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top 5 of 2007

i asked my fellow methoblogosphere buds to put together their top5 posts of 2007. fitting i break my own non-rules. these are the posting the reflect some great times in 2007.

• "the internet is our parish" our bloggers geek-fest/conference at the 2007 congress on evangelism. such a good time hanging with people i have such a great love and respect for. those three days or so only deepened that well. funny part, other than the youtube capture, what i remember most sharing communion the last night together at the bar. i hope we can do it again someday.
  
  • made it : day one : binary relationships : day 2 : meeting bishop, with fly down : capping it off : day 2 : caption contest : pictures
• daniel's baptism. daniel has been a friend for a few years now, connected through blogging and emerging church conversations. the first time we met up, face to face, i took him to alektor for coffee. who would have thought, a few years later he would be joining the orthodox church. i was honored to be invited. being the saturday before palm sunday it set into motion one of the more emotional holy week's i have had in recent memory.
• youth 2007. i was asked to put together a contemplative worship space for the 7,000 youth event. given a huge space and some decent money (probably nothing for people who do that kind of thing, but a lot for low-budget me). the space, the stories, the images, still impact me today. plus, leading lectio divina from the main stage was just to unreal to express.
  
  • late : day one : day two : day two #2 : day 3 & 4 : pictures : youth youtube : final thoughts
• senior high mission experience to new orleans. youth missions stuff becomes very much commonplace, but being there, in the neighborhood we were, talking with & meeting the people, seeing our kids kick butt, and our youth ministers embracing the youth brought me to tears on a few occasions.
  • day one : day two : day three : day four : day four extra : day five : day six : pictures
• close 5th & 6th. the homiletics festival or barcamp nashville. the homiletics festival was super fun geeking out with all the teachings, but the highlight was collaborating with some great people i like to call friends in pulling of an "emergent worship" with brian mclaren. barcamp was a great time for three reasons, 1. erin & i got to do it together 2. getting to meet some of the nashville blogging community 3. totally geeking out in technology talk. i have new voices and concepts to digest & erin and i reference barcamp many times in business talk.
  • homiletics day one : not enough time : emergent knitting : thomas long : barbara brown taylor : ann carter florence : jack black meets matrix : fred craddock : pictures
  • barcamp nashville live blogging : closing out

article on youth07

natalie has published on the umportal an article on youth2007. it's quite good, as we all would expect from her. she even gives some honorable mention of us worship feast folks, which i like. she even explains some things that i didn't particularly get during the event.. yes, i'm talking about the rams horn. there are some big words too that i had to look up. great too with the article was this pic that mike dubose took. i remember talking to him while taking this picture. i thought he staged this girl, but no, a real participant in our worship space.

donald miller on why i do what i do, sorta

sometimes people look at what i do with our youth at hfumc and wonder why? i know this, because many ask me, and that means that there are more that don't. i believe that there is a place to teach youth an expression of worship through art that gives new meaning (and sometimes confusion) in being creative as our we were created that transcends a sermon/talk or written word. donald miller backs me up pretty well with this.

youth 2007 : thoughts & reflections on a prayer room

in no particular order are some of my thoughts, observations, resources and words of wisdom.

• working a large prayer room takes a lot of effort and planning. not all spaces need to be this elaborate and grand in scale. i have loaded pictures and write ups of some of the meditation and worship spaces.
• "the cave" prayer station is the hardest place to be. as i have observed this space "the cave" which is just an icon, candle and dark room has had the fewest lasting visitors. youth and leaders alike have entered the space, but they always stay just a short period of time. it is my opinion that because there is little (if any) stimulation that it really is hard to be with just yourself. the longest person in the room was jonathon, two hours, only because he fell asleep.
• i am curious to imagine what youth might take some of this artistic experience and shape this into a passion or a confidence that they can do something they hadn't felt they could before. i know one of our girls who painted a really nice picture has started pricing easels and paints to continue what might be a new passion.
• the labyrinths came from "the labyrinth company" out of maryland. we purchased the reims labyrinth for the event and rented the st.pauls chartres model. in doing some simple research, the youth always identified the octagonal shaped labyrinths as being more interesting. the reims seemed perfect as it gave stops along the way. the rental for the labyrinth is very reasonable, i'd suggest it if you are wishing to introduce or use a labyrinth practice in your ministry.
• may people asked about the music we used. other than the taize' worship cd we used occassionally the main cds we used were from the "relaxation" cd collection at walmart. the ones we used primarily was a native american sounds and an african sounds cd.
• the screens we used for spacing were inspired by a stage set used by the gorillaz. it was a simple concept, clean, easy to construct, and could be used for peaceful settings. obviously we didn't have the lighting or fabric they used, but found that using a colored fabric (cotton or poly) with a clear halogen (higher lumens) shows really well. the white or cream fabric we used with a colored lamp didn't show as well, but it did work. the concept with using the white fabric and colored lights was that we could switch up colors.. something we never even entertained once the space was set up.
• coroplast is my new favorite material. the columns and accordian screens we put together were made of coroplast and plastic sheet of material (depth and structure similar to cardboard) that is used for signs. the 4x8 sheets were about 7-9 bucks each (colored ones a bit more than the white) which was an excellent value. the material is tough enough to be used multiple times for various projects. not something you can say for many materials.
• the "global impact" video we made used images from chris jordan. chris's stuff is amazing. other images we used came from istockphoto. istockphoto is a site one needs to bookmark for images and videos for various projects for worship or for church promotions. the images are cheap for stock photography. it is one of my primary resources when i need content items i don't have time to make myself.
• "the story" is a great idea for youth and adults. all know the scrabble board concept and people love to come back and see how it has grown or just walk around and read the words of others. i can't remember the exact community i was inspired to do this one with, but i have done it for years. i know i saw a picture of something similar at small fire. small fire is a website that host archive pictures of alternative worship experiences at various communities in the uk.

