like a kid in a candy store...

Out of the blue...

I've been dreaming and praying about massive projections for almost two years now. It's where huge designs are projected across an expanse of a wall or building.

I was inspired by Visual Worshiper. You should check out their gallery.

We created some really small versions of the projection concept, like clouds on the ceiling and stained glass windows, backgrounds for dramas and logos. The equipment for massive projections is just beyond our financial means. We have been working with two small projectors.

Well, God has been answering our prayers and is bringing us an influx of volunteers. Yippee!

And would you believe one of the people stepping up does this projection stuff for his job.

We will have access to borrow massive projectors for a weekend and/or rent at a substantial savings!!!

Several of the techie guys (love my media techies) have loved the concept all along. Bill shared this last nightfrom Nuformer Projections. They do 3D projections. Can you just imagine the possibilities? Watch and be amazed.

Projection on Buildings from NuFormer Projection on Vimeo.

Obviously it is going to take a little time to work the details out, but I would LOVE to be able to do some spectacular massive projection at the beginning of the fall series. We are ready to rock and roll!

Thinking, thinking, thinking!

I love prayer! I LML! I love what I do!

Isn't God awesome!

return to ancient days...

The last three weeks, we have engaged in ancient/modern worship practices. It was actually pretty interesting.
Synopsis: Serious Christians talk often about following Jesus the way that the Early Church did. We seem to think that the earliest followers of Jesus were more pure, more centered, more authentic in their understanding of Jesus, and living out His plan for life. But most Christians and skeptics have only a slight understanding of what actually took place in the Early Church. There is a mountain of historical evidence—even beyond the few references in the Bible to early Christian life—that can tell us what actually happened, how early followers of Jesus lived, and how they understood what life in Jesus was all about. What could we learn about our modern life with Jesus if we looked into these ancient ways? What might we expose about the shallow and easy life of today if we looked through the eyes of these bold Christians? Join us for an intense and provocative comparison of our ways and their ways as we discover the real truth about following Jesus!

For the stage design we tried to recreate the feel of ancient catacombs, like where the early church would have met in secret.

We sang the "Phos Hilaron" (Hail Gladdening Light) which is the earliest known Christian hymn recorded outside of the Bible that is still being used today.

Creative readings from some of the earliest surviving texts like the "The Way of Life" section from the Didache.

The second week we celebrated Communion per Hippolytus (circa 200 AD) – which is a 3-cup communion (wine, milk/honey, water) These cups represent Christ's death and resurrection, the promised land and baptism.
It was actually pretty funny. We had set up three different stations in the auditorium and instructed people to walk around the auditorium and pick up each element, partake and move on. Within a few minutes there was a traffic jam! LOL. People had just stopped were they were. But, it was kind of cool. They were chatting quietly amongst each other or worshiping. We did manage to get the flow going again. All in all, the element itself took a lot longer than planned, but no one seemed to be upset. From the comments afterwards people young and old really enjoyed the experience.

we are now a completely mobile church...

This is the way we load the truck, load the truck, load the truck...
This is the way we load the truck, load the truck, load the truck
After church on Sunday.

guerrilla worship...

ONE flash mob in Liverpool...

asking people to leave church...

"Asking people to leave church"
Thoughts?

no longer ENHANCE team leader...

Look at what God has done now!


Last week at XC Ministries.

This is a really big deal. For me it is the best stage design yet. But, this is NOT something that I designed or implemented. But this was created by a super sweet person named Allison Sovey.

But what I love more than that is engaging skeptics in relationship. It just comes naturally. It often happens at Starbucks. I call it Starbucks evangelism. I meet people, become friends with them wherever they are at in life. I really seem to be able to “hear” when people have an interest in life that could be a “hook” into me inviting them to try out XC Ministries. And God does the rest…

Now, about Allison. I met Allison when I started working at Starbucks 4 years ago. She was an de-churched person who had completely stepped away from God in her faith journey.
She joined the ENHANCE stage design team almost a year ago. She has since accepted Jesus as her personal Lord and Savoir and hasn’t looked back since. It’s been a fantastic journey.
But you know what? It has been just so much fun to see her utilizing her passion and gifting, while growing in her new relationship with God.
As of a couple of weeks ago, the mantle of ENHANCE team leadership has been passed on to Allison. It is just so darned exciting. I can barely contain myself.

