Church Video Ideas

I’m back in Dallas - got back late and am exhausted, but had a great time. Where do I start? So much was packed into my 3 days there. Today will be a little long, but I’ll just cover Thursday. I’ll blog about Friday and Saturday tomorrow. Here goes…

Day 1 (Thursday): Thursday I arrived at LAX around mid-morning and drove straight from the airport to the Dream Center. I have heard a ton about them, got to catch one of their services once on TV and heard Dr. Phil talk about them last week when I was home sick. After hearing how boldly Dr. Phil endorsed their ministry last week on national TV, I determined I was going to work them into my trip.

Dr. Phil talked about the difference they are making in their community - about how many homeless and hungry they feed EVERY day (hundreds). He went on to talk about how they give people a place to stay, clothes and many other opportunities (medical, physical and spiritual). As I drove up to the church, this was confirmed by the huge line of homeless people I saw stretched around the building and down the street. Each person was waiting to receive a meal and receive from the clothes and hygiene products they give out.

The Dream Center was founded by Tommy Barnett (who I have a great respect for) and his son, Matthew. You may remember Tommy Barnett’s name as the one who is ministering to and leading the restoration process of fallen pastor, Ted Haggard. Tommy also ministered to Jim Bakker.

I met Pastor Matthew Barnett’s personal assistant in the parking lot and she waited for me to park, welcomed me and guided me upstairs to Matthew’s office. He was on a flight and returning that evening for their worship service. She went on to tell me a little of her story - how God had used the Dream Center to change her life and how after graduating from their one year discipleship program she came on staff.

FYI - Everyone I met there was as friendly and hospitable as could be. We found out that one of their daily tours was just beginning so I quickly joined the tour (with a couple from Switzerland). For the next hour, the tour guide took us around their campus, told us stories, would point out different ministries going on and where people (of all ages) were living and introduce us to various staff and people that were in their discipleship program and living there.

After the tour, I went to go take a closer look at their recording studio. On the tour, our tour guide mentioned that they have recording studios where youth can come in off the street and record their music for free. What an outreach! I found my way in and stumbled upon their worship band, which work in the studio and played some of their original music for me. Their worship band, Press Play, just signed a deal with Universal and will be coming to a store near you soon.

As I was hanging out with some of the band, the lead singer of Press Play and head Creative Arts/Worship Pastor, Dave Hanley, walked in and introduced himself. I got to talk with him for a while, catch a little of his heart and vision (I believe he’s been at the Dream Center for 12 years) and hear one of his newest songs.

They invited me to come hang out at their rehearsal for that night’s service, but I had to leave and go meet a friend for college that I hadn’t seen in 11 years. Many people also invited me to their Thursday night worship service, but I had already committed to hang out with some LA friends.

I drove away thanking and praising God for what I had seen with my own eyes - such an amazing ministry. I’ll be mentioning them for sure in my “Church 2.0″ book. If you EVER get to LA, please go and visit the Dream Center. I think all Church leaders should go and spend some time there. I’m looking into going back for a week of ministry with them. To find out more about what God is doing through this amazing ministry watch the promo video below.

Day 1 continued: Thursday went on to include catching up and eating dinner with a friend from college and then meeting Tom Rice ( media producer, writer, filmmaker and Founder of eight20eight) who had invited me to an improv comedy show at the Groundling Theater in Hollywood.

What a night! I had a blast and could honestly go watch them every night. The theater is a cozy and intimate setting and you feel very close to the stage and involved as an audience member. It was kind of like “Whose Line is it Anyway?”, where they would call various actors forward and ask the audience to give them scene ideas.

Besides the amazing Groundling cast, I was wonderfully surprised by their special guests for the night: Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live), Michael McDonald (MADtv) and Gary Anthony Williams (Malcolm in the Middle).

That was a full and fun day topped off with a stop at In-N-Out Burger (you know I had to hit it once). It gets better - more details about Friday and Saturday on tomorrow’s blog.

