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!

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!

• Click here to download the SeedsConf 2012 schedule PDF. (Subject to change, of course.)

You have until September 15th to get approval from your Senior Pastor to attend Seeds 2012, because you will save BIG if you register on opening day!!

Here’s a tour of our “game day” process. It’s quite lengthy and hopefully extensive enough for you. If we left anything out let me know!

You asked for it so here it is!

Church on the Move is in search of qualified individuals to fill an opening for a pastoral position within our Pastoral Ministries Department. All applicants should meet the following criteria:

1) Personal life should be consistent with the teachings of I Timothy 3 and home should be filled with peace both with spouse and children.

2) Have two or more years of experience on a local church staff.

• If not in full-time ministry at this time, applicant must be actively supporting their local church with attendance, volunteering and financial resources.

3) Have two or more years of experience in the following areas:

• Biblical counseling for families, marriages, children and relational conflict
• Hospital visitation and funeral oversight

4) Be in full agreement with the Church on the Move “Statement of Faith”.

5) Have excellent administrative skills.

• Must have a proven record of developing and evaluating systems to insure continued success of programs and ministries
• Proficient in managing and training volunteer staff
• Prompt in following through with tasks and the completion of assignments

Applications can be obtained by clicking here. All applicants must send their resume and completed job application to Pastoral Ministries before applicant will be considered.

A few years back when the trailer for the Christopher Nolan movie “The Prestige” was released, I was so fascinated by it that I went to the library immediately and checked out the book by Christopher Priest that the movie was based on. I read it from cover to cover in a little more than a day (I’m a slow reader).

One of the main themes of the book that’s present in the movie, though not to the same extent, was that the answer to “how’d he do that?” is almost always so obvious that our minds would never allow ourselves to consider it as a real possibility for how the illusion was performed. In other words the “magic” behind the magic isn’t really all that magical at all. In fact, almost always, the answer to the riddle is quite simple.

The best example of this in the book was a story of an old Chinese man whose big illusion was making a fish bowl appear out of thin air. The answer to “how’d he do that?” was simple. He keeps the fishbowl between his legs and underneath his gown and using a little sleight of hand he’s able to make it appear like the fishbowl materializes magically out of thin air. The real discipline of the trick is walking like he has a fishbowl between his legs ALL THE TIME, every hour of every day, so that people think that’s how he normally walks. This is the discipline of great magic. He’s selling the illusion even when he’s not performing the illusion. There’s really nothing all that magical about it, it’s purely a discipline.

The thing about it is, that’s really disappointing to us, the audience, because we WANT to believe that something greater is at play here. When we watch Criss Angel or David Blaine on TV, nobody ever suspects that some of the people in the crowd are in on the illusion or that they use actors and trick photography because that would be too easy, that would be disappointing because it’s so obvious, so we rule that out as a possible explanation and begin to attribute abilities to magicians that are superhuman.

Here’s my point. Anytime we see anything great, anything fantastic, anything, dare I say “magical”, we automatically assume that the process that created it must also be just as fantastic, just as great, just as magical, and the plain truth of the matter is, IT’S NOT!

The more opportunities I’ve had to be around people who do great work, the more I have discovered that there’s nothing magical about the magic they make. It’s purely the discipline of pouring over the details again and again looking for ways to improve their craft that makes them so good at what they do. It’s easy to assume that those who write great songs just wake up everyday and write five killer tunes before breakfast because hey, they’re Joel Houston after all, but the truth is for every amazing song they write, there are hundreds more that are utter garbage. Their magic is in their daily discipline of writing, writing, and writing some more.

So if you’ve been feeling less than adequate and wishing that some amazing artist would take you behind the scenes and show you the secrets to the artistic universe, don’t feel bad, we’ve all been there, but realize that while there’s always more to learn, the greatest lessons are learned through the discipline of doing it everyday.

Here’s the opener for our Easter services at Church on the Move this year as recorded at tonight’s rehearsal. Hope you enjoy and if you attend COTM do yourself a favor and DON’T WATCH THIS!

There’s been a mindset in the church for as long as I can remember that goes something like this: “If you can sing, play, and show up on time for rehearsal, you’ve got a spot on the worship team.” Great hearts and poor musicianship do not an effective worship team make. The inverse can be just as bad: pro musicians who have no buy-in, no interest in the church past their charts or their monitor mix (or their check if you are paying them). Is it too much to ask for talent and heart???

We audition people every week who desire to be a part of our worship teams, many of them with pretty decent chops. Once we’ve established that they have the ability to play or sing I begin looking for a few intangibles:

JOY
Does he/she exude the quality of a worshipper? Do I enjoy being around them? If they are lifeless off the stage, they’ll practically be a corpse on it. Everyone on the worship team should be a model of joy and enthusiasm, ready to shine their light and encourage those in the congregation to join in! Contagious is a word that comes to mind…

COMMITMENT
Will they go the extra mile to show up to rehearsals prepared and with an attitude of working toward excellence? Do they understand that leading people in worship is serious business? I’ve worked with plenty of singers and players who do the least amount of work possible, look at their watches and ask, “When will we be done?” They’re not on our team anymore. Granted, it’s on me as the worship leader to make sure rehearsals run as efficiently as possible, but at some point we need to dig deep and spend the time to make the set amazing. Our church deserves it, and so does God. I need people on my team I can count on to put forth a great effort each and every week.

