djembes, waterdrums, drumlines and STOMP...

“Mercy in the Middle” – accapella w/ djembes, it is an awesome accapella song-

I see as many djembes and percussion players as we are able to get. Have the djembes, space through out the auditorium. All playing together.

waterdrums..not the best I've heard but you will get the idea (only the beginning).

Then there are drums,
drumline at Willow Creek Arise Conference

and last, but definitely not least STOMP...

and...

Would love to do an enitre service with only percussion instruments.
But, hey thats me...

while I am talking about graffiti artists….

If it is possible…
I’d love to have a "live" graffiti painting session going on while pastor is preaching…
that's if we could do it with our 90 minute (oos) time constraint and handle the "smellement" issue...
graffiti gospel

Got it: shout out to Bill's brain...
Got some of the technicalities of the smellement worked out. We are having an outside service in August...

imperfect church…

ongoing staging for series idea…
(see marked by Christ…)

Same concept of painting on floating plexiglass…
But using the tagline for XC…

imperfect church…
be safe, be real, be changed…

Either paint (guel being the artist again!) these taglines on plexiglass and/or paint them on a cloth banner. Even using mixed media…
I see a thin, long vertical (say 4’ x 25’) cloth banner, with the letters scrolling down vertically…

i
m
p
e
r
f
e
c
t

c
h
u
r
c
h

with the excess cloth pooling or red carpeting out across the stage perpendicularly...
then each of the “be safe”, be real”, “be changed” tags being done separately on 3’ x 5’ plexigalass, so that they could be used independently for various series.

This will also help “brand” our tagline…

marked by Christ…

this idea originated by thinking up ideas for a message called “Marked by Christ” stories of transformation found in the tattoos of believers…

Think LAInked live:

stage design:
Would love to have a mad skilz artist (like Guel) paint mad tight tats on thin gauged 3’ x 5’ rectangles of plexiglas…
-these would be hung at different depths and heights on the stage.
-maybe even one in washable paint on the drum cage…
-how cool would it be to actually have a live tattoo artist set up on stage…

Interactive stations/take away:
-tat stations: either/or people could go to stations and get the little cheesy rub tats
- tattoo themselves (or artist do it) with sharpies)
- or henna tattoo stations.

entice the skeptics, challenge the lukewarm and thrill the believers...

There is an ongoing battle of how we design worship elements and who our target is I hear it being played out all over the blogsphere and at my church...

It's an ongoing battle between what I call the "holy" line of thought process vs. and designing for Philistines (skeptics)...

From the "holy" camp...

Interestingly, our church doesn't do the seeker thing. I sort of worried about it at first, but our leadership explained that "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto myself..." and they don't worry about the seeker thing. They got that philosophy from a reliable source, by the way...

If we design from our hearts (read what we like) then God changes those who come..

from the "designing for Philistines" point of view...

I personally strive to: design to glorify God, design to entice the skeptics, challenge the lukewarm and thrill the believers... in that order.

My question for every camp, is it working for you...
Whatever pov camp you come from...are people becoming followers of Christ or are you just attracting other Christians from other churches...

I'll say it, because I know some of you are thinking...

No, this isn't about designing Christian "lite" worship elements...you still have to be uncompromising in sharing God's word and truth!

To all I say, design to glorify God, design to entice the skeptics, challenge the lukewarm and thrill the believers...

Yes, it's true, BUT...Jesus hung out at the wells. If Jesus was walking around metro DC these days I know I would hear him say...the other day I was hanging out at ______ (a gay bar)

As one person said: "As a pastor it is sometimes all too easy to think that I am actually important to God’s church when the reality is God could quite easily get the job done without my help. In fact,God may be a lot more effective with me out the way which is humbling to say the least. "

why designing for Philistines...

why designing for Philistines?

I thought I had explained my thought process behind designing for Philistines and I didn't. Doh!
What happened I started blogging when it occured to me couple major running themes going on in my blog…

1. The biggest one being that:
I am a freaky designer of cutting edge and relevant (read something relevant to people after Jimmy Hendrix, Prince, the Spice Girls and after 9/11)
5S (using all 5 senses)
experiential worship elements...
I am obsessed with this concept. I spend hours and hours research, searching youtube and such.

