Thursday, April 10, 2008
Just a teaser....
A teaser of this Spring's upcoming teaching series at The Meeting House.
Come check it out, starting May 11th.
More tidbits of branding to come, if I ever get around to it! (Just like the Good Friday pictures and video!)
Monday, March 17, 2008
How near-sighted I can become
I've been excited about Good Friday services coming up this week. As I said before, it's coming together to be a very meaningful service.
I'm excited about the huge cross we are building. I've shown some people the logs and laughed with them about how big of an endeavour it is to build something this size, and how neat it will be when done.
And as I sit here capturing film clips from "The Passion" movie to use as "flashback" scenes in our service, I suddenly realize how nearsighted I can be.
I'm so concerned about making a good service, and building a cross - and excited about all this - that I can quickly forget that this huge hunk of wood I'm putting together commemorates an instrument of INCREDIBLE TORTURE!
God, make me more mindful of the horror of this thing as I put it together tomorrow, and let us not celebrate the majesty of the monstrosity of it. Let us build it, and then stand back and weep as we remember the torture that you chose to bear on our behalf.
I'm excited about the huge cross we are building. I've shown some people the logs and laughed with them about how big of an endeavour it is to build something this size, and how neat it will be when done.
And as I sit here capturing film clips from "The Passion" movie to use as "flashback" scenes in our service, I suddenly realize how nearsighted I can be.
I'm so concerned about making a good service, and building a cross - and excited about all this - that I can quickly forget that this huge hunk of wood I'm putting together commemorates an instrument of INCREDIBLE TORTURE!
God, make me more mindful of the horror of this thing as I put it together tomorrow, and let us not celebrate the majesty of the monstrosity of it. Let us build it, and then stand back and weep as we remember the torture that you chose to bear on our behalf.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
I couldn't say it better....
.... so I won't try.
Copied from a post on Craig and Dana Albrecht's blog.... Arja's cousin and his family. They will soon be serving in medical missions aboard Mercy Ships.
One of the rough, cinder-block homes in the village of Villa Ascension in the Dominican Republic had, painted on its side in white paint, a message easy enough for anyone passing by to read. It was not written in English, but with the few words I knew, somehow I made sense of the rest. When a translator came along, my reading was confirmed. The message was, essentially, “The gringos (white people) have the money of the poor people”.
Villa Ascencion is a village among now-defunct sugar cane fields, populated by mainly unemployed Haitian immigrants and Dominicans. In the past several years, up to 40 work teams per year have arrived from various countries and organizations. The village infrastructure has benefited greatly as these teams have built homes, a school, a church and a clinic. We saw several children with Tim Horton’s shirts on, evidence of aid provided by our fellow-Canadians. Previous Mercy Ships teams had taught gardening as a food source. A local Kids Alive school provides children with one big meal a day. But still, the main concern we heard was “I’m hungry”.
We learned in our time in the Dominican Republic that helping people, whether individually or as a group, is not a simple process. We do have to consider, on a large scale, whether we as ‘gringos’ have gained by taking advantage of the poor, either currently or long ago. We also have to do our part to stand with our brothers and sisters in poverty by providing food and housing. But at the end of it all, we may discover a need that is deeper. Is that the need that persists in our hearts, even in Canada with warm homes and full bellies? Is that a hunger that can only be filled by a Father who has more wealth and more wisdom than anyone who could walk into Villa Ascension? Still, an exciting prospect that stirs in our hearts is the possibility of actually being the hands and feet and feelings of the Man who walked into similarly poverty-stricken areas of Palestine 2000 years ago and fed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 3 fishes.
Thanks, Craig. We share your struggle, and your excitement.
Copied from a post on Craig and Dana Albrecht's blog.... Arja's cousin and his family. They will soon be serving in medical missions aboard Mercy Ships.
One of the rough, cinder-block homes in the village of Villa Ascension in the Dominican Republic had, painted on its side in white paint, a message easy enough for anyone passing by to read. It was not written in English, but with the few words I knew, somehow I made sense of the rest. When a translator came along, my reading was confirmed. The message was, essentially, “The gringos (white people) have the money of the poor people”.
