Did you know?

In China, 10,000 people a day convert to Christianity.

Over the last 20 centuries, 70 million Christians have been martyred.

67% of all humans from A.D. 30 to the present day have never even heard the name of Jesus.

These are amazing statistics, aren't they? These statistics and others like them made such an impression on us, that we put together a sermon illustration and a countdown that highlight these exciting facts. Check out our Evangelism Statistics Illustration by clicking the image below: (if you're interested in downloading these for your church - click here to purchase the illustration and here to purchase the countdown).

For more information and statistics like these, visit the following websites:

http://www.gordonconwell.edu/ockenga/globalchristianity/gd/findings.htm
http://home.snu.edu/~HCULBERT/1040.htm#religion

Click Image Above To Watch our Easter Worship Video, I Will Remember

We Remember

With Easter approaching, I've been thinking about our video, I Will Remember. The video is a simple illustration of a song that means a lot to us here at eleven72. It's a song written by the Music Director of our church, JJ Plasencio. JJ recorded it on an album of praise songs that he wrote for our church (you can get the CD at gatewaychurch.com). The album was recorded with and by Gateway's volunteer praise and worship band members. The singer on this track is a guy named Scott Leger who is the singer for what I think is the greatest unsigned band I've ever heard, WideAwake (you should check them out).

When our church first started out, we were meeting in movie theaters and hotel banquet rooms, loading in and out before and after the services, completely portable. At one point, we were moving around so often that our pastor joked, "if you can find us, you can go here."

Each week, as our little body grew and as more and more seekers became true believers, we would sing this song that JJ had written. We will remember your name! We will remember your grace. We were seeing Him do mighty things among us. Redeemer. Prince of Peace. The Lamb Who has Died in my Place. Lyrics from this wonderful song.

The video for I Will Remember was really a labor of love for Lee (see our about page to learn more about Lee). He put his heart and his considerable talent to work illustrating this beautiful praise song. And I think the love he put into it shows through in the work.

Over time, I Will Remember has become one of our most popular videos, especially at this time of year. It's a great piece to use as you give the congregation time to reflect on who Jesus Is and what He has done for us. It's a great video to use to end a sermon with. Build up your sermon about Jesus' life, death, resurrection and sacrifice and then let this video make a powerful ending statement that moves people closer to Christ. We've also heard that the video is really useful during the celebration of Communion as the congregation reflects on the body and the blood of Christ.

However you use it, know that it means a lot to us and we pray that it might mean something to you and your congregation as well.

The Story's the Thing...

The single most important thing you can do is tell stories! Let me explain.

The Bible is the very Word of God. We read it to know Him. And He uses it to speak to us. It is His Story... History.

We just finished producing a video for a local missions organization called Mission Possible of Austin. The project will be shown this weekend as part of their annual fundraising banquet. In the process, we had the opportunity to meet and interview three incredible people. People whose lives have been transformed by the power of God, through the ministry of Mission Possible. There was a woman who found herself pregnant and on the streets. There was a well to do foreign business student at a major university, whose family had an emergency back home that used up all his money, and he too ended up on the streets here in America. And finally, a young man with a Father in and out of jail and a Mother addicted to drugs who found himself all alone. Mission Possible helped all of them find a relationship with our living God, as well as helping them meet physical needs. And now all three are actively serving the body of Christ and giving back because they've been given so much!

I know there are similar stories of radical transformation and the incredible grace of God playing out in your local body. Those stories illustrate how your church is living out its' mission. How you are enacting your vision. You need to tell those stories. Stories connect the body to what God is doing through us. They show us that we are a part of something so much bigger than ourselves. And our people need to hear them.

So I encourage you to find creative ways to tell the stories of what God is doing. - globally, locally, and personally. Help people to see. Inspire them to act. It's all part of HisStory.

If you need any ideas on how to tell the stories of your people, even if you don't have many resources, email me at storme@eleven72.com. I'd love to help you find a way to get your story out!

Free Video Of Your Choice

We'd like to give you the video of your choice...free. Read below and find out how to get your free video.

We're really enjoying this blog and keeping you all up to date on what's happening around eleven72. Toward that end, we wanted to check in with our readers and make sure we're giving you information you can use. So...