PASSION
I’m not looking for a bunch of Billy Grahams, but those who grace the stage need to have an obvious passion for God. They need to have a grasp on just how important this all is. Singers and players who love what they do and love the God who gave them the ability to do it are worth searching out. These are the ones who worship during rehearsal when no one is looking. These are the people you can build around because they get it. And best of all, they will attract like-minded musicians – passion breeds passion.

I can’t count how many times I’ve been moved emotionally by one person onstage with a guitar, genuinely pouring their heart out for God and for their church. I also can’t count how many times I’ve been disappointed to see 10 musicians onstage going through the motions, just hoping to end the song at the same time. Is this a quality vs. quantity thought? In a sense. The point I’m trying to make is this – be careful who you put up there. What you model onstage will cause you to attract more of the same. Great players and singers who have a great time doing what they do will send the signal out to others who are wired up the in same way. The inverse is also true. It’s worth the effort to find those who have the gift of music and a passion for serving. These are the people who will truly lead your church in worship.

Imagine you and your spouse are going out to dinner at a new restaurant. You walk in and find that the place is nice. Really nice. In fact, it’s downright fancy. The service is impeccable, the table setting is expensive and the atmosphere is to die for, but then, comes the food…

…A Digiorno Pizza.

Feels out of place doesn’t it? Here’s the deal, there’s nothing wrong with a Digiorno Pizza but in the wrong setting it doesn’t make sense. Imagine the same food in a different setting, like say, your home. What was, in one setting, a disappointment is now a tasty meal in another.

This happens in our churches all the time. We serve Digiorno Pizza like it’s steak and lobster and people respond with comments like “it feels like a performance.” What they’re really saying is, this just doesn’t feel right. Something is amiss.

Here’s my two cents.

Some people on our stages are Digiorno people and some people are steak and lobster people. That’s reality. The trick then, is presenting them in the appropriate way. If you don’t have a GREAT band than by all means, don’t try to light them like U2. If you don’t have great lights, then stop flashing them through every color possible.

The point is, when we overdo our presentation we come off as, at best, overambitious, and at worst, arrogant.

I realize that for so many of us, all we’ve got to work with is Digiorno people. I get that. But here’s my advice: Embrace it and be real about it because when we play and create within our strengths AND weaknesses we relate to people in a more genuine way.

So many times when it comes to launching new projects we get stuck in the planning phase. We dream, we scheme, we plan but so often we never actually do anything!

I think the reason we get stuck in the development phase is because we’re waiting for everything to be just perfect, for all the pieces to fall into place before we’re willing to launch.

Here’s the bad news. It’s easy to hide from making any real changes and launching any new initiatives in the planning stage. It’s easy to “act” like things are changing and growing when they’re really not because we’re always in a perpetual state of planning.

I love what Leon Fontaine of Springs Church says: Ready. Shoot. Aim.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t plan, but there comes a point as a leader where you just have to venture out into the unknown and figure it out as you go.

For years at COTM we knew we needed to get younger on our stage. It was no disrespect to the people who had served on our worship team over the years, but we knew if we were ever going to connect with a younger crowd we were going to have to make changes and give younger people opportunities to serve and grow.

The trouble was that because the people we needed to make the change weren’t just waiting in the wings, we hesitated in making it. Finally, after years of realizing that it was never going to be convenient or easy to change, we decided we just had to go for it and two years later, we have loads of young people serving on our stages.

I’m convinced that many times the right people and the right answers that so many of us are looking for are hidden from us until we are willing to take a step of faith and begin something.

You’ll never be able to plan for everything so you might as well just get ready, shoot, and aim.

Lately, I’ve been challenging the team around here to get into a habit of preparing themselves for creativity.

Here’s what I mean by that.

So often the best ideas come when you’re not “trying” to be creative. You might be watching TV or taking a shower or listening to a favorite song and inspiration will strike, the question is, are you even aware that it’s striking and if so, how are you capturing that inspiration?

Here’s what that looks like for me.

First off, I try to filter everything I see, hear, and experience through the filter of “is this useful?” When I hear a song or take in a movie or go to a concert I’m constantly asking myself, is this useful? I study songs, environments, designs, films, all of it constantly looking for things I can apply to our services and events. Remember, so much of the creative process is simply learning to consistently ask the question “what if?”

Secondly, if inspiration was to strike, are you ready for it? Do you have a method or a format for capturing those ideas?

It seems simple, but it’s huge because if we want God to entrust us with great ideas we have to be ready to capture them when he gives them to us. Personally, I use an iPad and a Moleskine, for keeping track of all the ideas that rattle around in my head. But whatever you use, don’t forget that you’re responsible for what God has placed in our hands so carry a “capture” device wherever you go because you never know when creativity may strike.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in creative planning is assuming your first good idea, is good enough.

Think about it. Every bad church video you’ve ever seen started as a good idea to someone. Somebody, somewhere thought that singing that song or making that video was a good idea. The problem is that what often sounds like a good idea in a brainstorming meeting turns out to be a bad idea in execution, at which point it’s too late to make changes.

I’ve learned over the years to let even my best ideas sit for a while, because often when I allow myself time to review my ideas over and over again, I find glaring problems with my initial concept that must be adjusted to avoid a mediocre result.

