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God: A Motion Background or a Foreground Video?

December 9, 2009 in Visual Worship

Earlier this week, Stephen Proctor was sending crazy late night DMs on twitter. Anne Jackson (@flowerdust) had sparked a conversation on Twitter earlier in the day about coaching and mentoring. Proctor thought he’d be funny & say he was starting worshipVJ coaching network (by the way, his next DM said NOT!!!!!!!!!!! hahaha). That sparked a conversation though about coaching. Is it good? Necessary? That led into the whole idea of “church idols” (elevating someone in the church world who we think is doing amazing stuff to the point that we worship the person not the God who gifted them). That led to the thought that sparked this blog post. The essential part of the conversation went like his:

Me: “As someone said at a conference I attended this fall we have to get behind the cross & let God use us. If we try to stand in front with him in the background we fail.”

Proctor: “In other words, God shouldn’t be a motion “background.”

Me: “VERY true! God should be the foreground image covering all and we are the background text peeking through simply trying to help people connect the dots.”

Proctor: There you go. Now go write that into a blog post.

That nugget of wisdom I’d heard at a conference – it was from Stacy Spencer who I heard speak at STORY. WOW! Amazing. I had never heard of him before that but will never forget him. Not only is he one of the best speakers I have heard but his content was rock solid. My notes from Stacy’s talk say this: Telling the story is about getting behind Calvary’s cross to tell the story so someone can see Jesus.

Back to the twitter conversation: God shouldn’t be a motion background. God should NEVER be in the background, that’s where we belong. He should be the foreground image over which nothing else can cover. Yes, God supports us and holds us up and i that way is our background but the minute we try to outshine him we have failed. The minute we think we can tell the story better than the cross can tell the story we’ve failed.

Our roll is to put God in the foreground by putting ourselves in the background. That whole “you shall have no other gods before me” includes ourselves in case you were wondering! That includes our media, our videos, our photos, our music, our cool typefaces, all of it. When we try to stand in front of the cross and tell the story we are in the way of what’s most important. However, when we get behind the cross and reflect it with our lives, in our churches, with our music, through our visuals, then God can and will use us as his tools to communicate His Story in a powerful and meaningful way.

Now, how does that apply to your specific area of ministry? Ready, set, share!


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Science vs. Art

December 8, 2009 in Visual Worship

On Saturday (Dec. 5th) at 4:58pm Stephen Proctor a.k.a. @worshipvj dropped this tweet: attn media peeps: which would best describe yourself? a lot of science with a littler art – or – a lot of art with a little science? My initial response to Stephen was “honestly think i’m about half science half art rt now & lk it. i was science bf i was art, but gain a better balance everyday”

That question has been pestering me since Saturday. To be honest I’m still wrestling with it and haven’t completely sorted it out in my head yet. I’m wrestling to figure out if I am personally more art or more science. More importantly, however, I’m wrestling to figure out if it matters and if so WHY it matters.

My first step in my search was an attempt at defining “science” and “art.” According to Webster science is the state of knowing; knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding while art is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects. My initial response was based off of the misunderstanding that art isn’t systematic. But I’m beginning to think it is. Isn’t that part of “conscious use of skill and creative imagination?”I think maybe art is the putting into practice of science (the knowing)

Okay, but what, if anything, does this have to do with worship media and why does it matter? I firmly believe that if you don’t have a philosophy of visual worship you are setting yourself up for failure. Perhaps no philosophy = pure science. A philosophy takes the science (the knowledge) and applies it consciously and practically to a practice, in this case, visual worship. Example: you may KNOW what meaning and significance of different colors. However, unless you consciously use them at the right time in the right environment that knowledge means very little. I would argue that without art you aren’t leading visual worship. You are simply projecting pretty images and maybe some words on a screen. That being said, I also would argue that art is impossible without science (the knowledge). Without science as a foundation art carries much less meaning and significance. Using the color example, if you don’t know the meaning and significance of colors you likely won’t use them at fitting times in worship.

