You are in a war to CREATE EVIDENCE, evidence that you are winning, that your strategy is succeeding, that you are building momentum. Fighting against you in this war will be fault-finders who are recording every misfire and telling everyone who will listen. You need evidence to help you gain the genuine support of your colleagues. –Christopher Zikakis

[via Bobb Biehl's Quickwisdom email]

We’ll post some pics and video of the opener soon. It was a great weekend. I cut all of our staff loose at noon to rest for half a day. Tomorrow it’s off to making punch lists and fixing a few bugs, cleaning up the stage wings, and designing upcoming services. I am going to rest. I’ll blog up what we learned tomorrow. It was grueling getting in, but every bit worth it. People encountered God and our attendance was WAY up.

Tomorrow is our first real full on service in the new room. We have been working until the wee hours for weeks. Most of the staff has some permutation of the flu.. We just got the keys to the light system where we can actually program them today at 1:00 and Chris will be up LATE programming (hit the homeopathic flu relief I gave you dude) though the plan was to program all day Thursday (why won’t and Australian console talk to American moving fixture…we are dreaming up a funny punchline). We have hung banners and tons of Vietnamese oil paintings, transferred all the instruments over, kicked a kick drum for hours on end while Heath tweaked the EQ, moved our complete worship and communications office, and done a 4 hour dress rehearsal. The sound system will rip your head off (it was totally clean at 120 db but of course we won’t run that hot. The subs will realign your heartbeat. The three huge screens look terrific. We have a full service coffee bar that got finished being plumbed on Wednesday and they are ready to serve. We have done everything humanly possible to get ready and then some.

Yet, it is not because of any of these things that people will truly encounter God. “Not by might (or good sound), nor by power (or great plans to move people through the building), but BY MY SPIRI,” says the LORD. Holy Spirit, do Your work. Draw worshipers to Christ. I’m off to hit the Advil and then to bed. Goodnight all.

Check it out here and let me know how it works out for you. Ha!

We are fans of Ikea. (We’ll show pics of the newly stocked offices soon). This guy loves Ikea so much he moved in for a week and made movies about the experience…pretty funny. BTW, Ikea is genius for allowing this. Better advertising than any campaign they could have done and it costs them nothing.

http://marklivesinikea.com/

Nice video….not sure about how long you show without copyright violations, but very nice. Makes me want to check it out and from an editing perspective, they had to find all those quotes without background music or had a burning way to cut it out.

Sorry for not much posting. We are two weeks out from new 2,000 seat worship center opening. We also had to move all the Worship and Communications Offices in the process as ours are reverting to Kid’s space. It is crazy, but fun. The sound system gets tuned today and tomorrow. Video should be up by Friday. They still have to hang a huge center screen as well. Pray for us. Thanks.

.

Yes, despite what some would make you believe, they do exist. Read this interesting article from our lead pastor who just returned from key meetings there.

We do something at NorthWood called interactive bible reading. This year our church is reading through the Old Testament together and many folks comment on a corresponding blog. I am trying to shift the way I approach some well know passages with my highly analytical wiring by forcing myself to “poet out” my responses. This will forces me to engage the text in a new way. This slam poem is my response to Genesis 3 (I know, Brent I was supposed to stop at 2, but how can you?)

Apple Pie

Sin’s tentacles reaching from Eden’s site
Calling me to take another bite
“That’s right. You know you deserve it.”

And so I capitulate to this hate
See Adam, I can relate
I take the bait. Oh no— the hook is set.

And I thrash and fight against the line
As Satan drags me through the brine
“I’m fine,” I tell concerned onlookers.

But I’m not.

See what looked like delicious apple pie
Has left me high and dry
I don’t know why I take another bite when I’m already choking

Oh, I could blame it all on you, Man
You did the dirty, set up my pension plan
I am after all just receiving daily installments.

But then that wouldn’t be quite so fair
Cuz I have this feeling deep down that if I’d been there
I’d have done the same damned thing.

Someone peel me another apple, I’m hungry.

Some tips here or just buy this. Of course now I only need a Kindle when they come back in stock so that I don’t have books cluttering my desk. When Wired, Communications Arts, Print, Applied Arts and can be uploaded to a Kindle as well, my last clutter problem will be dealt with. Right?

Things are about to get crazy around here. We are in the final 3 weeks before our new building first service on Jan 27. We finally resolved how to work the draping around our giant center screen. A colored drape was spec’ed but we wanted a fall into blackness look behind the screen so we worked with our acoustic consultant and figured out how to make that happen.

They are cleaning the chairs and floors of construction dust. Once that is done, the Yamaha M7-CL will go in as the audio console and the Jands Vista S3 lighting console gets dropped as well.

There is nothing up in the control suite except wires but I am being assured that is normal at this point. We already have the Macs loaded with Pro-Presenter and one with Pro-Video Player. Of course, they’ll both have standard powerpoint and a dvd player “just in case.”

We should be moving into our new Worship and Communications Office’s soon. We’ll put some new pics up tomorrow.

These are friends of mine who live in India half the year and write Christ centered Bhajans (Indian Songs of Devotion). It is a very well produced album and I use it quite often to center my attention on Christ. It is simply stunning music and the impact they are having among hindu friends is amazing as well. I highly recommend you check it. We had them in for a concert and a stilling service (and plan on doing it again).

Get their new project at http://www.aradhnamusic.com

This is some crazy advice. Some of it just might work.

I am definitely going to try the email, phone and 3×5 card 3 things and anti-to do list thing.

[via http://alastair.adversaria.co.uk]