Creative Worship

Pray Beyond Provision

Today I sat down alongside of one of our Worship Leaders and together we interviewed a prospective new Worship Leader. The interview went great and at the end I felt led to say this: "Be sure you pray beyond provision."

I don't know about you, but although I am extremely grateful for how my church provides for my family, my serving there goes well beyond the provision. My serving there is about the call God has placed on my life. My serving there is about the love for this church that God has given me. My serving there is about believing so deeply in the vision God has given my Pastor that the "provision" is oftentimes the last thing on my mind. (I do realize that part of the reason is because my church takes such good care of my family that I don't have to worry about provision--that is a praise not a boast.)

But that's the type of people I want to serve alongside. I want to serve with men and women who have clarity in their call and who know that God has given them gifts specifically to grow the local church. There is a godly confidence that comes when we have clarity in our call. I thank God for that kind of clarity. I thank God that He has built and continues to build a team of men and women here at FC who have clarity in their call and as a result have confidence in the fact that God will provide.

True Love

Here is a an element we did with Phil Wickham's song "True Love" on Easter.  The video was edited and finished in our Autodesk Smoke sytem.  Motion graphic elements where done in Adobe Illustrator and After Effects.  The project was turned around amazingly fast- 2 days of element creation and 2 days of edit and finishing.

All the painters you see in this video are volunteers.  They painted all throughout the front half of the worship set.  At the end of the song they brought their individual paintings together to make one image.  Enjoy!

Click to View True Love in HD.

Happiness or Holiness... and a little bit of Easter

Could it be that marriage has been given to us by God for our holiness more than our happiness?  This is a question our pastor posed in a new series we are starting called "Wholly Holy."   What a great thought!  I don't know about you, but  my marriage is definitely helping me daily to get over myself.  I am excited about this series.  Here is a link to Ed's first message.  week one

I promised I would post more about what God did during our Easter services.  First and foremost- He was lifted high!  We celebrated His work on the cross.  We got in view of the cost of our sin.   We stood in awe of His  resurrection power.  Many heard for the first time of God's redemption plan. 

We saw great crowds, which some what surprised us as the entire DFW area was on Spring Break all at once on Easter weekend.  This year was unique as we synced up via Streambox to each of our campuses and went live with the message as Ed traveled and spoke live at least once at each campus.  This was a great experience.  I learned so much that I would not have learned about our other campuses had we not done this.  (more about that later)  I love that FC is full of incurable learners.  They will take the Word any way that it is delivered.  Live or Video- they take it in and then take it out to the world.  FC- you amaze me.

We opened a brand new Campus in the downtown Ft.Worth area and saw a crowd of over 2500 in a combined two services.  The energy there was through the roof!  We are so proud of our Ft. Worth campus team.  They rocked it.  (I plan to post details of the gear we installed in case anyone is curious.)

Tomorrow I will post a video we did for Easter.  For those of you who sent me an email- thanks for sharing what God is doing in your church.

I am rambling...I am still on Easter empty.  Does anyone feel me?   

Be sure and follow this Series each week.  It's going to be great stuff!  I will never look at my marriage the same. 

more coming...

16 Services- God moved BIG.

I will post some highlights of videos and a link to our Pastor's (Ed Young) Easter message. We started a new
series called, "Wholly Holy." I want to hear what you did! Send me an email or leave me a comment with a brief service description. (anybody got any creative Christmas ideas??)

A lot going on at FC. I am excited about this spring to see what God is going to do in the "House."

In the midst of it...

In the midst of the chaos of preparing for Easter, I had a stabilizing thought.

Easter unifies the Church. Think about it. This weekend every Christian church in the world will be focusing on the implications of Christ's work on the cross and the life we are offered because of His resurrection. When else is the Church this single-minded? When else is the Church all pointing to the same truth? When else are we so laser-focused on declaring the simple and powerful truth of Christ's redemption plan for His creation?

Jesus' claim to be the Messiah turned the religious world of His day upside down. Today His Church has been established on the truth that He is the Messiah. We are diverse in many ways. We worship differently. We lead differently. We structure differently. We reach differently. We disciple differently. But this weekend, we the Church are single-minded. This weekend the Church declares a single message to a turbulent and desperate world. Christ is the hope of the world.

May God use this time of unity for great Kingdom impact--in Jesus' name.

Gentlemen...