2. AND I REALLY dislike terms like “seeker” and “lost”, unless you are referring to the t.v. show. I find them extremely condescending and churchy sounding and actually so do they.
Why Philistines? It’s all Jon - of scl fame’s fault…he’s one of my fav (and prolific) bloggers. In his post "Calling People Seekers" – he discusses what “we” Christians call “people who do not go to church”. It really resonated with what I have been feeling for a long time AND from what I hear from those wonderful “people who do not go to church”.

3. I spend a lot of time with those who hang out at the well (read: people who do not go to church), and I love them to pieces. Those are the people who I feel compelled to design for. I want them to get a chance to know this guy named Jesus.

I have tried to find an online community that is like minded and have not been able to find one, so I decided to start one.
This blog is geared to researching, designing and implementing culturally relevant elements for worship. I may be blogging for myself, then again there may be 17 more people like me out there in the blogsphere who are “seeking” this type of information.

We will see. So welcome...
this is designing for Philistines...

fuZe…

Had such a blast last night (and today) at our fuze team major blow out planning session.
We are starting to plan out a major 58 week series on the life of Jesus. Sweet. All the major teams were represented. Drama, dance, multi-media, creative writing, pPod (experiential worship and stage design), teachers, worship team, producers, pastor, past and present and even a visitor from another church.
It was mad wicked fun planning with all sorts of various elements.

We started out last night by spending about three hours interspersing worship, prayer and taking turns reading through the gospel of Mark aloud. It was so much fun, and very interesting to hear different versions of the Word being spoken aloud, by a wide variety of personalities. We even had a major crack up session over the passages Mark 8:13-22. Viqui read her passage from the Good New Bible. (Sorry, the closest I could find was the Living Bible)…

The disciples had forgotten to stock up on food before they left,

and had only one loaf of bread in the boat.
As they were crossing, Jesus said to them very solemnly,

“Beware of the yeast of King Herod and of the Pharisees.”
“What does He mean?” the disciples asked each other.

They finally decided He must be talking about their forgetting to bring bread.

Jesus realized what they were discussing and said

“No, that isn’t it at all. Can’t you understand?”…

Jesus goes on to remind them of the two miracles

He had recently performed with loves and fishes…

Now, I realize this is probably one of those “you had to have been there” moments, but the way it was read, you could just hear Jesus trying really hard to not say “duh!” We started cracking up. Literally lol!

Anyway, to make a long story short(er) we already do a lot of “spoken word” at XC; but we decided that we really needed to read major chunks of the gospels through out the series. 58 weeks…that could add up to a whole lot of God’s word straight up and unadulterated. And we all are flat out fired up about it.

I’m excited to start sharing more as we process the notes from the retreat..

legend of the dancing goats...

I didn't write this. I am not sure where I found this, or I would give credit where credit is due...
Someday I will share the story I wrote entitled "Legend of the Dancing Goats"...
Anyway here goes...
I am a pretty avid coffee consumer.
I absolutely love a cup of coffee in the morning, mid day, and sometimes in the evening, too.
I’ve been kidded a great deal about my “addiction” to coffee for years now. If you are one who gets a lot of flack for the amount of coffee you consume like me there is hope!
I came across a story awhile back which describes how coffee can aid in your pursuit of God…no really! His story goes something like this:
There was once a goatherd who noticed that his goats had become increasingly jumpy and jittery. Upon further investigation, he discovered that they were consuming a shiny red berry so he took some and brought it to the monks.
The monks then examined the berry and during their investigation, they discovered that if it was roasted it gave off an invigorating aroma. In addition, when they put the hard berries in water to cool it created a very tasty warm beverage. They then discovered that if you enjoyed this new-found delight, it provided a boost to one’s alertness.
Being astute studiers of the Scriptures, they then began to enjoy this new “gift-from-God” whenever they grew sleepy from their intense studies in the Scriptures which, in turn, allowed them to study even more of God’s Holy Word!
Okay, okay…so it may not be completely true, but it does make for great conversation…over a cup of coffee.

digitally divided generations...

I read some interesting research today on defining the "age based/generational group": Millennials.

