The Anatomy of a Composition

Here’s a little visual display of pieces in a composition that I’m working on. Due to working in a hurry (last Wednesday night at church before moving out of the state) I didn’t properly light the green screen and separate the subject from it like I would of liked to, but oh well. Here you can see what led to what and what the image is like as I work on final tweaks.

The Power of Social Media

(This post is not about any company, it’s about the power of social media.)

The other day we had a slight run in with a company, who shall remain nameless. It had bought out another company with which we were under contract when we lived in Texas. When we signed the contract, we knew a move could be imminent, so we asked if there was a cost involve when moving before the end of the contract. Their answer was no. We thought nothing of it. Fast-forward to the present. We moved…an expensive move with no one else covering expenses. My wife gets on the phone with the new company to make sure there are still no added costs.

There are.

My wife explains that before we signed we specifically asked that question and were promised no expenses. It’s not much help. They tell her we’d have to commit to other contract and pay either $99 or $199 to not extend, or just pay the remainder of monthly payments…right! It should be free, or we should be grandfathered in. It’s not much to you, but it IS to us right now. She went on and on with them, until in frustration the rep said he’d get it to zero and then they hung up.

Next day the tech comes, sets up (he was really great, I mean it), then it comes to contract time. He looks at his notes, sees that they had spoken on the phone with a rep, who shall remain nameless as well. He does not have zero, and he has a new contract. My wife specifically told them we did not want to renew with another contract.

Back on the phone she goes…and on hold…and reconnected, etc. They decide to listen to the recording of the call to see if she was promised zero and no contract by the new rep. They come back calling her a liar. Can we listen to the recording, ‘cuz she knows what was said and is not lying! Not without an attorney. We don’t want an attorney. We’d like decent treatment.

No dice. We pay $99 extra dollars. Case closed. Or is it?

After spending probably an hour or more on the phone with this company, we got no where. I decide to turn to the POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA.

I have a three prong attack planned, if needed to easily fight for my $99. All I needed was one tweet, less than 140 characters.

Within 10 min. the social media team of this company is being courteous AND helpful. Within a few exchanges, few in characters, large in significance, our issue is promptly resolved.

The company saved themselves a lot of bad press because the social media team realizes the dynamic power of word of mouth to the masses. My wife told the guy on the phone that we would pay and tell everyone we know not to do business with this company. It didn’t phase them. She failed to mention that we’re pretty tech savvy and can tell many people we DON’T know the same.

I’m not into boycotts or anything. But I found out that I don’t like anyone calling my wife a liar. I also  confirmed something I already knew to be true, and found out just how powerful social media can be to give both good or bad press to the world of cyberspace.

Risk

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage

to lose sight of the shore.” -Andre Gide

I recently blogged about a new season in my life. My move across states to a different line of work is perhaps considered risking business. I leaving behind a full-time job with benefits, and relying on my own entrepreneurial endeavors, becoming self-employed with all of its challenges. A bit of a gamble some might say. What if I fail? Crash and burn? With all those little mouths to feed and such?

“Yes, risk taking is inherently failure-prone. Otherwise, it would be

called sure-thing-taking.” -Jim McMahon

Risk is necessary if growth is desired. I am stepping out in faith, and it’s something that I feel I have been building towards for some time now. The challenge and opportunity present is what God has been leading me to undertake. This God element makes it a no-brainier, because if it is from Him, no one can stop it. Companies that don’t ever take any risks often are the very ones that fail. Can the same be said of people? Has God ever been known to ask people to step out in faith?

“Take calculated risks. That is quite different from

being rash.” -General George S. Patton

As doors and opportunities present themselves and we’ve suppressed our imagined fears and acted, we’ve seen a confirmation of sorts in how smoothly and easily things are falling into place. For instance, one of the biggest areas that I would worry about was the selling of our house, in this economy. I’ve seen houses sit on the market forever, some on our street, even! In two weeks, ours sold! I half expected to move in with my parents with our four kids and be cramped for a couple of months to avoid two payments anywhere, but the house is under contract.

So now where to live? We found a great house with just about everything we wanted and are under contract already. We’ll have a lot more space then we do currently, and be paying a lot less for it too! Here’s the kicker. We’re able to stay in our house for a few days after the buyer closes, so we can be present at church the last Sunday of the month, and we can move into the new place a few days before we close on it. That could not be more perfect.

One more occurrence worth noting is that two weeks before leaving my current ministry, we have a candidate in town visiting and interviewing and trying out for my position. He claims that this vacancy that I created and the fact that our church approached him directly is an answer to his prayers for guidance in his life. God works in interesting and mysterious ways, especially when there’s an element of risky faith involved.

I enjoy the game of Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s a great game because when the timing is right, after weighing all of the options, factoring in odds and probabilities and a number of other variables, there comes a point where you have to simply put all of the chips in the middle. This ALL IN  is a frightening moment, but when done right, the payoff is huge. This is kind of how I feel right now.

How about you? Is there anything you’ve put off for far too long because of the risk involved? What are you going to do?

Home Videos Don’t Have to be Boring

Growing up, my mom was pretty good about making home movies. She even at times would do some edits and overdub music, and the hard way, before non-linear computer editing. We enjoyed watching them. Living on the mission field, I guess it was the thing to do when family would come to visit, so they could catch up on the last 4 years of our life.

