Our next Agape is right around the corner, and this one is going to be amazing.
For those of you who don’t know, Agape is a worship concert we have about every quarter. It’s a creative worship environment with different elements, videos, communion, readings, etc.
So this next one (August 3rd) is going to be very cool because we’ve got the worship band from Gateway Church (Dallas) coming in for it. If you haven’t heard these guys you need to, they are amazing. They’ve just released their second live album and its smokin.’
Here’s the art Jeff worked up for the night. I’m diggin’ the pink.
Edging your lawn is a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of lawn maintenance, but it’s that one little thing that makes all the difference in how great your yard looks. It’s the difference between a “nice” lawn and a “well-manicured” lawn… which is a BIG difference. It’s an easy step to skip and no one is going to look down on you for skipping out it (depending on the neighborhood of course). But it’s that extra step that makes your lawn pop.
We have opportunities every day to put that little extra into everything we do. That small detail that most would overlook that takes us to the next level in excellence. It’s amazing how much the small things, I mean tiny, can make or break a design, a video, a sermon or anything else for that matter. A tiny detail, and not just any detail, but the one that is above and beyond.
These little extras are gonna take more time, but in the end its totally worth it. For me, it also means that I’m gonna need to start every project earlier. I know the rest of you aren’t like this (ha) but it’s an every week thing for me to skip these small things simply because I’ve waited till the last minute to work on my project. So I’m doing good just to crank it out, forget the polishing.
It’s these small things that set us apart. I believe the church should be the most creative and excellent place on the planet, we won’t get there by dodging the details. It’s the persistence of the details that equal greatness, not one great act.
Behance is one of my favorite sites. They’re all about creativity and productivity, and those are two things I always need more of in my life. Last week I ordered a new Action Pad Mini, I’ve been using the Action Book for a while now and I thought I’d give the Mini a try. I got the package on Saturday, and when I opened it there was a little card with random tips for creativity & productivity (one of the many reasons I love those guys). So I thought I’d share them. You can learn tons just from title, but each tip is the title of an article on their site. So don’t stop with just these titles, take the next step, read the article, you won’t be sorry.
We started a series on Easter called Dust. The series concept was simple, follow Jesus so closely that your covered in the dust of his feet. Pastor talked a lot about passion, liking that to the dust we gather. So in keeping with the theme of the series we wanted to actually walk where he walked. So in January, a handful of us made a whirlwind trip to Israel solely for the purpose of shooting video for this series. When I say whirlwind I mean it. We left Sunday after the last service and got back that very next Saturday. About 3 days of flying and 4 on the ground… roughly. It was nuts. Needless to say we hit the ground running. We captured enough content for half a dozen or so video illustrations to use during the series.
It was a 1-camera shoot using our Sony Z1U, which we also used for all the b-roll. Each week we used at least one clip to supplement the message. Here are a couple of them, I’ll probably share the others in time.
This one is from Capernaum…
This one is from the Galilee…
You can watch the bumper here. Also, you can watch these in HD here.
If you haven’t seen Wordle yet you need to check it out, its a new website that lets you create fun little word clouds. I created the one above real quick using random things about my life just to test it out. I ran across this other one that is the names of the best movie directors of all time. Which I think would make a very cool print for my wall. Click the images to enlarge them. The more times you list a word, the bigger it will appear in the cloud. If you create any cool ones, post the url in the comments, I’d love to see them.
I’m a big fan of Spike Jonze, I think he’s extremely quirky and original. I ran across his ‘97 short film ‘How They Get There’ and I thought it was pretty clever. Spike Jonze was the guy who directed ‘Being John Malkovich,’ which is a pretty great movie, plus he directed Fatboy Slim’s hilarious music video to ‘Praise You.’ He’s in production right now on next years ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ which I’m stoked about because that was my favorite book as a kid, and I think he’ll do a great job (even though I’ve read there’s was a little drama on set).
Back to this film. I think its really great, he accomplishes quite a bit in 2 minutes, without any dialogue, and nice pacing. It’s a complete story, beginning, middle, and end. Take a couple of minutes and watch it.
Edging your lawn is a pretty small thing in the grand scheme of lawn maintenance, but it’s that one little thing that makes all the difference in how great your yard looks. It’s the difference between a “nice” lawn and a “well-manicured” lawn… which is a BIG difference. It’s an easy step to skip and no one is going to look down on you for skipping out it (depending on the neighborhood of course). But it’s that extra step that makes your lawn pop.