I really liked the comment on how today's youth see "being connected" is like air. Take it away from them (ipod, cell phone, web) and they can't live.

For years, I have seen this trend developing trend and I think researchers are missing it. I see this digital split occurring across every single recent "age based/generational" grouping.

See, the greatest phenomenon that is influencing today’s generations is ""digitally enabled/enhanced media". Think: cell phones, laptops/computers, iPods, facebok, youtube, blogging, twitter, digg). This "digitally enhanced/enabled media" is re-defining the boundaries on how various social groups and generations interface with each other: on some very basic levels, i.e. general preferences in lifestyle, communication (and for us worship) environments. A new syntax (language) of interconnectivity has evolved. And this is giving rise to a "digitally divided non-generational based" bracket.

What I think is missing is, researchers continually keep trying to define everything by old paradigms: "age/generational" groups. I feel there is a huge developing paradigm shift. Researchers seem to be missing that point.

I've been call this newly evolving group GEND (Digital Generation).

For example: this "digital division" recently cropped up during our creative team for worship design last week. The fuZe team designs and implements the creative/experiential elements for worship. We were looking at how people perceive God. (this is in a series on Revelation. This specific week is God revealed in Revelation).

• The idea we went with is God's facebook.
• The reactions were almost equally divided across each "age/generational" group.
• It divided out this way...
• Three 20/30 somethings, one 40 something and one 50 something: thought it was sick and culturally relevant...
• Four 20/30 somethings, one 40 something and one 50 something: hated it...

One of the 40 somethings even went as far as to state that facebook was an ego based popularity contest...Wow! I felt like I was fighting a losing battle. Can you imagine how misunderstood a "digitally enhanced/enabled media" skeptic would feel.

Personally I think a wise research company should hire me (since it seems to be my idea totally) to test out this theory. Talk about ground breaking...

Does anyone else get my thought process?

my first submission to Creative Chaos @ http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/?p=5441

05/04/08 'Getting Eaten By Whales is Bad For Your Health"

hear it, smell it, feel it…

I have been trying to implement 5S (5 senses) experiential design into our elements.
This was an ambiance set-up for worship for May 4th. Breaking it down:

1. The tech team played a long mp3 of the ocean, waves crashing etc., in lieu of the pre-service music. (link here to hear it)…to build the feeling of being at the ocean.

2. CANCELLED: Smell of the ocean. We were going to order simmering oils andl use warming plates to heat it and oscillating fans to disperse.
We did a tremendous amount of research into this project. Ran across a lot of difficulties implementing the scent element. Going into a lot more detail in scent machines...

3. Fans used to create the wind effect.

4. We had talked about adding some machines that cast waves like images on the walls of the auditorium. Sort of like the ones used in children’s rooms; that cast images. It didn't pan out. Went with a simple ocean wave projection on the screen. (here)


5. Since the wave images aren't going well. We decided to try to "invoke wave images" like the red material in this Paula Abdul video… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TN5umzSnFU&feature=related . First we tried taking large osilating fans and attaching blue cloth to create a flowing length of blue cloth. Need more industrial strength fans.
So we wound up standing on chairs behind the stage curtains and waving the cloths by hand. It looked way cooler than the pictures could capture.

Originally posted at CruX-the heart of the matter.

notes to self: gcc wired...

to extrapolate from in the future...
David S. could easily do this..



Mario live...

Not GCC
In the game "Halo:




GCC red letters..couple this with scrolling lettered scriptures



GCC management style w/ barbie dolls lol



If we are going to go '80's let really go all out..



on prayer...



volunteer

fuZe...

fuZe (creative team worship design) at XC is having a retreat June 27 and 28 at the Sanctuary.
.

soak logo...

vicar of vibe speaks on a spirtual tsunami...

I’m starting to feel that worship planning works like developing weather patterns & I personally feel a spiiritual/worship tsunami emerging across the nation.
For several months now, our team has been pushing design elements with that acoustic feel.
Intentionally creating a worship space that is safe, authentic and breaks down the worldly barriers we all enter with.
We have all personally expressed a desire for a more profound worship experience, where we feel we are able to drop our worldly masks and follow God’s prompting during worship.
Our “Reveal Survey" results show that a huge majority of people at XC are hungry for a deeper more intimate worship experience. People are searching for that genuine space dedicated to worship.
I probably track 50+ various blogs, websites that deal with worship design. I am seeing more and more churches pressing for a deeper worship experience, an extended time of simply worshipping.
A desire for softer, more intimate, “be still” time with our Father.

