Sunday Look back 8-30-09

Let just say I love DPC and I love what God is doing in our church and in our community.

1. Retro is such a fun idea and the basics is such a needed topic it all worked well.

2. Flow was off to me some how. I like smooth traditions the whole service felt choppy to me.

3. My lighting guy was having a tough week and still managed to do a great job. Yal please pray for Rusty he is trying to do one of the hardest things there is to do in life!

4. Let me just say that I love having the robotic lights back not only are they fun but they add so much to the service!

5. Joe Matt and Rusty pulled off a pretty tough week!

6. When Jeff speaks I used to always feel like I was getting lecture from one of my high school teachers. The past 4 times I have heard him his style has grown on me.

7. I love the "Jesus is my friend" clip that video trips me out everytime!

8. Kids Jamm was Fun!

9. Yes I got pudding up my nose to make my kids laugh!

10. Yes I can still small the milk 24 hours later.

See you all next week for the second week of Retro!

Production Blog: I love my volunteers

And here is a great video by James Greene that shows how much!

Sunday Look back 8-23-09

Yesterday was a truly amazing Sunday at Discover Point. We saw 18 children come to know Christ and that never gets old!

1. We opened the service with a guitar solo by the incredible Greg King!
2. Followed that up with Happy Day (One of my favorites)
3. Amazing Grace my chains are gone may have been the most powerful song we have ever done at DP.
4. James Green made an incredible video to honor our volunteers. Thanks Agian James!
5. The kids were nervous I think but they were cute
6. Philip spoke on why to serve.
7. Kids Jamm was incredible as again we saw 18 kids come to know the Lord!
8. Hope to see you all next week as we begin Retro the 1980's. This may be the funniest series from a production stand point we have ever done!

Sunday Look Back 8-16-09

This is my look back on the Sunday morning that was at DPC.

• In case you haven't noticed the room is filling up!
• We have always included a lot of media in our services. The media is just more refined now than it was even a few months ago.
• Our band is great and they get better all the time. These guys adapt to little changes better than anyone I know.
• Excited that my Production teams are starting to really come together.

• No one in the booth is a professional but everyone gives 100% every week!
• Are you ready to give God 100%
• It's okay to have "things and to do "things" it's when those things become your life that you have a problem.
• Thanks to everyone who filled out the Life Groups surveys. We got lots of good feed back.
• Kids Jamm was so much fun again this week. There is something about watching kids learn that amazes me.

Production Blog:The future of DP Production

I am a firm believer in the fact that you have to have a vision and a plan for your ministry. Even if God changes the direction from time to time if you keep goals ahead of you then you are always reaching for something and you don't become content with what you have done. These are my future plans for the Production ministry at DPC. These plans may not be the plans of the rest of the staff although I shared most of these with them. These plans may change as our relatively new church continues to take shape. Today I am going to talk about my short term goals. Maybe in a few weeks I will come back and share my long term goals for this ministry.





1. Better training material. I am (as I have said many times before) a terrible teacher. I am a doer and doers do they don't teach. On the other hand I do lead a ministry and leaders do teach. So how do I balance the two? I have not figured that our yet. What I do know is that I need to put together better training packets. We have some cool equipment and I would love to be able to hand some one a training packet so they will at least have some idea whats going on before they step into the booth for their first day of practice.


2. A new position: Camera Operator - There will be a need for a camera operator very soon for reasons I will discuss below


3. I want to begin to put together a plan to control over flow. In case you have not noticed our services get fuller and fuller. We want everyone to be able to be on the service comfortably. What happens if more people show up then we have seats for? The answer is to create an overflow space. A space out in the lobby where people can see and hear the service on TV's. This would also allow us to run the countdown in lobby so you would have a better idea when the service is to begin.


4. I want to set up a Live Internet Broadcast of our services! Yes I would like to stream our services live over the Internet. It is all about reaching as many people as possible and live streaming events is easier than ever. Plus it provides you a way to join our services even if you are sick or out of town!

5. Increase production volunteers. With the addition of a position soon and the possibility of increasing the number of service at DPC I need volunteers I have 8 and I probably will need 16 within the next 6 months. That's a lot of training!