I have been changing up what I do at XC ministries. More about that later. But, I will still work along side Allison on the ENHANCE team, because I just flat out love it.

I am Dorothy (vicar of vibe) no longer the ENHANCE team leader @ XC.
My mission statement is “love God, loves others, it’s simple…”.
My vision is to “entice the skeptic, challenge the lukewarm & ignite passion in the believer (to go into the world)”
I LML

I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
with selfless faith, selfless faith…
- Hosanna by Hillsong United

horned toads and tumbleweeds...

When I was a child, I lived in Carlsbad and Las Cruces, New Mexico, the land of enchantment.
I loved to catch horned toads lizards. They were so cute. Spitting and spewing when they are captured, then quickly falling asleep when you rolled them over in your hand and gently rubbed their soft underbelly.

We would build amazing and intricate tumbleweed forts, inside irrigation ditches. Preparing for battle with unknown foes and ever watchful of crashing infernos of water that could any moment rush down the ditch and engulf us.

A wonderfully fun trip was going to Carlsbad Caverns to watch the bats fly out at dusk. Or sand sledding on pieces of slick cardboard on the glistening white sand dunes of White Sands National Monument . Much better than snow sledding!

My very first job was picking cotton along side day laborers in the fields next to my home.

You see, I am old enough to have lived in the 1960’s cultural paradigm of our country. According to that paradigm, everybody was a Christian, except for a few classmates that were Jewish. Well, and then the Hopi Indians on the reservation, but that was an entirely different world.

In my world, I ate tortillas before I even had a clue what a Coca Cola was. But, I was blessed to have parents who lived their beliefs. These beliefs were very radical in that tumultuous time in our nation’s history.
My parents practiced civil disobedience by marching for civil rights, because of Martin Luther King Jr., dream. I have seen my father cry twice in my life. Once was when he heard Martin Luther King, Jr. had been murdered. The other was when JFK was assassinated.
Our family was strong supporters of Caesar Chavez and the United Farmer Workers. We boycotted everything. I vividly remember going to the grocery store and proudly asking to see the UFW label on the boxes of grapes.
My mom actually is a charter member of a NAACP chapter she helped found in Panamá, S.A. When we moved to the Canal Zone, I remember being flabbergasted at seeing ‘silver’ and ‘gold’ labeled drinking fountains. A nasty visual reminder of life before the banning of discriminatory public accommodations.
Dad was an EEO officer for the government.
They have always been active politically and card carrying members of the ACLU.

My value of all God’s children isn’t because it is PC, it is part of my DNA, It wasn’t something I had to learn, it was something that coursed through my heart.

Thank you mom and dad for blessing me with my DNA.
This is one of the puzzle pieces that weaves together to create who I am.

(reposting from an old blog of mine 04/04/08)

לקוות ...

Wild and crazy production weekend. While we try to do a creative piece each weekend; this last weekend was a magnificent tapestry woven together of many creative elements. I am simply blown away to be able to serve with our awesome teams.
These elements included the blowing of the Shofar, two original songs, a dance, a reading from Eli Weisel and last but certainly not least, 4 cantor elements with Rabbi Neal Surasky of Kehilat Sar Shalom.
For the stage set design we created a background screen of chiffon draped over two 1” x 2” x 10’ pieces of wood. They were painted black, and we drilled to holes on each end. Then each piece was suspended on the black curtains with fishing line and safety pins. Honestly I don’t know what I would do if we didn’t have fishing line and safety pins.
Sadly, I got so wrapped up in producing, that I failed to get enough pictures.
One last thought, part of what makes our team work so well together is we actually like to spend time together. We often go out to lunch after our Saturday set up/rehearsal and EVERY Sunday. This week Rabbi Neal and his amazing wife Kim joined the crew at Foster’s. It was an incredible time of laughter, learning and gnoshing.
ILML

Our Order of Service (and worship set list)
Blowing of the Shofar
Instrumental Opener

Worship Set 1
Freedom is Here

Bridge: Hope in difficult circumstances using illustration of God’s Chosen People.