Here’s how it works for us. When we arrive at what we think is a solid concept, unless it’s something really basic or something we’ve done before, we wait, we let it sit overnight at a bare minimum. On a really big project, like Easter or Christmas, we’ll have several (and by several I mean tons) of meetings over a period of days reviewing and evaluating the concept in microscopic detail, like it was the first time any of us have ever heard it.

Here’s why: the amount of time you spend on the details will have a great impact on the success or failure of your project. Mies Van Der Rohe, a German architect, famously said “God is in the details” and he was right. Your mind just isn’t equipped to see all the nuances of a creative project all at once, so you have to force yourself to focus on them to find success consistently.

So, in summation, if you’re regularly going with your first “good” idea, you’re either God or you’re not doing very good work. It just isn’t that easy for anyone.

“Walk with the wise and become wise…” - Proverbs 13:20

You heard recently from one of our interns, DyAna Bush, about what she’s learned since she joined our team. I recently had a conversation with our other music intern, 19-year old Jordan Moore, about the things he’s learned since becoming a NEXT intern. Although he didn’t have as many specific points of reflection as DyAna, he did share something I felt was particularly interesting. He said that just by being here he’s become much more aware of what it means to be excellent in the area of ministry. Jordan leads worship now and then, but most of his time is relegated to changing guitar strings, hauling gear from one room to another, cleaning the dishes in the kitchen, driving to the music store, and anything else we can think for him to do. But even in the menial tasks he’s acquired a spirit of excellence. Just by being around our creative team day in and day out he’s picked up on the way we do things.

The Bible is clear that when we hang out with fools, we become like them. However, when we spend time with the wise we become wise. It’s a bit like osmosis – a gradual transference of substance from one place to another. The question is: Who is transferring wisdom, creativity, excellence, ideas, etc. into your life? As worship/creative leaders we must continue to surround ourselves with people who challenge our ideas, sharpen our instincts and dare us to move into new and different arenas.

In 20+ years in the music industry and in the ministry I’ve known too many musicians and worship pastors who believe that they can do all this on their own. Their ideas are the best ones, their way of doing things is paramount to the way anybody else does it. Shall we say that walking alone produces isolationism? I think we can. Isolationism then produces an unchecked ego. Ego produces failure. “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” says James 4:6.

A few suggestions for worship leaders:

• Build a diverse team. Allow them to challenge you (respectfully, of course). Welcome their input and allow their ideas to trump yours at times.

• Find “next generation” musicians to pour your wisdom into. You’ll be surprised how much they’ll end up pouring into you creatively.

• Step outside your comfort zone. Listen to different types of music and judge it for its creative spark, not on your personal taste. Do the same with movies, performance art, etc. Expand your horizons!

• Give it time. Osmosis is a gradual process – it does not happen overnight. Remember, we “walk with the wise”, we don’t sprint.

It’s difficult to become excellent or expand your creativity just by reading a blog post. You have to surround yourself with excellence and creativity day in and day out. I’m proud of Jordan and what he’s accomplished since he’s been an intern. I’ve benefited as well. He’s reminded me of what it is to be wide-eyed and excited, ready to do something big for God. I’m thankful every day to work with people who make me better, who allow me to do what I’m created to do on a high level. Do the same for yourself. Osmosis-ize your life!

Just this morning I was fortunate enough to do an interview with Sean over at THiNK International. If you’re not familiar with THiNK they do a whole host of things but one of the coolest is a series of interviews with different church leaders. If you haven’t checked them out, I highly recommend browsing around their website, it’s loaded with cool resources.

If you’d like to see my interview with Sean you can check it out here.

Over the past five months I’ve been one of the first NEXT interns for COTM’s Performing Arts Department. Recently I was asked, “what have you learned so far?” Here are a few things I’ve been thinking about in response to that question.

It’s All In The Details
Creating an engaging worship experience for our church family is more than picking a few pretty songs, it’s about collaborating as a team to choose the right songs, the right worship leaders, the right transitions, and so forth. Each set is scrutinized to the N-th degree in an effort to allow our congregation to connect with our Heavenly Father. I’m constantly amazed at how the smallest detail can greatly make or break a worship set.

Last weekend’s Kid’s on the Move worship service is a great example. Kenneth Weston and I led the worship set in KOTM: Mighty to Save & We Exalt Thee. We played both songs in A - which worked great for the first tune. The kids were singing loudly and at the top of their range. It was a beautiful moment as 400 kids sang “OUR GOD CONQUERED THE GRAVE.” We Exalt Thee was a little different. The song is a favorite in our elementary kids’ services, so we were surprised when the kids just didn’t sing as confidently as usual. After a quick meeting with our team we realized that A was the wrong key. To sing along, the kids had to sing low for this song because the octave up - where they usually sing - was too high. In effect, they were singing, we just couldn’t hear them very well. It was an overlooked detail that affected the service.

Preparation Is Key
Our department stays busy. In a week, our bands can play up to 15 sets. This doesn’t include big events (Seeds Conference, Easter, CWF). When we plan a service on a Tuesday, the real work often begins right after the meetings break. Each musician and singer begins preparing on their own. Andy says, “Practice happens at home. Rehearsal is what we do when we come together.” If we aren’t individually prepared, it effects everyone!

