My Favorite Five Minutes on TV

The best show on TV is also one of the shortest. It's "Shaun the Sheep," which airs for five wonderful minutes each week on Disney Channel. I think it's on Sunday nights at 7:55 EST, but we just grab it with TiVo. Produced by Aardman Animations, the makers of Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run, it's one of the most creative and amusing shows I've ever seen, and one of the few things that our entire family can watch together and fully enjoy. From the catchy theme song to the brilliant clay-mation, each show is a blast, and never fails to surprise and amuse me.

One of the things I like about the show is the attention to storytelling and visual humor. They manage to take their scant 300 seconds of footage per show and pack it with surprisingly intricate plots, and tell most of the story without any dialogue. That said, there are some great animal noises, barks, growls, and baas, that say a whole lot. (If you enjoy the near-silent humor of Mr. Bean and the Pink Panther cartoons, you'll really like Shaun the Sheep.)

If I were to give you a plot summary, the action typically centers around Shaun trying to stir his pastoral pals toward some fun. Conflict comes their way in the form of three naughty Pigs who make it their business to tweak the flock. On occasion, the sheep end up collaborating with Bitzer, the shepherding dog, to protect the tranquility of the farm. The Farmer is mostly oblivious to all the activity, and keeping him that way is the prime directive for Shaun and Bitzer.

Make sure you set your DVR to catch it. To get a sneak preview, check the Shaun website.

A Call to Action

Most of us in church work feel the tension between productivity and meeting with people. Both are necessary: (1) there's a service every Sunday and tasks have to be done (2) this is team stuff and can't be done in a vacuum. Problems arise when the balance gets out of whack.

December seems to be one of those months when the balance is always on the verge of spinning out of control, one way or the other. Recently, I came across a meeting technique that seems to have great potential for protecting balance. I've been experimenting with it informally over the last few weeks, and I like it. It's called "the Action Method" and I found it on a website for creatives called Behance.

In essence, the Action Method is simply a call to forward motion. Every workplace meeting should be about something, and the net result should be a specific task or activity (action step) that will "move the ball down the field." The Action Method demands that tangents are suppressed (backburner) and action steps are nurtured, honed, and celebrated. If your meeting ends with no new items on your task list, you've just wasted your time (and probably everyone else's.) The Method also challenges us creative types to avoid clutter, filing a limited number of reference items for later research.

Behance offers a series of products for sale to facilitate the Method (the Action Pad), but you can also download the Action Pad template as a PDF and use it for free.

(By the way, there are similar concepts in the book Death by Meeting by Patrick Lencioni.)

When Do We Eat?

Today being Thanksgiving, my mind has centered on two things I'm very thankful for: my wonderful wife Shelia and food. Not only is Shelia an incredible spouse and mother, but she is also very loyal to our creative arts ministry at Horizon, serving on our tech team and more importantly, as our Sunday morning chef. Yes, I said chef. Every creative church needs one, especially those with a large team and busy routine.

When I first arrived at Horizon, Sunday rehearsals were frustrating and urgent -- conflict was far too common. For most of the participants, it felt like a "gig" and very little like "ministry." One thing that was particularly missing was a sense of community. I learned a long time ago from working on movie sets that nothing bonds people faster than delicious snacks. Knowing that my wife loves to cook, I put the two together. Shelia began getting up a little earlier and generously cooking breakfast for the team. Suddenly, almost magically, Sundays weren't quite so tense.

In addition, we began to streamline our routine to make it less hurried, and sought team members who were committed, pleasant and patient. We also put a hard deadline on our schedule to allow time for prayer before the service. I would love to say that the group prayer was the difference-maker to change our team's mentality, but more likely, it's Shelia's angelic cooking that has turned the tide. No one ever asks, "When are we gonna pray?" but everyone wants to know when Shelia is arriving with breakfast.

Gradually, Shelia has turned this into her own personal ministry. She routinely uses the team as an audience for recipe experiments, and brings her Georgia-born charm to the menu. A number of our Ohio natives are now addicted to grits.