the videos we used for "specto divina" something jonathon has come up with, though i am sorting through a book called visio divina (not quite the same thing, but i like the idea of using imagery in a similar fashion to lectio) came from a collection called "the work of the people." i like the videos because they try to be lectionary based, so there are videos that are usable for the Christian calendar. the particular videos we used were as follows, what we did was put in some black screen and some text to guide the meditations.

• psalm 107
• psalm 34
• the last will be first
• healing of the blind man
• land of the living
• know by love
• jew nor greek

some of the paper stuff we put together.

• Download morning_thur.pdf
• Download midday_thur.pdf
• Download compline_wed.pdf
• Download compline_friday.pdf
• Download evening_prayer_friday.pdf
• Download evening_prayer.pdf
• Download midday_friday.pdf
• Download midday_saturday.pdf
• Download compline_saturday.pdf

i might add to this, but for now i figure this is enough thinking

my youtube youth

from all my ramblings of what transpired at youth 2007. this might not be what you would expect to see. but we happened to see it often. emily decided it was youtube worthy (whatever that means).

youth 2007 worship feast pictures

 

i have spent some time putting descriptions onto how we put together the worship feast area at youth 2007. check out our photo set. if you have read this blog for a long time you might see some stories, concepts, and prayer stations before but this was done in a much bigger way.

youth 2007 : day two #2

it is actually time to do my day three update, but i still didn't get a day two finished. i will direct you to some of our youth blogs. two of our guys sat down to give a mid event update.

for me yesterday was a bit stressful. i was up late working on some things for prayers and the videos for the next day. went to bed at what could be considered a normal time for an event like this. set my alarm clock on my phone. when i woke up the phone was next to me in the bed.. which was not where i left it. i knew then something not so pleasant was up. picked up the phone & saw that it was 7:46. prayers were to start at 7:30. i dressed quickly and ran downstairs with computers in tow so that i could get the videos going and help direct what part of prayers i needed. luckily jenny and jonathon had prayers covered. we had a great crowd, but i wouldn't allow myself to enjoy the moment. i buzzed around with these videos and let it all just set me wrong.

for the duration of the morning i was off balance in some measure.

this was the first full day of youth2007 so we were intrigued to see how things went over. simply put, it went over amazingly well (even with my agitation). we probably saw over 500 youth and leaders over the course of the day. something we were not expecting. most everything was fine, if you count; running out of canvass, freight train like groups going through the labyrinth, and having difficulties with printers. through it all, we count our blessings, people used the space to the extreme and we couldn't have been happier.

as i mentioned in pre-day two coverage, i was asked to lead a lectio divina reading from the main stage in the evening session. i was certainly nervous about the whole deal. how does one lead a contemplative practice with 7,000?.. let alone, 7,000 teenagers. the cool part of it all was that the prep involved in being on the stage allowed me some personal space. up to that point things were decided on by me. so i had to say bye to everyone early in the afternoon and go for a sound check. afterwords i just hung out with some of the speakers, superchick, the stage crew, and some design team friends. it was a good few hours to focus on what i was asked to do.

in the scheme of the evening i was the "calming" factor in the worship which was themed "pray." i walked up through the middle of the stage after fusebox did a two or three song set. walking up i see the crowd of kids & youth ministers pumping fists "one more song! one more song!" all i could do is look at them and say, "give it up, i know who is in charge & you are not getting one more song." i greeted with a blessing of shalom and started on. eventually people figured out that we were not going to mosh pit, so they sat down or ran back to seats.

luckily i had planned a somewhat energetic introduction to lectio. after that we began with the readings from Matthew 6: 1-9.. stopping before the Lord's Prayer for your super scholars. times of silence, times of reading, light instructions, then a quick share with your neighbor. it's kinda amazing how much sound 7,000 can make in a whisper. &:~)

we closed by finishing the scripture we were reading by saying the Lord's Prayer together. during which i walked out of the lights and off the stage. there was a pretty loud applause, so it was either that we were done or they enjoyed it.