PERSONAL:
To my friends, family and anyone interested - below is a video of yesterday (me baptizing my daughter). Grace was the first person ever to be baptized in our new baptismal pool. Yesterday was a day of mixed emotions, as we also had a baby dedication and surrounded a couple in prayer who are 7 months pregnant with their son, who is expected to die at birth or shortly after.

Yesterday at church, one of our stage managers offered me 2 free tickets to the Texas Rangers baseball game. I gladly accepted and took my 5 year old son, Tommy. This was my first Rangers game and my son’s first baseball game.

I can not the describe the feeling of when we walked into the stadium. We arrived during the first inning. Just as we walked through the chute and out into the open, Milton Bradley hit a homerun and the crowd went crazy. They started playing the song from the movie “The Natural” (I’m not lying) - just as we were walking out of the chute. It was like a Hollywood moment. I’ll never forget it as long as I live.

For the next few hours we watched the worst team in baseball (they really are) play like they were on fire. We got to see 2 more homeruns (experiencing the roar of the crowd, fireworks and the song from “The Natural” each time) and to everyone’s amazement, the Rangers won 10-0. Maybe Tommy brings good luck?

And to top it ALL off - we sat on the 4th row, right behind Nolan Ryan and the Rangers’ owner, Tom Hicks, gave Tommy a game ball. Then after the game, Tommy got to get on the actual field and run around the bases. What a day! What a day!

EXTRA:
Thank God the tickets and parking were free. What a blessing. 2 Cracker Jacks = $7.50, 2 sodas = $9.50, 1 hotdog and chips =$8.25 - the look on Tommy’s face = Priceless.

Check out the pics (forgive the quality - they’re from my cell phone):

Rangers’ star Michael Young on deck — Nolan Ryan in front of us

Tommy running to home plate —— Tommy in his Rangers’ outfit

Today’s blog is simple: I’d like for you to get your FREE copy of “Facebook for Pastors” and read it. I wrote the Foreward for this book and think it’s a good read. Check it out HERE.

Yesterday I announced the beginning of the Church 2.0 Local Forum. I’m excited about the first 2 of these in May (one in LA and one in Chicago). For now, I’d like to give you more info on the first one in LA. This is for all Church leaders in the Southern California area. If you’re involved in ministry and would like to meet, network and share with others in ministry - this FREE event is for you.

DETAILS: We will gather on Friday, May 2nd from 11:30am to 3:30pm in Grant Hall at Hollywood UMC. I’d appreciate you signing up so we know how much lunch to provide. To RSVP go HERE.

Sponsors that have taken care of the facility rental, free give-aways/swag and free food for all are: eight20eight, iStockphoto, RevoStock and SermonSpice. I’m extremely grateful for their support.

Here’s a special note from sponsor iStockphoto: Enter the coupon code FAITH and you will receive a 20% first purchase discount on any order over 55 credits and you can also choose 20 FREE images out of a group of 50. Go HERE to check it out.

WHAT’S SO COOL ABOUT MEETING AT HOLLYWOOD UMC?

Due to the unique beauty of the buildings and the history emmanating from their individual spaces, the church facilities are often used as a film and television location and have been featured in several major motion pictures.

FILMS SHOT AT HUMC include…
• Jarhead
• Domino
• Anger Management
• Big Mama’s House
• Beautiful
• A Civil Action
• That Thing You Do!
• Super Mario Bros.
• Sister Act
• Back to the Future
• Star 80
• Imitation of Life

TV SHOWS SHOT AT HUMC include…
• CSI
• Days of Our Lives
• General Hospital
• Murder, She Wrote
• The Golden Girls
• Jake and the Fatman
• The A-Team
• Hardcastle and McCormick
• Riptide
• Hotel
• Dr. Phil - Special
• Bette Midler - Special
• The Temptations - Special

SPECIAL FOOTNOTES FOR FILM FANS -
In Back to the Future, the church gymnasium was the location for the high school prom/dance scene where Michael J. Fox reunites his parents and takes the stage to perform a wicked guitar version of “Johnny Be Good.”