We'd like to hear from you. What kinds of articles would you like to see on the blog? What kind of help or tips or information would help you in your ministry? Do you need technical how-tos, information on where to find resources, articles on how to use media?

Please take a few moments, jot down an email and let us know what you would like to see on our blog. Then (here comes the free stuff), we'll send you an email with a code that you can use to download one free piece of media from our store. Any piece of media in our store. You browse. You pick. You download the video you want.

Send us an email about the blog, get a free video. Easy enough, right?

Tell us what you think :): storme@eleven72.com or lee@eleven72.com .

We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Jesus at Crossroads

We received a really great call from the pastor of a church in Tucson, Arizona on Friday. After buying our video Jesus Is to use in one of their services, Pastor Kyle contacted us to see if they could use it on their website. They have a page directed at new comers and seekers that raises the question "Who Is Jesus?" He thought our video fit so perfectly with their purpose for that page that he wanted to incorporate it. We were really excited about the idea and they've already got it up - Check it out here!

Kyle is leading a really cool church in Tucson called CrossRoads Church. They are meeting weekly in an active movie theater in Tucson and are very much a community based church. Our home church here in Austin started out portable and meeting in movie theaters. We have really fond memories of that time in our church, so we were excited to hear about how they're doing church. They get a really early start every Sunday, set up in one of the theaters, have their service and have to get all their equipment and people out before the matinees start.

CrossRoads is focused on creating relationships and getting people involved in small groups/home churches and that approach is really paying off. By meeting in a movie theater, Kyle says the typical non-church going person is more intrigued by their set up and is more likely to come and check it out. He is really excited about what God is doing with their church and it's so cool that our media can be a part of helping CrossRoads reach people in Tucson.

Easter? Already?

Well, Easter is coming up on us, but there's still plenty of time. Whew! Yes, April 8th is Easter so we're just under 2 months away. I'm sure you're feverishly planning for that season with Lent, Palm Sunday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Lots coming up. What a great time of year for the Church! We get to celebrate the greatest story in history and invite the world to celebrate with us!

So to get you started, we've added a few illustrations, backgrounds and countdowns to our seasonal section of our site. Check out the resources we have already as you begin to prepare for the upcoming season.




We'll have much more in the way of media for this season in the coming weeks, so make sure you check back frequently to the updates. Also, if you're an email subscriber, you'll be getting an email with Free Easter media in the next few weeks. If you're not already a subscriber, then sign up today and get the Free media package we're offering February. Really cool backgrounds and stills.

Happy Valentines Day!

Lee

Happy Valentine's Day from eleven72

We don't really have any Valentinesy videos here, but we wanted to send a little love your way. Change is Possible (available on our site here) is one of our favorite Sermon Illustrations. Here's wishing you something fun(ny) this Valentine's Day:

What Does That Look Like? Using Movie Clips to Make Your Point

We all know that movies can be powerful. And we all know that movies are huge cultural influencers. Because of that, we can use clips and scenes from movies to help our audiences see or get a mental picture of what we're talking about in our messages.

This last week, our Pastor showed a clip from Ice Age, the animated film that featured Ray Romano as one of the last Mammoths on earth. He showed a scene from the movie where a squirrel chases an elusive acorn. The squirrel just keeps chasing the acorn and he can't ever quite seem to get it. On the surface, it's just a simple, silly clip. The congregation loved it, laughed at it, and was entertained by it. The fact that it was simple and funny made it easy to remember. This made the clip sticky (more about "sticky" here) and, when attached to the Pastor's message, made his point stick.

The message was the first in a series called Ka-Ching-Enomics. The series contrasts God's Economy with the world's economy. Here's how the pastor set up and came out of the clip:

Pastor:

We live in a world that lies to us about reality. And the foundation of worldwide ka-ching-enomic theory is this falsehood known as If Only. "If only I could be that, if only I could do this, if only I could obtain that, then I’d be happy. It would be enough. I’d be full. There’d be contentment in my life." Watch this clip:

This is where he played the clip and then this is how he came out of it:

Did you ever feel like that squirrel? There’s this acorn and it’s so good that you can smell it but you can’t quite grasp a hold of it. Well, our story begins today not with a prehistoric nut but with a prehistoric fruit.

