Texas, are you ready?

Mike and I leave for Texas tomorrow morning for our company brainstorming, best practices, wishful thinking, and fun times retreat REV08. Now neither of us have been to Texas, but we hear that we can go bull riding, and that is all we need. We will be updating the site with photos, words of wisdom, and all the mischief that we can muster.

Keep us in your prayers, it will be a long 4 days.

One of the Best Animations of All Time

I’m a sucker for great animation. Do yourself a favor and check this out!

the Gospel in a Song

Just wanted to share this song. It is nothing new, shocking or wild, but it is powerful. This is creativity, the Gospel in song.

In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all—
Here in the love of Christ I stand.

In Christ alone, Who took on flesh,
Fullness of God in helpless babe!
This gift of love and righteousness,
Scorned by the ones He came to save.
Till on that cross as Jesus died,
The wrath of God was satisfied;
For ev’ry sin on Him was laid—
Here in the death of Christ I live.

There in the ground His body lay,
Light of the world by darkness slain;
Then bursting forth in glorious day,
Up from the grave He rose again!
And as He stands in victory,
Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me;
For I am His and He is mine—
Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death—
This is the pow’r of Christ in me;
From life’s first cry to final breath,
Jesus commands my destiny.
No pow’r of hell, no scheme of man,
Can ever pluck me from His hand;
Till He returns or calls me home—
Here in the pow’r of Christ I’ll stand.

Check out Stuart Townend’s blog

God’s Block

I’m sitting here at the Text and Context conference watching the guys from God’s Block. These guys are rapping to tell people about Christ—and man is it powerful. I’m usually cynical of these kinds of things, but these guys love Christ.

A good friend of mine, Mike Hanson, had left his cushy life growing up in a nice house on a lake to go live the street life—drugs, hip-hop, women, etc. God stopped Mike and gave him repentance. Hallelujah.  He started discipling a group of young guys from the church I grew up at. Mike had a heart for the people he use to be friends with, he wanted to see them worship God. So he went to the local barbershop that the black guys hung out at, and asked if he could start a Bible study. That was the start of God’s Block.

Now God’s Block is a bunch of guys that unabashedly preach the gospel in the language that the hip hop culture speaks—rap lyrics and pointedly preaching. If you have the unreached hip hop culture living around you. Give these guys a call. Most of the time you read about something like this it’s totally zune, a bad knock off, these guys are the real deal.

Our goal is to glorify art, and we want to start pointing to people that are using art and talents they have to point to God.

Message vs. Appearance

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.—Romens 10:14-17

For the past couple weeks I have been struggling with how I approach design with regard to the church. I put a very high emphasis on the appearance, and how it might communicate the theme of a series—but not on what the actual series is about. I love the look, but overlook the message. I love the feel, but forget about the Word of God. To me it becomes all about appearance, about how other designers, pastors, and church members view my design. The message gets lost, and so do I.

This verse stops me in my tracks. Nothing I design can save a person from Hell. Nothing I create can give salvation. All I can do is point to the Word of God, and let that speak. I need to study the scripture that I am illustrating to better understand what God is saying. I need to pray before God about how to approach my creativity. I need to place what is being preached far above anything I design. The Word of God is better than any silly mailer I can ever do, and I praise God for that.

Mike’s at the Text and Context Conference

I’m sitting here in the first session of the Text and Context conference. I’ve got to tell you all that I’m so excited. Most of my pastor superheroes are here; John Piper, Matt Chandler, CJ Mahaney, and Mark Driscoll. There is going to be a lot going up on the site through out the week as I get challenged to love and follow Jesus more by these amazing men.

Already I had a great conversation with a pastor named Carl from England. When I showed him the Love Your Enemies posters he said that I would be arrested in England for offense. I forget some of the nice parts about being American sometimes.

Stay tuned.

Christvertising: The DANGEROUS LINE

This is crazy. Does anyone know what this is about? It seems like some genius viral marketing, I can’t imagine this being real. This is a warning to how marketing a design can begin to look to non-Christians. It’s very possible to lose credibility.

More Quotes on Creativity

Here’s some more wisdom from some old guys who loved Jesus. From Ben

John Calvin: “The invention of the arts, and other things which serve the common use and convenience of life, is a gift of God by no means to be despised, and a faculty worthy of commendation.”

H. R. Rookmaaker: “We must realize that we Christians are responsible… To look at modern art is to look at the fruit of the spirit of the avant-garde: it is they who are ahead in building a view of the world with no God, no norms. Yet is this so because Christians long since left the field to the world, and, in a kind of mystical retreat from the world, condemned the arts as worldly, almost sinful? Indeed, nowhere is culture more ‘unsalted’ than precisely in the field of arts - and that in a time when the arts (in the widest sense) are gaining a stronger influence than ever through the mass communications.”

Don’t be a Zune

OK kids, we have a new BUZZ word for the day, Zune. 

We have decided to hijack this word to unmask the trend of fake innovation. 

Zune: To be lame; a copycat; a bad rip-off; repackaging someone else’s idea in the name of innovation.  

I have seen churches zune message series and art all the time and it needs to stop. Now this means we are held to the same standard, so call us out when needed. Zune sucked, so lets not.

Let’s Get Informative

I do not endorse the world-view of the following YouTube video. But I do think it teaches it’s subject in an amazing way. Does anyone know of an attempts to make a infographic movie to help understand theology or a story from the Bible? Let me know, I’m really interested.
From Information Aesthetics