This is Stephen’s blog.

He’s busy working on conference stuff.

So, I’m giving away another CD for him.

Leave a comment.

Win free stuff.

The prize? Arize LIVE with Jon Owens.

Oh, and register for the conference to hear Jon in person.

It’s almost here.

Peace.

[Click here to leave comment and win]

Some of you know about In Focus’ annual Worship Conference on September 18-20. Since I organize it, I’m going to promote the heck out of it on my blog. Each year, I walk away wondering how it can get any better and it always surpasses my expectations. It’s one of the best times of worship, in my opinion.

This year, Jared Anderson and his band will be our featured guest. If you don’t recognize his name, you might recognize him as one of the members of a little group called, Desperation Band. Jared has written songs such as, Amazed, Rescue, Hear Us From Heaven, Beauty of the Lord, Promises, and the list goes on and on. I’m excited about him coming to our conference and so should you.

As Part One of my shameless conference promotion, I’m giving away Jared’s latest CD, “Where Faith Comes From,” on my blog. Want to enter? Just leave a comment on this post saying you want Jared’s CD. I’ll use a random number generator to choose a winner next week.

Stephen

www.infocusworship.com

I have the iPhone. You may have heard about it in the news. It does fancy stuff. But, it does not have picture or video messaging that is so desired by everyone. Then why is it so popular? Because Apple chose to focus their attention on other features that make the phone innovative and unbelievable.

Some companies have been trying to beat the iPhone but no one has succeeded. Why? Because they focus their attention on cramming in a bunch of features that water down the usability of their product.

What have I learn from this?

Sometimes, as the church, we try to include a program for everyone that make us bloated with “features.” We become average at a lot of little things instead of being excellent at a few great things.

Buckhead Church recently made an announcement that they have decided to discontinue 7|22. I thought this was a bold decision that took some guts. Although I personally enjoyed 7|22, I am excited to see a church that isn’t afraid to stop a certain ministry in order to do something even greater.

How many “features” does your church have?

Stephen

I got back late last night from FUEL, our Every Nation National Ministers Conference. I got to meet some great people and reconnected with some friends. Good stuff. Ed Stetzer spoke yesterday morning and I thought I would share two of my favorite quotes from him.

Most churches won’t change until the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of change.

Holiness is separation from sin, not separation from sinners.

Ed was incredible. If you don’t know much about him, check out his site and then read his books.

Stephen

Last night, I was working late to finish up this thing when I realize that I hadn’t eaten dinner yet. It was 11:00 p.m. and I’m hungry. What to eat? Everything else nearby is closed except for Taco Bell (shudder) and McDonald’s (double-shudder). Gross. I drag myself to Taco Bell and get 3 soft tacos. Halfway through I remember why I don’t eat there. Because I’ve never taken a liking to DOG FOOD. I’m pretty sure they only use grade-E, but edible, meat. Please pass the hot sauce.

What’s one fast food place you won’t go near?

Stephen

(This post is part of Creative Chaos at RagamuffinSoul.com - check it out!)

I know all ten of you have been waiting for our newest stage design pictures, so here they are. It was a sad time taking down the Heroes set but we got over it. Okay, down to the details.

The theme of our series is Essentials and we are looking at the basics of the Christian faith. They are simple foundational truths that all Christ-followers should believe and agree on. So we decided to go with alphabet blocks as our imagery.

We took 8 sheets of plywood and built “steps” that we were going to put the letters on.

We then cut out foam for the blocks and spray painted them (20 letters plus 142 feet of border). This took some time and is not fun in the hot sun. Side note: regular spray paint melts foam…lesson learned.

We caulked the letters and borders onto the “steps” to give the illusion that the blocks were stacked (blocks spell out “Essentials”).
We then hung little cardboard boxes created to look like alphabet blocks from bent metal to look like a giant baby mobile.