Then he went on to read from Genesis and talk about how the evil one sets us up just like he set up Adam and Eve. "Hey, if you just do this, you'll be happy. If only..." And for the rest of the sermon he could refer to that acorn and we knew what he was talking about and we knew how we can sometimes be just like that squirrel chasing that nut. It was so simple. And it worked so well.

The sermon was preached by Ted Beasley at Gateway Church here in Austin. If you're interested in hearing how he set up and wove the metaphor of the clip into his entire sermon, you can listen to his sermon here.

Sermon Illustrations, like the ones you can find here at eleven72.com and clips from popular movies can be such a powerful addition to your sermon. The power comes from how you tie the clip to your message. Set up the clip. Show the clip. And then tell your people what it means. This will give them a visual picture to attach to your message and that visual picture will help make the message stick.

If you're looking to use a clip or scene from a popular film, here are some great resources to help you find what you're looking for:

CVLI.org - A license from Christian Video Licensing International, just like CCLI for music, gives you the right to show clips from thousands of movies, including movies from a lot of the big studios, in your services and Sunday school classes. With the license everything is on the up and up as far as copyright is concerned and all that. To learn more visit the CVLI website.

Textweek - Textweek has a Movie Concordance that has movies indexed by title as well as theme. Along with the title of each movie, you'll find a brief synopsis of how the movie or clip mentioned ties into a biblical theme. Textweek was my first stop when I was the Media Director at Gateway Church. While you're on the site, check out their other resources like their Scripture Index, their Art Index and their Resources For Use in Times of Terrorism and War. You can find it all here.

IMDB.com - The Internet Movie Database a great site for mining information on movies. Who made them. Who's in them(shameless plug- I'm even listed in there). For our purposes here, IMDB is great because there is a drop down menu that let's you search specifically for Quotes and Plots. So if you know that you're preaching about X or you need a clip where a character talks about Y, you simply select the appropriate search criteria from the drop down menu and then type whatever you need into the search field and up comes a list of movies with the plots or quotes you're looking for. It's awesome. Click here to go to IMDB now.

I know there are many more resources out there that I don't know about. If you know about any, we'd love to share them with everyone. Email me at storme@eleven72.com or leave a comment on the blog. What are your favorite movie illustrations? Where do you find them? What do you think? Let us know!

Free Reminder


If you're just checking out the blog or you don't get over to the homepage much, this is your official free Worship Backgrounds and Stills reminder. We're always giving away something for nothing here at eleven72. Well, almost nothing. If you sign up for our email list on the homepage, you'll get a link to download two absolutely free loopable Worship Backgrounds and four cool urban themed Still Backgrounds (they're the top four photos after the jump). Once you're signed up, you'll get an email from us at least once a month with links to more new free stuff. You can't beat free, right? Click here to jump to the homepage and get your freebies.

Cut It Out

Steven Spielberg. Ron Howard. Martin Scorsese. Mel Gibson. You heard of these guys? Of course you have! They're famous Directors of big time feature films. But what about Walter Murch, James Haygood, Zach Staenberg or John Wright? No? They're pretty famous in the movie biz too. They're actually the editors of movies like The Godfather, Fight Club, The Matrix and The Passion of the Christ. We don't typically hear about them because they are behind the scenes (most likely locked in an editing room for weeks on end) But they are just as integral to what we see on the big screen as the Directors are.

Editor Walter Murch, (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Cold Mountain, Jarhead) says "Film editing is now something almost everyone can do at a simple level and enjoy it, but to take it to a higher level requires the same dedication and persistence that any art form does." Yes. Anyone can purchase a computer and some editing software and get to work, but the best editors are great story tellers. They can take hours and hours of footage and beautifully piece it all together into a 90 minute film. This is what is so great about editing! Taking a vast amount of information (ie. footage, photos, music, etc.) and putting it all together to get your audience to feel something.

There tons of resources out there for editors. Lots of books, videos, schools & training. You can learn a lot about how to place a clip in to a timeline or how to set keyframes on your music selection, but the biggest art of editing is in the story telling. When should I cut? How long should that shot be? Should I use a close up here? Should we pace this faster to illustrate that the actress is frantic? All of these depend on what you're conveying to your audience and what you want them to take away from that scene/video/movie.