Villa Ascencion is a village among now-defunct sugar cane fields, populated by mainly unemployed Haitian immigrants and Dominicans. In the past several years, up to 40 work teams per year have arrived from various countries and organizations. The village infrastructure has benefited greatly as these teams have built homes, a school, a church and a clinic. We saw several children with Tim Horton’s shirts on, evidence of aid provided by our fellow-Canadians. Previous Mercy Ships teams had taught gardening as a food source. A local Kids Alive school provides children with one big meal a day. But still, the main concern we heard was “I’m hungry”.
We learned in our time in the Dominican Republic that helping people, whether individually or as a group, is not a simple process. We do have to consider, on a large scale, whether we as ‘gringos’ have gained by taking advantage of the poor, either currently or long ago. We also have to do our part to stand with our brothers and sisters in poverty by providing food and housing. But at the end of it all, we may discover a need that is deeper. Is that the need that persists in our hearts, even in Canada with warm homes and full bellies? Is that a hunger that can only be filled by a Father who has more wealth and more wisdom than anyone who could walk into Villa Ascension? Still, an exciting prospect that stirs in our hearts is the possibility of actually being the hands and feet and feelings of the Man who walked into similarly poverty-stricken areas of Palestine 2000 years ago and fed 5000 people with 5 loaves and 3 fishes.
Thanks, Craig. We share your struggle, and your excitement.
Oh yeah - I have a blog!
What's it been?!? Over 2 months! *sigh* I'm pathetic!
But seriously, I've felt recently that just blogging the day-in/day-out of my/our lives seems a bit self-indulgent.... so it hasn't been that appealing. So I'm not even sure why I'm posting today. LOL
So here's some highlights from the last 2 months:
1) I'm still crazy as ever about my girls! Enough said on that!
2) Things are moving along for our move to Africa. January was pretty intense as we worked on the Mennonite Central Committee application. It's very in-depth, with some pretty serious essay questions. We finally got them all done and off in the mail by the beginning of February. Then, a couple weeks ago, we had our 3 hour inteview with their HR person. It was like a 3 hour personality inventory test - YIKES! Very thorough. We just got word that we are officially approved for placement with MCC. From here, we wait to have more discussion with the Africa department. Those guys and the leadership at The Meeting House are still hashing out details of our placement. MCC has had a few delays.... which means we almost certainly won't be going in the summer as we had hoped. At this point, we are seriously hoping for sometime this fall!
The girls are getting more and more anxious to go, too.... which is very encouraging. I'm sure it will still be hard when it finally happens, but at least they are excited about it.
It seems premature to celebrate that we are ABSOLUTELY doing this - but it sure seems like it. A few more discussions with the MCC Africa Department and we'll consider it formal.
As soon as that happens, we'll start searching for my replacement at the church. That's going to be a difficult process, but we are planning to have a 3 month overlap between me and my replacement, which is incredible. I'm really humbled that the church values my position and my work so much that they will give me 3 months to hand off to that person.
We'll probably still try to sell the house this summer, as that's the hot time for real estate.... and then we'll just live in a cardboard box for a few months. ;)
We continue to do lots of reading about the various situations our African family are facing, and it's heartbreaking and encouraging all at the same time. The situation in Zimbabwe is out of control! In spite of the food shortages and outrageous inflation, part of me still really wants to live in Bulawayo, but it looks like MCC still plans to send us to Choma, Zambia.
Guess that's about all we know for now. This has been a process of much waiting. Good practice for living in Africa, I suppose. Everything takes longer over there, so we better get used to it. And we trust that God is at work in the details.
When we interviewed, the striking thing that came up over and over is how much Arja and I both like things to be within control, on schedule, according to plan, etc. I guess I never realized how similar we are in that regard. It's that attention to detail and in-control nature that has made us both very good at what we do. And yet, that will be the thing that we both need to relearn if we are going to survive there.
I think it will be a valuable learning experience!
3) I've been working on some really incredible stuff for work, and I'm really excited about it - more than I have been in a long time.
Good Friday is always my favourite holiday of the Christian calendar. Particularly since I've joined The Meeting House, I have enjoyed working at producing a unique, deeply moving and emotional experience in which people can contemplate the sacrifice of Christ.
I've been compeltely immersed in this year's preproduction all week.
Here's some highlights of what's to come....
"In Memoriam - Remembering the Christ"
A service set on the day after Christ's death. We have written monologues from the perspective of 6 different people who encountered Jesus at different points in his ministry. They are gathered at the cross in their grief, sharing their memories of Jesus.
We will hear from:
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as she remembers Jesus at the wedding in Cana.
The paralytic man healed by Jesus at the pool.
