it's coming to an end...

Hard to believe that 2008 has about fifteen hours left in it.

Christmas trees and lights have been taken down and the furniture moved back in place giving the sign of normaility here at the house. The church offices are closed this week and I was able to take this coming weekend off, so work is off the brain. Putting in a bunch of time finishing up a side job I have had for the last six months or so here. Tonight is the grand opening concert and I think I have a great audio and lighting system installed with a great crew to run it tonight.

Plans for spending time with the family tonight celebrating and counting down New Years tonight with the girls.

I have lots to get caught up on though. I have to finish up the video system at Exodus, post vid and pics here of the Crossing Christmas Eve services ( I do have some video posted on my facebook) and lots of details I have to get ahead on at church.

It's been a different year. Im pretty happy its coming to an end. I'm looking forward to this coming year and what it will bring.

And I'm pretty happy with all this blogging. It's been fun. I think it will continue. One of my resolutions for the new year is to write more...take time out to write more and I think that will leak over to the blog. As of last count I have had 9,949 unique visits to this little spot on the web. I hope to hit 10,000 by the end of the day....ehhh, year.

Have a safe and happy New Years eve....see ya next year!

tracking santa....

for those of us who need to make sure the big SC is on time this year you can track him here

it's time for some classic Christmas...and I mean classic

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

…and yes, the elf suit is polyester.

what a good God.....

We are just about to wrap up our fourth Christmas Eve service and have one more this evening before a well deserved day off tomorrow.

The services have gone pretty well. Considering all the details, people and potential for problems – we are doing great. We were already in our infamous tweak mode last night which is a really good place to be in this point of the game (err, services). Stories are already coming back to us about how God is moving in peoples lives through these services...What a good God.

Things flying up and down from the catwalks, a train riding across the stage, fifty one light cues, a wii remote and inferred pen, an awesome tech crew, an amazing band and a phenomenal pastor laying it down. It is a different Christmas Eve service for us….but at the core it is us. We are not about doing big productions or bells and whistles at Christmas. We have 10,000 seats available for these services….almost double or our regular weekend service. We want those visitors to experience who we really are on this optimum holiday time. So all those things mentioned about are not out of the ordinary for us.

I will start posting pics and vids (if possible) during our Tuesday night service and then throughout Wednesday….which Christmas Eve. Wow – three days away.

Until then, I want to leave you with a really good blog post from my buddy Tim. Last week, Greg used a quote from Dallas Willard…

"What a good god God must be to think up somebody like you."

...and it really hit me. I was going to blog about it, but Tim did a great job so I will let him share it with you. Read it here…

getting in the mood....

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

sneak peek: christmas eve

We kick off our ten Christmas eve services tomorrow at 4:30. I can not beleive that we are only six days away from Christmas Day. Where did the month go?

I am looking forward to seeing the Christmas Eve services come together. These will be some very special times. I will be blogging, posting pics and fighting with blogspot to upload video from the services.

Now, just to peek your curiousity....here is a sneak peek.......

whacha think?

Yes? No? Maybe so?

pics: December 13&14, 2008

service: December 13 & 14, 2008

This weekend at The Crossing.....

Set List

We did this cool pre service interaction with some iPhones with the Bloom application. We moved around the room letting people in the seats play a little. Then, one of the iPhones moved to the stage where they picked out the tune of Carol of the Bells which then the band led into the feature song….
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen (the Mercy Me version)

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Song of Hope

Angels We Have Heard on High
Joy To The World (Sufjan Stevens version) during communion

[AC] Media

Message

A Couple of Songs. Luke 1.From the message series ’A few weird relatives, a couple of songs and one great Light.’ We will have it load up to iTunes on Monday.

I may have some more pics and vid coming. I'm not that happy with the way the camera is taking pics so I will post some of the better ones.

sacred reminder

Scott Hodge gave us a sacred reminder which I really needed to hear this time of year. Thanks Scott.

Andy Dunning.....

I enjoy surprises when they fit in my schedule and doesn’t cause havoc in my plans. Today was one of those surprises that I do enjoy. I had the pleasure of getting to spend a few hours with Andy Dunning. He was in town lighting a Christmas show and had the day off before opening day tomorrow. A text message and a phone call later we meet for lunch and spent some time in our auditorium talking shop.