In Sister Act, virtually the entire church served as an on-location set for the story of Whoopi Goldberg posing as a nun. The scenes where the nuns ate at a long table and where Whoopi was scrubbing floors were filmed in Grant Hall. The scene where the nuns were gossiping in the kitchen over ice cream was in the Main Kitchen. The choir room in the movie was shot in the church’s actual choir room at the time.

In Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do!, the gym stage was the setting for a college talent show where the movie’s fictitious pop-rock group, “The Wonders,” first sang their hit song “That Thing You Do!” in public. In the scene, the group’s drummer surprises them by speeding up the tempo of the song, with very positive results.

I have 2 conferences in May that I’ll be at (PLEASE let me know if you’ll be at either). One is a rare opportunity that I don’t usually get - I’ll be just attending and hanging out at the Biola Media Conference. This is a great conference that I’ve followed for years and always wanted to go to. This year I was invited to come and just attend and blog about my thoughts on it.

I look forward to seeing Phil Cooke and Craig Detweiler (both of whom I’m interviewing for my book) and getting to hear them speak. Usually I’m teaching at the same time as them and miss getting to sit in on their class. This will be a much-needed opportunity to not have the pressure of speaking and just soak up, network and learn. I can’t wait! Plus I’ll get to see several friends that I have in LA and spend some time with each of them.

***Speaking of my LA trip. I’m organizing a gathering in LA like we did in Las Vegas. This is a little different though - this will be the first of, hopefully many, Church 2.0 Local Forums. The Church 2.0 Local Forum- LA will take place from 11:30am to 3:30pm on Friday, May 2nd (location TBD). If you’re in the LA area and want to come (this is for all Church leaders) please stayed tuned to my blog and my Facebook group. ***

The 2nd conference that I’ll be at in May and teaching 5 classes for is the Moody Bible Pastors’ Conference. This will be my 5th year speaking there. I look forward to this conference each year as 1500 pastors from around the world gather to worship, fellowship and learn. I absolutely love speaking to senior pastors. This year will be cool because I’m taking my intern, Jonathan, with me.

***There will probably be a Church 2.0 Local Forum - Chicago on either Wednesday, May 21st or Friday, May 23rd. Again, stay tuned for more info. ***

If you will be at either of these conferences, please let me know and we’ll meet up! I would like to mention and thank EasyWorship for sponsoring my classes at Moody this year.

EXTRA:
Here’s more info on the Biola Media Conference…

BIOLA MEDIA CONFERENCE - MAY 3, 2008
Make plans to attend the largest gathering for Christians in the Entertainment Industry - the Biola Media Conference! Held on May 3 at CBS Studio Center in LA, this year’s conference theme explores the new
blueprints required in “Designing for the Digital Age”. Top professionals in film, television, and digital media will be addressing the challenges for Hollywood at the dawn of the online entertainment revolution as well as the innovative options in production, content, distribution and marketing that this digital age presents. New blueprints are needed as an era of social media and digital technology make entertainment and information more personal and customized than ever. Change isn’t coming. It’s here. NOW is the time to strategize a new design for the future of entertainment. Register online at www.biolamedia.com

OUR HOTEL:

Today I fly to Las Vegas to speak at NAB. I bring with me a crew of friends: my Video Intern - Jonathan, Brian Davis (Tech Director at Fellowship Dallas - who’s sharing a hotel room with me and my intern) and the volunteer leader of our Video Team - who’s going with his company. His company, Splash Media, just finished a huge project that you may have heard about - Adobe TV. I’m proud to say that our Video Team leader just headed up this project and oversaw the production of the videos you see on Adobe TV HERE.

My friend and member of our local tech director group, Kip Kendrick, arrived this past weekend and so we’ll catch up with him today, too. You know I’m a networker and love hanging out with peers, so I’m pumped about this trip. I have several tech director friends from around the country that I’m meeting up with and hanging out with.