Conclusion (as of now): a balance of both is necessary and it matters because both are needed for a practical philosophy which ultimately determines your WHY of visual worship which is the most important part.

Okay, so do you agree? Disagree? Where do you fall?

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Brought to You by the Letter “Y”

November 13, 2009 in Visual Worship

Call it venting. Call it a rant. Call it “up on my soapbox” if you want. But, I have something I need to get off my chest, an observation I made last week at the Dirt Conference and realized is true for us most of the time.

We sit in the main sessions at conferences and listen to speakers who talk primarily about the WHY. They remind us to focus on the WHY and that in the end the WHY is what really matters. We nod our heads and utter verbal agreements to what they are saying.

Fast forward one hour, at most, to the labs or breakout sessions and it seems as though we have completely forgotten about the WHY. The questions that are asked oftentimes aren’t completely answered by the presenters. I think that’s because you cannot fully answer the WHAT until you understand the WHY. And the WHY is different for all of us. If you know who you are and WHY you do what you do the what naturally flows out of that. When I look around at churches or individuals who we would say “don’t get ‘it’” more often than not it’s because they have completely forgotten about or couldn’t ever define the WHY.

Everything that Jesus did while he was here on earth flowed from WHY he was here – redemption, love, and service. And most of his lessons focused on WHY. More often than not God gives us guiding principles, principles that focus on the WHY, not 3 step, 5 step, or 7 step solutions. Why then do we find a need to have one for everything we do in the church?

WHY did you put that image on the screen? WHY did you sing that song? WHY is your church using twitter? WHY that video? That sermon series? That event? That print piece? That font? WHY did you focus that light where you did at the intensity that you did? WHY?

Because bottom line, if we can’t answer WHY then the what will not be effective long term. Now I get that it’s easy to lose sight of the WHY. It happens to me too. I would just encourage us to challenge ourselves to always go back to it. We may just wake up one day to realize that working from the WHY has become a habit.

Do you stay focused on the WHY? What are some tips you can share for keeping that focus?


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Aha!

November 10, 2009 in Visual Worship

I have been living in the world of visual worship for six years now. God has taught me a thing or two along the way. I’ve used a variety of tools, changed my “best practices” countless times, and my philosophy probably as many. But through all of that I had one question I couldn’t get a good answer for: why use simple colored backgrounds, backgrounds that are visually less saturated?

I mean, I have visited several churches and by far the majority of them use colors 90% of the time. Sure, they look neat and can be all flashy, but for me they do very little to enhance worship. Not only do churches use them but video companies have produced them in mass and continue to do so. I couldn’t help but think there was something magical abut these backgrounds that I was missing.

Well today, I had a brief conversation with Mr WorshipVJ himself, Stephen Proctor, and the lightbulb came on. His answer to that question made complete sense and made me think “aha, I get it!” In short, his answer was not only can we use colors to create certain moods, but perhaps more importantly we can use less visually saturated backgrounds to great an ebb an flow that is necessary in visual worship. You see we need highs and lows in order to have either. You can’t get to the mountaintop unless you start from the bottom. And the mountaintop isn’t nearly as sweet if you stay there all of the time. In visual worship terms: you use visual simplicity to create space where you prepare people for something more. But if it’s more all of the time it becomes too much. The opposite is also true however. If it’s all colors all of the time you are missing out on the essence and power of visual worship.

Seems so simple, doesn’t it? But then, I guess most “lightbulb moments” do. What was the last “lightbulb moment” you had?

P.S. – If you want to learn a thing or two yourself from Stephen, check him out atwww.worshipvj.com

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Tell it Like It Is – My Story

November 9, 2009 in Just Life

Something has been stirring inside me for the last couple of months. Despite the fact that I am fighting giving in because I know it’s going to be uncomfortable recent experiences have left me feeling compelled to share my story. As I was reminded at the STORY conference week before last, we each have a story to tell – stories that are part of the greatest story every told. God can and will use our stories to reach people for his Kingdom if we are willing to tell them. In telling them, however, we must be more than transparent – we must be vulnerable.