In addition, confidence and excellence follows a significant amount of preparation. As I’ve taken on the habit of preparation, I’ve found God faithful to take my offering of preparation and use it for His success. I’ve heard many of our leaders here say that it’s preparation and structure that allows the Holy Spirit to move in our worship services, not the other way around. This truth is apparent, and I’m excited to see what more God will do with COTM as we continue to humble ourselves in preparation and see to the details.

Creativity Is A Group Effort
This is one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned - there are no creative geniuses. There’s not one guy coming up with all the ideas. There’s not one person who can take credit for every great idea. It’s a team effort. Instead of chasing ideas, we chase people. We gather the right people together to talk out every idea. That’s where the real genius takes place.

I hope this helps anyone considering the NEXT internship. I’ve got more than 7 months left, so I’m sure I’ll have even more to write in the future.

Hey Kidmin people! First off, you probably don’t know me because I’m not involved directly in kid’s ministry in any way, but we do have some things in common. For one, we’re both passionate about reaching our audience and regardless of the differences in our demographics one thing connects us all; we’re all human beings!

Walt Disney said in 1938 — “When we’re making a picture we don’t think of grown ups and we don’t think of children, but just of that fine clean un-spoiled spot down deep in every one of us, that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.”

I love that quote because it so beautifully describes what it is we do—tell stories, and great stories connect with us all regardless of age.

One of the more troubling trends I’ve seen in kid’s ministry in the last few years is the propensity to throw out mediums that have been effective at telling great stories for years because we believe that a particular medium is no longer effective. This is incredibly naive, and I say that with all due respect to those who chosen to serve our kids.

Recently I re-watched a documentary about the history of Pixar and I was struck by a remarkable comparison to kids ministry today. After Pixar had a real string of hits under its belt and the company really began to take off financially, an unfortunate thing began to happen. Many of the other animation studios started laying off their traditional 2D cell animators thinking that 2D animation was a thing of the past. They thought that Pixar was succeeding simply because they worked in a different medium.

When the leadership at Pixar heard about this troubling trend they were crushed. To think that in some way they had contributed to the destruction of a medium they cared so much about killed them. As it turned out they had learned so much of their craft from the people who had pioneered traditional 2D cell animation. In fact they love 2D animation because they understood what Walt had laid out so many years ago. That the medium is secondary to the story. Pixar’s movies work not because they’re made in a computer instead of by hand, but because they’re great stories.

So when Disney bought Pixar and they merged the leadership structure of the two studios what was the first thing they did? The Princess and the Frog. A 2D traditional cell animated film. And it was a success.

That brings me to this “great puppet debate.” What’s the debate? Puppets work when you know how to use them. They are a means to an end, not the end itself, and when you mix those two up you’re destined to do some really bad creative work (i.e. most DreamWorks movies).

Consider this: If you didn’t know how to use a shovel wouldn’t you look like a fool to throw it out claiming it had no purpose?

I realize not everyone in kid’s ministry has the capability of producing a great puppet performance. I get that. Video may be your strong suit just as computer animation is Pixar’s but don’t be so narrow-minded that you throw out an entire medium of beautiful art because you can’t figure out how to use it.

Creativity is not limited to the mediums that we deem worthy, story transcends medium and until that truth hits you like a ton of bricks, you’ll always make bad creative decisions because you’ll be focused on the wrong things.

Think I’m wrong? Ask Pixar.

I’ll be honest, every year we resolve to get an early jump on planning our Christmas service, and every year we wind up planning it right up until the last minute. This year is no exception. We had a meeting or two about Christmas in July but we didn’t really get anywhere. Maybe it’s just me but I struggle to “feel” Christmas in the middle of July.

Quantity, Not Quality
Usually, we start planning Christmas in earnest around the middle of November and that’s usually because someone reminds us that Christmas is only 7 weeks away at which point we all freak out. The first step in the process is what we call a brain dump. Basically, we gather all the creative teams from around the church (Kids on the Move, Oneighty) and we start throwing out anything and everything that might work. The idea isn’t to “solve” the service, it’s more about stirring the creative pot.

So many times the best ideas come when you’re not actively engaged in brainstorming, but to get your mind working on a subconscious level you have to first exercise it on a conscious level. Most of my best ideas come in the shower because in the shower I let my mind drift and wander and that’s when I find solutions. So, don’t feel like you have to solve every problem and develop every idea each time you and your team sit down to brainstorm.

Find the Feeling
Once we have a few ideas on the board we start to think about the feelings that each song/sketch will evoke. This is HUGE! We want our Christmas service to be an emotional journey, but that doesn’t just happen by chance, you have to carefully craft that experience. Here are the feelings that we aim to evoke each Christmas in no particular order:

• Beauty – Christmas is a beautiful time of year so we definitely want our service to reflect that beauty.
• Humor – Laughter is such an essential part of any gathering because there’s no better way to gain your audience than to make them laugh.
• Family – For most of us, Christmastime is family time. We always try to include songs that make the audience feel warm towards those they care about most.
• Wow / Awe – You gotta make people say “Wow!” at least one time! This could be accomplished in a million different ways, but I think it’s important for people to experience something bigger than themselves.
• Worship – This is obviously the most important part. Our whole goal is to lead people toward worship - that’s why the reading of the Christmas story is always the pinnacle of our Christmas weekend.

