I am finishing the bible for the first time tomorrow. This year has been the biggest spiritual growth I have ever experienced in my life. I had never had a consistent relationship with the scriptures until this year. It has been an incredible journey…

Starting on January 1st I will be venturing on another journey using a YouVersion Bible Reading plan called Project 3:45

Project 3:45 is a simple, effective way to read the entire New Testament in one year. The plan involves reading one chapter per day five days a week and uses the weekends to catch up if you missed any days. The plan was named for the average of the three minutes and forty five seconds that it takes to read one New Testament chapter (obviously this time will vary due to individual reading rates, chapter lengths, and etc., but you get the point). It’s never too late, start today!

Instead of reading through the whole bible this year I want to slow down and read just the New Testament. Hopefully this will allow more time for deeper study and contemplation.

With all that said… I want to invite you to journey with me. I understand some don’t study this way because it might lean you toward a legalistic relationship with the scriptures. If its not for you that is ok, but if it is I would love for you to go along with me and whoever else. Email me tbodenATgmailDOTcom (prevents spamming) and let me know so I can organize something for us to share and communicate.

YouVersion.com is they way to go. Create an account (FREE) and put me, or whoever, as your accountability partner. Start the plan on Friday the 1st. It syncs to your mobile (Holy Bible iPhone App and youversion app for other smart phones) and you can check it off once its read. Its really sweet.

See you in John 1

When we were thinking about content for Christmas Eve I remembered this video

Opener for the 04/12/09 Easter Service

www.elevationchurch.org

Director: Adam Hobbs
Director of Photography: Jared Hogan
Executive Producers: Pastor Steven, Larry Hubatka, Wade Joye
Talent/Beat Poet: Jesse Fisher
Lyrics: Jesse Fisher
Grip/Lighting: Sean Lyon
Rigger/Set Design: Wes Watson
Audio Playback: Irina
Video Editor: Adam Hobbs
Composer: Aaron Robertson
Audio Editor/Mix: Aaron Robertson
Audio Supervisors: Chris Brown, Wade Joye

Elevation Church in Charlotte produced this piece. I loved the epic feel mixed with the overlay… But as I told my team, we aren’t that urban… nor do we have the spoken word artist to do that. The piece that we were building the concept for was the Old Testament telling section of the night. Traditionally at Grace we have an epic finish to this part of the story, which ends with 400 years of silence. The element before this piece was a crazy awesome version of Little Drummer Boy.

One of our core values at Grace is to plain and simple teach the bible… So instead of writing content that was artsy we decided to let out pastors just simply tell the story themselves, while we put in the artsy through the overlay. We set up three cameras at 3 different angles. Then we had all of our pastors take a stab at telling the story. The original idea was to cut between our teaching pastors telling the story so there would be multiple voices and types of story telling. Toward the end of the night Drew came in and nailed this in one take. We decided we couldn’t cut it up. It was too good.

So here it is finished… The Old Testament told by our College Pastor Drew McClure

A telling of the Old Testament story

I slaved over these pieces. I actually have a piece we didn’t play that I will be putting up here in a week or so.

Have fun and enjoy!

A telling of the Old Testament story

See title…

More goodies to come…

The thing about working in a church is that Easter and Christmas are your on days.

Not only that you are pretty much cranking out stuff for a month straight. So, I am sorry I neglected the blog. In an attempt to give back to those who still have me in their RSS or just the occasional Facebook Status Looker… I give you a synopsis of my life these past few weeks. Each highlight will be one sentence long.

• Lauren started her clinical trial for diabetes the second week of December.
• That same week I had the craziest production week I have ever had getting ready for the arena.
• Maddie, Basset #2, ate my Flip Camera
• I went in to an angry morning over my flip camera.
• I was relaxed and calmed by our small group who know when to get real and when to just chill out cause everyone is so stressed
• Christmas Eve Load in… the day before… with all the content already finished
• Christmas Eve… well happened… +7000 people, baptisms. (Which included an arena staff member)
• Did nothing on Christmas…
• Got a new Flip Camera
• Rebuilt the church on Saturday for Sunday
• Directed Sunday
• Saw Sherlock Holmes last night with small group

So that has been my December. Its been crazy, but I ready for a routine again. Hope all is going well guys!

The title says it all…

Here is what I have been working on…

Come to Christmas Eve at the Arena if you want to see them in action!