I'm currently sitting backstage during the last session here in Cleveland, TN. The bass from the worship set kicks against the backstage door, which makes me feel connected to 1,100 screaming teenagers dispite the barriers between us. In just a few short hours, the auditorium will be silent. And empty.
We've had three successful weeks here at Lee University. Tomorrow, I'll get on a plane and fly to Oregon to do MOVE 2010 one last time. But before I head to a cooler climate, I felt I should pause to reflect on the previous three weeks.
Our team is solid. The program exceeded my expectations. I'm thankful to play a role in this process. Our backstage manager is currently out-singing the band. Cleveland is very humid.
All things considered, this is a good spot.
Showing posts with label MOVE 2010. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MOVE 2010. Show all posts
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Serving the Church Kool-Aid
I just witnessed one of the loudest MOVE sessions I have ever seen. When the night came to a close and Caleb Rowden and his band struck the final chord, the crowd noise alone rivaled a jet engine. It was the type of noise that rattles your eardrums, causing a swishing noise that sounds like something between wind and a banshee on ecstacy.
What I witnessed tonight was a moment... no, an experience. I'll put tonight, for those 1,400 people, up against any concert or sporting event in the country. It was that solid. The experience was happening right in front of us. It wasn't fake. We were all creating it. As a creative programmer, I couldn't be more excited about what our team pulled off. As a revolutionary, I was filled with expectations.
At MOVE, we love lights, guitar solos, film, and crowd noise that breaks 100 dB. But to say that we do all of those things for the sake of doing those things would be a lie. We crank up the speakers (this one goes to 11) because we desire to create moments that will propel students to do big things with their lives. Boil it all down and you see that we call Kingdom Workers.
But you ask, aren't you just brainwashing high school students? It's all crowd mentality stuff, right? Get them all worked up and serve them the Kool-Aid?
Maybe you can call it brainwashing. But I know better. I've walked the high schools were they live. I know what their home life is like. Life is too hard to live out the things we teach unless you are committed.
No, we don't serve Kool-Aid but we do serve vision. And plenty of it. I'm not ashamed to admit that I believe the students I worshiped with tonight can solve some of the big problems we face. $40K towards rescuing young girls from sex-trafficking? They did it. Feeding families Thanksgiving dinner by the hundreds? I've seen the newspaper clippings. They did that too. Putting a huge dent in the water crisis in Zambia? Give them time and they'll check it off the list as well.
I recently read a book by Allen Hertzke, a political science professor I know at the University of Oklahoma. The book, entitled "Freeing God's Children", is about religious persecution around the world. Dr. Hertzke states that there is no better network in the country better equipped to tackle the big political issues than... get this... the local church. Change won't come from major corporations or the political parties. The vision, and the mobilization, for change comes from the church.
That's why we do lights and loud music. Experience leads to change and change leads to action.
Please don't read this and thing I am bragging. It's not about MOVE. We're not the ones going out and making the big changes in communities all across the country. Dr. Hertzke is right. The church is doing that. All we are doing is providing the experience that points them in the right direction.
Is that forcing them to drink the Kool-Aid? I don't think so. But if it is... we'll be handing out refills tomorrow.
What I witnessed tonight was a moment... no, an experience. I'll put tonight, for those 1,400 people, up against any concert or sporting event in the country. It was that solid. The experience was happening right in front of us. It wasn't fake. We were all creating it. As a creative programmer, I couldn't be more excited about what our team pulled off. As a revolutionary, I was filled with expectations.
At MOVE, we love lights, guitar solos, film, and crowd noise that breaks 100 dB. But to say that we do all of those things for the sake of doing those things would be a lie. We crank up the speakers (this one goes to 11) because we desire to create moments that will propel students to do big things with their lives. Boil it all down and you see that we call Kingdom Workers.
But you ask, aren't you just brainwashing high school students? It's all crowd mentality stuff, right? Get them all worked up and serve them the Kool-Aid?
Maybe you can call it brainwashing. But I know better. I've walked the high schools were they live. I know what their home life is like. Life is too hard to live out the things we teach unless you are committed.