Like I said these goals could change or the time tables could change. All I know is that is your not working towards something your standing still.

Social Media and the Church: Google reader Sharing

I want to know what your reading! I love to read ideas, thoughts and random blurbs for a wide range of people. Just as fun for me to know is what your reading and what you think is cool, creative and exciting. We get great ideas by sharing thoughts and ideas with other s and letting them add to the ideas. It just like a creative meeting except with 1000's of people online. Google reader has added a great new feature that allows us to share the blogs we think are worth sharing as well as comment on them with your thoughts. I read a ton of blogs and so do a lot of you. I don't always read the blogs your read but I want to know about the ones you think are cool, creative, smart or just funny. It's all about growing the kingdom! All you have to do is:



Sign up for Google reader



Add some feeds to your reader


Under each feed is button to share


Find a post you think is worth sharing and click the share button under it


Find other people like you or even people different from you and read their shared items



Have fun being creative with 1000's of people

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Thursday Tip: Use the Labs

A lot of people use Gmail as their email service and Google Calendars as their calendar but don't know that there is a way to make both of them better right within the pages themselves. Google has created this nifty thing called labs (they have actually been around awhile). In Labs you will find cool little gadgets that improve Gmail and Google Calendars. Just click the beaker glass looking icon in the top right hand corner of Gmail and Google Calendars and start browsing through all of the coll things you can add.

Production Blog- Excellence

I believe that God calls us to be excellent in all we do. I don't think that means perfect just excellent. The other day a friend of mine ask me why I would not create videos with the current video camera we have (which is old and SD) and show them in church. He went as far as (in jest) telling me I was sinning for not showing the low quality video because it could help some one come to Christ. On the other hand it could turn someone off. We spend our week watching HD TVs (well not me) listening to ipods and looking at high quality websites. Why should we think that we as a church can be outdated and still appeal to people who spend their life in High Definition? I am all for integrating Pop Culture into services. Not for entertainment but to help bridge the gap between what non believers know and what I have learned. What I am not for is integrating video that sucks! If you are going to show videos in your church, if you are going to playing secular music, if you are going to integrate pop culture into your services in any way do it with excellence.



I know money plays a factor. This is where you have to be creative. You also have to learn to say no. If something is planned but it looks or sound horrible, Scrap it, don't do it and walk away. We have been wanting to add a drama element to our services for a long time but we do not have the people, tools or time to do it right. Until God provides those things we will not have a drama element in our services even though I know we want one really bad. Same thing with video I really want to start doing more and more video (I do a lot now with motion graphics now but not footage) but I won't until I have better technology (that is not cry for help). I just simply do not want to put a product out there that is half done.



What are your thoughts?

Top Ten Tuesday- My Tutorial Sites

Every Tuesday I try to put a list out of top ten things that I use, know of or do. Today's top 10 list is the top ten tutorial sites I use.





Gray Machine- I use Gray Machine for it After Effect Tuorials but that have some other stuff on there as well. Like Cinema 4D.








Tutorial 9- One of my favorite Photoshop Tutorial Sites










Max After- After Effects tutorials that you have seen in Projects at DPC










Make Use of- A all around how to do whatever blog. Just read it for a few days you will learn soemthing.











Creative Cow- Tutorials on Everything from Final Cut to After Effects for some of the best teachers out there.










CMD TV- Brad Zimmerman's Church Media Design Podcast is one of my favorite Podcast I watch it every week.









PS Tuts- The Best Photoshop tutorial site











Own the Mix- Audio lessons from some of the coolest teachers around. Want to be a better sound technician? Check out this site.










AE Tuts- Great After Effects Tutorials












Video Copilot - Simply my favorite After Effects tutorils. Andrew Kramer is pretty funny too.

Sunday Look back 8-9-09

Sunday was a great day at Discover Point Church! We are always happy to see new faces in the crowd and man there were a lot of new faces this week. Thanks to everyone who came! A special thanks to everyone who helped out at Kids Jamm yesterday it was awesome!