What Is Necessary?
After we write these feelings on our board we try and assign them to each song/sketch in the service. The reason that we do that is to make sure we’re not repeating ourselves. An example would be “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” and “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas”. Both are gorgeous songs but they evoke the same feelings – beauty & family – so it would be redundant to include them both. The goal is not to try and cram everything we can into the service, but rather to include only what is necessary.

Refine, Refine, Refine
From here we refine, refine, refine. We’ll talk through our service hundreds of times before it ever comes time to rehearse. Every song, every costume, every joke, it all gets talked through over and over and over again. It’s repititive and it’s exhausting, but it’s necessary because it’s through this process that you remove the parts of the service that aren’t working.

Remember this, the people who do the best work make it look easy, but it NEVER is! You and I see the finished product and it looks effortless but we don’t see the countless hours spent practicing in the gym/studio/office. Sometimes I think that because the work we do is primarily mental, we think we don’t have to practice in the same way we would if our jobs were physical. We all expect athletes to practice, and your mind works the same way as the rest of your body. It needs practice and refinement. These are the building blocks of a great creative work and without them, you’re toast. It would be arrogant to think that your first plan will be a home run. Don’t trust it, refine.

Sometimes when you’re watching a live cut of a service you lose a little bit of perspective because most of the shots are pretty tight, so during our bigger services we’ll place a locked off camera at the back of the room so that we can go back watch the whole thing like we were standing in the sound booth. It’s come in pretty handy over the years and so I thought it might be helpful to post the video here so you can see our service like a fly on the wall in the back of the room. Enjoy.

About five years ago we decided to start trying to put a little extra “oomph” into our Christmas services. We’d been doing a Christmas concert for years but it wasn’t part of our weekend service experience and it wasn’t really a big focus for us as a church. It was a concert filled with typical Christmas music on a Wednesday night. One of the first ideas we came up with shortly after forming our creative team in 2005 was to really expand our Christmas experience. Since then, our Christmas services have really become a huge deal around here and a lot of effort and planning go into crafting them.

Obviously, we’re not the only church who does this. We know that, like us, so many of you are working really hard right now to put together some incredible Christmas experiences for your communities and, like us, you’re sweating every song, every word, every video, and every detail. So here’s the deal. I thought it’d be fun to post our last five Christmas services in an effort to show the journey that we’ve been through the last five years and to hopefully spark some creative thinking for you and your team.

2005
You’ll notice straight away that we’ve come a long way since 2005! You’ll also notice that some things worked really well and some… not so well, but I wouldn’t trade these experiences for anything because they’ve been a great teacher. Really, this was our first attempt at anything like this and I’ll be honest, we were so proud of this service. We started planning this thing so late, we had no production budget, and the stage was made up of a giant REAL Christmas tree and fiber optic curtain.

2006
This year we hired Daniel Connell as our lighting designer. We were so impressed with the job he did that we hired him! The opening sketch was heavily influenced by a Willow Creek sketch and watching it back it seems REALLY LONG! We went for a big band feel and it’s a little on the cheesy side, but the trade off is that the big band is always pretty warm.

2007
This year was the first time we’d really jumped into the world of giant video screens and I’ll tell you, it was a lot harder to work with than what we ever anticipated. The challenge we ran into was making the stage feel warm. The giant video wall just felt a little soulless and we worked really hard to warm things up. We experimented with some cool ideas like putting the choir on video that worked pretty well. This set really had a pretty big wow factor and we got a lot of great feedback but putting it together was a nightmare (it weighed something like 30,000 pounds) for us and our production team.

2008
For this year we really scaled back our Christmas production. We were just relaunching an outreach that we do at our camp (Dry Gulch U.S.A.) called The Christmas Train which reaches about 50,000 people a year. We hadn’t done the Christmas Train for the previous 3 years and so we went with a much more scaled back version knowing that much of our time would be spent getting the Christmas Train up and running.

2009 Celebrate With Family
We had just finished remodeling our auditorium in October and we knew we really wanted to do something special. For the first time ever we really tried to combine our Christmas Train outreach and our Christmas services and we saw a huge impact. We were packed out in every service until a GIANT blizzard blew through on Christmas eve. All in all we were really happy with the way our first ever Celebrate With Family event turned out.

Like so many other churches, our Christmas services are a really big deal and like you, we put a TON of work into these services because the payoff is so worth it. We’ve seen so many people come to Christ through these services. So many people, who would normally never darken the door of a church, are willing to come to a Christmas event.

We know that putting together one of these services is a major chore and we’re always looking for new and fresh ideas to help us in our creative process so a few weeks back I had the idea to sit down with our team and do a commentary of our Christmas service from last year in the hopes that hearing some of our thought process would be helpful to those out there who are slaving over their Christmas services!

Enjoy!

P.S. I mentioned in the video that we’ll cut in some wide shots to give a wider perspective but after a few technical hangups we decided to just post the wide angle of the entire service. We’ll post it here very soon along with some other goodies. Stay tuned.

For us here at Church on the Move, one of the HUGE benefits of the Seeds site has been getting to connect with people serving in their local churches all over the country. Just hearing how God is at work in other places really inspires and motivates us to keep on keeping on.

