Been doing an awful lot of the above lately.Shooting.
I'm finding myself fairly spent these days with the intense production schedule we're trying to keep up. My challenge in this is twofold. The first part is the kind of thing I'm sure you deal with too; simply getting 'up' to work, getting in touch with my passion and/or connecting my passion to a seemingly mundane task. I'm trying to find ways to get and 'stay' excited about what I do in the midst of what I do feeling a little bit rat-race-ish these days. Secondly I'm continually trying to find ways to work from my gifting rather than just working to keep the lights on, or pay the bills.
This is tough.
I feel like my biz-partner and I have gotten 'off' our 'mission' a bit lately. Part of this is related to the fact that we have some deals pending that will have resources attached to them that will aid us in turning our strategic plans into tactical moves. Until said deals materialize we're in a bit of a holding pattern. The challenge there is to work enough that you keep the process moving forward while making sure that you're not wasting time with fruitless labor. I find that my own selfish/laziness is a factor there, meaning I can sometime confuse my motives, thinking "I'm being a good steward of my time..." when really I might just be being lazy.
In the midst of this we had a nice moment this week where our entire crew broke for lunch (we were shooting a bunch of new episodes) and the show we were working on happened to have it's national debut at that exact moment and we were able to gather around the flat screen in the lounge and watch our work play out.
That was cool. For some of our team its the first time anything they've done has had a national release.
I made a point in that moment to be thankful and to remember not to allow myself to become jaded. See, I've had a lot of shows (more than 500) go to air nationally so my tendency is to forget the magic, forget that it's good, and ignore small forward steps in my desire to move on to the next BIG thing.
That said, I am feeling some new creative juices flowing.
I've written four new TV series treatments in the last couple months. Two of them I think really have legs. The great thing (noticing and being thankful for progress here) is that we now have official H'wood REPS who can (and ARE) actually shop said treatments at the highest level. The trick now is to be there in the right place at the right time with the right exec and the right concept and close that deal.
I think I need to write a new feature-length script soon. I'm toying with a time travel piece.
On the church side I've decided to stop counting numbers. Those of you who are aware of 'church planting' dogma know (as do I) that this can be a sign of a guy who's church is tanking and he just won't see it. Said dude spiritualizes the fact that his church isn't growing by saying he's going to stop focusing on numbers and just let God do what He's going to do.
That's me.
I'm going to stop counting numbers and let God do what He's going to do.
I just hope I'm not that guy...
Scary, right?
So I'm AWARE that I could be that guy but am also keeping my ear to the ground in terms of watching for momentum.
I see it in our core leaders. They're excited, committed, volunteering their time and giving of their resources and talents to see our mission progress, so that's a good sign.
I see it on Sundays. Though I've seriously not counted numbers the last four weeks, 3/4 of them have felt really full and packed with positive momentum. I also *feel* it in the way in which the Holy Spirit seems to be present in our corporate worship services.
I hear it in our band. Our worship leader and his dudes are really gelling, really turning out great worship moment after great worship moment week in and week out. Can't really do any better than we're doing on that front. I'm immensely thankful to have each of them around and am holding my breath for the day when word gets out that THE WELL is THE place to be in the Western GTA for vibrantly Spirit-filled worship.
I feel it in my preaching. I've been getting a lot of comments from people about the quality and tone of my sermons. I've been trying very hard to write really good sermons, doing my best to just follow the Lord's lead, work the passage honestly, and write from my heart with an eye to being practical and inspirational. It's been a few months now where each week has been pretty strong. Typically I've found that I preach a couple of strong sermons, one really great one, then an average one in a given month. I've been trying really hard to do whatever it takes to hit home runs week after week. I realize there's an 'intangible' in this ie: the presence and power of the Holy Spirit settling on a sermon and bringing it to *life* but I 'get' that I can't control that. So I'm just trying to stay in-relationship with God and to keep my eyes and ears and heart open to what's unfolding around me in life so that I can find a way to connect what I feel God is saying, to the people that He's given me to say it to. Just trying to not ever deliver a 'dud'. So far so good lately.
Our kids are in school for the first full year and we're still adjusting to what that means for our schedule. It's pretty crazy. I realize most of you will be going, "Duh...I KNOW" to that but for us it's still new. Good thing is it seems to me that we *fit* a bit better (in terms of our values and tendencies) with the school crowd than perhaps we did with the home schooling crowd. Not looking to say one is better or worse than the other there, mind you.
My wife is working her gifts (fitness and personal motivation) and doing well. She's now got 2 national TV shows she's the key fitness contributor on and is adding a few personal training clients as well as starting to connect to a really high end fitness company in our area. She's trying to balance her ability (with the kids in school now) to work, with her desire to not succumb to the 'rat race' after 15 years of doing her best (with me) to try and live differently.
The day-to-day of church work (people, drama, logistics, etc...) is getting us down a bit this week but we're just simply trying to keep putting one foot in front of the other and let the Lord worry about the rest. If you do pray for us you could ask the Lord to maybe give us a new permanent location to meet in.
Oh, and I'm helping to coach my son's football team. I'm the defensive coordinator and our last game the defense OWNED the other team. I found myself yelling "I LOVE YOU GUYS!" as the D ran off the field after a particularly outstanding goal line stand.
Some things never change.
I keep hoping my simple, silly, journey continues to be of some use to you as you work to navigate yours, which is why I keep writing.
All my best to you,
T
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