1. I loved Standby doing a little music before the service! We need to do that more often.
2. Killer Music this week! I love our band.
3. We will play "Scenes" by Charlie Hall again next week. Take a minute and read the lyrics. There is a reason we sang this every week of the series.
4. We are hopefully getting the robotic lights fixed this week! That excites me!
5. Joe, Rusty, and Matt did a great job.
6. Philip spoke on iThings. What are the things in your life keeping you from a better relationship with God?
7. Cole and Matt's rendition of "By your Side" was spot on
8. Kids Jamm last night was amazing
9. It always fun to see kids learning about Jesus.
10. Next week is the final week of iGod called iChange.

Thursday Quick Tip: Share your Flickr Photos on Twitter

I like Twitpic a lot but I like Flickr even more and now that Flickr allows me to post my photos to Twitter I will use Twitpic less and less. I could regurgitate how Flickr explains this process but I will just point you to the FAQ page on Flickr where they do a great job explaining the process. This is a great way to let people know when you have posted new photos.

Here is the link

Production Blog: Be Prepared

Anything can happen at any given moment in any given service. Volunteers can call out, equipment can go down and you can get sick. I have learned that I needed something new every week since moving into our new complex. This week I ask David (worship arts pastor extraordinaire) to start bringing an extra set  of tab sheets for the Computer tech. I know this seems like something small but it can make a huge difference. Next week I am going to start walking a different volunteers through my morning routine of turning on equipment and I will do the same for closing down the equipment. I go over each Song like 6 times before I declare it good for Sunday. I make the computer techs read through the Sermon for spelling errors even though ProPresenter has spell check. The biggest issue I have as far as my backup plan goes is there is no back up equipment and there is no money to buy back up equipment. So outside of a projector and 2 LED Par cans I have no backup equipment and I know this is an issue for a lot of churches. That issue is truly out of my hands, so it is extra important that my team and I are prepared in the areas that we can control. There is no more nauseating feeling than when you ruin a powerful moment in the service because you weren't prepared. God called us to do all things to the best of our ability I believe that includes the things we do in the production both on Sunday mornings. Be Prepared

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Top Ten Tuesday:

This is the first top ten Tuesday I have posted on Tuesday in a while. I think I am finally catching up.

Today is my 8th anniversary of being married to my wife so I thought I would write 10 reasons I love my wife. These are no order.

1. She challenges me. I spend a lot of time challenging the way people think about things. I spend a lot of time asking the question why. My wife is the one who challenges me. She does not let me become satisfied.

2. She has never ever ever lied to me. EVER

3. She took the time to get to know me. Not just the BS front I put on sometimes but the real me. 

4. After getting to know me she stayed with me and that is even scarier.

5. Because she is the best mom to our kids. I know she doesn't feel like she is but there is no one better to raise my offspring.

6. Because she loves God. 

7. Because she forgives me even though I can be a truly stupid man sometimes

8. Because she has made me a better human being.

9. Because she puts up with my hobbies.

10. Because she is on my side no matter what.

There so many other things I love about my wife. I failed to mention that she is beautiful and smart, and so many other things. I got the better end of the deal for sure. I am looking forward to our future no matter where it takes us.

Sunday Look Back 8-2-08

1. This service had a lot of elements I like in a service at DP. Some pop culture elements, solid worship, a lot of creativity and a solid message from God.

2. We will miss Daniel. He has been a huge help to our staff. He personally helped build me a green screen. and he helped David and Greg with putting together the kids theater.

3. The music was awesome. We did Beautiful Day by U2 and Christ the Solid Rock back to back and it worked and came off beautifully.

4. Scenes by Charlie Hall went a lot better than I expected. I am not a big fan of the song but I am a fan of how Daniel preformed yesterday. It was great!

5. IGod is the name of the message series we began this week and I think Philip hit a Homerun.

6. What things in your life come before God. Is it work, is it the gym, is it church?

7. "Do or Do not Do there is no try" Yoda

8. Production went well. I had a first time computer operator who did a really good job for her first time.

9. Next week is shaping up to be a better week then this past on eI can't wait!

10. If you would like to hear the Podcast from this Sunday Click Here