No, we don't serve Kool-Aid but we do serve vision. And plenty of it. I'm not ashamed to admit that I believe the students I worshiped with tonight can solve some of the big problems we face. $40K towards rescuing young girls from sex-trafficking? They did it. Feeding families Thanksgiving dinner by the hundreds? I've seen the newspaper clippings. They did that too. Putting a huge dent in the water crisis in Zambia? Give them time and they'll check it off the list as well.
I recently read a book by Allen Hertzke, a political science professor I know at the University of Oklahoma. The book, entitled "Freeing God's Children", is about religious persecution around the world. Dr. Hertzke states that there is no better network in the country better equipped to tackle the big political issues than... get this... the local church. Change won't come from major corporations or the political parties. The vision, and the mobilization, for change comes from the church.
That's why we do lights and loud music. Experience leads to change and change leads to action.
Please don't read this and thing I am bragging. It's not about MOVE. We're not the ones going out and making the big changes in communities all across the country. Dr. Hertzke is right. The church is doing that. All we are doing is providing the experience that points them in the right direction.
Is that forcing them to drink the Kool-Aid? I don't think so. But if it is... we'll be handing out refills tomorrow.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
cafeteria table
Most 28 year olds that I know aren't faced with the proverbial question of sitting with the kid who is all alone in the cafeteria. Yet that was a decision I ran into this evening at dinner. You see, most 28 year olds don't lead high school conferences on college campuses all summer. Three times a day I grab a tray, decide between chicken parmesan or a corn dog, and scan the crowded cafeteria for a place to sit.
This evening, a student sitting all alone at a round table caught my eye. This is surprising enough because I am sure he has spent most of his adolescence blending in. Or at least trying to. He wore glasses that were partly covered due to his shaggy hair resting on the gold frames. His t-shirt was slightly baggy and his shoe laces were twisted in double-knots and frayed. I slid my tray on the table and asked if I could join him. He said "sure" and continued to scan the noisy room.
I dove in with the standard event director/student conversation starters. Where are you from? What grade are you in? What do you do for fun? You like sports? It turns out he did like sports. He at least liked to watch them. When his devotion to a certain NBA team, that didn't make sense geographically, came up, I asked him if he ever lived in a certain city.
"Yeah," he said, still looking around the room. "for a while."
"When did you live there?" I asked.
"Well, I was born in Philadelphia but then we moved to Orlando. My mom and dad broke up when I was two."
"Okay. Orlando's cool. Disney World, huh?" Yep, that's the best I could come up with.
He continued, "But then we moved back to Philadelphia, then to Boston, then back to Philadelphia, and then back to Orlando. Then Texas. Then Orlando. Boston. Orlando. Boston. And now we live where we do now."
I'm not making this up. I assumed he was in the circus or something. I have a brother in the Army. He doesn't move that much. So I asked him how they ended up in the town he lives in now. That's when it changed. For the first time, he looked at me when he spoke.
"It's the only place my brother's dad wouldn't think to look for us."
I nodded. Not because I agreed with him. That's just my default response to things. I think I must have seen a counselor do it once or something. You put your hand on your chin, nod, and say, "I see."
The thing is, he said it so nonchalantly that he was able to transition to the next topic of conversation faster than I could keep up.
"That's crazy huh?" he asked.
"Sometimes people can be really..." I started.
"No," he corrected me. "The Lakers-Celtics." His eyes had drifted back to the flat screen on the wall.
I'm not a counselor. I'm not that good of a listener. But I know this. That kid has seen more life than I probably ever will. He's learned to cope with it to the point that it's now a part of casual conversation. Basketball and domestic violence. All part of a balanced dinner.
As I walked to the auditorium this evening, there was a part of me that wanted to keep walking. I knew that this young guy was just one of many stories that fill the seats every night at CIY MOVE. I wondered what right I have to sit in my comfortable office chair and write scripts and create elements that are meant to give students like this guy hope. What can I tell him about surviving high school? I had parents that love me. I had girlfriends. I was a freakin' class officer.
Of course, none of that matters if it isn't my voice. We have been trusted with fragile and complex characters. It is my desire that we always tie them into the bigger Story.
This evening, a student sitting all alone at a round table caught my eye. This is surprising enough because I am sure he has spent most of his adolescence blending in. Or at least trying to. He wore glasses that were partly covered due to his shaggy hair resting on the gold frames. His t-shirt was slightly baggy and his shoe laces were twisted in double-knots and frayed. I slid my tray on the table and asked if I could join him. He said "sure" and continued to scan the noisy room.