Cantor Piece # 1 - Hatikvah - Rabbi Neal

Reading from Eli Weisel

“Israel’s Song“with dance (original song Desneige Eisenberg)

Cantor Piece # 2 - Rabbi Neal (In Hebrew, but words in English on the screen)

Reading of Psalm 42

Worship Set 2
“Psalm 42” (original song by Melanie Moore)

Message: Chris Eads interviewing Rabbi Neal

Cantor Piece # 3 - Rabbi Neal teaching a song to the congregation

Worship Set 3
I Surrender
Congregational Prayer
Better is One Day (Amazing Grace)

Cantor Piece # 4 - Rabbi Neal doing the Aaronic Benediction Blessing (Numbers 6)

real time apps...

One of my favorite blogging pastors is Pete Wilson. His most recent post "How Not To Get Caught Having An Affair", about a new phone app out called “TigerText”. They say it’s perfect for cheating spouses, shady politicians, sexting teens, and people who send a lot of stupid texts while drunk.
It really got me thinking about real time apps...how we walk with people through life.
It's no big secret I love friending skeptics, seekers, unchurched, dechurched, pierced, tattooed disenfranchised peeps. I always tease that I don't know why, but they seem to like me too...despite being a "slightly fluffy, goofy grandmother of 5".

I thought I'd share a real time life app story.
A young (currently dechurched) lady in my world, who is living with her boyfriend, wanted to talk alone.
She prefaced the conversation with "I know you will be upset". My thoughts were all over the place with the possibility of what she was about to share.
When we finally got to sit down, she told me she had taken two pregnancy tests and thought she was pregnant. I could see the fear and pain reflected in her eyes as she was brave enough to share this bombshell.
She knows me, about my faith journey and knew in her heart where I stand on this topic. I can only imagine what she thought I was going to say.
I gently explained while this wasn't a good situation, that I still loved her no matter what and was going to be by her side the entire time.
As I asked her about what she was thinking about her options, she talked about the struggle but knew in her heart she would keep the baby. I rejoiced with her and explained that every baby is cause for rejoicing.
She was so brave. She risked judgment in sharing.
Being involved in peoples lives means being willing to "get our hands dirty" because real life is messy. I am grateful we are journeying together. I am grateful she trusted me.

Now back to Pete's blog post. While I agree this “TigerText” app is indeed sad...as we register our shock and dismay, the reality is this is the way people think in the brick & mortar and cyber world. Outside and (some) inside the church.
What captivates me IMHO is this is evidence that we need to be in the world, getting involved in people lives. A "real life app" so to speak.
I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, on how we can be involved in peoples lives and being there at crucial crossroads to actual impact their journeys.
What if Tiger had someone like you, walking with him through life's messiness? Someone who really cared about him, not his celebrity status. Someone who because of real relationship, was able to speak truth into his life.
Question: How do we walk with people, even as they are making bad choices?
How do we balance speaking the truth, while not judging?
It would also be a great hook for a message series...

lessons learned

This is probably poorly worded and not in enough detail. But here goes...

I’ve run into this lesson before.
Not to accept a stage design that falls outside of my skill sets.
The idea was to take a 9-12 week teaching series and link it all together with a large crossword puzzle on stage.

The intro week was “God in a Box. Intentionally Left Blank.” The stage design was a completely empty stage with only a floating box with light emanating from it.

The following week - we added the crossword puzzle. Starting with God-in-a-box and adding key words to the crossword puzzle as each week progressed.
First, when it came down to brass tacks (implementation of the crossword puzzle), I was left (the night before) with a massive project that fell way outside of my skill sets.

Second, then we had branding conflicts. This links back to the previous post. When the logo was created & chosen the stage design and logo didn’t “brand” together so the stage design didn’t make any sense.

Ugh! So for the first time, I am seriously contemplating the decision to pull the stage idea.
Now I am left with about 5-6 weeks of having no idea what is going to happen with the stage design.

