3 Lessons I took from Echo 2010

The Echo ’10 was this week and if you weren’t there you missed out. There were some good keynotes, fun breakouts, and best of all was I didn’t feel like the nerdiest person in the room for once. (I’m mean that in a loving way, and am a proud nerd).

Here are the three big points I walked away with.

1. Tell A Great Story

Donald Miller (Author: Blue Like Jazz), Jonathan Acuff (Stuff Christians Like), and Michael Buckingham (Church Marketing Sucks) all hit this point hard. I’m not sure if they planned it that way though. Their big point was find the compelling story in your project/ministry and sell it hard. People connect with stories, identify with stories, fall in love with sorties.

It’s good to have sleek art work and fun videos, but dude, us designers are the only ones who will care about that if your story sucks. Find that story and support it with the art.

2. It’s All About The Gospel

This is a tough one for me. I love the Gospel, but I can get really wrapped up in the presentation. I’m a showman and that’s what we do. Let’s not get lost in our methods but be reminded that our message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the glory of God.

Todd Wagner, pastor of Watermark Church in Dallas, dedicated his entire sermon to this. Thanks Pastor Todd.

3. Protect Your Message

This lesson was learned in a very different way. The first keynote speaker was Dan Merchant. He’s the filmmaker who made Lord Save Us From Your Followers.
His talk was going ok until he decided to play a game with the audience where he would bring people onstage and quiz them about pop culture. Then, in a hilarious but unfortunate turn, one on the guys he brought on stage decided to steal the stage in a dramatic Andy Kaufman or Sacha Barren Cohen fashion.

He put on a character that was so socially awkward that it was embarrassing and entertaining all at the same time. Unfortunately, Dan fed into this guy who called himself “Infinity”, and every moment he kept Infinity there Dan’s message got more and more lost.

The only thing most people remember from that night was how hilarious Infinity was, and he was pretty funny. It was that easy for Dan to loose his message because he got wrapped up in something that didn’t really matter. Dan had some good points, but they were all lost in the void that was Infinity.

Don’t let people distract you from your mission or steal from the message you have been give, especially if it is as important as the Gospel.

Joe Makes Pictures

If you were to ask me what my passions were, I would immediately tell you two things.

1. Silly pictures of cats

2. Raising the quality of art in the church

So I get real tickled when there are other artists out there who are doing that. It’s tough being an artist and working for the church, but Joe Cavazos is doing it with style.

Joe is a graphic designer at Palm Valley Church in Mission, Tx. These guys have a series going on called Faith & Luck going on that Joe did some killer work on. He hand built most of the elements in this piece. I know that because he also put up a fun of his design process. Thanks for that Joe.

Here is the cool part. The guys at Palm Valley didn’t just leave the design there, they transposed it to the stage with gusto! Check out Joe’s blog post about it. These guys did a great job at choosing the right elements to move from the design to the stage. I think I would have been a bit too much to move the ducks, and apparently these guys did too. They chose excellent fabrics to compliment the design and round out the feel. As the guy who runs the video at a church, it’s always great to have some interesting colors and textures behind the people on stage.

To Joe and the guys who put this together, especially the volunteers who do it just because they love the Church, I’m giving you a digital fist bump. Keep up the great work.

Headbangers: An Opener Game

Two People…. Head to Head…. giving honor to the great metal bands of our forefathers! Two go in, but….. well, no one dies. Don’t be so morbid people!

This was a practice for an opening game we played at First Hattiesburg. We borrowed it from the game show Minuet to Win It.

We do things like this for two purposes. First off, we just like to have fun. I’m not sure when we learned that it was not ok to have a good time a church. Like God needs us to be solemn 24/7. There is a time for reverence and a time to bust loose. If you go to a church that never has any fun (aka “joy”, if you want to put it into churchy terms), then you might be at the wrong place.

Second thing, we do it for the people on the fringes. If someone comes to our church and the first thing we do is sing a song that they don’t know the lyrics to or one that sounds a century out of date, we have just alienated them and it will be harder for us to share the gospel. Instead, is it not better to put them in an open state of
mind? Start of with something that they can grab on to; make them feel apart of whats going on.

Headbangers – Interns

Headbangers – Students

Headbangers – Ladies

P.S. Devon Lair, my intern, lost. DEVON!!!!!!!