Here’s a brief overview of my schedule for the next 3 days:

• Today - Arrive this morning in Vegas. Go to NAB and walk the exhibit floor. Check into our hotel, walk around the strip a bit and go see the Blue Man Group at night.
• Tuesday - We have a tech director lunch at 11:30am, where tech folks from around the country will meet and greet and eat! At 3pm, I lead a class on worship presentation software, where EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter will go head-to-head. Tuesday night, I bring 5 friends with me to see KA.
• Wednesday - At 9am, I teach my first “Church 2.0” class. I’ll be teaching this a few more times this year, but this will be the first time. I’m excited about this. I believe we’re going to try to video it and put it up on YouTube and GodTube for those of you that can’t make it to watch. Wednesday evening I fly back home and reunite with my family.
• Thursday - Meetings and playing catch-up at the church.

EXTRA:
Sometime this week, we plan on experiencing the following: The fountain show at the Bellagio. The Lady of the Lake show at the Wynn and the restaurant and rides atop our hotel, which you can see HERE. For more technical info on what it takes to do the Lady of the Lake show at the Wynn read THIS (scroll to the bottom).

EXTRA, EXTRA:

Yesterday’s service was great. Our pastor’s dad, Stuart Briscoe, preached and was a blessing to us all. Our pastor, Pete, and his parents have a radio show called “Telling the Truth“. You can listen to them daily online or via your local radio station. For more info go HERE.

BONUS:
I put some bigger (easier to see) pictures up of our Good Friday service. You can go back to the post to see them HERE. I’ll have a few Easter pics soon.

Yesterday was a great break from the norm. Our entire staff went to a ranch in East Texas. We did everything from fish, play horseshoes, throw the football, play “Guitar Hero”, ride 4 wheelers WAY off road (one of us, not telling who, hit a tree), grill out chicken, hamburgers and hotdogs and just have fun getting to know one another away from the office. Bent Tree is a special place.

EXTRA:
On a similar note, we’re planning a fun/social for our entire Tech Arts Ministry sometime in May.

Please forgive me: This was supposed to post yesterday (Wed.). Pretend it’s Wednesday and then continue to read…

This was the picture from an email that our staff got yesterday after some mystery people put rubber duckies in our church’s new baptistry (for April Fools). Notice you only see their feet. Below is the email that claimed responsibility. Of course it was the Student Ministry.

Today, I’m in meetings all day and then have rehearsal tonight. I’m looking forward to Thursday (I’m getting together with 2 local tech directors).

I forgot to mention a while back when I had 2 separate lunches/tours of our new worship center with 2 other local tech directors: Dave Smith from Grace Outreach Center in Plano, TX and Bobby Dennis of The Heights Church in Richardson, TX. I enjoyed meeting both of them and look forward to getting to know both better.

Tomorrow I get together with my friend, Jason, the Director of Media Services at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, TX and Ryan, the Director of Technical Arts at Watermark Community Church in North Dallas. We all 3 just moved into new worship centers and are going to do a tour of our churches.

* In case you don’t know about my heart for networking and getting to know your church neighbors, you can read THIS blog post from a while back.

The Swerve blog announced a summer message series entitled “One Prayer“, which is very intriguing. It’s many churches coming together and participating. Check out the explanation video from Pastor Craig. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Is this something you’d do at your church?

EXTRA:

I am thrilled to announce that SermonSpice has opened a Spanish media store. I have been begging producers for years to produce content in Spanish or at least with Spanish sub-titles. I applaud….cheer… and herald SermonSpice for their vision and commitment to equip this HUGE part of our Church. Well done!

