Thoughts from...

Nehemiah Series Graphics & Bill Messner-Loebs

I LOVE artistic collaboration and I especially love it when I get to meet passionate and talented people. Let me introduce you to Bill Messner-Loebs. Turns out that Bill is a HUGE deal in the comic book world and he's good! He designed the series graphics for the series we're currently in. The process was a lot of fun. I told him the BigIdea of the topic and he played with it and hit it out of the park. He did all types of research...anyways here's what he came up with.

Livingston County Idol

That's right...our very own county hosts its own version of Americal Idol and this year one of our apprentice worship leaders, Amber Montressor, made it all the way to the finals. It was fun to watch but at times NOT fun to listen to. Did i mention that i HATE country music? ok...now i did.
Congrats Amber!

Some things test the limits of human speech

Yea

A very moist Sunday...

So today was week two of the forgotten ways series and we talked about baptism. All last week the high school students were away at CIY and on Friday I get a phone call from Brad Tate our student pastor letting me know that there awe 13 students who are interested in getting baptized. Awesome...so then since we were talking about baptism this week we all thought it would be awesome to try live baptisms this weekend. Well...being portable, on a tight budget AND attempting in-person baptisms is rough. It started with an 8-foot pool that is 24" deep. I guess the weight of these things is HUGE because we split a wheeled riser in half after finally filling it....sooooo....we started an old school bucket-brigade to empty the thing out. Then we moved it into position (which we were hoping the wheeled riser would help with) and refilled it LITERALLY just in time for the baptisms to occur. It was awesome to see and hear all the stories of the students. The band was tight and Dave did a good job teaching about baptism. Which i understand can get pretty hairy at times. Here are some photos of the pool baptismal.

on an unrelated note...i was able to actually sit in with our kids ministry (birth-kindergarten) and it was fascinating. I recommend it.

Auditorium, Concert Hall, Cathedral?

We just finished our first week of the Forgotten Ways series. In this series we're looking at some of the practices that Christendom has held dear since it's beginning but unfortunately has forgotten the meaning of. The week we transformed the the performing arts center into a cathedral complete with stained glass (lighting gels and gobos) It was an awesome feeling and change from the usual. We also had a performance by the local Detroit group PreZence. Wow, they were great and the artwork on the encounter tables was from Hollie Schrock. She's great! Here are some photos and video from this past weekend.

Orchestra + Outdoors + Wife = Good Times

Just chillin' @ Kensington Metropark

Orchestra + Outdoors + Wife = Good Times

Just chillin' @ Kensington Metropark

Michigan is Beautiful

I've just returned from a camping trip on the west side of the state. It was awesome! great fun, amazing people and a lot of funny kids.

Video Teaching?

If you've been around the multisite church conversations at all there's a big discussion about video versus in-person teaching. There are churches and stats that show no difference and there are others that show a remarkable difference. We are still on the fence with which way to go. Today was one of the few times that we've tried video teaching. Earlier this week we filmed the teaching pastors (Dave AND Brad, if you didn't get to see StuCo it was the same message, shots...everything. Pretty cool) walking from downtown Brighton while teaching, they ended up walking right into auditorium to finish out the message. From what I've heard the people really enjoyed it. I heard a couple grumblings BUT it was overwhelmingly taken well. Here's something i NEVER thought of though...it's really boing for the technical arts people who usually have to follow along and click buttons all through the teaching. They didn't have to do that this week. They simply played the 20 min video. Meet Marlin...but be very quiet...he's sleeping!

If you were there let me know your thoughts on video teaching OR if you weren't there let me know what you're thinking anyways.

Friends!

How better to create a visual of the Biblical principle of friendship...jump and play in a fountain. yea that's it.