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, as she remembers weeping with Jesus after her brother's death.
The adulterous woman whom the Pharisees brought before Jesus.
Peter, as he remembers the last supper, and his denial of Jesus.
And an unnamed disciple who shares their current confusion, and says there is nothing left for him to do except to go back to fishing.
The spoken memories will be interspersed with "flashbacks" of the memory on video (similar to LOST flasbacks), with countpoint flashbacks of Jesus' torture and crucifixion.
It will end as a complete and abrupt cliffhanger.... "To be continued".... blackout.... lights up.... end of service.
We can do that this year for the first time, because for the first time, we don't have to pretend it isn't Easter on Easter! In the past, we've been on a week-delay teaching schedule to our regional sites. But being broadcast to our sites live now allows us to actually aknowledge Easter on Sunday! YAY! What a novel concept.
So we'll pick it right back up again on Sunday with another monologue - Peter remembering Jesus' appearance on the shore as they were fishing, and him diving into the water to get to him. It's the beginning of a service of hope and celebration of the resurrection (duh - I guess that's what all Easter services are).
All the elements are coming together incredibly well. Good writing, good actors, incredible video clips and a musical score that is so powerful that it rocks my world.
And the visuals - they promise to be amazing. The stage will be bare and stark.... all except for the cross that we are erecting. I got two HUGE logs (each is about 18 ft long, and 14" diameter). We will suspend it on stage and light it very dramatically. It's going to be incredible. When I was hauling and moving the logs yesterday, I realized that I must be absolutely insane. At Christmas, the 18' trees were difficult and crazy enough. But now - a cross that will weight just under 1 ton and be suspended from the steel overhead! I'm friggin' NUTS! I'm just waiting for approval from the structural engineer before we suspend it - I'd hate to pull the building down or hurt someone. Good thing we are in an industrial building with steel structure and solid concrete floors!
I've dreamt of building a cross like this for years.... this is the right time for it!
I'll post pictures when it's done.
I'm also excited about the big spring teaching series we are preparing for. More to come on that soon, I promise. We are putting all our chips behind the branding and marketing of this one - it has the potential to be incredibly appealing to the non-churched public, and we really want to make them interested. I can't wait for it!!!!
Let's just say.... it's not about "Jesus, meek and mild" by any stretch. Think Jesus, the revolutionary!
4) Spring must be coming soon. The weather sucks here, but I know that spring will come, and I'm so looking forward to it. Remember that list of things I couldn't wait to do last spring.... ditto for this year. The girls are squirrely and can't wait to spend lots of time outside.... and I can already hear the kayak calling my name!
Okay.... enough update for now. If you've stuck around during the last 2 months, thanks for caring and thanks for reading. Sorry this is just an "update" and not more in-depth. I'll try to get back into this silly thing more often!
Peace and love to all of you!
But seriously, I've felt recently that just blogging the day-in/day-out of my/our lives seems a bit self-indulgent.... so it hasn't been that appealing. So I'm not even sure why I'm posting today. LOL
So here's some highlights from the last 2 months:
1) I'm still crazy as ever about my girls! Enough said on that!
2) Things are moving along for our move to Africa. January was pretty intense as we worked on the Mennonite Central Committee application. It's very in-depth, with some pretty serious essay questions. We finally got them all done and off in the mail by the beginning of February. Then, a couple weeks ago, we had our 3 hour inteview with their HR person. It was like a 3 hour personality inventory test - YIKES! Very thorough. We just got word that we are officially approved for placement with MCC. From here, we wait to have more discussion with the Africa department. Those guys and the leadership at The Meeting House are still hashing out details of our placement. MCC has had a few delays.... which means we almost certainly won't be going in the summer as we had hoped. At this point, we are seriously hoping for sometime this fall!
The girls are getting more and more anxious to go, too.... which is very encouraging. I'm sure it will still be hard when it finally happens, but at least they are excited about it.
It seems premature to celebrate that we are ABSOLUTELY doing this - but it sure seems like it. A few more discussions with the MCC Africa Department and we'll consider it formal.
As soon as that happens, we'll start searching for my replacement at the church. That's going to be a difficult process, but we are planning to have a 3 month overlap between me and my replacement, which is incredible. I'm really humbled that the church values my position and my work so much that they will give me 3 months to hand off to that person.