If you're making a video for your church, youth group, small group etc. continually ask yourself "How does this fit in with our story?" Understand what you're trying to accomplish BEFORE you sit down at your computer to start cutting. And then see how each shot and scene adds to what you want your audience to see and feel. It's not that much different than writing a sermon/message...just a different way of communicating.

Here's some good resources to keep you busy if you're interested in editing:
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch
American Cinema Editors
Videomaker.com
The Digital Filmmaker

I'll post again soon with more resources on editing ideas, tips and tricks.

Lee

The Art of Cinematography

I was just writing my new bio for our about page (look for it there any day now), and it got me thinking about one of my favorite things: Cinematography.

Wikipedia says a cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera (the art and science of which is known as cinematography). The Cinematographer's roles are many and varied and the job varies from picture to picture depending on the Director, the crew, etc. But at it's heart, cinematography is writing with light. Writing and light are two of my biggest passions and so I love cinematography.

The late Conrad L. Hall is my favorite cinematographer. The shot he captured of the boy standing at the edge of the water in the beginning of Road to Perdition is one of the most beautiful and profound images I've ever seen. And one of my top five movies of all time is a little movie called, Searching for Bobby Fischer, beautifully rendered by Hall in a style he termed: magical realism. I love the movie and I love that term.

To me, magical realism means showing the transcendent, the supernatural, in the every day. That God is all around even in the mundane moments of life. I hope I can one day photograph a feature that can capture and communicate that style.

My monthly cinematography guide is a magazine called American Cinematography. If you want to learn more about how your favorite movies are captured and the people who capture them, pick up a copy. It gets into the details of the way a movie was shot, the cameras and film stocks used, the types of lighting the used, the special effects. I've been reading it for years. I love it. They have a couple of articles online here.

Here are some great links and resources on cinematography:

http://www.cinematography.com/
http://www.theasc.com/
Wikipedia List of All the Best Cinematography Award Winners
The Cinematography Mailing List (a great resource - this is a forum where you can go looking for answers on how to capture the look and feel you want for your next film or video)

Web 2.0... Re-Defining God in the Machine

Web 2.0. Church 2.0. I watched this video this morning and it blew me away (the video is called "Web 2.0... The Machine is Us/ing Us"). We are living in an incredible time. As we think and re-think ourselves as we relate to the network, as we relate to each other ,and ultimately and most importantly, as we relate to God... Think about the opportunity we have to use these amazing new tools to share our God with the world. To teach the machine and by teaching the machine to teach each other all about the love of Christ and his desire to know us. Think of the ministry and the reach we have and that God has through us as we sit down at the computer and participate in this web. Wow! What on earth am I talking about? Watch this (and then watch it again):

And Now For Something Completely Practical (And Free!)

If you work with video and if you have ever had to compress and resize video files for downloading or for distribution on the web, you've had to worry about aspect ratios (the dimensions of the video). One big problem I've had before is when I'm trying to crop a video that was originally 4:3 (standard) to be 16:9 (widescreen), but I can't figure out what the 16:9 dimensions should be. It usually goes something like this for me: "Alright, so if I want the width to be 320 and in 4:3 the height is 240, what would it be in 16:9. 16 times what equals 320??? x times 9 equals what???" And I just start down that road with my questionable math skills and don't always like where I end up.

That's where this free Aspect Ratio Calculator from WideOpenDoors.net comes in. It does the math for you, so you can even experiment with different sizes without having to spend time refiguring each aspect ratio. Simply input one of the dimensions into the calculator and hit enter and it calculates the other dimension. So simple and so useful. Get it here!

Church Hackers

Blogroll please! You'll notice a new blog on the roll (right side of this page). It's called Church Hackers and it's run by a very good friend of mine named Les Brown. He's got a great big awesome heart for resourcing and equipping people to build Christ's church.

But isn't hacking a bad thing? Not necessarily. Here's how Les explains why he started the blog:

Church Hackers exists to gather and distribute exciting new resources to staff members and volunteers in local churches and ministries all around the world. This site will cover anything from Theology to Technology and everything inbetween.

