Straight Chillen…

Its been nuts the last few weeks! But so much fun…Kidz Kaboom week is my absolute favorite time of the year…Its the most intense service production that we do here at the Church, and every second of it is worth it when you see all of the kids having fun and learning so much!

Today it feels good to relax a little and prepare for the upcoming weeks…Theres always so much going on, and mind mind wants to keep going but my body is saying Slow Down! today I need to listen to my body I think! Nothing like reading and writing at Starbucks while listening to some acoustic tunes to chill out a bit!

Galatians 1 – People vs. God

I was reading through parts of Galatians today and didn’t get too far before I really felt God tug on my heart.

Galatians 1:10 says: Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

This is something that I’ve tossed around in my head quite a bit.  I feel so many times that we as Christians do so much to please people with our works and our ministry.  I really thought through being a true servant of Christ and how that is evident in my own life.

I am very much a words of affirmation type person.  I like to feel appreciated and need encouragement when things get tough.  But when its all said and done, is that my ultimate goal? Am I really doing things to please and glorify God? Or am I having the mind set of what will the people think of my ministry/good works?

I struggle at times with knowing where that balance is.  Of course its good to want people to be happy and appreciate what you do. But I think that it sometimes becomes the only motivation as to why you do certain things.  Part of that reason I think is because we get an immediate reaction from people. We can see them, hear them, feel them, and understand that we just got respected by them at that moment.  Obviously we can’t physically see God, can’t always audibly hear him, and don’t always understand if he has affirmed what we do.

I am striving to just be confident in knowing that God is surrounding every work that’s done. When my mind needs an affirmation, I can trust in what God’s word says rather than what I physically need to hear/see/feel/ etc.  Its amazing when you think of God smiling at you or shaking His head in laughter at something that happens. That has become my motivation now in everything work/ministry/good works, oriented areas.

Cool Ideas with not cool software…

I posted several links to very resourceful sites in taking video editing to the next level (IN THE RESOURCES PAGE OF BLOG)…However, I realize that software is extremely expensive and its hard for everyone to take the time to learn it as well! This is my life and full time job, so its different for me, but if you are trying to just throw some stuff together and have it look decent, there are ways! Its very convenient to just use Windows Movie Maker on a PC, or I Movie if you roll on a mac.

Before moving to the Adobe Creative Suite, I used Both of those softwares for a few years. It can be frustrating, but with some patience and a bit of technique you can get some nice looking videos!

I suggest the first and simple aspect of:  have an idea in your head before you get started…Have a genseral idea/storyline of where you want to go with the video…Its intimidating at first to look at the software almost as a clean sheet of paper and not no where to go next!

Next Step: Google tutorials! type in Windows Movie Maker Tutorials/ IMovie, and watch how many show up! You may be extremely suprised at how someone else in the world may have an answer for your software question!

This will answer the next step as well, and that is determine what format your playing the video off of! There are several options, and even just the 3 tutorials I briefly looked at, give you several options…

These are basic things, but I’d like to actually do my own tutorial for each of these free softwares and show just basic items that I’ve got several questions about before.

Let me know if this would be helpful to someone…I’d like to make at least 2 tutorials for Windows Movie Maker and 2 for IMOVIE….I also will show one for IPHOTO! It is amazing how easy it can be to make your own picture sideshow complete with transitions, music of your choice, fit to the timing of music, and even more! There may be an equivalent for PC that I don’t know of, but Iphoto is only on a mac…Sorry PC users! I will spend extra time on the Movie Maker tutorial to make up for it!

Animation…Fun.

This is the video that we are showing in our weekend services this week…I tried some new things including a little bit of animation!

Thoughts on a year @ MCM…

To be honest, I never would have imagined that this would be one of the best years in my life…I had many doubts about going to the MCM Ministry school on top of working at the very same place the classes are, and trying to stay up with Tech and the Video world…I had never been so great at schooling and have the attention span relatable to a goldfish I think…lol..maybe not that bad…but those were legitimate concerns that almost held me back from going.

However, I made the choice to give this year 100% to God and just see how he would move and work all of those things out.  He, of course, didn’t leave me out to dry.

The practical teachings and the straight out boldness of outreaches truly stretched me beyond what I ever imagined possible…It began a birth of much needed discipline and ability to declare God’s promises over my own life.  When you get that full picture of who God is and why He is that way, the little things in life just seem to fade out and shrink in comparison.

I could apply those areas to my ministry as well…Before, it seemed as just a “Churchy Chore” and never had much meaning behind it.  However, when I was in Thailand and saw how even the smallest Ministry tasks proved to be so effective in touching peoples lives, it changed my whole mind frame.  Its easy to look at the small things and think they are rediculous and going un-seen would make them useless…So not true…Every little part we play in adding broken lives to the Kingdom plays such a valuable role.

This wasn’t much and may not seem that exciting, but my life has been rocked in so many ways this past year.  I’ve seen God do works that I’ve only ever heard about before.  He’s humbled me and never ceases to amaze me.  The people I’ve met and the friendships I’ve gained will never be forgotten.

Voices…

This is the Link to the “Voices” video we showed this past weekend…

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=581388105#/video/video.php?v=61769938105

Volunteers @ church…or lack there of…

Just imagine what it would be like without volunteers…

Trying New Things…

So I’ve been watching a few of Tutorials over the last year or so on the software, After Effects.  It is truly amazing, and you basically can do anything with it.  The website Videocopilot.net is extremely helpful at teaching new and creative effects to use on many video styles.  So this is one I was just messing around with, and it turned out better than i thought it would…lol and forgot to edit out the talking…in the bottom shot when i was driving the car, Tim accidently kicked the tripod, and thats no good when your trying to keep a shot framed perfectly! lol

Text Editing…I Love After Effects.

Artwork from a friend…

I was at Starbucks last week and a friend of mine, James,  was there with his daughter, Ava. I met James several months back and we formed a friendship just chatting at the Bux…I was just working on my laptop for a while last Monday, and Ava dropped this Drawing off at my table! haha! It absoluely just made my day…These simple little things can make you feel really good!