn’t do amazing things through the body of Christ when people respond to Him in faith and step out to confront evil in the name of Jesus. And then imagine what God can accomplish through the Body of Christ if we are willing to move forward in faith and believe.