Happy Birthday America

I know the 4th is still a few days away, but I wanted to send out this birthday greeting. What a blessing to live in a country where we are free to worship God and to follow after Christ. It's my prayer that we would take advantage of that freedom and allow God to work in and through us to reach people with His life changing message of true freedom. The freedom found only in putting your life fully and completely in the hands of Christ.

We have some great 4th of July resources on our Seasonal Tab. Jump over there and check them out. We made a 4th friendly version of our very popular For Freedom video and we've also got a couple of great countdowns for your 4th of July festivities. Click here to peruse our 4th collection. We hope you find something you can use.

I'm going out of town next week, so keep an eye out for some brilliant blog posts from my partner Lee. I'm retreating to the mountains of New Mexico and will be without an internet connection. Although I'll be spending time with family, I also hope to find time to connect more deeply with God in His beautiful creation.

Happy 4th and God Bless!

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

Beginning and Developing Your Church’s Media Ministry - Pt. 1

Greg Atkinson of Church Video Ideas is writing a 3 part series of articles for a great blog called Monday Morning Insight. The series is entitled "Beginning and Developing Your Church's Media Ministry" and Pt. 1 is up today. I just read it and I think it will be a great resource for those of you out there who are just wading into starting this thing called Media Ministry at your church. Greg has tons of experience with Media Ministry, he's on staff leading a Media Ministry at a church in Dallas, he used to be on staff with Worship House Media, and before that he was a Worship Leader. Not to mention he is in demand and travels the country speaking and teaching about Media Ministry at a lot of the big ministry conferences. This first article has a lot of good, practical advice about making sure to lay a firm foundation with regards to starting your Media Ministry. Seeking the Lord. Setting it up right. And always remembering that it is a ministry and that it needs to have Christ as its center. But enough from me. Click here and read it yourself.

Video Projector as Bright as the Sun :)

Sanyo debuts "world's brightest" PLC-XF47 and PLC-XP100L projectors

Check this projector out. 15,000 lumens. If you get hit by the beam, will you get burned :)? This could definitely overcome those bright ambient environments. It also features wireless HD streaming. Pretty cool. The price tag ($30,000) puts it out of reach for most of us mere mortals, but hopefully this signals brighter and cheaper projectors to come. It would be great to finally have some affordable projectors that are bright enough to work well in the environments that smaller churches have to deal with. High school cafeterias, rooms with big windows, etc.

Here's the review written up by engadget:

Sanyo's got some high claims here, boasting of the "world's highest light output" on its new 15,000 lumen PLC-XF47 projector (pictured), and the "brightest portable LCD projector" in its 6500 lumen PLC-XP100L. Both projectors feature 2000:1 contrast ratios and inputs aplenty. It's not just the lamps getting fancy here, Sanyo has packed wireless HD streaming into its PLC-XF47, which can do uncompressed 720p and 1080i video up to 100 feet away with less than a millisecond of latency. The resolution is a mere 1024 x 768, so super HD cinema is a bit of a non-starter, and the $30k pricetag is always a turnoff, but if you need this kind of muscle behind a projector, we're guessing you'll figure out a way to scrounge up the cash. The PCL-XP100L matches the resolution, but thirds the pricetag, at $10k. The PLC-XF47 will be out in October, preceeded by the PLC-XP100L in September. If all of this is just too much for you, Sanyo also has the PDG-DXT10L coming in September for $7k and featuring 5200 lumens and a 2100:1 contrast ratio.

Zentation

Zentation is a cool new web tool that makes it easy to synch video to powerpoint presentations. In our world that means it would be really easy for you to put your sermons/messages online and display both the video of the pastor speaking and his powerpoint in the same web browser window. And right now Zentation is in beta and available for free. I don't know if I'm making sense. Hit this link and go on over to the Zentation site to have a look. It will all make sense there. Thanks to Blake Atwood at the BetaChurch blog for the info on this. I think Zentation could be a really good fit for churches looking for an inexpensive way to get their sermons up on the web.

National Worship Leader Conference

Have I told you that Lee and I are presenting a couple of sessions/workshops/whatchamacallits at Worship Leader Magazines' National Worship Leader Conference? It's true, we are. You can scroll down through all the presenters to see our ugly mugs and bios here. That proves it.

Seriously, though. We are honored to have been asked/invited by Worship House Media to present a couple of sessions at the conference. We're calling our session "Stop Substance Abuse: Make Your Media Matter." The basic message will be style over substance. We'll be talking and having a dialogue about using all the media in your service to support the overall theme. How all of your media can work together to set up and support the message that the pastor has for everyone. We've got a basic outline, but we're still working on the details. Whatever happens, I know it's going to be a lot of fun and I can't wait.

