JTA - FFF & Thursday Update

Good evening team,

I wanted to say a quick thank you to those who helped get ready for the Family Fall Festival. Thanks too for those that are coming tomorrow to serve.

For those serving tomorrow it would be great for you to arrive between 5 and 5:30pm. The food court is set up so you should be able to get something to eat pretty easily.

Here is what I'm planning on:

TD- Jim
Director - Dan B
CG- Becky
Cam 1- Ed E
Cam 2- Dottie
Cam 3- Danny M
Audio- Ed C
Lights- True
Stage - Rob B
TD assist / float Bart, Xavier


In case the week isn't busy enough and you find yourself with some idle time here are some links to the new software we will be walking through on Thursday night:

http://www.renewedvision.com/pp.php

You can also find the manual here:

http://www.renewedvision.com/ProPresenterHelp/ProPresenterHelp.html

This is pretty easy to use. Yes, there is a bit of a learning curve, but it's pretty user intuitive. It makes sense, and it is very stable.

I hope this helps. Please bookmark these pages for further reference.

I'll talk to you soon.

Blessings....

...Jim

It's ok to make mistakes...

if you are trying. It's not okay when you're not paying attention or messing around.

This is my big thought from the yard today.

There were a couple of things that happened behind the scenes of our service this weekend. Friday night we had some issue with the circle. Those that were there know what I'm talking about and I won't go into detail about it here. In any case, we had a brief discussion that if we couldn't get the circle right we shouldn't do it. I commented back that we were doing the circle.

Excellence is a core value for our weekend team. Most of the team that serves on the weekend is made up of volunteers. We have the best volunteers, period! We push them to try new things all the time. Yes, we want the services to go smoothly and we want things to be right, but sometimes as we are stretching and trying new things, something doesn't go as planned. Sometimes it does, and that is great. But when it doesn't, that is ok too. It is from those experiences that we learn and grow. In most cases we figure it out and learn what not to do.

Here are a couple of quotes that I came across that think speak to this:

"Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties." --Erich Fromm, German-American psychologist

"There's a way to do it better -- find it." --Thomas Edison, American inventor

"If you can't accept losing, you can't win." --Vince Lombardi, National Football League coach

"Have fun, always set goals, but never set limits." --Shannon Miller, Olympic gymnast

"We try a bunch of stuff, we see what works, and we call that our strategy." --Dennis Bakke, AES co-founder and former CEO

I miss my grass

I know what you are thinking and shame on you...

Of course, that is one of the things I love about making up blog titles. I've talked to Heather about this post a few times and she thought that I did it already. If I have, please forgive me but I didn't see it so here you go....

I miss the grass that we used to have in the backyard. It wasn't much, but there is something was something about going out to mow what little there was that opened up the floodgates of my thinking. Maybe they weren't really floodgates, but I seemed to get a fresh idea or two. Maybe it was some clarity on a current issue, or a thought from God.



Now that most of the backyard is concrete there is no need to mow. Just keeping co weeds, which is an endless job, thanks Adam, that doesn't take quite as much time as getting the mower plugged in and ready. My friends back east would give me grief when they calledntrol of the and I was mowing. For most of them, mowing is at least a 1/2 days worth of work on a riding mower. No comparison to my 15 minutes or so pushing an electric mower.

Out in the yard today, I had a thought... It's coming next...

JTA - Couple of things

I thought it might be a good idea to mirror the emails here so there was web access to current information. I'll do my best to post the team emails.

Hey Team.

I wanted to send out a quick note to let you know a couple of things.

1) I'm working on the November schedule and I need to know if you have any conflicts. Shelly, Steve and Dan I have your's for sure.

2) I'll be sending out an email to confirm what we are doing for the Family Fall Festival. We will be setting up Tuesday Night around 5:30pm. Javier, I please note the time change. I told you 5pm.

3) We'll meet Thursday night as well to prep for service. CG operatiors, It would be great if you can all plan to be there. We have made some changes and I wouild like to bring you up to speed. Becky will also have some things to point out from running it this weekend.

More to come... Please stay tuned. I'll talk to you soon.

Blessings...

...jim

Book 2 Update

I finished book 2 on the way home from Busan, in case anyone was wondering....

Free Time & Seafood

We were able to get some free time today and one of the guys arranged transportation to a shopping area. It was like shopping in downtown La Mesa but the streets were a lot narrower and went on forever and there were tons of alleys just chalked full of stores and street vendors.
They had all the name brands, anything you could ever want. I went to the market just to see what it was like. I really wasn't looking for anything specific except for something with Hello Kitty on it, per Heather's instruction. The 5 of us split up and agreed to meet back at Krispy Kreme at noon. When we arrived the light was on, hot fresh donuts. We passed and started to look around.

We walked and walked and walked some more. Found a Starbucks and grabbed something to drink. It was pretty similar to what we would expect to find Stateside. We ran into some of the band and they asked if we had checked out the fish market. We said "no" and they suggested that we do that if we had time. We had a few minutes left so we checked it out. It was an experience. I made a page of the photos I took there but I couldn't resist putting these 2 up here.

Doesn't this make you hungry. I love seafood but this takes it to a whole new level. We have no idea what the worm looking things are but we hear they are a very popular sushi. Speaking of Sushi, we are near the capital of the Sushi world and the Sushi the guys had was really good. Not nearly as cheap as it was in Ecuador, but it was good. The good news is most of it was alive and nearly fresh, I'm just looking for a range, hot plate or something to cook it on.

Book two

I came up with 3 reasons why I picked this book to read:

1) I was drawn to it. I can't really explain, maybe it has to do with items 2 and 3.
2) The irony. Need I say more
3) The sub title - don't we all want to be a part of that?