nervous and weirded out, i wandered the backstage after that. many people said it was wonderful/well done/great job.. which was affirming. in some ways, it takes so much to lead others through a contemplative practice. you give it out, but you never own a response or get that instant feedback to measure your connectivity. i did get a great compliment however. i ran into nina reeves behind the stage. i hadn't seen her in few years and just adore her. she's wonderful & respected storyteller. i introduced myself saying "hey, you don't remember me, but..." and before i got far into all that story she starting giving me praise over what i had just done. "not just anyone can do that" she said. standing next to her was ray buckley, another whom i have great respect for. same intro to ray and i received back similar praise. i continued to wander in a haze i cannot explain

we closed our day with compline which has been a wonderful blessing for myself and i believe for our group. even though none of us ever went straight to bed after compline.

posting worship feast room pics on my flickr. youth 2007 stuff experienced by our group at our hfumcyouth flickr site.

youth 2007 : day two

i slept through most of morning prayers today because i was up blogging and doing other things associated with the worship feast room. so, tonight i am going to be early.. well, early for this trip. i will catch up with everyone tomorrow on the happenings of today. it was pretty amazing.

i did give some free pub for you sam. maybe you will get all these hits from greensboro this weekend. i led a Lectio Divina reading from the stage. not sure if i'd call this my most interesting or highlight of my day. but it was really cool. some new pics at our flickr set

youth 2007 : day one

we completed day one of youth 2007 this evening. it started out early for our crew. we had morning prayers at 7:30am, which some one didn't make it for. the youth went at it, putting the finishing touches on the worship feast room. we completed our tasks around noon time, closed our working period and officially/unofficially opened with midday prayers.

many of the youth ran off for some well deserved free time, swimming in the pool & hanging in the sauna. after a bit we re-gathered and headed to the coliseum to check out the expo center and some of the other destination spots. most of us detoured and volunteered to be a part of the opening of this evenings worship service. this got us floor seats.

back to the expo and destinations. people have now gotten some swag and goodies. so it was off to dinner, nothing special. food court at the mall, but it was quick, we had to get back for worship.

worship started off with a native american group doing a dance, i assume it was a blessing or dance that went with our practice for the night "seek." fusebox was our house praise band, they did a good job with some of the regular songs people know. their own stuff, which i don't guess many were familiar with didn't go over that great, though their energy is good for this type of event. that katinas rocked the house. the two memorable moments from this were some of the guys doing some nutty looking dances in between some of the seating sections. second moment was when todd, conner, and william started a trend by getting on the shoulders of the older guys. fun stuff. everyone enjoyed it and chatted on about it all the way up to compline.

we closed our day with compline. i noticed a new person had come to the worship feast space. upon further inspection i was none other than miss natalie. she'd come to see me. that was cool and sorta weird. we acknowledged that it was weird that we knew so much of each other, plus the minute she looked up from her book i recognized her, without ever meeting before. ciona also stopped by to have prayers with us.

check out images at our youth2007 set

there will be more later, i've got to go to bed though

late @ youth 2007

it is way late, i'm off to bed so that i can actually get up for morning prayers. our group arrived safe and sound today into greensboro. no problems, except a missing key for about 8 minutes. more pictures to come later, but here is a bit of late night fun as we took in our labyrinths for the weekend. johnathan taking his first run/walk on a labyrinth.

if you want to talk, go to greensboro

i am pretty much consumed with youth 2007 on top of my church responsibilities. for y07 jonathon, some friends, and myself are creating and maintaining the "worship feast" area. it is a contemplative worship & prayer space that is counter to the rest of the event. i am pretty stoked by it all, but there is a lot to do.

if you want to talk come see us in greensboro next week.

just another manic monday

so mondays are supposed to be my day off.. "what is that?" you ask. i ask the same thing often. i spent my day off sitting in on a meeting with the youth 2007 management and design team. as i might have mentioned before i'm helping with setting up the "worship feast" area. and since i consider our space to be set-apart from the rest of the event i tuned in and out of the meeting. 2 hours later i was budged and reminded it was my time to give my report. five minutes later i was done and back to my tuning in and out.

it was good to see friends though, probably the real reason i actually went to the meeting. i got to meet mike ratliff and try and recruit him for our mission trip.. no luck on that, but i'll keep trying. apparently he's new to the gbod.

stopped by cokesbury and bought some new reading to add to the old reading i am still reading. again, i hadn't picked up a book in awhile so i had too. of notable titles, how (not) to speak of God, they like Jesus but not the church, Christianity for the rest of us, peculiar people by rodney clapp, and some other smaller book... i started reading "how (not) to speak of God" while eating dinner, i am thinking i will really like that one. that excites me as it is peter rollins first book (that i know of).

the evening off i spent at the gas station, the youth ministry of one the local churches in hendersonville. first time i had been in this church, i met up with my umc cohort jennifer from good shepherd umc. i stopped in for a showing of invisibile children, something i feel strongly for and have highlighted here in the past. they were having a screening of the ic movie while promoting the upcoming displace me experience.

got home around 9, the wife and i took the children for a decent walk. decent enough where the children were wiped out. now i'm back to reading some of those books.. catch yall later. shalom, -g