Blog of the Week

The Blog of the Week: National Community Church's Uganda Blog.

NCC, a church located in DC, recently sent a team to Uganda to build an orphanage. Their pastor blogged about it here saying, "this may be the most significant thing we've ever done as a church!" Pretty cool.

This is how to do a missions trip and get people involved back home. I didn't read it all but they had someone with them who could take some quality pictures and I looked at all the pictures. I believe pictures and media, done right, is a great way to involve the larger church. Check it out.

How many of you know what your church is up to in missions?

Google Talk: Inbox Zero

Common Sense! But we need to do it. The video isn't much to look at but have a listen and peek back every once in a while you browse the internet or check your gmail.

Google Tech Talks
July 23, 2007

ABSTRACT

Merlin Mann, a well known productivity guru and creator of the popular 43 folders website will talk about Getting Things Done, the importance of getting your inbox to zero, and strategies for dealing with high volume email.

I Love This

glumbert.com - How to give a water buffalo

This is a great little doc about giving. I've heard of giving heifers to families before but never seen it. Giving can be so powerful.

What I'm Reading

Check out "What I'm Reading" on the right. It's linked to my google reader and when ever I read something worth sharing I put it on the list. I recommend both ticklebooth's posts. One is a short, "The Cold Rush," and the other an incredibly shot trailer for a band touring through Iceland! Ridiculously beautiful as ticklebooth says. Keep checking my reading list for updates. If you use a reader you can also subscribe to it here.

Why I Want to be a Filmmaker

My involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ has played a large part in my walk with God. They taught me how to share my faith, study the Bible, and live a Spirit filled life. Crusade helped to give me a world vision and a heart for people separated from God. College was an incredible and forever life changing experience because of God's work through Crusade, I even decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in a radically different way, following God. At first that meant I was to be a missionary to foreign nations and strange places but, God began to show me something else. The beginning of my junior year I switched my major from Electrical Engineering to Communication. In my first class they asked everyone to stand up and tell why you are a communication major. I said, "To learn how to clearly communicate the Gospel that changed my life." Then I began to focus on media production and criticism because I enjoyed it--specifically video and editing. In all my video classes I'd make explicitly Christian videos and at Crusade I would create videos as advertisements or to inform. I began to think... this is what I could do, make videos for churches or maybe even Crusade. But there was a part of me that did not want to make videos for Christians. Then a pastor from a local church that helped at Crusade asked me one day what I was going to do after college, I responded, "full time ministry"... I could see his disappointment. It threw me. It seemed that it was the perfect answer, what could any college pastor hope for? I asked him why he seemed disappointed but he wouldn't tell me, however he suggested I listen to a CD by this guy Tim Downs that spoke at his church's recent men's retreat. It was probably my senior year when I listen to the recording but wow, it changed my perspective on ministry, serving God, and reaching people with the Gospel. The speaker is on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ but basically convinced me not join staff and led me down a path to where I believe God is calling me to make movies in Hollywood. Well, I lent the CD out to a friend and never got it back. I'm in the process of contacting the church to get another CD, recently, I found that he also wrote a book entitled, "Finding Common Ground," about the same thing. I'm reading it now. Soon I'll post what he says in the book and if I ever get the CD I'll post the mp3's on here.

A Father's Bedtime Song

I look forward to this.

Alpha Dog

This morning at work I watched Alpha Dog. If you don't know anything about it, it's based on a true story full of kids, drugs, and a kidnapping. Besides the parts that I had to fast forward through, I thought the movie was pretty good. Definitely an R for language, nudity, drugs, and violence, but it also gives a really strong message. It makes me wonder how effective the movie would have been if they had removed some of the crassness. Nudity? Language? I don't think the violence or drug use could be changed. If you've seen it what do you think? (It's funny I ask because I know no one reads my blog. HA)


The Real Story (Spoiler)

Cookie Monster Monday

People comming out of the service were greeted by the cookie monster.



A great cookie display (girls small group), and the effects of too much sugar.

The incredibly cheesy after Frontline Arlington event. It's hard to know the point at which something goes from really cheesy to, "Wow, that was great," but I think it may have been cheesy enough. If nothing else people hung out and got some cookies and milk, I forgot how much I enjoy a cold glass of milk. GOOD TIMES!

Things I Learned While on the Set of Wait Your Turn

Before I begin, I had a great time on Saturday. Good people (most I had worked with before on an FCF short), good food, and I learned a lot. Besides getting a chance to play with the new Panasonic HD camera and the Redrock M2 lens adapter I gained valuable experience, and took these things home with me.

