little bitty rubber ducks...

little bitty rubber ducks...an explanation of why of why the stage looks so empty.

This was created in September 2009.

i am not normal, i am xtranormal...

shards...

Ah, the hands of the potter...
Jeremiah: fairly simply leap from the potters concept to having a live potter on stage as the creative element.
The potter is a gal I know from another local church, who I met on the Human Trafficking Task Force. Her name is Brittany Tomick. She has been taking a pottery class and agreed to come help us out with this creative piece.


The poem was written in house by Milynda Foushee
 If you would like to see and hear the element, you are able to find it at about min. 52:50 http://www.crosscurrent.org/media_player.asp?messageID=95780

-Shards-
(this is the first draft)
I wanted to spit deep rythms that changed minds
Stare deeply into the pupils of the Word and until I became an eloquent pupil that
Was able to expound on the deep preverbal notions written centuries ago
But I am not that deep
Sorry

When I think about God changing me – I cringe
I cringe at the prospect of God’s hands molding me away from my old ways
Those old, familiar ways
I. Love. Me.
I love the fallacy of me
I love the pain of me
It is familiar
It is love – right?

I can’t live without it
I pray about it night and day “Lord, why in the world did you make me like this?”
And when I breathe…it overcomes my very being
Causing me to believe that I am in the reject pile – usable but just not beautiful
But this is the way that God made me right?

And yet, every time that I call out to Him – He is insistent on changing me
Can’t He just help me without changing me?
He takes this marred pot and begins to shape it into this … this vessel to be used by Him
Doesn’t He know who and what I am –
This marred, broken, bitter, fallen, hurt, ugly, rejected lump
He knows – right?

I try to warn Him
There are shards in this clay – they will cut through your hands like nails
But He keeps pulling and measuring me
Why
Why choose this pain?
Doesn’t He know what this will feel like
Like a crown of thorns on thin skinned flesh
Like a whip that stays on a lover’s back for a few seconds too long
Like death
An ultimate sacrifice paid for a sinner
He is listening – right?

And yet
And yet He lovingly caresses me
Relentlessly pursues perfection in me
Endures the toughness of me
His tears smooth out my rough edges – revealing the true beauty of me
I want to melt in His hands
Be shaped by Him
Molded, caressed, touched, loved by Him
Pulled and measured by Him
He brings friction to my inner most being, causing me to change – sweetly – in the palm of His hand
This is love – right?

When I breathe – His love overcomes my very being
When I pray – I talk intimately with Him “Lord, I can’t believe you made me like this. Beautiful, full of joy, blessed and accepted.”
I can’t live without Him.
I think this is love
I cringe at the prospect of remaining the same as I was
So I surrender all just to be near Him
I love the pain of the molding
I. Love. Him
I am in love with Him
His love is deep and I want to dive in.
Ah Lord
Your love for me rescued me

listening...

simply that.
I am listening...

D4F (Dancing 4 Freedom)

Have you ever had a super ginormous, crazy - hairy idea?
This idea is called “La Casita”; a little house making a big difference.
The idea has been percolating for years now. With a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
Today I’m sharing just one of these pieces.

It’s D4F (Dancing 4 Freedom)

Since I have started to becom educated on the human trafficking problem I have been praying for what “Action Plan” God has for me to do. This is what I have been hearing: start a creative performance arts group focusing on awareness and restoration.
The first part is to develop a dance troupe (and other performance arts) focused on raising awareness of the human trafficking/justice through performance arts show. To bring stories alive. As we progress: offer an opportunity for victims of trafficking to have a creative outlet for their restoration process.
There is a lot more to this adventure. This is just the first step. Stay tuned for more updates.

why, oh why didn't I use spell check?

What do you do when you have created a product (t-shirt) and forgot to use spell check?

Well, you use your noodle!
I have started a store at zazzle.com: httfnva and I am creating t-shirts to raise awareness of the human trafficking issue here in Northern Virginia. ALL proceeds will go towards ending human trafficking here in Northern Virginia.
The first shirt I made I spelled a word wrong. UGH!

