amazing desktop art

I came across this site a while back and thought I should share with everyone… it’s called desktopography.  It’s an exhibition of desktop artwork all of which is free to download.  Check it out they are awesome.  

free christmas videos

The guys over at Worship House Media are giving away a free video every day until Christmas… check it out here.

secret shopping

I had this weekend off so I decided to stop by a local church in our area that seems to have it going on and learn some things.  There aren’t many churches in my area experiencing rapid growth or doing things out of the box so my list was small when deciding what church to visit. So  I started at the top of the list and was sadly disappointed.

It turns out its a typical traditional church with a few cosmetic touches that give the perception its progressive.  I have a whole list of things that could be better, but lets not get into those.  However I did pick up a few things that I’d like to share, first off I realized just how blessed I am at Bay to have the freedom and resources to create in excellence.  The other thing I learned is the importance of first impressions and outward perceptions.  And it can work both ways, from the outside your church can be viewed as one thing and when someone walks in the door either their presumptions are confirmed and they are blown away or they are disappointed to the place of not ever wanting to walk back in.  I think its important that we market who we are, not who we want to be or who we plan to become one day.  It’s important to find out what the community thinks of our churches, to see how the people we are ministering to views our church and either work to change that in their eyes or work to become what they already think, if that perception is better than you actually are.

Last note, I loved secret shopping and will probably do it again the next time I can break away, I’ve made a list of local churches to visit. As a matter of fact, I may be looking for a secret shopper to come through Bay soon and give me a list of what we should be doing better if anyone is interested leave it in a comment.

reading suggestions…

I came across a few great books hidden on my shelf that I haven’t seen in a while, if you’ve haven’t read these you should check them out.

The Creative Habit – by Twyla Tharp
Which I have blogged on before… here, here, & here.

Addicted to Mediocrity – by Franky Schaeffer
This is an older book, hopefully a lot of you creative guys have read it, but if not you should.

merry christmas baldwin county

Ok, most of you guys heard this yesterday but its worth repeating.  Merry Christmas Baldwin County is our annual Christmas outreach to families in our area that can’t afford Christmas dinner or gifts for their kids.  Every year we give out a 40 lb box of food per family and a big box of toys for every kid in their family, this year we are gonna do a lot more.  We’ve struck a deal with Huffy bikes to be able to giveaway 1200 bikes… yea you read it right… 1200.  Thats a whole lot of bikes (and we get to assemble all 1200, that’ll be fun).  They are broken down by size so every age kid will be able to get one, there even some tricycles in there.  The deal we got was $25 bucks a bike, so we are encouraging our church family to give other kids a great Christmas by buying a few of these and even getting their own kids involved in raising money.  We’re still working on the logistics of how we are going to distribute all of these without chaos… but chaos may be inevitable.  We are still doing the box of food for each family as well.  This is going to be a great Christmas for so many kids in our community. 

shalom

My good friend Shannon is in Israel right now touring with a team from Bay and he’s teaching short lessons at each stop on the trip. He’s been blogging all these as they go and they are awesome lessons and insights that I’ve never thought about or heard before. Shannon lived over there for about 5 years so he’s got an understanding of Jewish customs and Old Testament history like no one I’ve ever met. You should definitely check it out… here.

basecamp

I guess I’ve always known this (I just don’t act like it), but structure and organization help in the creative process and the lack of structure can screw it up quicker than anything. So a couple weeks back we started using Basecamp, which is a web based project management software for our media and worship departments to stay organized & connected. So far its worked extremely well and we’ve barely scratched the surface. It helps us in our communication between departments, for instance our worship pastor spends a lot of time on the road and our Music Director is his Road Manager, so without communication it can get crazy. Also my graphic designer/web guy is our Youth Pastor, so he is crazy busy with that, Basecamp has really helped he and I stay connected without me having to constantly stick my head in his office.

It’s easy to see that Basecamp could easily become our communication standard, especially with plans of going multi-site next year. It’s so vital that all my guys are communicating on a weekly basis and with our situation that not necessarily possible in a weekly meeting.

I’d love to hear how you guys stay connected with your teams.

my little van goop

Here’s some shots of Bella’s first masterpiece… and it is beautiful.