Thank you, Shelia, for using your gifts to serve Horizon and our team. More importantly, thanks for being a great wife. God has blessed me in many ways, but with you, he was amazingly generous.

Watch This!

I was stumbling tonight (see earlier post) and came across a nifty website devoted to watches. (http://watchismo.blogspot.com/) Featured on the site are endless images of vintage and high-tech watches, along with other unusual timepieces and clocks, along with the blogger's comments, reviews, and astonishingly vast knowledge of watch history. There are designs there that just boggled my mind; for example, look at the amazing watch pictured below. It has that retro future vibe that I love so much. Watchismo says it's a 1965 French watch by Jean Chuard. Cool, isn't it?

Let's Get Ready to Stumble!

In my job, I am in search of constant creative inspiration. I try to make time to read unusual books and magazines, watch atypical TV shows, listen to new music, and even eat at new restaurants whenever I can. (I typically don't go 'outside the box' when it's time to see a movie -- risking the high price of a movie ticket on a sketchy film feels a lot like gambling to me.)

Lately, I've been finding a lot of inspiration by 'stumbling' around the web. The StumbleUpon toolbar is a free and wonderful browser plug-in that lets me click a button and surf randomly from site to site. I've seen other similar devices through the years, but StumbleUpon does the best job yet of matching my interests (from a profile that I've set up) to sites around the world and keeping me engaged as I go. In addition, it's smart enough to learn from my likes and dislikes and even offers to connect me with other people around the world with similar interests. It does seem to serve up the occasional wild hair -- not sure if that's intentional -- but these left-field sites can be the most interesting destinations of all.

Make Way for the Magic

Last Sunday, we had a very complicated service -- lots of different cues, video clips interspersed with short dramas, sound effects, and a large cast of participants. Because we were working with a few new crew members and guest performers from children's ministry, we allowed some extra time to practice the run, over and above our normal routine.

The first time through, things were pretty ragged. Mistakes were being made; communication was breaking down. What was supposed to be a 20-minute run-through had taken over 35 minutes. There was plenty of opportunity for conflict, but fortunately, the folks involved are patient, genial types, and familiar with the challenges of production. We all took a deep breath, reset, and started again. The second run-through was much improved, and though there were still a few mistakes, we were out of time. Our folks huddled over a few details, said a prayer, and went to our stations, prepped and ready.

The resulting service was virtually flawless, and the response was great. The experience was a great reminder of why we rehearse. Not only was our congregation impacted by a quality production, but our team was able to rise to the occasion together, and enjoy a tangible win.

I've been in other settings (schools, corporate events, and especially churches) where excellence was a low-priority, and time to rehearse was deemed unimportant. All too often, people shed rehearsal time for the sake of "spontaneity" or "to allow the spirit to move" and, sadly, the results are usually sloppy and embarrassing.

Recently, I saw an interview with musician and producer Quincy Jones, where he defended the rigors of planning, discipline, and rehearsal. The interviewer was taken aback, surprised that the legendary jazz artist would put such value on structure: How can you improvise under such strict conditions? Jones' wonderful explanation underscored just how important planning can be: "You've got to do all the detail work, the planning and rehearsal, so that when it's time for the performance, you can just relax, shut off your brain, and let your soul take over. The planning paves the way for the magic."

Video Clip Resource Pool

Ripped from my files.... Here's a list of websites where you can find video illustrations or movie clip ideas for churches:

http://www.lifechurch.tv
http://www.crazychurch.com
http://www.screenvue.com
http://www.newspringonline.com
http://www.nooma.com
http://www.theworkofthepeople.com
http://www.movieministry.com
http://www.sermonspice.com
http://www.radiatefilms.com
http://www.grovefilms.com
http://www.theveracityproject.com
http://www.faithvisuals.com
http://www.angelhousemedia.com
http://www.wingclips.com
http://www.bluefishtv.com
http://www.worshiphousemedia.com
http://resources.northpoint.org

If I've left out any good ones that you know about, plz let me know.