Been considering and reflecting lately on the sometimes reviled topic of Consistency. Depending on the context of a situation, consistency can be a huge negative when absent or a major plus when prevalent. For this writing, my thoughts are concentrated primarily on how to design and operate a production on a more consistent basis. On both a personal and professional level, developing, maintaining, and improving my consistency has been, and remains to be one of my greatest challenges. Striving to find consistency is paramount amongst the thousands and thousands of decisions that make up every event.

At COTM, we’re known to change it up considerably from time to time but overall there is consistency on several levels that is always present. This could translate to something as simple as the warmth you feel when entering our main auditorium prior to an event; how the house-lighting, music, volume, color, and texture of the décor all work to create an atmosphere that is consistent and true to what our guests have become accustomed to. Or maybe it translates to the complexity of a full-blown production element involving layers of personnel, equipment, scene changes, lighting cues, audio mix, and video shots all converging into one glorious moment.

However basic or complex our production is, our consistency directly reflects the level of excellence that has been established by everything that has preceded us—we’ve grown accustomed to the consistency of a professional and top-notch production: consistent audio, consistent speech intelligibility, consistent lighting, consistent video, etc. Maintaining these consistencies has just about become a state of mind as they start to operate from the same common denominator. My production team’s commitment to maintaining this consistency is what protects us from losing valuable production ground as we continue to grow and change.

No matter what situation you come from or whom you represent, staying consistent doesn’t cost a cent nor does it involve being lavish or extravagant. You don’t even have to make some huge leap from marginal to awesome overnight—you can make a massive difference by simply finding what things you already do great and make them amazingly consistent—then spend time focusing on making improvements consistently over time.

Consider this, if your event fails from the most fundamental task, a mic goes out, a lamp blows, a projector dies, etc—a better foundation could be established by perfecting these small things on a consistent basis. Excelling at a small level may allow you to start rising above the minutia and build to something bigger and better.

Well we are right smack in the middle of planning and preparing for Seeds Conference 2012. Honestly, I can’t wait to host so many pastors and leaders from all over the world. It’s truly the highlight of our year!

I’m in the middle of prepping for some my sessions and getting content together and I’d love to hear from YOU! That’s right, you reading this blog right now. I don’t care if you’re planning on coming to Seeds Conference or not, I want to know what you want to hear from us. I can’t promise I’ll use your suggestions but they will provide me a leaping off point for what I’ll share when the time comes so respond using the comments of this blog and let’s hear it!

Hey Seeds people!

2011 was an incredible year for us at Oneighty! Over the past year, we have gone through a ton of evaluation and improvement in our ministry to students. Because of that, we’ve been pretty quiet on the Seeds scene as we have been hard at work - restructuring our high school and junior high ministries, remodeling our facility, and changing how we connect with students. We’ve had some good wins this past year and we are excited to share with you some of the series and elements that have worked well for us. We just uploaded a ton of content and we hope that these are of use to you. If you end up using any of them, let us know - we’d love to hear how they work for you!

Many people worked long and hard on this one! We have a HUGE behind the scenes video blog scheduled to post in January so stay tuned for that. In the meantime here’s some behind the scenes info on this years Christmas services:

Planning for the service doesn’t begin at all until November 1st. We literally have nothing in mind until then and it’s a mad rush to get it all put together in roughly 7 weeks.

Many of the songs this year are completely original arrangements. This proved to be quite risky but very rewarding.

Drummer Boy was inspired by Sade’s Soldier of Love, Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Really Care About Us & Coldplay’s Princess of China.

The costume design for Drummer Boy, I hate to say, was greatly inspired by Justin Beiber’s Santa Claus is Coming To Town video that played before Arthur Christmas and Michael Jackson’s classic military jackets. Lisa Ensor did a phenomenal job decorating them for us.

Cirque du Soleil has been a big inspiration to us these past couple of years. You can see/feel their influence all over this years performance.

The clown piece was actually an idea we developed last year but abandoned because we felt it was too difficult to pull off. You have no idea how many hours were spent watching clowns perform just so we could learn how to communicate without speaking. EVERY single physical gesture they make is very intentional was developed during several intense practice sessions in front of a mirror.

We arranged a gorgeous version of Favorite Things to be sung by Dyana Bush that was cut in the last rehearsals because we felt it just didn’t fit quite right. I’m sure we’ll find a place for it next year. She sang it beautifully.

Hours were spent picking each song that plays in advance of the service. It’s all French music and most of it isn’t Christmas music at all. It was chosen specifically to get you in the right frame of mind to accept the clown bit that starts the show.

EVERY shot in the Santa Claus Is Coming to Town Movie sequence was made by us including the shot of the city.

We watched the 1943 film Double Indemnity very closely to authentically craft the dialogue for Santa Claus Is Coming to Town. The scene where Fred MacMurray meets Barbara Stanwyck for the first time was especially useful.

You may notice a line or two from the old movie in Home Alone in the Santa Claus is Coming to Town movie.

The scene from the movie Chicago called “They Both Reached For the Gun” was of great use to us in creating the dance for Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.

The set this year was heavily inspired by Radiohead’s 2008 Tour. Although our’s looks similar to their’s we used ours in a much different way, giving it, I think, a totally different feel.

Last but not least thank you so much to ALL the people who worked so hard to make this year’s performance the HUGE success that it’s been. You guys make it happen!

Editor’s Note: We’ve noticed parts of this video are difficult to see due to incorrect camera settings. We’re working with our Production team to get this issue resolved.