And so with that, I begin my story. My story is one of a girl who his admittedly broken and scarred. A girl who feels like she has hit rock bottom more than once in her life. But in the end a girl who has hope. And not just any hope, but the greatest hope. The hope that one day all of the hurt, the pain, the sadness, everything that breaks her, will disappear and she will spend eternity in Heaven with her Savior.

I actually sat down and wrote my story, or the highlights of my life story, a week ago. I was still working up the courage to actually post it on my blog when I realized I was fooling myself. I had told my story, I had been transparent, but I hadn’t been vulnerable. And so, after a few more battles with myself I sat down and began again. This time around I left out the life story and focused on the part I really felt compelled to tell which is also of course the part I least wanted to tell.

That part of the story begins at the end of summer, just as I was getting ready to start my junior year of college. My hands had started to hurt, and not just that, they were stiff and swollen. I couldn’t turn on and off faucets, couldn’t open jars or soda bottles, couldn’t pour milk from a gallon jug. Basically, I knew something wasn’t right. And I knew from having two grandmothers who had arthritis that what I was experiencing was an awful lot like what they experienced. So, to the doctor I went. After testing and a visit to a Rheumatologist they came to the diagnosis of Rheumatory Arthritis. I started some medication and all was going well…until.

I went home for Christmas that year and returned to campus two weeks before classes were due to start. By the time classes started that semester I could hardly walk up the stairs. I had to push and pull myself in order to stand up from a chair. When sitting I couldn’t lift my foot off of the ground no matter how hard I thought about it. Freaked out I called my doctor. His first question, “Are you paralyzed? Did you hurt your back?” “Maybe it’s a pinched nerve,” he said. But there was no pain. There was only the inability to move.

After tests and specialists and a trip to the Mayo Clinic I was diagnosed with Dermatomyositis. In church we have pastor words. Well, that’s a doctor word for arthritis of the muscles. In my daily life this means pain in my muscles, swollen and painful joints, extreme fatigue, difficulty breathing, and just overall exhaustion. I ain’t gonna lie, there are days when I don’t want to get out of bed. When I wake up and the pain is there immediately I don’t want to move. There are points in my life when I am not only physically exhausted but also emotionally and spiritually exhausted.

Let me back up a second. My condition is something I strive very hard to hide. I feel that once people know, they immediately look at me differently. Typically it is one of two reactions. Either they look at me and say “you are so strong” “wow, I’m so impressed” and the focus turns to me and I’m not about that. The second reaction is that people think I am weak or fragile and therefore don’t ask things of me because they don’t want to be a burden or be overbearing. You may be asking what reaction I would like people to have. That’s a pretty easy answer. I would like people to look at me and knowing my story say “Wow, God is good. He works in crazy ways, but he is good even through pain and suffering, he is good.”

Now trust me, I don’t always have that reaction. It’s not always easy to step back and look at my life and say “God is good.” I’ll be honest, there are times when my sinful nature gets the best of me and I simply get angry, feel sorry for myself, and ask why. For the first couple of years after I was diagnosed as much as I tried to hide it, I was depressed. I put on a strong happy face but inside I was deeply hurting. I was miserable in every way. My disease consumed me.

But thankfully, that isn’t where I stayed. I finally got over myself and realized that none of it, not even my disease is about me. It’s about what God is doing through me. That brings with it an incredible sense of freedom. A pressure to be a certain way is lifted. My self confidence and identity became fully rooted in Him and not in any piece of myself. And who am I to hide what God is doing and pretend like it’s not there? That doesn’t mean it’s always pretty or that it always looks like others think a Christian is supposed to look, but it’s me. Every broken, angry, frustrated piece of it is me. And like Paul in 2 Corinthians, I believe that when I am at my weakest, God gets the most glory. Because who gives me the strength to make it through, to persevere? Him and him alone.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

What story are you trying to hide? Don’t be afraid of your brokeness – embrace it and let God’s glory shine through!

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