We'll probably still try to sell the house this summer, as that's the hot time for real estate.... and then we'll just live in a cardboard box for a few months. ;)
We continue to do lots of reading about the various situations our African family are facing, and it's heartbreaking and encouraging all at the same time. The situation in Zimbabwe is out of control! In spite of the food shortages and outrageous inflation, part of me still really wants to live in Bulawayo, but it looks like MCC still plans to send us to Choma, Zambia.
Guess that's about all we know for now. This has been a process of much waiting. Good practice for living in Africa, I suppose. Everything takes longer over there, so we better get used to it. And we trust that God is at work in the details.
When we interviewed, the striking thing that came up over and over is how much Arja and I both like things to be within control, on schedule, according to plan, etc. I guess I never realized how similar we are in that regard. It's that attention to detail and in-control nature that has made us both very good at what we do. And yet, that will be the thing that we both need to relearn if we are going to survive there.
I think it will be a valuable learning experience!
3) I've been working on some really incredible stuff for work, and I'm really excited about it - more than I have been in a long time.
Good Friday is always my favourite holiday of the Christian calendar. Particularly since I've joined The Meeting House, I have enjoyed working at producing a unique, deeply moving and emotional experience in which people can contemplate the sacrifice of Christ.
I've been compeltely immersed in this year's preproduction all week.
Here's some highlights of what's to come....
"In Memoriam - Remembering the Christ"
A service set on the day after Christ's death. We have written monologues from the perspective of 6 different people who encountered Jesus at different points in his ministry. They are gathered at the cross in their grief, sharing their memories of Jesus.
We will hear from:
Mary, the Mother of Jesus, as she remembers Jesus at the wedding in Cana.
The paralytic man healed by Jesus at the pool.
Mary, the sister of Lazarus, as she remembers weeping with Jesus after her brother's death.
The adulterous woman whom the Pharisees brought before Jesus.
Peter, as he remembers the last supper, and his denial of Jesus.
And an unnamed disciple who shares their current confusion, and says there is nothing left for him to do except to go back to fishing.
The spoken memories will be interspersed with "flashbacks" of the memory on video (similar to LOST flasbacks), with countpoint flashbacks of Jesus' torture and crucifixion.
It will end as a complete and abrupt cliffhanger.... "To be continued".... blackout.... lights up.... end of service.
We can do that this year for the first time, because for the first time, we don't have to pretend it isn't Easter on Easter! In the past, we've been on a week-delay teaching schedule to our regional sites. But being broadcast to our sites live now allows us to actually aknowledge Easter on Sunday! YAY! What a novel concept.
So we'll pick it right back up again on Sunday with another monologue - Peter remembering Jesus' appearance on the shore as they were fishing, and him diving into the water to get to him. It's the beginning of a service of hope and celebration of the resurrection (duh - I guess that's what all Easter services are).
All the elements are coming together incredibly well. Good writing, good actors, incredible video clips and a musical score that is so powerful that it rocks my world.
And the visuals - they promise to be amazing. The stage will be bare and stark.... all except for the cross that we are erecting. I got two HUGE logs (each is about 18 ft long, and 14" diameter). We will suspend it on stage and light it very dramatically. It's going to be incredible. When I was hauling and moving the logs yesterday, I realized that I must be absolutely insane. At Christmas, the 18' trees were difficult and crazy enough. But now - a cross that will weight just under 1 ton and be suspended from the steel overhead! I'm friggin' NUTS! I'm just waiting for approval from the structural engineer before we suspend it - I'd hate to pull the building down or hurt someone. Good thing we are in an industrial building with steel structure and solid concrete floors!
I've dreamt of building a cross like this for years.... this is the right time for it!
I'll post pictures when it's done.
I'm also excited about the big spring teaching series we are preparing for. More to come on that soon, I promise. We are putting all our chips behind the branding and marketing of this one - it has the potential to be incredibly appealing to the non-churched public, and we really want to make them interested. I can't wait for it!!!!
Let's just say.... it's not about "Jesus, meek and mild" by any stretch. Think Jesus, the revolutionary!
4) Spring must be coming soon. The weather sucks here, but I know that spring will come, and I'm so looking forward to it. Remember that list of things I couldn't wait to do last spring.... ditto for this year. The girls are squirrely and can't wait to spend lots of time outside.... and I can already hear the kayak calling my name!
Okay.... enough update for now. If you've stuck around during the last 2 months, thanks for caring and thanks for reading. Sorry this is just an "update" and not more in-depth. I'll try to get back into this silly thing more often!
