my day off

I have an opportunity this morning to serve a new group of people who will be meeting at Crossroads, and I couldn't be more excited!

Pastor Dave is an encourager of identifying passion areas within our jobs, so I've been thinking about the things that I love doing, and serving guests at Crossroads, communicating the message of Jesus thematically through the inclusion of creative pieces within a service or event, and producing events are definitely my favorites. During the Leadership Summit I saw a post that said "18 Friday's until Christmas", so as soon as the details of the Summit ended I was looking through my Christmas notes again.

I have two primary areas of focus and development right now, our next teaching series and Christmas - so here we go!

I get asked occasionally what my job entails, so I thought I'd list some of what's involved.  I'm considering offering a CLASS in the Winter that would allow a few people to create a service or event, and the opportunity to hangout behind the scenes one weekend.  We'll see!

When we create a new series these items are involved:

• Pastor decides on title and content of the teachings
• We brainstorm about a fitting 'visual'
• A video promo is usually shot or created to use for advertising within the services as well as on Social Media
• Our graphic designer begins to develop the ideas for print:  this visual will be used on the Pastor's Notes; Background on the stage; advertising; archives for messages; website
• Worship team works on thematic song selection for all the services falling within this series
• I write scripts for all of the announcement segments
• We shoot any videos that need to be used as transitions or featured pieces
• Meticulously go over every element in each service in our programming meetings to make sure they all connect and support the topic and that nothing distracts from the teaching.
• The organization of any additional artists or set design work

I could continue, but you get the idea.  I'm blessed beyond anyone I know, I love what I do and as I'm enjoying my day off, I have just been praising the Lord from whom all blessings flow!  

learning new things

I am sure it's got something to do with my age, but lately I "have a hankering" (quote from Deering Dyer) to learn new things!

Tomorrow I get to take a leadership class instructing how to use the Logos program - which will be a resource that will help me to create my small group studies and make sure my writing and Biblical discussion is accurate! I cannot wait to begin using this program!

The next new thing I am considering is taking an art class of some kind. I have been interested for quite a while in cement work (not large items) more like cement bowls and pots - much more practical to get into than creating pottery on a wheel and firing it - even though that's probably my favorite artistic area.

But if I could do anything I wanted to, regardless of the time involved, it would be to write and publish a book. I probably would have to quit my job to ever make that happen - and that's not gonna happen...so...we'll just have to see. Meanwhile I'm going to see if there are just some local writing courses at the branch or on-line!

So...what are you learning? If money or time wasn't an issue what would you do?

vocalists a plenty

I was very excited as I entered our Worship Leader, Dan Fleming's office tonight after our MidWeek service at Crossroads. Much to my delight we had a room full of perspective vocalists in our vocal class.

We use this class as an opportunity for our worship leaders to evaluate each vocalists abilities. The duration of the class is six weeks. By the end of this class we know what the ability level is as well as the dedication level of each singer.

The vocalists that are at the level that meets the Magnification team's requirements are then invited to try out at an actual audition. Following the audition those vocalists chosen are added to the team if openings exist. I love new team members!