Part of the Glue

Recently for our student ministry we decided to create a series of instructional videos using that 50′s look.  These videos are meant to help students in their approach to studying God’s Word.  Below is the first one we shot.

Recently our church partnered with area churches in Houston to participate in the listening to the New Testament in 40 days.  Faith Comes By Hearing is an organization dedicated to helping spread God’s word through audio format.  I’ll admit I was skeptical at first to this whole concept, however after loading the new testament on my iphone it has been something that has really drawn me closer to God and his Word.  I think we can get stuck in a rut when it comes to reading the bible and listening to God’s word really is refreshing.  Check out this video we made to highlight some stories from people in our church.  This was a fun project that really takes a tv-commerical approach to telling these stories.

Movies are part of our culture.  We are a culture that consumes a lot of them.  We download, rent and show up at the theaters to experience what is often times missing in our lives (adventure). As a filmmaker I love movies for lots of reasons but I especially love movies that matter.  I love movies that cause me to think, feel, cry or wonder about something that I have never thought to consider.  As a filmmaker and as a youth leader (someone who disciples teenagers) I believe that it is our duty to use the redemptive parts of culture as we go about this journey of discipleship in a creative manner. Teenagers are going to see films no matter what, why not use this as an opportunity to share with them some redemptive films that can engage their faith and cause them to think a little. Below I am going to list 4 films that I believe are worth showing to a small group or your entire youth group.   Having fruitful discussion after these films can be very beneficial and really help students to think through some of the implications in the film.

Saints and Soldiers
End of the Spear
The Passion of the Christ

The Second Chance

We recently finished a series for our youth ministry called “Evidence.” For the series we created 3 videos that showed students being asked difficult questions in a holding cell type atmosphere.  We wanted to cause students to think and really evaluate their ability to defend their faith.  We used a real lawyer and had fun in the process.  I hope you will enjoy this one.

Evidence | Christ in your life from LYF on Vimeo.

I have been trying to lead youth media teams for roughly 2 years now.  I have failed alot and in someways have been successful.  I think one of the reasons the teams have failed in the past is due to a lack of clear expectations and goals.  It’s easy for a band to practice every sunday and then play later that night and be able to quantify that experience.   It’s rather difficult however to quantify a team that creates projects one week and does nothing the next.  I sat down with our student media team today at lunch and we finally decided to set some clear sustainable expectations and goals for our team.

Expectations

1. Be a team that is always learning (1 hour a week minimum)
a. students can come into the office and observe or work on a project and learn the craft of film-making
b. students can tag along during shoots and learn things such as holding a boom, setting up lights or running a camera
c. students can also learn outside or at home by creating projects or training on lynda.com

2. Be a team that produces projects as a team (1 project a month)
a. students are encouraged to create a project by themselves with minimal assistance

3. Be a team that thinks long-term
a. currently we are working to create a short film this summer which means working on the script, storyboard and pre-production now.