But what about that name? Why would anyone want to hack a church? Isn’t that illegal or something? Not really. Hackers in the classic sense are those crazy folks out there who like to look behind the scenes to see how things work and try to find better ways to do things. If you’re currently serving a church group or ministry and want to find some newer, possibly better ways of doing God’s work, this is the site for you.

Please let me know how I can serve you. Comment regularly and I’ll respond with articles about the topics people are most interested in.
Thanks…

Les Brown
Editor In Chief
ChurchHackers.com

So go check it out and tell him eleven72 sent you :).

Favorite Super Bowl Commercials

As a filmmaker, I enjoy watching commercials, trying to dissect them and get at what makes the good ones work. So... We all know the SuperBowl is about more than just the big game. It's also about who's got the best commercial. In case you missed some of the commercials or just want to see your favorites again, iFilm has them all posted here.

Here are a couple of my favorites (Let me know what your favorites were):

Made to Stick
(www.madetostick.com)




I just picked up a copy of a book called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. Has anyone out there read it? Here's an excerpt from the jacket:

Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of worthy ideas? In Made to Stick, accomplished educators and idea collectors Chip and Dan Heath tackle head-on these vexing questions. Inside, the brothers Heath reveal the anatomy of ideas that “stick” and explain sure-fire methods for making ideas stickier, such as violating schemas, using the Velcro Theory of Memory, and creating “curiosity gaps.”

The book warns against something the authors call the Curse of Knowledge. Here's how the authors explain the Curse of Knowledge in an interview they did on Guy Kawasaki's blog:

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

I haven't read that far into the book yet, but I know that in the area of evangelism and in how we do church, this Curse of Knowledge thing has a ring of truth to it. I'm all for any tool that can help us better communicate the good news to people who haven't yet heard it or clarify it to people who have heard it but don't yet understand it. I could definitely use help in better communicating some of my ideas, like clearly communicating what we're all about here at eleven72, and why we do what we do.

If you've read the book, please let us know what you thought. If you have any good book recommendations, please let us know what they are. And I'll go ahead and read the book and let you know if it sticks :).

Digging for Fire




Any Pixes fans out there? I've re-christened the eleven72 blog. It shall henceforth be known as "Catch Fire." We've tasted the fire of God's Spirit here lately and we're really praying that the fire will spread. What I mean by that is that we really desire to tell God's story in a way that will set people on fire for the Lord. That will make people hungry for Him. And so, we hope you "Catch Fire."


Free New Worship Backgrounds and Stills




We've got two new Worship Backgrounds and four new Still Backgrounds that we're offering for free on the homepage. Sign up for our newsletter and you'll get a link to download the free videos and stills. If you're already a subscriber, we'll be sending out a newsletter with a link to the free media early next week. Click here to preview the worship backgrounds (Praising Hands and Powerful Worship) and click here to check out the stills (the top four images - really cool urban black and whites).


Backyard Evangelism and Evangelism Statistics




And speaking of new media, we just released our latest Sermon Illustrations, "Backyard Evangelism" and "Evangelism Statistics." There's also an "Evangelism Statistics Countdown." Be sure to check those out.

Fired Up

Found footage! New freebies coming soon!







We've unearthed and rediscovered some exciting footage that we've shot over the last couple of years and it has inspired us to put together an urban series of stills, loops and who knows what else. I'm getting so excited just looking at the footage that I may just pick up my camera right now, head downtown and start shooting.

We've got all this first-rate footage. And even though we shot it in the past, it's like it's brand new again. Time-lapse footage, protest footage, gritty black and white footage. Some of it was used in a documentary we did, some of it was just because we wanted to capture a past event, and some of it was for this cool little black and white short film we did (shot on 16mm B&W film!). Whatever the reason we shot it, we've got it, and pouring over the footage has given us inspiration to create a whole new set of urban mini-movies, loops and stills.

Right now we're working on a new set of free power point still images and free worship background loops that we'll be serving up to all our email subscribers very soon. If you're not currently on our email list, I encourage you to sign up on our homepage before the new stuff goes up. That way, you'll get the free loops and stills we're offering now and you'll get the new free stuff when we send out our newsletter in the next couple of days.

We're really fired up about giving you resources you can use and we're hoping this new urban themed media will help you fire up the people you serve!