When we look at ourselves, at the littleness of our
love, the barrenness of our service and the small progress we
make toward perfection, how soul-refreshing it is to turn
away to Him; to plunge afresh in "the fountain opened for sin
and for uncleanness"; to remember that we are "accepted in
the beloved" ... "who of God is made unto us wisdom, and
righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Oh! the
fullness of Christ, the fullness of Christ.

- Quoted from Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secret

¹⁰ When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. ¹¹ Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹² Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, ¹³ and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴ then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

¹⁷ You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” ¹⁸ But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

-Deuteronomy 8

When is the last time we stopped to give a deep heartfelt thanks to God for…

• A moment of creativity
• That idea we had regarding so and so that ended up helping people move closer to God. What about the idea we never had?
• That special skill we have. Ears to mix sound. Eyes to see color. The senses we’ve been given, the skills we lack.
• Knowledge to know what “that knob does.”
• The time we are given, the time we weren’t given
• The money we earn, or didn’t earn.
• Authentic Mexican food in the unlikeliest of places

“And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

-Ephesians 5:20

Lets check our hearts. Lest we wake up one day and find that we’ve gradually moved to a place where we say, with Gollum-esque voice, “It’s mine, my own…my precious ____” skill/knowledge/idea/talent/money/ability/you fill in the blank.

I’m thankful for the Echo Conference. I pray it’s going to be a place for God to breathe into Colin, Tim, Chad and me. Breathe life, creativity, skill, aptitude, attitude, reality, humility and for all of these things may we be thankful and full of gratitude.

Stage lighting used to really be one of those things for me. I was a spring chicken in the audio world and knew nothing of dmx protocol, cue lists, hang/follow times, the need to terminate dmx, and I wasn’t real clear on the difference between a par and an ellipsoidal. Over the past 5.5 years a love for stage designs and stage lighting has really begun to mature in me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally in love with it yet…but I’m light years from where I was.

No matter, here is an excellent writing I found regarding whatever work we find before ourselves. It pretty well sums up what my experience has been when I’ve found myself standing in front of a task that I didn’t feel that strongly about to begin with:

…maybe you are just bored. Your boredom may arise from unbelief or something akin to unbelief–lack of vision. You do not have a clearly defined goal ahead of you. You are drifting. Pray about your work. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a definite goal for the next three months. Then drive to that goal.
Or perhaps you do not like the work you are called to do. You feel unfit for it. You could slave at something else, but your own work is too unattractive. Remember the verse, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (Eccles. 9:10). You will be surprised how enjoyable a task becomes when you master it. Make it your aim to do your daily job superbly, and you will turn drudgery into a craft and a craft into an art. Nothing is so boring as sloppy work. – John White

A zealous man in religion is pre-eminently a man of one thing. It is not enough to say that he is earnest, hearty, uncompromising, thorough going, wholehearted, fervent in spirit. He only sees one thing, he cares for one thing, he lives for one thing, he is swallowed up in one thing; and that one thing is to please God.

Whether he lives, or whether he dies whether he has health, or whether he has sickness
whether he is rich, or whether he is poor whether he pleases man, or whether he gives
offense whether he is thought wise, or whether he is thought foolish whether he gets blame, or whether he gets praise whether he get honour, or whether he gets shame for all this the zealous man cares nothing at all.

-J.C. Ryle

whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. yes, whatever.

Our annual Arts Party took place a few weeks ago.  It may have been the best one yet.  Each year we do an event in the summer and one in the fall for everyone involved in the arts at Blue Ridge.  The summer events are more relaxed.  People hang out.  They talk amongst themselves.  They play disc golf.  Whatever.  Fall events, while relaxed, have a more specific purpose.  We want to be reminded why we do what we do.  Why wake up at 5am on Sunday mornings?  Why park a quarter mile from the building and walk, while dodging deer, in the pre-dawn darkness?  Why sacrifice our Wednesday or Thursday evenings at home watching movies?  Because.  Because of what’s at stake for the hopeless and hurting.  Because of the life that Jesus offers.  We want to remember and refocus.

SO, here’s the scoop on what went down this year.  Dinner was prepared Alex Richardson of Robin Alexander American Bistro and served by Shea Foster and the events team at Blue Ridge.  Soooo Cheesy (made to order cheesecakes) provided some pretty unbelievable cheesecakes.  Mmm mmm mmmm.

After dinner and good conversation we migrated into the Sr. High auditorium for the evening festivities.  Todd Foster got us kicked off.  To his surprise I made a little welcome tag for him:

Todd’s Stage Welcome

Todd made a few announcements and set up the next portion.  A major change took place this year within the Arts @_theridge.  Nan Torrence has led the Arts ministries for many, many years.  This year she passed the baton to Judson Lee.  In keeping with what we’re given in Romans 13, “⁷Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”  We all wanted to give honor to her for her encouragement over the years and her example of servant leadership…

Nan was totally shocked.  In keeping with Nan’s famous double entendre tradition, we presented her a few little  awards to signify her new role as Director of Communications.  So, as we transitioned into what we endearingly have termed “The Nancy’s” we rolled this little clip.  It was hand crafted by Colin Harman:

The Nancy’s

One of Nan’s famous lines when she’s recruiting for manual labor is, “I’m looking for a few big, strong, handsome men.”  It’s amazing how many old projects come to mind before answering this question.  The number of things that you remembered HAD TO BE done which is exactly why I don’t know of any big, strong, handsome men.  Reality sets in though and you offer your big, strong, handsome self to serve with joy.  None the less, we thought it would be fitting to provide her with her very own big, strong, handsome men.  This gives you an idea of the nature of the gifts…there were many more.

