Tag Archives: creative

Christmas Stage Design

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It’s a crazy week.  That goes without saying.  But I’ve got a few minutes to spare so I thought I’d do one last post before Christmas.

I submitted our Christmas stage design to churchstagedesignideas.com and I thought I would share it here as well since some if you might be interested in how these things come together.

Hanging lights and small round bulbs on the sides were from partylights.com

The pre-lit LED trees were from Superstore

One of the landscapers in our church dropped off all the trees we needed.  We dried them out in the basement for 3 weeks then 3 of our volunteers came and spray painted them white.  On a side note, I majorly underestimated how much paint they needed.  I think they used 8 cans in the end.

I spray painted the 1″x4″ support fence black.  We had those pieces lying around the church from past stage sets.  We strapped the trees onto the fence using pieces of suspension strap spaced out every 1′ or so.

To light them we’re using 4 Elation TriPar LED lights on the ground shooting across the backdrop.

Voila, that’s it.  In the end this took probably 6 hours of work altogether.

Here’s the results.

Art and Emotion

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As a relief from Tuesday’s post I thought I would share something on the lighter side today.

ART

Anytime I see art this good I get excited!

We all see and experience art differently.  It can take on one meaning for someone and a completely different meaning for the next.  The meaning of this piece is fairly clear but it might speak to you in a different way than it spoke to me and I love that.

Watch the video

I felt a bunch of things…

  • anger
  • judgement
  • horror
  • amazement
  • gratitude
  • guilt
  • love

Yup, Art can cause a strange mix of emotions.

What did you feel?

you can check out more of Jeremy Cowart’s art here and Jonsi’s music here

Ignite:

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For you creatives out there I thought I would share with you a video piece that we used this past Sunday.  The video supports our “Ignite” series on Acts and illustrates the passage in Acts 2:42-44.

The idea for the video came out of one of our creative team meetings.  This team meets monthly to discuss upcoming sermon series and brainstorms ideas that will help creatively tell the story or support the theme of the message.  We narrow our focus down to what we call “Know, Feel, Do”.  This is basically our desired response for people that attend the service that day.  Here’s what our notes said.

We will look at the five key activities of keeping the fire of God burning in our lives and churches – community, teaching, communion, prayer and generosity.

  • Know:  There are activities that we can participate in that will open ourselves up to God using us in mighty ways.
  • Feel:    A desire to be involved in these activities.
  • Do:       Make these activities part of our regular routine.

The video served as a bridge from the sermon to a time of reflection during which the congregation was encouraged to contemplate a step they could take to grow in these areas.

This is a pretty good example of something we would use from time to time to support the message.  Nick Johnson of Hey You Media is the extremely talented man behind the making of this video.  We’re fortunate at Saanich Baptist Church to have him on staff as our part time media and graphics designer.  You can check out his work HERE.

 

Significance

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We all have a longing for significance.  We all want our lives to mean something.

Some of us repress this feeling and try to ignore it.

Some of us allow it to fuel us and we accomplish amazing things.

But have you ever thought about how this longing for significance is a sign that we are searching for God?  That we’re longing for the one who has created us for a purpose?

And what about artists?  Why do we create?  Why do we reach down into our hearts, pull out something extremely personal and then display it for others to see?

Today I cracked open a book that some of you might be familiar with called “Heart of the Artist” by Rory Noland.  This book has been recommended to me many times by other worship leaders and I’ve finally started reading it myself.  I’ve just read the introduction so far but I’m already stoked about this book!  Noland includes an incredible quote from John Fisher’s book “What On Earth Are We Doing”.  I love how Fisher describes the connection between creating art and humanity’s longing for God.

“Artists reach into their colors or to the notes of a musical score, into the developing solution in a darkroom tray or to the flow of words on a page, they are interacting with the eternity God has placed in their hearts.  They are trying to be significant in their universe — trying to mean something more than a random collision of molecules.  Though modern philosophy tells them they are nothing, their hearts tell them something else.  Because their minds cannot fathom what their hearts know, they feel the weight of the God-placed burden.  Art often seems irrational, because the heart is reaching beyond the mind.  A modern art museum displays the heart reaching beyond what the mind knows, trying to find the meaning of its existence.”

Our hearts are longing for our creator.  How cool is it that we as artists get to explore that longing as we create?  And for those of us who have submitted our lives to the ultimate creator we get to create art that allows people to experience and understand God in new and fresh ways.

What fuels you to create?

Get Coached

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Are you a Worship Leader?  Pastor?  Business Owner?  Stay-at-home Mom/Dad?  Musician?  Artist?  Barista?  Parking Lot Attendant?

Do you have some kind of job or vocation or hobby that you do?

Then you need a coach!

A coach is someone who will come alongside you, observe you and listen to you talk about your situation, and then help you get to a place where you can see a preferred future.  I stole that from Andy Stanley’s book but it’s true.  They will help you grow and stretch yourself.

I just finished a one month creative coaching session with Carlos Whittaker and 8 other creatives who were along for the ride.  It was awesome!  You can hear my thoughts on it in the video.

If you’re interested in creative coaching with Carlos Whittaker you can sign up here.  Whatever you do, make sure you seek out people in your life who will help you become better.  It’s worth it.

Who do you have in your life who helps you become better?