Should There Be a Church Video Standard?

Last Tuesday afternoon, I received an email from my pastor. Jason, Dave, and I were in the middle of a lunch meeting with the largest church video distributor in the world. Ironically, my pastor’s email message had to do with church video distributing. Here’s my rough paraphrase of his question:

“Gary. I’m looking for a video for this Sunday. It needs to be about the freedom we have from sin, in Christ alone. I’ve looked for the past hour on a church video website, and the videos are awful. I would never show them in our church. Do you guys have anything on that topic, or can you recommend something that’s good?”

I emailed him back, and basically said, “No. Sorry.”

His response was even stronger in his next email: “Then will you please tell your friends who make videos to make them with a certain quality standard? And please tell them to be less preachy….” Because he had already spent an hour of his time looking for a video and found nothing. he concluded, “I want my hour back!”

What are your thoughts?

This is an industry that’s growing larger by the hour, so it’s important that pastors and church leaders consider questions like this. Should a video that a high schooler made on his camcorder for his youth group be allowed to sell on a website, especially if the quality is lacking? Or is there a quality standard that churches and video distributors should adhere to?

Once

Just when I was beginning to become abnormally bored with many of the films that have recently crossed my path, along came a little peace of artistic magic to strengthen my belief in the art-form of film.

The story revolves around a street performer(Glen Hansard) singing and playing guitar on a Dublin street who attracts the attention of a young Czech migrant (Marketa Irglova), herself a pianist, singer and lyricist. They begin spending time with one another under the unifying factor of song writing and begin to be drawn toward one another in the wake of broken relationships. Their collaboration leads to the recording of a demo album with a “tossed together” band of musicians, as their relationship grows in unexpected ways.

One of the greatest things about this film is the way it was shot. It is obvious that “Once” was not shot on a high-dollar budget. They make use of “gorilla-style” filming techniques and according to the “making of” features, didn’t bother getting permits for a great deal of their shoots. They really show what happens when the term “indie” film making is taken seriously and not used as a trendy catch-phrase. That being the case, the filmmakers needed to rely on the music, actors and storyline… none of which are lacking.

“Once” reminds us that small can be beautiful and that the simplest of storylines can get a grip on us, at our core, and takes us to new levels of connection. “Once” is a movie you definitely don’t want to miss.

Worship: What Is It?

While the emergence of modern worship music has infused the church with life and passion, it also had an adverse effect. It took something that God desires for us to offer 24 hours every day, and reduced it to something that can only happen for 20-30 minutes, one day a week.

The owners of Floodgate Productions are also worship leaders who discuss this daily. So we created a video that poses some difficult questions about worship. It’s called “Worship: What Is It?”, and can be previewed to the right.

Special thanks to Abby who is the actress in the video.  Abby not only acts, but also sings on her church’s worship team, and deals with these difficult issues along with the rest of us.

Keep Taking Risks

In a bit of a follow-up post, I wanted to continue to discuss our response to Wall Street. Last week, the team at Floodgate created a video response, in hopes that it would serve Christ’s church around the country. It is very relevant and timely video, and we invite you to check it out here. As I write this, the video has been downloaded over 2500 times. Obviously, that message was important to you.

Over the past couple of days, I’ve been chewing on a separate, but related message that I think God is speaking to my heart. The message is a simple one…

During times of great economic distress and anxiety, don’t stop dreaming.

If you’re already bent toward having all your ducks in a row before you make a decision, then my simple post won’t change that in you. But if you’re like me – a dreamer and a wanna-be risk taker who is scared – then let’s agree together right now that we need to keep dreaming, keep pushing the cause of Christ, and keep creating outside-of-the-box ministries and ideas. Let’s keep giving money and resources away to people in need. Let’s keep risking. Let’s keep reaching out. Spend less, to be sure. But dream bigger than ever before.

And above all… let’s agree to keep elevating the glory of God beyond this financial mess. He may be behind the meltdown. He may have nothing to do with the meltdown. But this one thing I know…

God is above the meltdown.

He supersedes it. He’s bigger than Wall Street. He’s far greater than any economic plan any politicians commit to implementing.

So please, please, please… keep risking and dreaming. Keep walking by faith. Keep placing yourself in the direct path of unbelievers, and allow yourself to display Christ’s grace and truth to them. Keep laughing with your friends, your spouse, and your children. And as prepare for this weekend’s worship services, plan to worship God like never before. Elevate His glory, and all these things will be added unto you.

I promise.

On the Wall

One thing that really serves to unify the three guys at Floodgate, is their love for music… both playing and listening. This week we had Judy, one of our amazing office staff, hang up all our guitars at the end of the hall in our office space.

This place just feels more like “us” everyday.