I recently sat in a room with a group of leaders in which we were asked, "Gentlemen, what books are you currently reading?" As you can imagine just about every leadership book, marketing book, church growth book, missional book, blah, blah, blah, was mentioned. The next question silenced the room: "Gentlemen, what about your marriage?"

What about your marriage? What are you doing to invest in the loudest sermon you will ever preach? What are you doing to invest in the most important earthly relationship in your life? Fellas- let's not miss it here!

Join us for the Creative Marriage Retreat.

Your church will be healthier and so will your marriage. Come relax and refresh. We would love to see you there!

On My Back

In between our morning and evening services today I spent some time on our Grapevine campus out by the lake lying flat on my back.  That's right- lying flat on my back.  I love all things outdoors!  I love the outdoors because it reminds me of the "otherness" and "greatness" of God.  One step into the outdoors and I am very quickly reminded that He is in control and I am not. 

As we get closer to Easter weekend I am a little anxious about a few things.  I know we aren't "supposed" to be anxious about anything- but I am just shooting straight with you here.  I'm anxious about inviting my neighbors to our services.  I am anxious about not losing sight of my family experiencing Easter in the throes of my responsibilities of helping lead our Easter services.  I am anxious about Post Production making their deadlines and delivering on content to support the services.  I am anxious about our Drama lead picking the right actors.  I am anxious about the weather for our Lakeside service.  I am anxious about the stage design.  I am anxious about our services syncing up with Streambox at all our Campuses.  And this is just to name a few. 

But that is why I spent time outside today lying flat on my back.  On my back I can't help but look UP.  ("Where does my help come from?  It comes from the Lord.")  On my back I remembered Christ tells me, "Cast all your cares upon me."  On my back I can get lost in the Texas bluesskies and be enamored by the thought that just by saying, "Let it be," Christ created all of this in all its vastness.  On my back I can't feel the weight of my anxieties; instead I see the power of my Maker. 

On my back I am reminded He's got my back.  And He's got yours as well. 

Behind The Scenes At Rehearsal

Here are a few "behind the scenes" pictures of rehearsal for this weekends service at FC. The lion share of the people in these pictures are volunteers. We believe that most of the time there is a volunteer gifted, willing, and ready to do whatever it takes to build the House. All they need is a little training and leadership.

(Monitor World- In Ears)

(Vocals Rehearsing)

(Student Volunteer Intern- part of our building and training the Next Generation)

(LD- programming lights)

(FOH- Mixing Front of House)

(Lead Guitar)

(Control Room)

(Audio For Video)

(Program Director Station For Video)

(Assistant Service Director)

Sorry About The Formatting Issues- still trying to figure this out.

Authority Issuses (Part 1)

"We have to get under what God has placed over us, so we can get over what God wants to place under us."

This was a quote from a series our Pastor (Ed Young) did called, "Authority Issues." This series has had major impact in my life and leadership. I would recommend every person who serves under anyone in leadership to get a copy. You can find it at CreativePastors.com

So what does it look like "to get UNDER what God has placed over you?" Here are a quick few thoughts (more to come in a future post) that God taught me through this series:

1. Begin to value being "Under" more than being "Over"-
Don't be so anxious to be at the top in leadership. There is probably a reason that your Pastor is the
Pastor and you are not. There is a great joy and freedom in embracing your "underness" (I think I
just made up a word) A very wise man in my life once told me, "Pace-let the game come to you.
God will place you according to your faithfulness to Him and according to the gifts he has given you."

2. Pray for and support with your whole heart those who are "Over" you.
The Church needs more "armor bearers." Look for someone to serve, and start by looking up to
those whom God has placed over you. Notice I said "serve" and not "kiss up to." There is a big
difference in serving and kissing up.

3. Quit looking for the next thing in leadership and give God your best where He has placed
you.
How can we give God our best when we so often aren't content where He has placed us. Often times
our lack of contentment is actually a reflection of "Authority Issues" with God. Trust Him and go full
on with what He has placed in your hands.

Shoot me a comment and let's start some dialogue on this topic!

Where ur peeps at?

We recently did a tongue-in-cheek marketing campaign for Easter to encourage people to invite people
within their sphere of influence to church on Easter. It began with showing these videos in our weekend services. We handed out "Peeps" to everyone as they walked in to create some tension before we showed the videos. After we showed the videos we handed everyone invite cards with our service times for each campus and challenged them to invite their "peeps" Cheesy, but some times cheese works. Enjoy!

">Where Ur Peeps At? wknd 1

">Where UR Peeps At? wknd 2