• Make sure the crew is well prepared well in advance! Do test runs and shoot test footage so you know how it will look and so you can troubleshoot if necessary. (Though I got there at 8am we didn't start shooting till around 1:00pm. Granted it was the first day shooting and the equipment was brand new. All the more reason. Good Lesson! Worth the day.)
• Always bring blue gels for the lights. ( I don't have any... but man would it have made things easier and look better... lucky we never actually got that far.)
• Those big halogen work lights can work. (might be even better if you could raise them higher.)
• Reflectors are awesome! Very cost effective and make almost any shot out in the sun 10X better. I like the silver side, you can light faces up from a good distance.
• Craft Services is important but more important is making sure people get out on time. (This times 5 when people are volunteers.)
• Remember small stuff like bug spray and suntan lotion. (I got tore up the last part of the day.)
• Make sure no logos are showing. If cast is responsible for costumes bring extra... always bring extra.
  
• Extension cords! Have them.
  
• Digital Camera for continuity is a must.
• And last but not least let people know how important there job is and that you appreciate it.

Check out Wait Your Turn's website at http://www.waityourturnmovie.com.

Busy Weekend... Married Life

I had a busy weekend. Friday... I came home to eat dinner with Dani and then left till 12:00AM to visit with a good friend from out of town (Rob Munden). Then Saturday from 7:30am to 6:00pm I helped crew a new independent movie on it's first production day--I enjoyed that. As soon as I got back from the production Danielle and I left to meet up with the family friends and get all you can eat crabs up in MD. Sunday we just hung out with our Small Group making cookies for Monday night.... my church is having a competition. That is it in a nutshell, a small one.

Throughout the weekend there was a little tension between Danielle and I, because Danielle wanted to spend more time with me... just me. This is often the cause for tension between us... besides sex and money. It is not that I don't want to spend time with just Danielle but more that I can't let opportunities to hang out with others, I don't get to normally, pass by. I usually just pass it off as a woman thing but maybe it is reversed in other couples. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Danielle isn't crazy though, I think she has some ground to stand on, especially when I go on Man Dates (that is a story for another time), and I don't take her out. I need to set time aside well in advance to get together with just her. We've always talked about date night but... since we have so little money we usually just stay at home. That wouldn't be so bad if I turned off the TV and got off the computer, but it usually ends up being like any other night. My bad.

Sorry Danielle,

Want to go out with me on Friday?

YES NO MAYBE

Documentary: Undercover Mosque

Here is an interesting article I stumbled upon from http://adeeperlookweblog.blogspot.com:

"British Channel 4's Dispatches program has spent ten months secretly taping the goings on in British mosques.

Their reporters have found that even some Imams that have fooled the outside world into believing that they are moderates-- and are praised by British officials for their allegedly moderate positions--actually preach jihad (holy war) when they think that the kuffaar (non-believer) isn't present.

(According to Christian ethics lying is a sin; in Islamic jurisprudence and theology, the use of taqiyya against the unbelievers is regarded as a virtue and a religious duty.)"

Article:
http://adeeperlookweblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/uk-channel-4-documentary-dispatches.html

Documentary: Undercover Mosque(Almost 50 min):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2668560761490749816

Battle at Kruger

If you haven't seen this video yet... you are missing out. It is unbelievable!!! Really.

Work in August

During the month of August, since Congress is out, there is nothing to do at work. This is a double edged sword, I get paid to surf the web but the days go on and on. I'm fully caught up on all the blogs I read or at least want to read, and I've posted more items on facebook and blogger than I have in the past year. I've also been playing with this new program ,suggested by my friend David, called PortableApps. It is great! It is a collection of apps that you can run off a jump drive without installing them on a computer... very nice at work. Most everything is open source which means that it is free and better. They have a Microsoft Office like program for free. You can open all the same documents and edit them pretty much the same way. It's called Open Office.

I've also gained a lot of respect for google and firefox during these past two weeks. Google's reader is awesome! One website to collect all the blogs I visit and let me know when they're updated. It's great!

This Looks Promissing

Today my wife, Danielle, passed this website on to me. It'll be an online tool to study the Bible and share with others. Not convinced about the name they gave it, it's called You Version, but I'd like to try it--I'm a big fan of online applications. If anyone knows how I can test this out let me know.

http://www.youversion.com/

Ticklebooth.com

I'm a big fan of ticklebooth.com it is updated everyday with different videos. Some are artistic others just funny. Here is a video I found today that I probably never would have found on my own. Here's the link to ticklebooth's post about it. It is defiantly worth checking out.


http://ticklebooth.com/2007/08/ryan-vs-dorkman-part-2/

My Favorite Pictures

I'm going to try to start blogging more. They won't be long an elaborate most of the time but maybe that will make them more enjoyable. For both you and me. Finding ways to make blogging more fun I stumbled upon this cool sideshow feature from picasaweb (great program by the way). Below are some of my favorite pictures, most of them I have taken.

Uptown Prayer Meeting

These are some pictures from the prayer meeting Danielle and I attended for McLean Bible's new campus at Uptown. It was great to be with other people praying for Uptown, they need all the prayer they can get. God help them and make Your name great!