Well, this is how I solved the problem; with a sharpie! Not perfect by any means, but hey it works. If they do *ask me, I respond with: "are you more concerned about the typo or about the fact that slavery still exists?"
Now I can wear my shirts without too much embarassment. LOL.
That shirt no longer "exsists" in the httfnva store. There are new ones now. There is one for Northern Virginia, Loudoun County and Fairfax County.
Each has a QR code on the back that leads to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC), run by Polaris Project with the hotline number 1.888.3737.888. I will be adding more as I get a chance.
Now let's see if I have any typos in my blog post.

really, really, really, really, really excited…

Imagine: if you could go anywhere in the world. Where would you go?

We would all have different journeys, with different modes of transportation and steps to arrive at our chosen destination. Some would use their gps, others would use a paper map, some would fly and some would need a passport. Yet all with the same goal of arriving at your destination.

We are about to embark on a journey of abolition; to be the “hands and feet” of God’s people to abolish the heinous problem of human trafficking that is occurring in our back yard here in the D.C. Metro area. There are many pathways or journeys where God will prompt His people.

We are here to travel together, yet each on a unique journey that God has planned specifically for each one of us.
The goal is to ignite passion, create “smart” abolitionists, through awareness/education, networking people together based on where their heart is calling them and then travel into the world with an action plan to abolish human trafficking.

Over the last year, CrossCurrent has been on this journey. This Sunday is historic. We are gathering our people for our first mini-awareness meeting. We will meet from 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. at the “Piano XPress”, 20608 Gordon Park Square, Suite 190 Ashburn, VA 20147

If you can’t attend this first session; then sign up for the next step. We will be hosting two additional awareness trainings specifically designed to increase understanding of how to “see” what is happening in your backyard.

These training dates are:
Sunday, June 26 from 3:00 - 5:00 (location TBD)
Saturday, July 23 from 10:00 - 12:00 (location TBD)
If you would like to join us on this journey, contact me (through fb or the “Designing for Philistines” blogspot and I will give you further information.

Psalms…

Also, through out this series on Psalms, we had various people write their own Psalms. It was truly inspiring.

"tweek three" Isaiah

Today was a lot of fun.  Walked into the middle school with a plan, within minutes I had changed the plan because of various items I saw when I walked in. So here goes, these pics show the progression from week one - this week.
week one

tweek two

tweek three

What changed was a few things. The school where we meet has a great arts program/teacher. One of the projects from last year, was painted benches. Well, for some reason these same benches were displayed in the lobby today when we walked into the school. I looked at them (I love these pieces) and started reading what the students has written on them.

On the Matisse piece was written:
"How can I be useful? of what service can I be?"
"Conscience is a man's compass"
"Happiness is in the joy of achievement"
On the Frank Lloyd Wright piece:
"The things always happens that you really believe in and the belief in a thing makes it happen"
So I decided in an instant to use the pieces on the stage today.
Also in the auditorium, there were two folding tables just leaning up against the stage. Cool. I set them up behind the drummer, covered them in black and started stacking the red tables and lights on them.
That was it.
So this is the overall look achieved this week.

Oh and the message: was on seeking justice. Actually doing something. Greg talked about the human trafficking issue again and we now have a starting plan of action for XC. We challenged people to pray about the issue (dedicated time during the service for that) and to sign-up for further education/awareness on the topic. Which we are having an awareness session next Sunday evening.  We had a lot of people sign-up the week of March 13th. We had many more sign-up today.
That same week in March -  we had people signed cards of petition to be hand carried to our Senators office petitioning to support changes to our state’s laws to criminalize trafficking. To give more teeth to our currents laws. We had about 30 more people sign today.
I am really excited about what happened today, both on stage and in the hearts of people today. A lot has happened in the last year when this topic was first brought up in a message.

seek justice…

Heading back in time again to the week of March 13th week was a whirlwind of last minute changes. I even forget where we were originally were going with our creative element. But it all changed in the blink of an eye.

It started when some of us went to interview (on Friday) with a representative from the International Justice Mission (IJM), which btw, isn’t just international!

We came back to the offices energized and just “happened” (yea, right) to run into the pastor who was teaching that coming Sunday. He was really feeling called to hit hard on the issue of seeking justice. So were we.
We decided to show a video from IJM, which raised awareness on the issue of human trafficking. Then we simply created a call to action table.

 

People signed cards of petition to be hand carried to our Senators office petitioning to support changes to our state’s laws to criminalize trafficking. To give more teeth to our currents laws.

Also we had people who are interested in eliminating the human trafficking issue in our area sign up for further training. We had over 40% of our people sign up.