Peace and love to all of you!
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Well Done, Marty
An acquaintance of mine spent over a year in Uganda, setting up a production ministry in a very large church.
This is a piece he put together while he was there.
As a video professional (and one passionate about Africa), I think this is a great piece of work. It's encouraging, fresh, and has a very modern feel.
We are becoming saturated with media about African children. It's something I'm becoming more acutely aware of, and want to be very cautious how I use video to portray Africa when I'm there. More on that later. But for now, I'll say that Marty's work was tastefully done, and gives us a quick glimpse into the lives of African children - children who are portrayed as humans, not just objects in a marketing campaign.
This is a piece he put together while he was there.
As a video professional (and one passionate about Africa), I think this is a great piece of work. It's encouraging, fresh, and has a very modern feel.
We are becoming saturated with media about African children. It's something I'm becoming more acutely aware of, and want to be very cautious how I use video to portray Africa when I'm there. More on that later. But for now, I'll say that Marty's work was tastefully done, and gives us a quick glimpse into the lives of African children - children who are portrayed as humans, not just objects in a marketing campaign.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Meet a friend in Zimbabwe
Check out this post on the blog of Forgotten Voices International. Forgotten Voices is a non-profit agency that partners with local churches, primarily in Zimbabwe, to help provide care for orphans. I don't know much about them, but I'm really starting to like what I see. Ryan Keith, the guy who runs this agency, does a tremendous job with his blog.
See this post to read about a woman we met in Zimbabwe. We actually shot interview footage of her, but we haven't had the right opportunity to use it yet.
Mrs. Maposa is one of those people you meet once and never forget (like most people we met in Africa!) She is one of the most selfless and servanthearted persons I've ever met.
Take a moment to read about her on Ryan's blog... and know that there are incredible people like her working hard to change the face of the Africa... pray that God will continue to raise up women like her.
See this post to read about a woman we met in Zimbabwe. We actually shot interview footage of her, but we haven't had the right opportunity to use it yet.
Mrs. Maposa is one of those people you meet once and never forget (like most people we met in Africa!) She is one of the most selfless and servanthearted persons I've ever met.
Take a moment to read about her on Ryan's blog... and know that there are incredible people like her working hard to change the face of the Africa... pray that God will continue to raise up women like her.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Christmas Eve '07
Another year down, and another wonderful Christmas Eve service(s) experienced by thousands of people at The Meeting House.
Every year, we seem to "outdo" ourselves in terms of production, complexity, and "wow" factor..... all the things that Jesus' birth WASN'T. So this year, we decided to take a simpler approach (in some ways it was simple, and in some, not so much - LOL!)
This year's Christmas Eve at The Meeting House was called "Down to Earth". We tried to convey a more organic, family feeling - as opposed to the highly technical "events" of the past 2 years.
In many ways, we succeeded. And still in some ways, it was quite technical and "wow" factor-ish. And through it all, (surprise surprise) God showed up!
The evening consisted of music (corporate singing and performance) storytelling, a meditation by Brux, and more singing. Pretty simple stuff. But still delivered Meeting House style.
In years past, we haven't done much traditional decoration. So this year, in keeping with the theme, we decided to do Christmas trees. And when you have a 50x75 ft stage with almost 24 ft of ceiling height, if you are gonna do trees, you gotta REALLY do trees. So I put a forest on stage. :)
Above you'll see an 18 ft tree, a 12 ft tree, and several 6 to 8 ft trees.... all with lights. They are all real trees. A guy from the church with a 20 ft tilt-n-load flatbad drove an hour north of Toronto with me to pick them up from a tree farm. Then we used a boom lift to hoist the big ones into the air and we suspended them with steel cable. The picture doesn't show, but there was another 18 ft tree out in the foyer.
Then came the lights - hundreds of feet of lights. Yikes.
As usual, Dave's lighting was wonderful and really created the mood.
Craig's band was killer, of course.
And the Great Wooden Trio (of which there are four guys, not three!) were the perfect guests for our program, singing and storytelling.
I trust that God was present to the thousands who came. I know that he was with me and my production team.... empowering us to serve Him with excellence.
Thanks be to God for his incarnation among us. And thanks to Him for the opportunity to worship him in our own style again this year.
A few more pictures to follow...
Bruxy and baby Maya
Great Wooden Trio
Craig & Band
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