Copyright Approach

Sometimes I get questions on copyright; how we handle it, what is our approach. Tim Stevens wrote a great post on his blog about copyright. Please give it a read. For us, we are about upholding the intention of the law. I think we do a great job of that.

For instance, sometimes we use music to make a video that we have not gotten permission to use. We don't sell it or pretend we wrote the music. But I believe we treat the brand of the artist extremely well. I believe we help create new sales and new fans for the artist and tell the world about Jesus all at the same time. If for any reason, an artist were to say "please don't do that," we would simply comply.

I came across this scripture in Mark chapter 11 (NIV). I think it parallels our copyright practice:

The Triumphal Entry.

Mark 11:
1. As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, 2. saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 3. If anyone asks you, 'Why are you doing this?' tell him, 'The Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly.' "
4. They went and found a colt outside in the street, tied at a doorway. As they untied it, 5. some people standing there asked, "What are you doing, untying that colt?" 6. They answered as Jesus had told them to, and the people let them go.

I think it is for us, as leaders to use Wisdom and Discernment to determine what the "the Lord needs" and rely on the goodness of Artists to understand our intentions.

Programming: Going with the Flow

I thought I would share some thoughts on service "flow" ... here is an exerpt from an article I wrote for our Innovate Conference this coming month:

"... Programming the service order reminds me of white-water rafting. Envision that you are paddling along in the calmer waters of a river, when you begin to notice that the current is speeding up. You hear the sound of rumbling waters faintly in the distance. Your senses become more acute; your focus intensifies; you know something is coming. You find the raft traveling even faster until the water is raging, loud and white around a myriad of rocks and swirling eddies. Your muscles tense and your heart pounds as you paddle furiously to keep control! And then, you see the mist rising above a place where the river seems to flow off of the horizon. You scream with excitement as your raft sails over a ten foot waterfall! What an exhilarating ride! Your mind is awake, in tune, and you can’t wait for what’s next!

Now imagine paddling along in the calm waters of that same river and suddenly, without warning, you plummet over that ten foot waterfall. Not so fun. Your mind spends the next ten minutes asking, “What just happened?” In our services, we would rather not have our audience spend valuable time asking themselves this same question, so we attempt to avoid radical changes in energy as a rule. The transitions between the elements in a service are as important as the elements themselves. Often, we create artistic elements specifically for the purpose of helping us move fluidly from one point in the service to the next. "

A Different 7:30 Service

If you came to our service last weekend at 5:30 but then watched it later on our media player, you would have noticed something different. Yep, we pulled a major arts element from the weekend package - a gutwrenchingly hard decision for me. We made a video where we recreated "The Office." It was hours of effort. It fell short, in my opinion, of moving the service forward. I thought the script, written by Meagan Church was absolutely brilliant; dead on. However, we chose to violate some of our own rules and that decision came back to bite us.

We posted this video on YouTube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EihaPnJysrI

We discussed this as a team and here are some of the programming rules we violated:

• Time limit - 6 minutes max is all we get to be interesting. This was 8:42. Long elements raise the excellence required to use them in our service.

• Excellence Standard - this element was not parody; this was "The Office." So the excellence standard became extremely high; the bar was raised. We placed ourselves in a position where our actors were directly reproducing characters. This requires great impersonation skill - pretty tough. I needed to be as dead on as Steve Carrell for the role of Michael; Dave needed to be as solid as Rainn Wilson (Dwight); Kyle as good as John Krasinski (Jim) . These guys are comedic geniuses.

• Flow - this element was programmed to come right out of a high-energy performance of BTO's "Takin' Care of Business" where there was a standing ovation in some of the services; talk about an energy juxtaposition. (my next post will be some thoughts on flow.)

Anyway ... lessons learned. Again. :-)

What IS Our Process - Disclaimer

Hey Friends,

I want to make some comments on my last post. I realize that I may have misrepresented our process with the chart. I want to correct that. We developed this process chart over a year ago. It, in my mind states, "If we are not at this point in the planning, we are probably pressuring our system, people, execution and potentially our excellence." That is true.

Looking at the chart you might believe we are done and completely planned, all details done, three weeks out. That is not true. Often we will make changes, quite last minute. A pastor may decide they need something they had not considered, a prop, a photo or movie clip. We may view a drama on Saturday rehearsal and decide we need a different sound effect or different light. Our programming team may decide a service order is not working and change that on a Saturday. Our media team may have had a bad render that week and we fail to get it loaded until Saturday afternoon. We may miss a communication about a rehearsal change and instrumentation required.

These are all things that lead to clogs in the system because they disrupt today's plan (which should be about planning something for later.) The last minute changes may not effect this weekend (although they can, because they pose pressure on our teams who must execute the change with little time to practice or prepare) but they do create pressure for future weekends.

So, IS this our process? Yes. It has to be. We can get into trouble if it's not. Are we able to adhere to it? We are. Do we? Hmmm. This is where we always need to decide, "Is the change, the skipped step, the addition, worth the pressure on the system?" This certainly requires Wisdom to discern and a willingness to push back or accept failure (something un-executed) when due dates are not met, or requests come outside a reasonable time frame. I have much in this area to learn.

What IS Our Process?

The GCC Creative Arts Weekend Process

The single most asked question I get is, "How far out do you plan?" The second most asked is "What is your Arts process at GCC?" Well, here it is, our creative process for the arts department. I am continually trying to make our process the most direct and effective as I can. So, our process is always in process. For today, it is my dream that we can use 10 God-given weeks to create the most excellent, relevant, and authentic weekend service possible.

While all churches create different art forms, have different goals and capacities, all churches should have a defined process to reach their ministry objectives. This Excel document and others are available at minimal cost from http://www.wiredchurches.com/ and can be used as a template to capture your process. I hope you find it helpful.

Finding My Three ...

Once again Marcus Buckingham delivers. As I watch the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, I continue to be captivated by this man's message: Focus on Your Strengths.

Marcus' definition of strengths is not typical. He states that strengths are those activities that make us feel stronger; not simply those things that we are good at. Marcus offered some interesting insight into identifying those things that give us strength by suggesting that we 1) take a personality profile like the one at http://www.strengthfinder.com/ and 2) embark on the following exercise next week at work:

Take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle and above one column, write the word "LOVE" and above the other write the word "LOATHE." Throughout the week capture those activities that you either LOATHE or LOVE. At the end of the week, look at the top three things you loved doing and write:

"I feel strong when I ...."

Marcus suggested that there are four sure signs of a strength (fortunately they happen to spell the word "SIGN" :-) )

Success - those things you have success at.
Instinct - those things you do naturally.
Growth - those things you grow easily in, you can spend hours doing them.
Needs - those things that satisfy an emotional need in you.

Marcus stated that the I, G, and N drive the S. If you have no success but you still have the IGN, those things should become you hobbies.

My Arts team at GCC went through Marcus' video series "Trombone Player Wanted" and studied his book, "Now Discover Your Strengths." I think it was one of the most helpful tools we have used during my tenure at GCC.

Help Me, Help Me, I've been Simpsonized

OK. Apparently this is me as a Simpson character. Much fun. My friend Trace sent this to me after uploading my picture to http://www.simpsonizeme.com/ - a Burger King site.

Certainly adding to the notion that great marketing is engaging, consumer-generated, and entertaining marketing. This really drew me in.

BTW - The Simpson's movie is a must see! Hilarious.