This was in March. I tell you exciting things are happening. Keep reading to see how all this continues to play out.

heinous act of modern slavery...

"Think slavery ended in 1865? Think again." Believe it or not, modern day slavery exists. Not just overseas, but more than likely in your town. Whether it is domestic slavery, labor or sexual trafficking, it exists.

For the last few months, I have been serving on the Human Trafficking Task Force (httf).
We were tasked by our pastor’s consortium to research and find the gap in our county and to recommend an action plan to address the human trafficking issue in Loudoun County, VA. We did this by:

1. Identify existing organizations in Loudoun and the surrounding areas who are dealing with or have the potential to be dealing with human trafficking on some level
2. Conduct (usually face-to-face) informational interviews with leadership at each of these organizations to identify their awareness level, the strengths of their organization, and the gaps they’ve identified in addressing human trafficking in Loudoun
3. Report on these findings, especially the gaps
4. Brainstorm, based on research, possible recommendations based on findings/gaps

We presented our recommendations to the Loudoun Pastors Consortium yesterday.
This has been an exciting, yet sobering journey. You will see more to come on this issue…

love God, love others, serve the world…

Just a short note to say I love being part of a group of people that seeks to help the lost, the skeptic, and the disenfranchised. We have had prostitutes; one who is now serving as a missionary in China. We have parolee’s; some that have returned to prison that we still minister to. We have our own biker “gang”, who does outreach to prisoners, strippers and many more. This is just a part of who we are.

We are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But there is a true heart of seeking justice.

Submitting ourselves to truly:

no diagonals again...

Well, here is "tweek" two of Isaiah.
Didn't use diagonal hanging again.
We will see what happens for "tweek" three.
I must say I enjoy the effect of the lamps, when the house and bands lights are low.

Here is week one for comparison.

Simple. Acts = Holy Spirit

Completely created with safety pins, fishing line and cloth.

stepping back into winter…

I got sidetracked with blogging stage designs earlier this year. So much going on, but now it’s time to back track and fill in the gaps.
The series was entitled “The Kingdom”. As the story goes: the Israelites wanted God to give them an earthly king. God said “O.k.” Always remember to be careful what you ask/pray for.
The story ambles through the prophet Samuel, King Saul, King David & Absalom and more.
First two weeks of 1st & 2nd Samuel, 1st & 2nd Kings, 1st & 2nd Chronicles stage design are captured here.
Now, the last two weeks.



Within a mini-series, I will often use the same materials. But, particularly since we are a mobile church and load in and out completely each week: I tend to tweak the stage design each week within a series.


The third week’s design focused on remembering to praise God. King David was a man of many faults. But one of the things that defined David as a great leader was he accepted responsibility and remembered to praise God.
For this week, the stage design was a continuation of the crown. We added in a interactive element, where we encouraged people to re-focus on praising God. It was simple. A large piece of foam-core, with sticky notes for people to write on. We also created a space for creative people to draw or write on a large piece of paper taped to the floor. The speaking pastor also used props during his message. I always enjoy that.

Fourth week: the destruction off the Kingdom. The nation of Israel was destroyed, divided.
There seemed to be no choice but the take the crown and literally cut it up into pieces and hung it up again. This set of designs was fun for me creatively. To be able to capture the rise and fall of the nation of Israel through coroplast & cloth was exciting.

Side note: I highly recommend reading “Tale of Three Kings”, A study on brokenness (Gene Edwards). It is an amazing book on brokenness. If you have ever been hurt, broken, shattered by church, you will learn a lot from reading this book.

complete idiot’s guide to fishing line = fiasco

Or literally “oh, snap”.

Most every stage design at XC is created with fishing line, griff clips or safety pins. These are our basic tools.

This week (Isaiah) I asked my husband if I could have “some” fishing line. What he gave me was .009 in. line, which I assume is fly line (use to create fishing lure flies). Well, what I failed to mention was that I needed a heavy test (weight) line. Generally I use 200 lb. plus in stage designing. My bad. Did some shuffling, people were contacted (thank you to some of the manly men at church) and still didn't get what I needed on time.

So the “diagonal” portions of the design didn’t go up this week.

This is what the stage looked like this week.

The lamps and red end tables are from Ikea.

The diagonal pieces are items I got from Starbucks. What you see mid-way in the slide show is from a design last year. They will be used this coming week.