A few thoughts:

• Space: It’s harder to reach that space if all the house lights and stage lights are blaringly white
• Freedom of release: People need to know that it is o.k., to react to how they are feeling, i.e. raising hands, kneeling down, lying prostrate
• Focus: On God, not the worship team
• Continuity: Need to provide an extended worship set; that doesn’t start and stop. Imagine taking a nice hot shower, then getting hit with cold water. When you break up the music too much, that is the effect it has on worship.
• Music: Insure that all the music is about God (not about us), that the words praise Him and His attributes.

Are we feeling this tsunami as worship designers? Are we actively throwing off the shackles of “this is how we have always done worship”? Are we personally seeking a more intimate worship experience? Are we designing to allow others to spend more time simply worshipping? People are yearning, they want to be immersed in God. Their hearts are crying out for something that is authentic, deep rooted, intense.
Let’s not let them (or God) down.

God's facebook page...

for the upcoming series "Revelation Reflections" the fuzion team has decided to do an element where we are going to create God's facebook page...

As we get a little closer, I'll throw the link up.

Thoughts swirling around at the moment...

His full name (God Almighty)

He will have the default non-picture question mark...

Are you a friend of God's...

Seeing if you have friends in common...

What applications would God use?

rss feed: blog links...

What would happen if you 'poked' God?

anything short of sin...

great promo, great series title...

cardboard testimony...

cardboard testimonies...

what is your cardboard testimony?

tattooed, pierced, disenfranchised ...

God calls me...

He calls me to journey along with the skepics.

I hang out at Starbucks and become friends with the tattooed, the pierced, the disenfranchised.

The skeptic, the Muslims, the unincorporated Christians. The ones that believe there is no God, but they profess belief in pirates and flying spagetti monsters...

God has a great sense of humor..why would He call me, this little old fluffy lady to walk in this hurting world. Mine is not to ask "why?"

All I know is that He loves them and I love them and am honored to walk with them as they explore their spiritual journey.

(When I find where I first located this tat/picture, I will give credit...)

10 commandments prop/skit...

we took this image and blew it up in high res to about a 4' x4' image on multiple shhets. Cut it out. Attached it to cardboard and thin pvc sheets (for stability) and then simply stuck it on a box.

It was the main prop for the "The Ultimate 10 Commandments Cheer" which was hyterical.

To see the skit go to Cross Current messages:
scroll down to 03.30.2008 - 04.27.2008: The Best of the bible RE:Mix
click on availible messages
then 04.26.2008: Drama - The ultimate 10 Commandments Cheer
and click "watch"

I promise it is worth going through all the hassles of getting there.

disclaimer: please don't look at our website, we are in the middle of redesigning it, upto and including having our dramas and videos posted on youtube.

soak...(Part 2 - frustrations)

Soak – Fuzion Lab

Part of my frustration level is, I feel there is a definitive barrier that separates the “old team family” vs. the new blood that they have been praying for.
I teased that they have been praying for specific people and God answered by sending this new blood and they don’t know what to do with them, can’t see them or don’t trust them.
There is a definitive ‘line of trust’, where you have to prove yourself…

Interesting, last night I threw out the thought I’ve been working on concept of the fuzion creative arts
Now, understand that I am not saying I am all that…
But, you think someone from the ‘family’ (with vision and foresight) would have picked up on it and said “That’s amazing, we’ve been talking about that and you have been designing one…maybe we should include you in the process…”

Hearing what people are saying and connecting the dots…

I’m very used to lighting a fire under the established the thought process to implement ideas from underneath. I don’t care about the credit,
I also understand that they don’t know my thought process. When I say “I’ve been thinking about it…” it means that I have planned the various conference tracks, the design on the weekend and the marketing approach.

I’ll just keep pluggin’ away, throwing ideas uphill, maybe eventually I’ll be able to break through the glass ceiling.

Keep reading for the idea...