creative fuZion lab //28// parting shots...

It's hard to believe, but we are winding down with "parting shots" to our year long series "the Jesus Experiment".

short and sweet...

Worship Set 1
Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee

Welcome & Greet

Worship Set 2
Beautiful One
Only You

Message: was WoW!

Worship Set 3
I Surrender All
Blessed Be Your Name

I must say I am ever so grateful for the gift of faith.

I appreciate all of you who serve week, after week, after week. may your passion be magnified a hundred fold. See other worship recaps at Sunday Set list...

entice the skeptic, challenge the lukewarm and ignite passion in the believer (to go into the world)...

creative fuZion lab //27// learning curve...

The stage design this week was fairly simple for us; again simply using gaffer clips and safety pins. We've got this down.

The newest challenge has been playing with ways to implement additional projections during worship. This definitely doesn't fall within my skill sets. I see it visually, but I have a ton to learn about technical implementation - I am in a steep learning curve right now.

This week we projected crashing waves during one song, and a video of our baptisms during the closing song "Jesus Paid It All". These were last minute additions. The baptism images were really powerful...

Details: We are trying to figure out what to project the images on; since we aren't at a point of buying a second projection screen. One week we tried just projecting straight onto the black curtain, looked nice but not enough contrast. We also tried projecting onto a white (curtain) hung on the back curtain. I'm really not happy with the effect yet. Still thinking and I am open to suggestions.

volunteers rock!!!!

TONS of tech issues and last minutes additions by the pastoral staff this week. I stepped into the producer role late this week and let me tell you, I simply can not say enough about the awesome weekend experience volunteers at our church. A lot of these people log in 15-25 hours a week, every single week. They stepped up and made everything happen.
School is about to start here so we had to do a complete load out this weekend. Afterwards several people jumped in to help.
OMGoodness, huge hugs to everyone!

Worship Set 1
Our Love Is Loud
Unchanging

Worship Set 2
I Will Exalt You (see below)
We Are Hungry

The newest Hillsong cd Faith + Hope + Love was released on August 4th and I got to hear Brooke sing "I Will Exalt You" live August 5th. Amazing! Also got to hear her at a couple of breakout sessions; she is so humble.

I Will Exalt You - Hillsong from Carlos Whittaker on Vimeo.

Worship Set 3
Jesus Paid it All (with a back ground video of the baptisms from last Sunday)

Have you heard Faith + Hope + Love? Tell me what you think of "I Will Exalt You"...

This is part of Sunday Set List blog carnival at Fred McKinnon's blog.

between a rock and a hard place...

I am producing this weekend. One of the responsibilities of the producer is to sit down at 10:00 with the people serving on the weekend and do a devotion.
I've been thinking and praying for two days (when I found out I was going to produce) about what to share this morning...
I woke up this morning thinking about the parable of the sower.
see, hear, smell, touch, tasting...
take away...


parable of the sower
Matthew 13
The Parable of the Sower
1 That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. 2 Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. 3 Then he told them many things in parables, saying: "A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 He who has ears, let him hear."
10 The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?"

11 He replied, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 13 This is why I speak to them in parables:
"Though seeing, they do not see;
though hearing, they do not hear or understand. 14 In them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah:
" 'You will be ever hearing but never understanding;
you will be ever seeing but never perceiving.
15 For this people's heart has become calloused;
they hardly hear with their ears,
and they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts
and turn, and I would heal them.'[a] 16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. 17 For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.

18 "Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19 When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20 The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21 But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. 22 The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. 23 But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

creative fuZion lab //26// designing with a basketball hoop...

Seriously. I never in a million years would have though that I would be doing a stage design on a basketball hoop. Well, this week that is exactly what I did.
This was a baptism Sunday and since we are a mobile church we rented space from a retreat facility nearby. The venue was an outdoor pavilion/basketball court. The baptisms were done in the pool.
I hadn't seen the venue until I arrived Sunday morning. When we arrived for set-up, people were pitching in getting everything ready. I kept seeing the basketball hoop and thinking "ugh!".
Luckily, thankfully, sadly...I had several bolts of cloth in my vehicle. So we just started throwing the cloth on the basketball hoop and moving it around with the percussionist's rain stick until it looked decent. For a basketball hoop... Didn't use one safety pin. LOL!
We worshiped, did the baptism and had a super great cook-out wih games and activities for everyone. Over a dozen people of all ages were baptised this week. What a great week!

creative fuZion lab //25// the art of using a safety pin to implement stage design...

I use a tag line all the time that the only thing you need to be able to do to serve on the ENHANCE team, is to be able to operate a safety pin. And I am serious.
Most everything I do is created with the use of safety pins and gaffer clips. I realized that it may not make sense, so I thought I'd try to visually explain how I think in designing a set.
First I see I design. Then I figure out where to place safety pins to create the desired effect.
Here is
Restart the slide show below. You will first see the stage design that was created, then you will see closer shots of where the safety pins were placed.
I've added notes to the slides how. Hopefully it will make sense.
It really is very easy to do. You may need to link to Picassa to see it.



Now, I'm off to the WAVE worship leader conference in Virginia Beach, Virgina today...
Mr. Linky isn't linking again...ugh!!!

retro Sunday...

Kind of a retro Sunday today. This month we are concluding a year long series the “Jesus Experiment”. So I was going retro to the stage set we did when we started the series. Here...

But the stage design kind of exploded when we were doing set up yesterday. Cool. Which is also what sort of happened in worship today.

Particularly "Hungry" was off the charts. It was done with a Fleetwood Mac feel.

Worship Set 1
Fields of Grace
Happy Day

Welcome & Greet / Announcements
Highlight - Baby Dedications (Yippee!)

Worship Set 2
Hungry
Message: David Nicotra (our summer youth pastor intern gave the message today) He spoke about the responsibility of the body.

Special Song
Can Anybody Hear Her? (WoW!)

Worship Set 3
The Wonderful Cross
Happy Day

Loads of technical issues this weekend. We are seriously thinking about our worship presentation software. So many issues since we downloaded the newest version.

I also thought I’d include a vid that we did a few weeks ago, since they are never posted on Sunday. We have an awesome media and drama team.

This is church? You bet it is…

And since it is summer we get a little bit of a break and don't have to completely break down everything each week. Here is what the stage looked like when we left.

Yep, I love what I do... How about you?

Join other worship leaders (and others) at the Sunday Setlist Blog Carnival on Fred McKinnon's blog. See what happened in worship today in His church!