gagged...

Blogs are a funny thing.  

One the one hand they're--to some degree--a 'marketing' tool.  A way for you to get your ideas out there, a tool to built awareness of the things you do.

On the other, they're supposed to be a glimpse inside your process, or the genesis of your perspective. Ideally that's supposed to help you (and your audience) learn, think, process and be inspired.

Hard to be honest.

Anyway, wanted to just drop a quick update ('cause I said I would--and I'm regretting it a bit) re: my 'new' notes for preaching.

Sucked.

Terrible.

Totally blew it.

That's how I felt about today's sermon.  I actually felt a little embarrassed.  I realize that 'embarrassment' (in a preacher) can be idolatry in disguise so I've worked really hard to not give in to it or wallow in it but that's the simple truth as to how I felt after getting done today at THE WELL.

I forgot this part about church planting.

The ups and downs.

Last week was awesome.  Near record attendance, record offering, great worship and strong preaching.  This week half our core was away, worship was lackluster and the preaching stunk.

It'll be like this for two to three years.

It just takes time for a church plant to stabilize.  

My 'take aways' from today:

1) If it 'aint broke don't fix it.  Just because I've been writing and preaching sermons the same way for fifteen years doesn't mean I'm in a rut, lazy or complacent.  I need to just keep doing what I've been called/given to do without apology or pretense.

2) It's good to listen to the 'creative urge' to try something new.  If it succeeds, great, you've made tangible progress.  If (like today) it fails, you've learned something that will help grow you (towards tangible progress) and you've had a humbling experience.

3) Make sure I do the work necessary (knowing it's not all up to me...) to do better next week because, I mean, dang...

At lunch after (a veggie burger and chocolate shake to help cheer me up) my wife reminded me to repent of my desire to 'do well' and my tendency to assume that my analysis of an event is the 'objectively true' take on what happened.  She also told me to ask Jesus why things went the way they did today so (as I always do) feeling a little silly about it I asked Him right then and there, while she was still suggesting it, and (as always happens to me when I do this silly thing) the answer formed in my mind immediately.

"So that you will remember to love Me..."

For whatever that's worth.

(whatever that's worth)

Love. Him.

Keep at it.

Remember that neither Rome, nor you average humble suburban church was built in a day.

I'll try to do better next week.

(Easter Sunday: on the one hand, I think I should do better 'cause what preacher worth his salt wouldn't. On the other, that just upped the ante right there didn't it?)

Oh well.

I'll take my own advice from my worst sermon of the year so far...

"Sometimes good enough is GOOD enough..."

T

Of locker rooms and sunny skies...

So this is what I was doing yesterday.

That would be the B.C Lions locker room and those would be some of my crew getting ready to shoot 25 'coaching' segments with the DB coach for the Lions.

The good news is the footage looks amazing.

The bad news is the audio is unusable.

The SFS point is this:

When faced with disaster, focus on the positive.

The positive is that I framed all the shots (which were then tweaked by my DP and my Editor who were on-set with me) but I, as a Director should, decided where to put the camera.  And there's an insecurity thing going on there 'cause you're just not ever really sure that you've got enough of what it takes to really be great at what you do.  There's no way your framing is going to be as cool as someone else's.

But it was.

It looked great.

And the proof is in the photos.  See, I took the reference shots with my digital camera--a technique I learned from my first DP (shout out to DA)--and what made me so very happy today when I saw the footage was that what the on-set cameras were 'seeing' was what I'd blocked with my still camera. 

Not such a big deal, granted, but my strength has always been storytelling and working with actors, I'm not primarily a visualist.  So to be slowly gaining traction re: where I decide to put the camera is very gratifying and is proof that all the shots I'm taking of friends and family are paying off in my working life.

The point is--do the little things you need to do to get better at what you do even if it means doing them very slowly and very marginally at first in terms of your 'improvement rate'.

And yes, the unusable audio means a re-shoot.  The joys of our business.

In others news.  I spent an hour this afternoon doing this...

Yup', flying an R44 helicopter.  

Hardest thing I've ever done mechanically/physically.

And scary and fun as all get out.

See, you've got two pedals that keep the thing flying straight (like an arrow) through the air and because of the way the rotor spins the thing wants to keep turning right so you're always fighting the right hand urge with left pedal input.  Then you've got the collective which adds power and lift.  Pull up and you add lift, push down and you descend, but on the end of it there's a twisty bit, like a motorcycle throttle except vertically-oriented, that controls throttle.  Then you've got the cyclic which is the 'stick' that controls pitch and yaw and climb and dive and roll and the whole thing's so sensitive that if you 'think' it, it does it.

Well, lemme' tell you, trying to fly that thing is a piece of work.

Today I tried 'hover work' for the first time and if I hadn't had my instructor with me I'd have crashed the thing for sure.  It's like nothing I've ever done and SO fun.

So why, you're thinking, in the midst of my wildly busy schedule am I making time to fly helicopters?  Well, it's because a strategic partner of ours owns it and loves to share his things and his love of adventure with the people in his life.  Seeing as I'm slowly working my way into the edges of his life he's decided to get me flying.

How do you refuse an offer like that?

You don't.

The SFS point here is that, when offered a chance to do something you find mildly horrifying yet slightly exciting, and when said offer comes from someone you're working to build relationship with and for whom you have some degree of respect you must swallow your fear and take the leap.

This is how you endear yourself to people and coworkers and bosses and such.  You embrace life--in small measure--in the way in which they embrace it.

We all love to share our life experience with others and when you allow people like that to share theirs with you it opens relational doors you could never force open on your own.

So, take that flight friend.

And finally--I'll try to write some on this tomorrow--I'm getting ready to fly to L.A this coming week to interview--among others--Fran, 'The Nanny' Drescher, Robert, "O.J's Lawyer" Shapiro, Cory, "The Goonies" Feldman, Robert, "Crystal Cathedral" Schuller, Jillian, "NFL on FOX" Barbieri, Liza, "Entertainment Tonight" Gibbons and nine others.

We're shooting at the Beverly Wiltshire and the price for the shoot is spiraling out of control to the point that, the week of November 4th (after I pitch our new dramatic TV series--for which I just cut the first half of a 'mock trailer' which is looking awesome...) I'm going to have to sit down and find a way to re-jig our entire enterprise to compensate for the overages.

But the celebrity faces should help us place my show in the U.S and that's a risk worth taking.

Like flying a helicopter, or framing your own shots for the first time.

Oh the wildness of a life less ordinary.

I've been popping advil like skittles but it sure beats near-bankruptcy.

T