We are in Isaiah for three weeks. I will use variations of this set design for two more weeks.

Lesson Learned: Remember to be more detailed when asking for something.

if you don't get it, you don't get it...

Do you get it?

Fascinating discussion yesterday via facebook message and real time convo about QR (Quick Response) codes. Basically a QR code is a matrix bar coded with information stated by a "link" that can be snapped and captured by a reader (eg. cell phone) to receive information.
It fits right into a theory I developed several years ago. It's a demographic tag that crosses It isn’t defined by age/generation . It is defined by technology and mindset.

GEND Simply stated you either are digitally connected or not. You either get it or you don’t get it. This digitally enhanced/enabled media is re-defining the boundaries on how various social groups and generations interface with each other.
 
So how does play into what I do? The results of polling a multi-generational group (ages 24-54) of about 12 people:  the results showed age had NOTHING to do with who knew about QR codes. The interesting thing was, when it was explained almost everyone knew what we were talking about, they had "seen" it-then they got it.
So we started brainstorming and will are going to use a QR code linked to a message about Ezekiel. What was "seen" by Ezekiel didn't make a lot of sense until you understand what was in the message.
Looking forward to this one.

oh, no...a bikini top

This week is about stage design bloopers. Sometimes you get a lot more than you bargained for when you stand back and look at a stage design.
The scenario: I was producing and the only one working on the stage design. It makes for a very busy Sunday morning.
I quickly put the stage design up. Stood back and someone said "oh, it looks like a bikini top."
Now, in the scope of things a bikini top appearing in the stage design isn't too bad. Just not needed. It could be a distraction for some. So, it was a quick fix. I generally have extra bolts of cloth with me in my car. I just pulled some out, added an extra "swoosh". Problem solved.

Lesson Learned: "Always check with others". I know this one. Been there, done that before. If you've done any design work at all-you know that you have to be on the look out for: how shall I say this delicately? Unintended random body parts.

I think the funniest one was when the initial design looked like an uncircumcised (Philistine) body part. So glad somebody noticed THAT week!

His ways are not our ways...

I recently revealed how much of creative stage design is work and some is just thinking & vapor…
Well this week, I had NOTHING. Absolutely NOTHING. Seriously, I read the appropriate scriptures, studied, prayed, thought...NOTHING.
Finally, I just gave up. That's right. Gave-up. I notified the Sunday morning team, I wouldn't have a stage design and would just be there for church. Hey, it was even Mother's Day. I enjoyed not having to get up at 5:00 to head in for load-in and set-up.
So, I walk into church, sat with my family, worshipped, kicked back to listen to the sermon...
then saw this...

Then I understood. (Sorry the pic to so bad. Used my really old cell phone).

There needed to NOT be a stage design this week. The entire focus was on those five music stands, with the words EVENT, UNDERSTANDING, BELIEFS, ACTION, OUTCOME.

Of course, it fit perfectly with the message. Revealing the Relevant Word: Proverbs.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.

I wish I could say I had the wisdom to understand what was happening beforehand. I didn't. But, I did simply trust. I didn't try to force a stage design. Lesson learned.

blessing of thorns...

A giant stem of a rose, hanging all by itself at the back of the stage and the actually flower of the rose hanging far away, drooping. You call this a blessing?
You want a massive challenge?
At CrossCurrent, we have been reading through the entire Bible in a year.
In our creative process, when we are creating elements for the message each week, we are usually planning at least six weeks out. We agreed to read ahead, keep it up and pray about what we should do for a creative element each week.
May 1st, was Psalms 135-150.
When I was reading the scriptures for this week, I was also doing a little researching online, which I frequently do. Somehow I wound up at my previous denominations website and found a story turned into a drama entitled "Blessing of Thorns"

It just seemed to speak exactly to where David's heart was when he was writing these Psalm's. We didn't so the drama, it is really more of a story built around Thanksgiving; but the thought really worked.
So, this is what I did for the stage this week.

I made a giant rose and leaves out of  red and green tissue paper. Then I took two tubes from wrapping paper, and wrapped green floral tape around then and built in large cardboard thorns along the stem.
It sounded like a simple idea, but man, implementation was lot harder than I expected.
If you care to read the story, this is the link to the pdf online: http://www.discipleshomemissions.org/files/DW-GP-BlessingOfThorns.pdf. It is actually worth the read.
Oh well, live and learn.