From Sampler to Sower

Given my recent post about getting past PowerPoint I found this video not only entertaining, but a helpful criticism of PowerPoint “worst practices.”  It’s funny because it’s true.

(HT to Tim Sanders whose Tweet sent me to this video.  Told you I was a Sanders fanboy.)

One of the things I do here at Middletown is make the sermon graphics for my Senior Pastor’s (Dr. Phil Rogers) sermons each week.  Phil likes to distribute notes when he preaches, and likes to have the “answers” show up on the screen while he’s preaching so people don’t get lost trying to fill them in.   That means Power Point!

Of course, Power Point is less than ideal when you’re trying to communicate to people.  There was a time when Power Point was new and cutting edge.  But the fact is, many people “get” to watch Power Point presentations every day at work (and a lot of times, it’s bad Power Point at that).  There’s few things worse than coming to church and getting hit up with more of the same stuff that left you bored and uninspired all week at work (especially when the Power Point at church is bad Power Point too).

That’s why we’ve tried hard to leave Power Point behind.  Each of our graphics is designed in Corel’s graphics suite, but we do use Easy Worship’s integrated PowerPoint viewer to make displaying them easier.  That way we get the ease of Power Point’s presentation interface without the often clunky and bland Power Point clip art and text rendering (and NO WordArt!!!).

To give you a feel for what our slides look like, here are some sample slides from a sermon Dr. Rogers is presenting today at ONU’s Pastor Appreciation Days.  His message shares the story of our small community and our church, and lessons that he has learned in more than 30 years of pastoring in Middletown.  The analogy he’s using for his message is the difference between throwing rocks (creating exciting but only short lived splashes) and the less glamorous task of digging channels so the current can flow.  I’m pretty excited about the message, and hopefully after he delivers it he’ll let me blog some more about what it all means.  (I’d hate to steal his thunder . . .)

Pictures after the jump…

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Our youth ministry in Middletown is called Water’s Edge.  We’ve built on that name for many of the other things we do.  Our Junior High service is the Shore.  Our youth center is the Cove.  Our series of discipleship resources to help students go deeper with their faith is Submerge.  But where did the name Water’s Edge come from?

Our Ministry Leadership Council did not just pull that name out of the air.  It was the result of a very intentional process that sought to understand first what we were hoping to communicate before considering any possibilities.  Here’s how we came to the decision:

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Building a Wordpress Website

Late last week I told you about a new series we will be launching at Water’s Edge in about three weeks called “My Brand New Life.” Now here’s the first post showing the work that’s going on behind the scenes to get this thing off the ground. In this post I’ll walk you through what we’ve been doing to get our website launched for this series.

But before I go any farther I should probably point out that this is primarily about designing the architecture for the site. We’re still developing the artwork, and that will come later. What’s more, for those of you well versed in Wordpress, this will proabably be pedantic. But I tried to avoid omitting any of the steps involved for any newcomers to a self-hosted wordpress blog.

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Your Peek Behind the Curtain

Okay, this is a new one for me.  I don’t know how, or even if, this will work, but I’m going to give it a shot.

You, dear reader, are hereby offered a All-Access Backstage Pass to our youth ministry’s creative process.  We’re bringing you backstage, and inviting you to check out what’s going on behind the curtain.

Of course, that means you’re getting a glimpse of a work in progress and not the finished product.  As such, this post, and others like it will probably be rambling and scatterbrained, big on ideas, short -at least at first- on actual implementation.

As you know if you are following my weekly updates, our youth ministry is currently in a teaching series called Mythbusters.  It’s set to conclude on Tuesday, February 17th, following our final three lessons focused on Faith, Hope and Love.  That means we’re just under one month out on our next series – high time to get working on what’s next.

Next on the teaching schedule is a Lenten series, culminating, like most Lenten seasons, with an Easter celebration.  Our teaching will be guided by the Lectionary’s epistle readings.

My goal, every Lent, is to very intentionally challenge students to develop the daily disciplines which will ground their faith in an ever deepening relationship with the God whose name they claim.  That’s not to say that during Epiphany I attempt to help they develop a superficial version of Christianity that only affects their Sunday mornings and Tuesday nights – it’s just that Lent provides an intentional time every year to teach them to focus on the presence of God in every part of their life.

And so, I find myself wondering what we will do this year to help move us toward this goal.

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