The conference is July 23-26th right here in river city. That's right here in Austin, TX, where we live and love and play. We're looking forward to having such a great event right here in our hometown. And we're really really excited that we get to be a part of it. If you're going to be in Austin for the conference, let us know. We would love to have a chance to meet any and all the folks who happen by this blog and who happen to be coming to the conference.

For more information on the conference, click here to go to their site.

Music Videos

Shooting the Better Off Rock'd show made me remember how much I want to do another music video. I worked on a couple of videos for a band called Slider's Fault a while back. Here's one I Directed. I'd love to know what you think. I'm looking forward to a time when I get to Direct my next one :). If you've Directed or crewed on a music video or have a favorite, send me a link so I can check it out. In the meantime, enjoy Last Call For Sympathy by Sliders Fault:



Here's a link for feed readers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PqJs-6nIw

Two Great Short Films

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.

Better Off Rock'd

Backstage for Better Off Rock'd. I'm hanging out backstage at La Zona Rosa here in Austin, TX. I'm waiting for things to pick up, shooting some video here and there and anticipating a great show and a great night. I've been asked by my good friend Eric Klein to shoot highlights of the first ever Better Off Rock'd shows. Tonight we're here in Austin and tomorrow night we're at the Ridglea Theater in Ft. Worth, TX.

The lineup includes some really great Christian bands. Seventh Day Slumber, Everyday Sunday, Stephen Speaks and Nevertheless. I'm really excited. And it should be a great night. If you happen to be in Austin or Ft. Worth, you should come out and check things out. Nevertheless is coming in now to do a sound check, so I better run to get some footage.

The proceeds for the Better Off Rock'd shows go to benefit suicide prevention. It's a great cause. Check out the Better Off Rock'd myspace page for more info.

Evan Almighty Screening

Thanks to Grace Hill Media and Universal, Lee and I were able to attend an advanced screening of Evan Almighty last night. I could definitely pick some theological bones with the filmmakers, but overall we really enjoyed it.

The film, if you haven't heard, is essentially Bruce Almighty II. This time around, the story focuses on Evan Baxter, who was the co-anchor in Bruce Almighty that acted as a thorn in Bruce's side. In this go round, Evan gets elected to Congress on the broad campaign promise to "change the world." Desperate to succeed in this new office, Evan figures it can't hurt to pray about it. But, of course, he doesn't know what he's asking for. In answer to Evan's prayer that God help him "change the world," God gives Evan the job of building an Ark ala Genesis 6:14. I won't spoil it with any further explanation. Suffice it to say, Steve Carrell gives a funny, touching, fantastic performance and the supporting cast is equally great.

For me, the film succeeds, in spite of missing it on some Christian doctrinal issues, because it tackles the big concept of faith and following God. And in doing that, it can't help but hit at the truth sometimes. And when it does it makes you smile, it makes you laugh, and it even makes you think.

So I'd recommend checking it out when it hits the theaters in a couple of weeks. It's a great date night kind of a flick.

If You Can't Say Something Nice...

My father used to tell me, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." That may be over simplifying things, but in light of some of the criticism I see flying around in Christian circles, I think it's something we need to think about. There is a disturbing trend in culture that I see infecting us as Christians. It's this need to be critical, to tear people down, to be just downright mean. In our space it shows up in the comments and reviews left about videos on sites like SermonSpice and WorshipHouse. People going as far as to say things like, "there's a reason why it's free." And here are a couple of comments pulled off WorshipHouse... "pretty lousy." That was all they said. This one might be the worst I've seen: "Really stupid. Not deep, not funny, just stupid.." And here's my favorite comment that one of our videos has received, "Nice concept, but it's been done. And better. By others." By who? When? What am I supposed to do with that?

This is just a small sample of the comments out there. You can surf around and see them for your self. I'm not trying to whine or cry about it. I just think we need to have a frank and open conversation about this. Why do we, as Christians feel a need to tear down these films and videos (and here's the important part) without offering anything constructive to put in their place. Let me explain what I mean by way of a C.S. Lewis quote. Everybody loves Lewis, right? Once, when Lewis was criticized for oversimplifying the Gospel, he responded to his critic:

[He] would be a more helpful critic if he advised a cure as well
as asserting many diseases. How does he himself do such
work? What methods, and with what success, does he employ
when he is trying to convert the great mass of storekeepers,
lawyers, realtors, morticians, policemen and artisans who surround
him in his own city?

All I'm saying is that if we feel the need to say something, and sometimes something needs to be said, let's be sure we're coming at it with a spirit of wanting to help, to encourage, to see our criticism used to further God's Kingdom and not just to tear down. And if we don't have anything helpful or constructive to offer, then why say anything at all?

Ya feel me?