Home videos are typically known for being boring and long. But they don’t have to be. Here’s a little keepsake video edit I did of our recent camping trip we took with some friends. A little creativity, music, and shot selection and editing can capture memories in a fun way forever:

A New Season

For the last decade of my young life, I have been employed in some way by a church. That season of our lives is coming to an end. This morning, I had the unpleasant task of telling our church (in all 3 services) that I was resigning and we would be moving in two months time. For some this was shocking. Many others have mentioned to me that they sensed this coming. We leave on good terms, in fact, saying goodbye in two months will be very hard. We’ve spent the last 6 1/2 years in Brownsville. Two of our four kids were born here. Everyone has been understanding of our decision and happy for us, so for that I am very grateful.

The question is as to what we will be doing? We’ll be doing a lot of different things. I’m certainly not the first to leave full-time located church ministry to pursue other areas of ministry. That is what I am doing. I’m focusing my time and energy on my passion, which is video and Christian media.

There are several pieces of the pie that together will be the equivalent of a full-time job. This has been a long time coming. My response was always, “I’m not ready to jump yet. Not ready yet.” Or put another way it was “ready, aim, aim, aim, aim…” As long as that is my attitude, I would never step out in faith.  So we have prayed long and hard about it, and feel that God is leading us to shift our direction and ministry focus in this way.

I have read Jon Acuff’s book “Quitter- closing the gap between you day job & your dream job”. Chapter one is called “Don’t quit your day job”. For a while, now, I’ve been wanting to throw myself into the world of Christian media and focus long hours (not just spare time or days off) on the craft and learn a ton of new things to help me get better in this area. That would be a dream. Well, the time to do it is now.

I will leave a full-time ministry, and in essence take on 3 part-time ministries:

I have accepted the role of Editor-in-Chief of Christian Video Magazine- a free online publication that currently serves 70,000 subscribers. I will work from home on the magazine, of which I have been a columnist since it started a couple of years ago, and take my passion and run with it.

We will also be working more intensely with Motive Matters (www.motivematters.com). I guess you could say I’ll be the Director of Marketing. What’s that have to do with video or design? We’ll be responsible for all commercials, brochures, exhibits, etc. It is our passion to get this training into as many churches as would have us, and we will work to that end, creating promotional materials and spreading the word online and at conventions and ministerial alliance meetings, arranging pastors retreats, etc. Emily and I are also both certified motive trainers, so we’ll be doing some training as well, which we love to do. Motive Matters and the Color Code has truly helped us a lot in our own lives, in marriage and parenting, and life in general.

Finally, I will continue to develop my own platform- FishXpressions, which I began shortly after our move to Brownsville. I have spent my own time on this endeavor (days off, early mornings, late nights, etc.). It has been very part-time, and has not been on church time. Any more time that I can focus on this ministry will be a great benefit. There are a lot of ideas that I have. What I haven’t had is the time to execute them. I also may do some freelance video work with other churches or ministries as time allows. I’m confident that this change of pace will spur on a fresh wave of creativity. I’m looking forward to setting a day of Sabbath (once a week), in which I create nothing except for memories with family. For a while now, the only time I’ve had to work on this area of developing skills in video has been those times when I should have been resting or playing.

Are there still some unanswered questions? Well, yeah. However, I believe this is what God wants me to do.

I’ve always been a big fan of “The Choir”. A while back I invited Steve Hindalong and Derri Daughtery to play a concert in Brownsville. They are coming out with a new album, and since I pre-ordered it, I got a sneak peak in the form of an advanced rough cut of the song “The Forest”. That day was the day I was going to tell the staff about our decision. The song really spoke to me. And I told Steve that. He replied something to the effect of the fact that at times it’s good to take risks and that this would be a great adventure for our family. Coming to Brownsville was a great adventure. Going back to Missouri and focusing energy on a dream will be one too. So here are the lyrics to that song that ministered to be soul:

The sun will shine, the sun will shine on you

I believe the sun will shine on you and me my friend

I have learned to trust the turning of the seasons

Even now, the sun is breaking through clouds again

But I still don’t know the causes or the reasons

And I still can’t see the forest for the trees

The Groots in South Africa

One of the things I like doing is making promos for missionaries that I know. I see it as a way that I can support them in helping get the word out on there work, so others will support them as well. The Groots are good friends of ours and will be doing some great work with Mercy Air (www.mercyair.org- fund # 9775). I filmed their message earlier in the week and spent all day yesterday piecing together this 20 min. presentation that they will take on the road with them to raise support and can use online as well.

Allow me to introduce you to “The Groots in South Africa”:

NOMaD 1•2•3

There are many causes out there. Some get more attention than others, and that’s fine. Here’s a cause that I believe is a good one, like so many others.  I was asked to create this 90 second promo for NOMaD 1•2•3, a sponsorship program from Good News Production International. I’m honored to have been able to play a small part in this worthy project.

Please watch the short promo to see this is all about:

Though, I made this spot several months ago, tonight is when it launched. I got to watch GNPI’s annual banquet streaming online. With the launch of this new program they stated that they were praying for at least 150 people to sign up for $10 a month and this worthy cause TONIGHT. Whether you’re reading this on the 8th of March, or afterward, would you consider joining me and becoming a sponsor, and also praying for the active NOMaD teams and future teams, and share this with at least 3 of your friends????

http://gnpi.org/gnpi/HowtoPartner/NOMaD123.aspx