Following this, Peggy Schaub gave the keynote address.  Rather than write more about it, take a listen for yourself:

Peggy Schaub’s Talk: Or download it here

]]> http://productionmusings.com/2009/09/17/arts-party-09/feed/ 4 http://productionmusings.com/2009/09/14/etcs-ion-lighting-controller/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://productionmusings.com/2009/09/14/etcs-ion-lighting-controller/#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 23:31:03 +0000 Andrew Hunt http://productionmusings.com/?p=248
I know I know, if consistency is the key to keeping a successful blog then I fail.  It’s ok though, even though it may be a helpful thing to some, it falls behind my daily responsibilities here at Blue Ridge Community Church.  I have at least 3 big things to write about, including 2 new stage designs but today I’ll be writing about ETC’s Ion console.

For several years now we’ve been facing challenges within our lighting team.  Volunteer programmers would have trouble performing certain tasks with our old Leprecon LPX-48x controller. Basic tasks such as editing a cue live or moving cues around within the cue list were cumbersome for volunteers.  As I began moving towards these issues I realized that it wasn’t a people problem as much as it was a hardware problem.  Enter the ETC Ion.  It has replaced our Leprecon LPX48.  The Leprecon controller wasn’t a horrible controller and it does have it’s place in the industry, but it did use syntax and workflow that didn’t make it as easy for the weekend warrior volunteers who serve at Blue Ridge.  Simple changes of service became a big issue, no one could make a blind edit with confidence, and not to mention a mysterious problem with our house lights where we would lose control and have to manually reset the dimmers.

The Ion solved many problems for us.  Here’s a list:

1. Undo – my oh my, the simple pleasures.  One tiny mistake while editing can cost a programmer but this great feature has proven it’s worth.  It also keeps a history log of commands entered.  This is helpful from a directors stand point when a programmer says, “The console isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do!”  So, “Let’s see what we told it to do.”

2. On Board Learning – forgot what a command key does or how to use it?  The console will tell you!

3. Networkable – I can save tens of hours every stage change, hundreds of hours every year by controlling the console from my laptop from stage wirelessly.  It came with the network dongle allowing my laptop to become a Primary controller.  I still have a few issues to resolve with this feature…looks like Macs don’t play as friendly with ETC but I haven’t explored the latest firmware and editor updates…we’ll see!

4. iPhone – yes, you can control it via iPhone – iTunes App

5. Expandable – add multiple fader wings for up to 240 programmable faders.

I don’t know if the ‘perfect’ lighting console exists (some say it was the MicrovisionFX) but I can say with utter confidence that going with the Ion was a giant leap in the right direction for us.  Even our beginner volunteer programmer has picked it up and can edit with a level on confidence that comes more quickly than it ever has before!

For Easter, we were expecting above average attendance.  One of the things we wanted to communicate is the life that Jesus offers to all of us and the reality of that.  We wanted to share stories of people whose lives have been changed by Jesus since they’ve chosen to follow Him.  One of the elements we used to help support this message was a mixed media element.  The band performed Matthew West’s song “The Motions” to an animation we created.  It contained photographs from all of the baptisms from 2006-2009.  The question was, “How can we display this in an interesting, attractive manner and be impacting?”  Judson Lee created the performance click track on the Left and some synth/filler on the Right to be mixed in at front of house.

Of the hundreds of photos, we selected the top 80, cropped to 16×9 and resized to 800×450.  We ran the Layers2Grid script found at aescripts.com and it worked like a charm.  After wasting about 7 hours figuring out why nesting one comp into another creates blurry photos, I finally got it right.  Here’s what we came up with:

Ok ok, I apologize for the Mac look rip-off in advance…I couldn’t resist.  Here’s a version with no click, piano only.  I can’t post it with “The Motions” due to synchronization rights:

We have such a large capacity to live within our own brokenness and do so without realization. (At least for some time.) This is becoming a life lesson for me and has been in process perhaps for the last 8-12 years. (Apparently, I got on the slow train for growth!) This is being a difficult and beautifully restorative journey where God is healing me. I’d like to share some tools that have been helping me while I’m in the midst of it.

We are not as strong as we think we are :: Rich Mullins

“But I’m me. How can anyone know me better than me?” That’s the underlying thought at least. A songwriter wrote “O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.” Psalm 139:1-2.  With these words, he begins to paint the picture of how well God knows us. The remaining chapter is spent adding the color, stroke, and details of the painting of just how much better God knows us than we know ourselves. How is it that anyone could know us in this way?! Settle into this: God does.

The ending of Psalm 139 has struck me with a greater level of depth.  It’s simple but it runs deep!  “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”  We all can rest here…in a healthy, humble need of God.  This is where we stop trying to produce a fix or even create understanding on our own.  His knowledge of us is utterly more than we could ever handle about ourselves and He will point out areas in our souls where we need to take some sort of action.  I’m learning a new kind of rest and work…well, it isn’t anything new…just new places for me to go.

You humble me, Lord.