Creative Worship

Allaso Ranch

I am going out to Allaso Ranch this weekend with my son for a father-son retreat.  I am really looking forward to some time with Caiden, my oldest son. 

 Allaso is a retreat center on steroids.  I did student ministry for almost 14 years and have seen just about every camp/retreat center out there.  There is not another one out there like this place! 

Several posts ago I promised to put together a list of what gear we installed at the retreat center.  I will take pictures and post them over the weekend. 

Welcome to Allaso Ranch from Fellowship Church on Vimeo.

Coffee with Ed

This is a message we shot with Ed for a weekend experience.  We saw many come to Christ through this crystal clear message of salvation.  It's a little long for a blog, but a great outreach tool.  Pass it around.

Delicious - Coffee and Conversation from Fellowship Church on Vimeo.

What will be in your room?

A conversation with my 7 year old son last night:

Caiden:  Daddy, do you know what is going to be in my bedroom in heaven?

Me:  What?

Caiden:  When I am get to heaven I am going to ask Jesus to take all the gravity out of my room.  Then I can fly around and I can have some pet fish that float around out of the water.  And then the fish can slap me in the face when I am floating in my sleep.

Me:  How are the fish going to breathe if they are out of the water?

Caiden:  Daddy, I will just ask Jesus to make them be able to breathe out of water.

Me:  Why didn't I think of that?

What will be in your room? 

Pandora's Box

So I opened the proverbial pandora's box when I started down the road of reformatting my blog.  There are just way too many options.  I am sorry I didn't deliver on the new format today, but I promise it is coming. 

Mondays are always crazy for me.  I am usually in the office by 9am on Mondays.  This morning I had the "holy hangover" from a great weekend.  It was a little hard to get started today, but by 9:45am and two cups of coffee I was at my desk ready to go.

Here is some of what today looked like for me:  (in no particular order) 

• Checked in with our Worship Leaders and reviewed the past weekend.  
• Looked over the script for the upcoming weekend and made sure we are still on page with what we planned.
• Touched base with our Campus Pastors to see how they thought the weekend went. 
•  Connected with our Post-Production team and made sure that they have a clear vision for the projects for the week.
• Prepared for our Department Staff Meeting on Tuesday
• Carved out some time for Creative thought early.
• Connected with our Marketing team and made sure we are on point with what needs to be promoted in the upcoming weekend experience.
• Talked to several other staff outside our department and asked how they thought the weekend experience went.  (We get some of our best reviews and insights from people not in our department- they bring a completely different perspective)
• Had conversations with our Worship Leaders about some of our band members and vocalists and how they are building into their lives. 
• Enjoyed lunch with several other pastors on our staff that I would consider my close friends.

What does Monday look like for you?

Finalizing New Format...

I should have my new format finalized sometime tomorrow.  Some of our team have given me some great ideas.  Before I finalize I want to hear from you.  Got any ideas? 

One other thing:  GO BUY "CLOSER TO THE START" here.

New Blog Format Coming...

I am bored with my blog.  I am not sure that is something one is supposed to announce, but I am.  So what did I do?  I grabbed a few other people and we brainstormed a few new format options.  See you on Monday with a new format. 

Could It Really Be That Easy?

Last night my wife and I completely disassembled our boys' room to get ready to have new carpet installed.  As with most little fellas, getting them to want to go to sleep every night is a challenge.  Not so this night.  We put their mattresses on the floor, and just that simple act changed the whole "good night game" for them.

What small change in your Weekend Worship Experiences, or for that matter your personal walk with Jesus, can you change that would totally flip the script?

Send Love

Here is some content we created in a pinch for one of the songs off "Closer To The Start." I hate to put this out there, because we are totally redoing it for our DVD Recording on November 5th (MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND COME JOIN US). We used this as center screen content behind our band and mixed in IMAG on our side screens. Several have asked for it, so just call me the candy man. You can get a free download of this song here.

Church Unite

The Church Is Uniting To Change The World.

Take The Next Step With Us.

Cheap and Simple

Here is a cheap and simple idea we came up with to pull off a drum element in a service.  We were trying to focus on ways to bring the energy off the stage and out into the room, so we placed these drums out in the middle of the aisle at all of our campuses.  The energy was great!  The total cost of this for materials was $130 (not including lights and mic's- which we already had).  You can see these drums in use on a previous post called, "New Creation."  They actually sounded pretty decent.

• 55 gallon barrel from www.uline.com
• 22 inch drum head (local music store)
• Color Command Light inside (or you can use LED pars)
• Mic attached to Color Command inside barrel
• Heavy Glitter and Water (Hobby Lobby)
• Paint Suit (Home Depot)