When we launched Seeds, one of the first people to sign up was Marty Taylor, one of the creative geniuses at Northland in Orlando. We hit it off right away and I’m now honored to call him a friend as well as a fellow presenter at Seeds Conference. Marty and the team at Northland are doing some of the best and most creative work I’ve seen in the church and If you’re not familiar with Northland you can check out their website here and if you’d like to follow Marty on Twitter (which I highly recommend) you can do that here.

Anyway, without further ado here’s a recent interview I did with Marty.

So, let’s just jump right in! Your official title at Northland is “Executive Director over Media Design.” What exactly does that mean?
The easy answer is, I lead the teams in charge of everything that is visible. Anything to do with video, print, web, user-level technology, branding, public relations, etc. If it’s visible, we typically have our hands in it.

I am a regular part of the creative process for worship services and I am part of the Executive Leadership Team for the church.

The unusual thing about my job from a typical media director at a church is that I do not lead the audio teams. The sonic audio experience is so closely connected to the music that the audio teams are part of the worship department.

The official name of your church is Northland, A Church Distributed. What does it mean to be “A Church Distributed?”
About 12 years ago, Northland’s name was changed from Northland Community Church to Northland, A Church Distributed simply meaning that church is not about gathering in a single building or a single community. The Distributed Church is all about people “being the church,” everywhere, every day. That, as the church, we gather to worship God and then respond to Him by distributing ourselves to serve others where they are so that God may be glorified.

It also means that, in recognition of how God distributes different gifts among different people (1 Corinthians 12:11), we connect with individuals and organizations outside our four walls for long-term support and effectiveness—without losing sight of our unique distinctions, we partner with others for the sake of others and the Kingdom.

Changing our name to something so unique has caused many people to ask what we are all about and opened doors for hundreds of local and global partnerships. The vision for being a church distributed drives everything we do from satellite venues to church online and beyond.

What’s your approach to planning a service at Northland?
Our approach is that everything we are and everything we are created to be begins in worship. When we look at who God is and what He has done, we can’t help but respond in worship to Him. So our planning process begins with looking at the message that Dr. Hunter is going to preach and extracting from that an attribute of God that becomes the focus of our worship for that weekend. The attribute may be God’s grace or His holiness or that He is the Creator.

Everything from beginning to end in our worship service is planned around that attribute of God. All the extensive amounts of production and technology that we use are there to help create an environment for worship centered around that attribute. We believe we are following God’s example from Genesis, when He created a beautiful environment in which for us to worship Him.

I’m a big proponent of churches merging their worship, production, and media teams because it really serves to unify the different groups of people who work on our weekend services. You guys don’t do that and yet you’re still really successful, how do you make that work?
Actually, I think you would be surprised how much we actually do the very thing you’re talking about. We do have the Media Design team separate from Worship as part of our corporate structure, but we are constantly working in tandem together. Our delineations only exist because of the sheer size of the teams and needing to delegate leadership based upon strengths. But the value of unified effort is a vital part of our DNA.

In fact, our worship planning meetings are attended not only by the worship and media staff, but we have people from all areas of the church (Local and Global Service, Equipping, Congregational Services, etc) there to bring their voice to the big picture planning as well.

I LOVE the way you guys incorporate scripture into your worship at Northland. Can you talk a bit about the concept and execution behind that?
We strive to blend the modern movement and style of worship with the foundations of the ancient church, so we incorporate a lot of scripture and creed into our modern worship service. The ancient and the future are part of our liturgy.

For many, the scripture and ancient creeds that we integrate are a means of connecting the dots between the song that they are singing and the truth of the Word. I think is also helps the worship service not just be an emotional experience (which I love) but also a deeply intellectual experience as well.

You guys are doing some pretty unique stuff with streaming your services, can you talk about that?
Northland has been a multi-site church for many years (our first site distributed site began in 2001). The unique thing about our other sites is that they are a fully real-time connection for the entire service. Everyone, at all locations, is participating in a unified worship service. We have local musicians and singers at each site. The music from our original location in Longwood is sub-mixed into to various parts (drums, guitars, keys, etc.) and mixed live at each site with the local musicians. We also change the origination point of the sermon from time to time to come from one of our other locations, not just our main campus.

We have been also been doing live online streaming of all our services (currently 5 each weekend) for several years as well. We have expanded that to a fully interactive community site with a live online minister each service and last year added the first ever live worship environment in Facebook. For us, this was a natural extension of being a distributed church by taking worship to a place where people were already gathering for community.

Many of our online worshipers have begun to form small communities together in homes around the country. We began looking for ways to make their connection better and easier. Just a couple of months ago, we launched a live channel on Roku, a small set-top box designed for on-demand streaming of Netflix, Hulu, and other content. This channel allows our home churches an easy, inexpensive means to connect to a high quality feed of the worship service, as well as several on-demand options like classes and Bible studies for their community.

Since the Roku channel is available to anyone, many people have added the Northland channel to their Roku channel line-up. So far, over 2000 people have made that connection. Our hope is that many people will discover Christ through discovering this channel.

There is definitely a world of global possibility for connection and evangelism through streaming technology and we continue to pursue how we can maximize that potential. We also hope to freely share all these technologies with any church who wishes to use them.

