“Heroes get remembered – Legends never die.”

Other than this quote being from one of the greatest movies ever, there’s some truth to it that really resonates inside of me.

I want to do more than just good things in certain moments. I want to be remembered not just for the bench marks I hit, not just for the numbers I put on the board, not just for the opportunities I took advantage of… I want to be remembered for who I was and what I stood for.

There’s heroes and there’s legends. I want to be a legend.

Who are the legends in your life that left a legacy? Who are the legends that forever impacted you?

The other day I was reading the book of Obadiah and these verses jumped out at me:

The pride of your heart has deceived you, you who live in the clefts of the rocks and make your home on the heights, you who say to yourself, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’ Though you soar like the eagle and make your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down,” declares the Lord. (Obadiah 1:3, 4)

After yesterday morning’s services at Redwood Park I was glad this verse was fresh in my mind. Musically, the team was tight and the mix was top notch. The team brought their A-game and the congregational engagement seemed very strong. We had lots of fun focusing stage lights this week and added lots of vibrant colour, and partnered with our hazer, the lighting look was stellar. Our Barrie Campus pastor Nathan Barnes was in town for the weekend to speak and he delivered a fantastic message on overcoming some of the limits we face in our lives; it really resonated with people, it was powerful. We went home today pretty pleased with the overall package.

Worship Arts ministry can be so dangerous for so many reasons… but i think mostly because of pride. As a worship leader, arts director, or service producer it’s so easy to have our egos puffed up after a strong Sunday morning. It’s our job, it’s our passion, and we want it to be excellent. But  we can become so prideful, and like in Obadiah, our pride will deceive us and distract us from the bigger picture. It doesn’t matter how big and complex, or how small and simple you’re services are… when it goes good, you feel good, and when its obviously weaker you feel disappointed.

The verses from Obadiah serve as a powerful reminder of the danger of pride – it helps keep things in perspective. Our morning services are completely useless if God does not turn up and work in people’s hearts in a way no human effort, words, or creativity can do.

There’s nothing wrong with being excited with a strong Sunday morning experience. When the band is stellar celebrate that! When the message is hit out the park be excited! When the set looks great and transitions are smooth and tight be proud of your hard work! … God deserves nothing short of your best.

But it’s got to point people to God, first and foremost… It’s got to be about him. HIS Goodness, HIS Grace, HIS Power, HIS Kingdom…

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Invite God into the creative process beforehand.

Seek him throughout the preparation. Walk with him. Be in tune.

Ask for his anointing as you lead people & trust him as he works in the unseen.

Be thankful, by God’s grace you are a part of something much bigger than yourself!

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One last thing is, don’t fool yourself. You would be nothing, have nothing, and creative nothing if he didn’t gift you in the first place. Fight pride, strive for humility, and God will take your efforts and use them for far greater things than you ever could.

“God opposes the proud
but favours the humble.” – James 4:6

Sometimes trying to communicate things in church in a creative way can be a real challenge. We want to share what has worked for us with the hopes that it may also work for you!

The first half of our Good Friday production focused on the “brokenness” in our lives and the brokenness in our world… thankfully it didn’t end there From “brokenness,” we  led our congregation into celebrating the reality that through Jesus and his victory on the cross we can be made whole again.

To help give people real tangible ways to relate to “brokenness” our video team thought through different real-life scenarios everyday people wrestle with. We used members of our acting teams to portray these illustrations and we cut the video to the song “Fix You” by Coldplay. When we played the video in our services our music team performed the song live. It turned out to be a very powerful piece. We would love to make these resources available to you if you thought they would be effective in your context.

Sometimes trying to communicate things in church in a creative way can be a real challenge. We want to share what has worked for us with the hopes that it may also work for you!

To help people relate to our theme of “brokenness,” our drama team wrote 3 scripts to illustrate different examples of brokenness that everyday people can relate to; some light hearted, and some intense. If you are interested in looking at these scripts to see if they’d work for your context please email me. jpopowich@redwoodpark.org

Sometimes trying to communicate things in church in a creative way can be a real challenge. We want to share what has worked for us with the hopes that it may also work for you!

For our Good Friday Production our stage/set teams went to town; building 4 huge 5×10 frames with various strands of coloured string stretched across the back giving the look of a broken window from a distance. We found the original idea on churchstagedesignideas.com and then put our own creative twist to it. In each corner of the 4 frames we wired in sockets for MR16 bulbs that were assigned to dimmers and controlled from our lighting board. This allowed us to give the frames different lighting looks for different parts of the production. We also cut pieces of white coroplast to fit the exact size of the frames… we fit these into the frames later on in the service as our theme shifted from being “broken” to being made “whole.” It was a fun concept to work with.  With conventional top lighting and the help of a hazer we had bold reds, blues, and purples giving loads of top-light for the band and casting really neat shadows. This, with the cyc lights on the back wall, gave beautiful look with very bold colours.

See a couple pics below…