I dove in with the standard event director/student conversation starters. Where are you from? What grade are you in? What do you do for fun? You like sports? It turns out he did like sports. He at least liked to watch them. When his devotion to a certain NBA team, that didn't make sense geographically, came up, I asked him if he ever lived in a certain city.
"Yeah," he said, still looking around the room. "for a while."
"When did you live there?" I asked.
"Well, I was born in Philadelphia but then we moved to Orlando. My mom and dad broke up when I was two."
"Okay. Orlando's cool. Disney World, huh?" Yep, that's the best I could come up with.
He continued, "But then we moved back to Philadelphia, then to Boston, then back to Philadelphia, and then back to Orlando. Then Texas. Then Orlando. Boston. Orlando. Boston. And now we live where we do now."
I'm not making this up. I assumed he was in the circus or something. I have a brother in the Army. He doesn't move that much. So I asked him how they ended up in the town he lives in now. That's when it changed. For the first time, he looked at me when he spoke.
"It's the only place my brother's dad wouldn't think to look for us."
I nodded. Not because I agreed with him. That's just my default response to things. I think I must have seen a counselor do it once or something. You put your hand on your chin, nod, and say, "I see."
The thing is, he said it so nonchalantly that he was able to transition to the next topic of conversation faster than I could keep up.
"That's crazy huh?" he asked.
"Sometimes people can be really..." I started.
"No," he corrected me. "The Lakers-Celtics." His eyes had drifted back to the flat screen on the wall.
I'm not a counselor. I'm not that good of a listener. But I know this. That kid has seen more life than I probably ever will. He's learned to cope with it to the point that it's now a part of casual conversation. Basketball and domestic violence. All part of a balanced dinner.
As I walked to the auditorium this evening, there was a part of me that wanted to keep walking. I knew that this young guy was just one of many stories that fill the seats every night at CIY MOVE. I wondered what right I have to sit in my comfortable office chair and write scripts and create elements that are meant to give students like this guy hope. What can I tell him about surviving high school? I had parents that love me. I had girlfriends. I was a freakin' class officer.
Of course, none of that matters if it isn't my voice. We have been trusted with fragile and complex characters. It is my desire that we always tie them into the bigger Story.
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
MOVE: Behind the Scenes
In order to shoot an interactive video for the upcoming MOVE tour, we gathered 20 or so CIY employees and put them in various costumes. This is the result.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
More Zambia Shorts
Here another Zambia clip for your viewing enjoyment.
My mom is an elementary school teacher. The following clip looks a lot like the kids I remember from her classroom. What's the problem here? Perhaps the teacher is not giving the proper amount of positive reinforcement that lines up with each individual child's learning style. Perhaps... my opinion is that kids are just plain crazy... all over the world.
My mom is an elementary school teacher. The following clip looks a lot like the kids I remember from her classroom. What's the problem here? Perhaps the teacher is not giving the proper amount of positive reinforcement that lines up with each individual child's learning style. Perhaps... my opinion is that kids are just plain crazy... all over the world.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Zambia Shorts
I'll continue to put clips from the Zambia trip up in the coming days. Here are a few of my favorites.
I guess a van full of white people with big cameras is not something the kids in Zambia see everyday. So every time we jumped out of the van, 50 kids would run up to us. This made it very difficult to get isolated shots. During one attempt, MD asked if I could distract the masses. Clapping seemed to be the international language.
This was one of the most difficult shots to manage but ended up being one of my favorites. We asked the teachers if we could listen to the children sing sometime before they ate lunch. The teachers took that to mean "right now!" Before we could finish getting set up, the teachers stopped their lessons and marched 150 kids out to the schoolyard. They lined up and started singing. We scrambled around to get the audio ready. They just continued to sing. This footage is probably 10 minutes into their singing when we finally got things set up.
We spent a lot of time with a young lady named Abigail and her family. They get water out of a well in their front yard. This is a shot of her little brother getting water.
More videos to come!
I guess a van full of white people with big cameras is not something the kids in Zambia see everyday. So every time we jumped out of the van, 50 kids would run up to us. This made it very difficult to get isolated shots. During one attempt, MD asked if I could distract the masses. Clapping seemed to be the international language.