I’m am now back in good ‘ol Dallas. As I reflect upon my time in Nashville, many thoughts come to mind. Here goes:

• Staying with and hanging out with my best friend, Thomas, and his wife Dita. We played Nintendo Wii each night until about 3am. Good times! The Tiger Woods golf game on Wii is amazing! Thomas is the worship leader at Mosaic Nashville, where I went to church Sunday morning and night. It was also nice to eat twice with their pastor, Gary. God is doing some cool things at Mosaic Nashville. I’ve visited several times, so it’s been cool to see them grow and watch what God is doing in their community. If you’re in town, give them a visit.
• Seeing one of my friends from when I lived in Washington DC, who now lives in Nashville. Hanging out with Sarin (and his soon-to-be wife, Rebecca) was a true treat. Sarin is an amazing artist and is working on some very cool projects. We got to eat a couple of times together, catch some movies and he also played electric guitar at Mosaic Nashville on Sunday.
• Getting to hang out with and share many meals with Kirk Longhofer of Wichita, Kansas.
• Having lunch with Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion.
• Hanging out some with the crew from SermonSpice, my sponsor for my classes.
• Getting to speak with the Tech Directors of and hear about what’s going on at the following churches: Bellevue in Memphis, Brentwood Baptist, First Baptist Orlando and First Baptist Jacksonville, FL. Though my church is Non-denominational, I grew up Southern Baptist and have visited these churches before and know of their long history. It’s intriguing to me to see God doing a new thing at these long-standing churches that are trying to change and move forward. According to THIS article on Monday Morning Insight, 90% of churches are in decline.
• Meeting and speaking with some of the staff and key leaders at LifeWay.
• Seeing many Bent Tree members who were at NRB, including our pastor, Pete Briscoe, who was doing a meet and greet for his radio show: Telling the Truth.
• Catching a few classes at NRB. My favorite was my friend, Phil Cooke’s class on branding. He said a lot that is in his new book “Branding Faith“, which I’ve been reading the manuscript of for the last few months. It’s a great read and I’ll review it once I finish it. It was cool to see the actual hardcopy-version of his book. I encourage you to order a copy.
• Walking around the Exhibit Hall and meeting new people/companies, collecting free pens (something I enjoy) and doing a radio interview with a Jewish Ministry. The guy who works for the ministry used to be a tech director in San Antonio, TX and reads my blog. I’ll post a link to the interview when it’s ready.
• My biggest highlights were meeting some of you, regular readers of my blog, who came up and introduced yourself to me. It is so cool to look someone in the eyes, who has been commenting on your blog. I love it!
• Another highlight was my 2 classes that I spoke in. Here is a quick summary of what stuck out to me from the classes I spoke in:
  1. Large or small, every church has struggles/challenges and is constantly seeking to grow their ministry. I got to talk with people from very small churches to mega-mega-mega churches. It was humbling and amazing to meet fellow tech directors and be able to offer some of my philosophy of ministry and leadership.
  2. My class called “On the Air: Ten Attributes of a Winning Team” was filled with people that are broadcasting on television. I was absolutely shocked and floored that out of everyone of them that was on TV, none of them had a weekly rehearsal. Their first service was a rehearsal and they couldn’t imagine asking volunteers to come out to rehearsal during the week. I begged them to read my blog. You know how I love talking about leading volunteers!
  3. In my class, “The Ultimate Q & A”, where the panel just took random classes from the attendees, I got to share my philosophy on being and hiring “equippers” versus “doers”. I shared that leaders are to equip (based on the Ephesians 4 model). It seemed to strike a nerve and was something I believe God wanted me to share about. At Bent Tree, our leaders (whether volunteer or paid) are equippers.
  4. The major “God-moment” was during the “On the Air” class when I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to say the following, “Stop trying to revive what God is trying to kill.” Some gasped, some cried, some clapped, some said, Amen!”, some sat in silence. I have no doubt that God wanted me to say that and that it spoke right to someone’s (I don’t know who) situation. I’m amazed at the number of churches that have had a TV broadcast for years and never evaluate why they do it and if they should continue to.
  5. Below are some pictures of other highlights, including great food I consumed in Nashville:
     
     
• EXTRA:
  Yes, President Bush spoke at NRB, but no I did not get to see him. I missed it.