Andy is a lighting designer out of Nashville who I brought up last year to help revamp our theatrical lighting rig for our HD video upgrade. We have stayed connected over phone and email over this past year and he has been generous in introducing me to a number of his connections in the business. His passion for not only tech and the heart behind the technician but the ministry of the local church was part of the conversation. I always love a good discussion with guys in my ‘industry’ that are not the full time church techs.

You can check out his work at www.landrudesign.com

grace......

Our huffing and puffing to impress God, our scrambling for brownie points, our thrashing about trying to fix ourselves while hiding our pettiness and wallowing in guilt are nauseating to God and are a flat denial of the gospel of grace.

Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

vid: Silent Night

Silent Night. 12/07/07 @ The Crossing

This christmas carol includes an audio track of current news stories played under the song... ala Simon & Garfunkel's Silent Night/7O'clock news. The song was potent with the timeless song juxtaposed with the troubling news of today's world. At the end of Silent Night we let the newscast continue as Rescue Is Coming began.

*captured with my flip cam...excuse the poor quality

vid: Rescue Is Coming

Rescue Is Coming. 12/07/08 @ The Crossing

*captured with my flip cam...excuse the poor quality

vids......

having some issues loading video from the service...still working on it!

service: December 6 & 7, 2008

This weekend at The Crossing.....

Set List
O Come All Ye Faithful / How Great is Our God
First Noel
O Holy Night
Rescue Is Coming

We also did Simon and Garfunkel's Silent Night/ 7O'Clock news live and we used a present day news cast audio track. Pretty potent tune with the beautiful Christmas carol against the current headlines of war, unemployment, goverment distress. Even more interesting is how the news stories today sound like the news back then. I will upload video of our live tune tomorrow.

[AC] Media

Message
A Few Weird Relatives. Matthew 1.
From the message series ’A few weird relatives, a couple of songs and one great Light.’ We will have it load up to iTunes on Monday.

Here are a couple of pictures from O Holy Night tune one of our pastors led. More pics and vids from the service will be posted tomorrow.

Christmas series branding....

A few weird relatives, a couple of songs and a great Light.

That's the message series title for Christmas at The Crossing.

Here is the invite card with a bit of the branding for the season.

christmas stage design....

....from concept

...to reality.

This was a huge team effort. Things are just more beautiful when you get a team of creatives together!

So it is that time of year. Countdown to the 10 Christmas Eve Services at The Crossing. And that would be - 14 days!

We have Christmas programming threaded through our services leading up to Christmas eve. I will post pics and vids of some special moments in the services.

[AC]....

As my schedule allows lately, I have been catching up on blog reading. I went about 5 weeks with not reading a nearly a one post….so I’m really backed up.

It’s been fun to see this video sprinkled all through the posts.


One reason for my joy is that our lead pastor, Greg Holder, at The Crossing along with Rick McKinley at Imago Dei and Chris Seay at Ecclesia started with a dream. Today and with thousands of churches getting involved, that dream is a reality.

The other reason is that my family so connects with this concept. Just to give differently to impact a life for the Kingdom. Go to Advent Conspiracy to find out how to get involved and make a difference.

reason #48....

......not to use one of those cheap drum shields.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kU3wfS333A

rsb @ lci....

This weekend, the Robbie Seay Band will be leading worship over at LifeChurch.tv's Internet campus.

We here at The Crossing know first hand what an experience the band will lead. I cant wait to see them there.

do you hear what I hear....

…down the hall - an accordion playing Feliz Navidad.
It must be Christmas time at The Crossing…..

kickin' it into high gear......

Thanksgiving weekend was good. My middle daughter was a bit sick so I missed out on enjoying dinner with my inlaws…so in her misery I delighted ( a little bit). We also got the house pretty much ready for Christmas with the tree up and the lights hung outside.

Long day today. Full of meetings and lots of side conversations….some of which were not enjoyable. The incredible design team has been here most of the working on turning the room over for Christmas. We have a deadline to have about half the design up and ready for a bereavement service that happens tomorrow night here at the Crossing annually. So, while I am here typing this- they are out there busily working on getting it down. Some pics will follow.

This year’s design is pretty unique for us and will be a gorgeous back drop for a pretty intense Christmas Eve service. Ten services to be exact! We will be kicking off Christmas Eve on Saturday December 20th. See ya there?

Christmas @ The Crossing
December 20th 4:30pm, 6:30pm
December 21st 9am, 11am and 5pm
December 23rd 7pm
December 24th 1pm, 3pm, 5pm and 7pm
9am, 11am and 5pm