Describe for me a creative meeting at Northland. How long is it? Who’s involved? Who comes up with all the good ideas?
We are in a unique position at Northland that our pastor plans his messages several weeks in advance. This allows us to have several opportunities to review the goals of the service and shape what we hope will be the best means to connect our congregation to the attribute of God that we are focusing on in that weekend.

We begin by meeting with Dr. Hunter to get a summary of the message content about 3 weeks in advance. We initially walk away from that first meeting with a title, the core scripture, and a 2-3 paragraph summary. We determine from that our attribute focus for the weekend and begin meeting as a planning team. This team meets at least a couple times a week and focuses on 2-4 weeks at a time, with greater detail as the weekend gets closer. We continue to meet with our Pastor each week to get additional detail on the message and application as he refines where he is going.

The core planning team is about 7 people from the worship and media teams, but the discussion expands to the full team as we get closer to the weekend itself. The lighting, video, and audio teams take the order of service and create a visual and audio design for the environment of that service.

It all comes together in a full rehearsal each Wednesday where we continue to refine the plan before our first service on Saturday. Even following that service, we debrief and make changes as needed for the rest of the weekend.

One of the things that surprised me, when we visited on the phone, was that your day off is Sunday of all days! How do you make that work?
My being off on Sundays is the greatest testament to the quality of our team that I can imagine! So much work is put into the services in advance that by the time we debrief the service on Saturday, my job as the leader of the visual team is done. The rest of the weekend is then in the very capable hands of our technicians and volunteers to execute and they do a great job. I feel blessed to be able to attend service on Sunday night with my family without any worry about what is happening in the control rooms.

Besides that, the success of failure of all our planning is ultimately up to the work of the Holy Spirit anyway, so I just try to get out of the way.

Who’s inspiring the team at Northland these days?
Creatively, we draw inspiration from all around us. The world is full of story, both in what you can hear from others, or simply in what you experience or see in God’s creation. When you seek to see who God is and what He has done in the world around you, you can more easily find ways to lead people into worship around the story of God.

I can also say that our team is inspired by seeing much more collaboration between churches for the sake of the Kingdom of God as a whole. We are so much more affective when we stop guarding our ideas and plans and freely share and learn from one another. That’s one of the things I love so much about what Church on the Move is doing with Seeds. By giving away and sharing what you have freely with others, you are creating Kingdom impact beyond a venue in Tulsa. That is truly inspiring.

Northland is a BIG church, what would you say to leaders in smaller churches?
Simply…don’t get hung up on what you don’t have. The story of God and what He has done is all the inspiration you need to lead someone into meaningful worship and connection with Him. Everything else is simply a tool to help create an environment to do it…just like air conditioning or a comfortable chair. The philosophy of worship at Northland is the same as it was years ago when we met in a 50-year old roller skating rink and didn’t have a single video projector or moving light. Content and story are now and will always be the most important tool you have. Without it, your loud music, lights, and video are just disco.

This last week I was asked to an interview for the blog at ShareFaith. I don’t do many interviews so I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but this one was a lot of fun, primarily because the questions were really good (big thanks to Daniel at ShareFaith for that!). I’ve posted most of the interview below but if you’d like to check out the official version you can click here.

First, can you tell me just a little bit about yourself? How you got into the position you’re in now?
Wow… long, long story that I’m not sure anyone is interested in! The short version is that I hated school, so when I graduated in 1994 I knew college wasn’t for me and I went to work for my dad [pastor of COTM]. I started at the VERY bottom laying sod around the campus for minimum wage which lasted for all of about two weeks, at which point my dad transferred me into our TV/Media department.

Again, I started at the bottom. Sweeping the studio, running camera. I had minimal creative input but I really loved what I was doing. From there I started doing graphic design. I had no formal training in it so I taught myself and with a little help from some friends I got pretty good at it. I won a few advertising awards here locally and was promoted to leading a team of graphic designers here at the church.

Somewhere around 2003, me and my dad visited Fellowship Church in Dallas and we came back bursting with creative ideas about how we could update what we were doing in our church. We didn’t exactly know how we would pull it all off but we knew we had to do something so it was decided that we would merge our TV and graphics departments into a new department called creative arts and that I would lead it. After a few twists and turns, including me doing a short stint as the youth pastor up at Oneighty, our department has finally evolved over the years to what it is today, the Performing Arts department, which basically includes worship, video, graphic design, drama, marketing, audio, lighting, production, and a bit more here and there.

So, what is a creative director anyway (if that’s what you call yourself)? What do you do in the church? Are you a pastor? A deacon? An in-between?
We have a saying around here that “it’s not about getting it done, it’s about getting it right.” For us, being a creative director means taking whatever project that you’re working on, whether it’s a ladies event or weekend service or a simple promo, and making sure that it’s done right. So that’s what I do. I oversee all the meetings, all the brainstorming, all the planning that goes into the events, brochures, promos, etc. and to make sure that they’re not just done, but that they’re done right.

As for the church, I am a pastor and I also serve on the church’s executive leadership team.