This was one of the most difficult shots to manage but ended up being one of my favorites. We asked the teachers if we could listen to the children sing sometime before they ate lunch. The teachers took that to mean "right now!" Before we could finish getting set up, the teachers stopped their lessons and marched 150 kids out to the schoolyard. They lined up and started singing. We scrambled around to get the audio ready. They just continued to sing. This footage is probably 10 minutes into their singing when we finally got things set up.
We spent a lot of time with a young lady named Abigail and her family. They get water out of a well in their front yard. This is a shot of her little brother getting water.
More videos to come!
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Zambia Filming - Day 1
Things are going well here in Zambia. We had a productive day of filming. We went to church in the morning. They sang for an hour and a half... they were supposed to sing for an hour... that's 30 minutes over... somewhere Jayson French was crying and didn't know why.
If there is a perk to the trip being extended two days it's that we haven't had to rush a story that wasn't fully developed. We spent some valuable time scouting locations, meet people, and storyboard ideas. We did shoot the SuperStart and believe short today. You will all love Abigail. She is the oldest of 6 kids and lives in a small but clean concrete house. She's in 6th grade. She wants to be a journalist someday so she was very excited about taking part in this. I don't know how these things work themselves out sometimes! Strange huh?
Below you'll see a scene at the MacKenzie neighborhood primary school. The buckets you see in the shot weigh about 40 pounds when full. Some kids carry two at a time. We're learning a lot about the system SHIP runs here. You see, wells by themselves are not the answer. When it comes to clean water, it's not always access but it is always sanitation.
With that in mind, I'm pretty stoked about the SS! and believe goal. SHIP believes in bio-sand filters. They clean 98% of the bugs in the water... no matter where the water comes from. We're drinking out of one this week. Studies have shown that getting a BSF in a house is the fastest way to improve the health of a family. They are practically a status symbol here in Ndola.
I'm also very happy to report that Josh Hall is the most important white guy to come to Zambia since Dr. Livingston. We were in a school yesterday when all of a sudden the kids started calling Josh "Big Show." They were practically chanting, "Big Show! Big Show! Big Show!" He didn't disappoint either.
We're excited about the days to come. The story is working itself out. The SHIP staff has been great.
On a personal note, I stayed up late last night to track the OU game via espn.com gamecast. We have to figure out a way to score touchdowns when in the red zone. You can't beat Texas with field goals.
On last thing, a bunch of you keep updating your facebook status with remarks about how cold it is in Joplin. It's 96 here. Knock it off. And no, you don't need to turn the heat on when it is 50 degrees.
If there is a perk to the trip being extended two days it's that we haven't had to rush a story that wasn't fully developed. We spent some valuable time scouting locations, meet people, and storyboard ideas. We did shoot the SuperStart and believe short today. You will all love Abigail. She is the oldest of 6 kids and lives in a small but clean concrete house. She's in 6th grade. She wants to be a journalist someday so she was very excited about taking part in this. I don't know how these things work themselves out sometimes! Strange huh?
Below you'll see a scene at the MacKenzie neighborhood primary school. The buckets you see in the shot weigh about 40 pounds when full. Some kids carry two at a time. We're learning a lot about the system SHIP runs here. You see, wells by themselves are not the answer. When it comes to clean water, it's not always access but it is always sanitation.
With that in mind, I'm pretty stoked about the SS! and believe goal. SHIP believes in bio-sand filters. They clean 98% of the bugs in the water... no matter where the water comes from. We're drinking out of one this week. Studies have shown that getting a BSF in a house is the fastest way to improve the health of a family. They are practically a status symbol here in Ndola.
I'm also very happy to report that Josh Hall is the most important white guy to come to Zambia since Dr. Livingston. We were in a school yesterday when all of a sudden the kids started calling Josh "Big Show." They were practically chanting, "Big Show! Big Show! Big Show!" He didn't disappoint either.
We're excited about the days to come. The story is working itself out. The SHIP staff has been great.
On a personal note, I stayed up late last night to track the OU game via espn.com gamecast. We have to figure out a way to score touchdowns when in the red zone. You can't beat Texas with field goals.
On last thing, a bunch of you keep updating your facebook status with remarks about how cold it is in Joplin. It's 96 here. Knock it off. And no, you don't need to turn the heat on when it is 50 degrees.
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