On the other hand, I also resolve to learn more skills.

Lessons learned:
Sometimes you have to not hear what people are saying and recognize what they are doing (follow-through)

Key players need to be together when designing so that the integrity of the branding, design and elements all flow together.

creativity in our DNA...

CrossCurrent has had creativity in our DNA from our inception. We design to have some sort of a creative element each weekend.

The way that we are currently design our creative elements is we host an “open” brainstorming session.
Teaching pastors give us the synopsis for the various weekends in that quarter.
We worship and pray. Everyone then “pop-corns” ideas up on paper for the various weeks.
We highlight the ones that get the most traction (ooohhs and ahhhs).
Then at later sessions, we choose from those highlighted ideas and create our order of service.

We anticipated a learning curve.

This previous quarters brainstorming sessions has draw attention to some opportunities for modification.
IMHO the glitch is occurring when the production people from the various teams haven’t been able to attend these brainstorming sessions. Maintaining the integrity of the creative element packages gets lost in translation.

Lessons learned: All critical teams need to be in attendance, creative or not. Teaching pastors, media, lighting, sound, producers, drama, writers, dance, stage, etc. Then feed in other people that want to be able to be involved in the creative process. Since the production teams are doing the heavy lifting in the actual implementation of these ideas.

pants on the ground...

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what creates “buzz”.
What spurs certain performances to go viral?
In case you have somehow missed the latest viral sensation; one month ago American Idol aired General Larry Pratt’s “Pants on the Ground” causing Simon to quip “I have a horrible feeling that song could be a hit.”

The performance quickly went viral. You Tube, Brett Farve, The View, remixes and now weather related remixes….
I was trying to get a rough count-just on the audition videos out there on the first page of youtube something like 18 million hits.
And the backlash, are people laughing at him?
Personally I love this guy. There is a lot more to Larry Pratt than this little ditty, including his history of strong involvement in the civil rights movement of the 60’s.
So tell me, what do you think causes things like this to go viral?

attention span...

In this day and micro wave age I initially caught myself thinking I wouldn't watch this entire video, which was 7:47 in length in a "rhythm of film" package done in 1963.

But I was reminded of a couple excellent points in marketing...

1) Background Music is Critical: While I was well aware of the music sweeping me along; I actually found I couldn't help myself. I could hardly wait for the climax, I wanted to experience the entire film. It was an excellent example of choosing the correct music for the desired result.

2) Momentum Works: Created anticipation. It caught my attention early on and I stayed with it the entire 7:47.

3) The Climax: For me it as like reading a book vs. watching a movie based on a book. The movie never is exciting as what I have created in my mind. When I saw the milk bottles lined up at the station in the beginning of the film, I kept imagining that the train would crash into the snow and it would make ice cream. LOL. Seriously. But this wasn't my film, or my vision.

playing...

just playing with some ideas for for this weeks service (logo, invites, etc.)...

God in a box...

The series is entitled "Intentionally Left Blank".
This first Sunday was "God in a Box".

I love making people stop and think.
The stage was "intentionally" left black, with the band set up in he auditorium this week. We actually had a visitor that said "oh, no this church doesn't have music" when she walked into the auditorium. LOL

Hanging in the middle of the stage was a cardboard box. We drilled holes in it and painted it black.
Inside was a camping lantern suspended by fishing line.
Turned on the lamp and taped up the box.



It hit the mark of "confuzzling" people. Starting with several band members on Saturday and carrying through Sunday-up until the pastor started speaking. All they had to look at was the box in the middle of the stage.
Funny, how dirty the floor looked when nothing was on stage. I brought my Swiffer and cleaned up the stage on Sunday morning. oh, the things we do...

Stay tuned, next week we start suspending a crossword puzzle on stage.
Man, I LOVE what I do...

simple inspiration...

I frequently search flickr.com for inspiration. I feel bad, the first photo in the slideshow is the inspiration for our January stage designs and now I can't find who to give credit to.
This was our stage design at XC for 01/03/10 and 01/10/10.
Really simple-the material panels were safety pinned to the top rear border curtain.
Then we cinched them. The first week we tied knots in the cloth to cinch. The second week we accordion folded the material and safety pinned.