This is the result (click to enlarge):

It looks a lot more simple than our Heroes set, but took a LOT of hard work. Especially the spray painting…not fun. I really like the look of the stage though. It turned out better than I imagined. Oh yeah, for pre-service music we played Rockabye Baby (lullaby renditions of Metallica, Coldplay and Beatles).

So there you go. That’s all you get.

Stephen

P.S. - I have to give props to JoAnna Wise. She does an awesome job at this.

Here are some photos from our set change last week (click to enlarge). I am very pleased with the results. Our team did an amazing job (there were lots, even though you only see a few in the pictures).

For those of you interested in all the technical stuff, we found the chandeliers at a yard sale and Salvation Army. Two separate chandeliers, matched perfectly. We painted them gold. Total cost? Seven dollars. The art frames were found at a second hand store and those were painted gold with brush strokes of black to antique them. The art for the frames was printed on a high gloss banner paper that we painted over with Mod Podge to look like a painting. And the fabric was a steal at five dollars a yard. The entire set was achieved for less than $500. How’s that for creativity?

We played theme music as people walked in. I heard responses such as, “Wow,” “Breathtaking,” and “Powerful.” It made my day.

Stephen

***Check out more Creative Chaos entries at www.ragamuffinsoul.com***

I’ve been really busy on all this Heroes stuff but couldn’t be more excited. For those of you who missed the trailer yesterday, here it is:

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Our first series trailer, ever! More to come in the future I am sure. Everyone loved it. We had these awesome Invite Cards that we paid rush shipping to come in on Saturday and FedEx didn’t deliver them. Frustrating! Pray I don’t lose my salvation when I give them a call later on.

Hopefully I can write a normal post soon. I’ll definitely be back for Positive Post tomorrow.

Stephen

**Note - This post has been edited to be included in Creative Chaos at RagamuffinSoul.com. Check it out.

This post is part of Creative Chaos. Get your fix over at ragamuffinsoul.com.

Every month, I look forward to creating a new series concept for our sermons. For me, it is an awesome experience to sit in a planning meeting months ago, throw out ideas, meet again to discuss details, and then see it come together before your eyes. It’s one of the reasons why I love my job. Not to say there aren’t frustrations along the way, there are. And I will share a little bit of my journey here.

The theme for May is Heroes. The creative team decided it was best to go with a medieval look because of the overuse of the popular TV show and we did superheroes last year. When it comes to graphics, it’s just me. As much as I would love a team, I work with what I have now. That’s where the Church Marketing Lab comes in handy. A bunch of designers (mostly) critique work and give suggestions. I love it. Here is an example of how good it is for me.

Here is what I started off with:

Not too shabby, but not strong either. I needed help so I went to the lab. They suggested things like metal textures, photos, etc. so this was my response.

An improvement, but still not there. Too illustrated. The lab really pushed me to go further and try some photos. I really struggled with this for hours but I finally had breakthrough. What you see next is the final result of some good collaboration.

After that, a whole bunch of juicy goodness exploded from this one image. But you’ll have to see for yourself in May.

Yes, I said juice-ay.

Stephen

I’ve got to say that I have been loving our new series at In Focus, “Empty Pockets.” Brent is doing an awesome job on this financial series. We’ve moved our offering to the end and I think it does wonders with the flow of service. And if you ever wanted to know what it would sound like if the audio was turned up to maximum, you got to experience that in yesterday’s service. If you’re not one of the lucky ones who experienced a mild heart attack, consider yourself blessed. Someone was climbing into the lighting box and slipped into the audio guy’s hand which was resting on the volume control. Well, his hand slipped up and everyone peed their pants. Good times. Fortunately, it was spring break and everyone was attending Bedside Baptist. We’ll interpret their dreams next week.

Since we are in a series on finances, I decided to do my taxes a day earlier this year…today! I procrastinate because I am one of the blessed individuals who gets to pay at the end of the year. Whoooppeee!

Did anyone else have to pay this year?

Stephen