Creative. That’s a big word. What do you focus on? If you have help or assistance, what do your helpers/assistants do?
The funny thing is I don’t “do” much. I don’t create the videos, I don’t sing the songs, I don’t write the scripts, I don’t stage the interviews. I’m not really a doer. I guess my job is sort of like that of a conductor. I set the tempo and provide guidance. Honestly, we have a lot of talented and creative people around here and my job isn’t to tell them how to do what they do, my job is to bring focus to what they’re already doing. Sometimes I start the creative ball rolling, sometimes I don’t, but I’m always the guy to steer the ship.

As for assistants, I really only have one. He just helps me to keep up with all the crazy stuff going on around the church. He’s a detail guy, I’m definitely not! Other than that I would consider the people on my team to be more like partners than assistants. I don’t think the creative genius surrounded by his minions is really an approach that works anymore.

Where do you find creative inspiration to do what you do?
I guess I’m just like everyone else in that I find inspiration in good creative work, whether that be another church or something I found online or on TV or whatever, but ideally I’m inspired by the very work that I’m doing. In other words, I try to find inspiration in the core of the project we’re working on. An example would be Dad Life. We were inspired by the very notion of Father’s Day. I mean when you boil it down, we’re honoring guys who have chosen their family over their image, so that right there is pretty inspiring. From there you just look for a vehicle to carry your idea and having recently seen Swagger Wagon we were pretty sure that a rap video would work. You never sit down with the idea to just “make something cool” that your message will fit into, you always start with your core message and let the idea and inspiration come from that.

Do you see any exciting trends in church media or arts today? Any not-so-exciting trends?
I’m not really someone who follows a lot of global church trends. Honestly, for me it just leads to comparisons and I’m not interested in that. I’m glad that the church has embraced the power of the arts and I see a lot of great work being done out there.

What’s one of the most common misconceptions about your job?
I say this as humbly as I know how, but I think the most common misconception is that to do what I do, you have to be some sort of genius. I’m not a genius, I’m just called. If you’re called, then you’re also graced and equipped to do what God has called you to do. Trust in your call, serve the church, don’t promote yourself, and you’ll be fine.

Talk to us about relevance, especially as it relates to your role.
Relevance isn’t really a word I spend a lot of time thinking about. I just try to serve the message in a way that moves me. I’m pretty cynical so if I’m moved, then I feel good about how it’ll impact our congregation. The only other thing I would add to that is that I avoid being cheesy. Our message isn’t a cute one full of nice sayings that would go nicely on a motivational poster. It’s real and it’s raw and it’s powerful and I don’t think we do it any favors by making it cute.

Can you briefly describe a normal day (if there is one) in your life as a creative director?
I’m pretty much meeting with different people all day every day. Often we’ll start the day with one big brainstorming meeting and then from there I’ll meet with smaller groups of people about specific parts of specific projects.

How do you do the cool stuff? The cool graphics, videos, etc.?
I don’t! Gary Hornstien, our motion designer, does all that stuff. You can read his two blog posts on our resource site, Seeds, about the equipment that we use.

How should other churches, especially churches with a teeny budget or limited resources, get involved in media–if at all?
I like to think of creativity like a muscle, when you exercise it, it gets stronger. So make time every week, every day, to intentionally be creative. Involve other people if possible. Even if they’re not “creative” you never know what the accountant or secretary might be able to contribute, plus, I hate working alone so I think building a team, whether they’re staff or volunteers, is essential. I guess it depends on the church. This is our calling so it’s what we’re supposed to be doing, but I wouldn’t presume that everybody everywhere should do things just exactly like we do. If you were wanting to transition your church into this kind of thing, you could start just by making time to be creative on purpose. If you don’t create on purpose you’ll also never create by accident. It’s a practice, a habit, that you have to develop.

What is one of the best ways of using art in the church? (Besides, obviously, using a sound system to make sure people hear the speaker?)
Well I think art really allows us to connect people to God on an emotional level which I think is important. I can’t think of a better place to be “moved” than church. We have the greatest message and I think we have an opportunity every week to create moments where people can feel God even on an emotional level. Additionally, art is a perfect medium for telling stories and I think that’s a huge part of our calling as creative directors in our churches. We are charged with the great responsibility of taking the stories of what God has done and what He is doing across our communities and making those stories come to life.

What is one thing that every creative director needs besides a good cup of coffee?
You have to know what you want. If you constantly waffle and question yourself, chances are you’re not a creative leader. You may be a great contributor, but you’re not the leader and these are very different roles. The leader HAS to know what direction the team needs to head in. It isn’t that you can never allow yourself to be challenged or questioned, but there comes a point where you have to have a certain sense, a certain knowing that the group must head in a particular direction. If you don’t know where you’re headed, your team will either be hijacked by someone else or you’ll waffle around in no man’s land never really accomplishing anything.

What advice would you give to small churches regarding creative arts, media, etc.?
I would say recognize your advantages. I may be in a position where I have a larger team and a larger budget but larger doesn’t always equal better. Our size affords us some awesome opportunities but it also presents us with some disadvantages too. We can’t be as relational or intimate in our creative approach as a smaller church can be. When I saw U2 in Arrowhead stadium in 1997 for their Popmart tour it was HUGE in every way. That tour cost a fortune and it was amazing to see, but just as awesome as that was seeing Sigur Ros play a small venue with 1% of the budget of U2. So recognize your strengths and play off those instead of dwelling on what you don’t have and you’ll go a lot further.