Christmas 1965...

44 years ago, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" first aired.

Let us not forget the timeless message...

moments...

Moments...
When I listen to people stressing out about the holidays, my heart goes out to them. When did Christmas become more about shopping, gift wrapping, parties rather than about the little baby Jesus?
Have we forgotten what it is about?
Last year at XC, we did a visual movement piece entitled "Christmas Crescendo" (you can see it here). Which simply started with Mary singing to baby Jesus. Then slowly the scenes built to a crescendo of Christmas madness. Decorating a tree, shaking presents, shopping and even Santa and elves with children lining up to have their picture taken with Santa...and the baby simply seems to disappear amid the glitz.
The madness of what we now consider normal Christmas traditions.
Then all the madness stopped.
All that remained center stage was Mary and the baby.

Each year I will deligently work towards keeping that same simple message.
It's really all about the little baby Jesus.

This year we planned a Christmas drama. Then we got snowed out with almost two feet of snow on Christmas Sunday.

Every Saturday our weekend crew rolls in and converts the junior high school auditorium into our worship space. After set-up and sound checks we gather for devotions. This week we simply focused on that moment in time, just after Christ was born. It was just Mary, Joseph and the baby. The angels hadn't appeared to the shepards yet, the wisemen were still traveling towards the star. Just the family wondering what all this was about. Trusting God's word.

So this week, the Sunday after Christmas. this is what our stage looked like. The stage was bare with only a simple wooden stable with a star.
During the prayer before service an idea surfaced. During that last song, "Silent Night", all the lights would fade out and one simple spot would illuminate the star over the stable. We scrambled around to get a ladder, move the stage lights around, re-set lighting cues...

Then during worship, the last verse was sung acapella, the worship leaders stepped backed and all eyes were focused on the star.

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth

Now that is what Christmas is really about...

what is success...

The average church size in the United States is 90 people.

-The Barna Group

Think about that for a minute. 90 people. The Edge is 5 times that. MBC as a whole is more than 100 times that.

I think we sometimes have a tendancy to take for granted what God is doing at The Edge and McLean Bible Church. We forget that most churches would be blown away to have 400 people come one week, let alone every week.

The temptation when you start getting big can be to measure success in terms of numbers. An event wasn’t a success because it only had 200 people instead of 400. Or it was a success because there were 1000 people there.

But success is more than numbers. Success is more personal than that. God isn’t impressed just because we had 500 people at an Edge service or 2000 people at a 9:00 Tysons campus service. He’s impressed by life change and devotion to Him. Success is about individual people. God is more impressed by a church of 90 people totally devoted to Him than He is by 10,000 who are just meeting together for fun on a Sunday morning.

(As a disclaimer, that’s not a slam on “big church”. I know there are many totally devoted people there).

So how do you measure success of The Edge? Is it measured in good music and fun lights? Or is it in the hearts of the people there?

thoughts on a Christmas sketch...

This comes for a conversation with someone who is designing a "Blue Christmas" service to honor and give voice to grief during the holiday. Just my initial thoughts...
I definitely like the votive candle idea. Linking the remembrance of the loved one-then linking it to the true Light (message of Christmas). We tend to get wrapped up in all the busy-ness of the season and forget what it is really all about.
I envision someone sitting and starting to tearfully unwrap all the Christmas ornaments, and being unable to deal with the Santa's, elves and shiny stuff for the tree. Then opening the box with the Nativity crèche and a single candle, while reflecting on the meaning of Christmas and talking about how (grandpa) loved the story of the birth of Christ and all it's true meaning, as they set up the crèche on a small table.
As they talk through their emotions, they link the remembrance of their loved one to the candle and to the meaning of Christmas. They light the candle saying something like..."this is all I really need this year. Happy birthday, Jesus. Merry Christmas grandpa."

Then close one of the other boxes and walk off stage

Then have people come and light a votive candle and leave taking the (takeaway gift).

For the remaining Sundays until Christmas, simply have a single lit votive candle on the alter or stage, along with whatever else you are decorating with. Those people will know.