I've received a few interesting looks from my colleagues here at the festival. Most of them are intrigued too. I think one of them is going to pick it up when he gets home.

It's cold here

The temperature has dropped another 15 - 20 degrees since yesterday. The wind is not blowing as much but it is so cold I ran up to check the lines for the band because they decided not to come to and do a sound check today. I was on stage for maybe 15 minutes and my nose is running because it is so cold. I checked the weather before I came over and it said the lows would be in the 50's. Well our high for today was 54. I'm grateful for the layers.

One last thought...

I was thinking as I was getting to the end of this book that some of the changes in my thinking have been encouraged by Erwin McManus, Rob Bell, Donald Miller and Scot McKnight just to name a few. Maybe it's that some of the things they say aren't really mainstream. They are fresh and different.

So near the end of the book Erwin discusses the statement that "God wants to keep you safe." Looking at some of the examples that are used in the book I would have to say that may not always be the case. There are tons of examples, and maybe we can discuss this sometime, of just the opposite.

This paragraph bothered me:

"It may seem counterintuitive, but the more civilized we seem to become, the more detached from the pain of others we end up finding ourselves. The most civilized churches have really no practical concern for people outside their congregations. The brokenness of a lost and unbelieving world is not enough to inspire the painful changes necessary to make the church relevant to the world in which we live."

I'm asking myself where do I fit into this? How concerned am I? How relevant? How involved?

By Committee

I've heard that word a lot this week. The way these festivals work is they are run by a local committee. It seems like this week has been one non stop clash between the local committee and BGEA. I mean no disrespect to the local committee or to the local culture. This post really has nothing to do with this local committee, but more of the timing of coming across this little snippet which I found amusing.

I'm just getting to the end of the book and Erwin is talking about groups of different animals. You'll have to read the book to understand how it fits into the book.

I'll set the stage with this:
A group of whales = a pod
A group of cattle = a herd
A group of lions = a pride
A group of fish = a school
A group of flies = a swarm

By now I think you get the point. So I found this to be most interesting. Do you know what a group of buzzards is called?

yes, a committee. A group of buzzards waiting around to feast on leftover carnage is called a committee. Erwin points out "This explains so much of what's going on in churches -- a lot of committees waiting around to live off human carnage."

Hmm.... we'll just leave that there...

We are what we read

I know this is true for me. I tend to jump into whatever my current "project" is with both feet. I tend to get pretty excited about a new thought or idea that is part of what I may be working on. I think a lot of it comes from my lack of really being able to multi-task. Sure, I can be running multiple projects or jobs at one time, but I've discovered that its not really multitasking. I'm really only working on one thing at a time. I watch my wife read a magazine while watching tv and not miss a beat. If I try to do that, I either don't remember what I read or miss something funny that just happened. Thank goodness for digital cable and the ability to rewind!

So I packed 3 books with me for this trip to South Korea with the hopes I would be able to catch up on some self learning. I've actually started in all 3, sorry Rod, I know that is a no-no, but only to see how easy they were to get into. I read a little on the plane on the way over, and that was cool. Today I decided I would really try to make a dent in one of my books. I packed "The Barbarian Way", by Erwin McManus basically because it was the thinest book I had with me. I think that Erwin has some fresh thinking on some topics and the fact that he could be viewed as controversial is good for conversation. One thing jumped off the pages to me today.

pg 45 "God would never choose for us safety at the cost of significance. God created you so that your life would count, not so that you could count the days of your life".

Some other things that hit pretty close to home had to do with teaching our children. He asks the question "are you teaching your children about God or how to experience God in their life?" Makes you think, doesn't it?

So I read in between soundchecks and moved from the stage to our production office and back. There was quite a breeze today and it was much cooler. Toward the end of the afternoon just before the service started Paul came by and asked "What would you be doing if you weren't doing this? You seem to read a lot." I told him I was playing catch up on the reading and I really didn't know what I would be doing, other than something that helpes to bring change to peoples lives ...

Corn dogs and Sushi

Well we have broke our sting of having McDonalds every day for lunch while on international festivals. I thought we were sending out for some type of rice bowl. When the food showed up we had corn dogs & sushi. The dimsum we had was pretty good too. Sorry Joshua, there would have been to much bread on the corn dog for you.

And then the cat

I almost forgot about the cat that we had breakfast with. Yes, we walked into the coffee shop at the hotel for breakfast and found the hotel's cat.



Not really what I was expecting to see, but it did make for interesting conversation, especially when he jumped up and rested his front paws on the window.

Venue

I tried to take a series of picture to make a panoramic. I still need more practice, but here is what I came up with.
This was taken from the front of the stage.

Here is a view from my hotel room. I'm trying to figure out why the rooftops of some of the buildings are green. I guess they could be any color, most of the time they are white to reflect the sun and keep them cool. I see that the hotel has a putting green and some plants for decoration so it got me to thinking that maybe it is to help offset all the concrete and steel to make you think there is grass there. I'm going to try to find out why, I'll keep you posted.

Busan

My team packet had some very interesting information about Busan and the venue, The Busan Asiad Main Stadium.

* Busan was the host to the 2002 FIFA World Cup and the 14th Asian Games.
* Busan has a population of 3.65 million
* Busan is ranked internationally as the 4th largest seaport, and the largest in Korea.
*2007 is the 100 year anniversary of the Pyongyang Revival. That is considered the bench mark of the start of the Christianity in Korea.
* Busan is one of only 2 cities never to be taken by North Korean Communists during the Korean war.
* Busan is home to the largest Asian film festival, the PIFF (Pusan International Film Festival)
* Busan is home to the only United Nations Cemetary.
* The average Christian population is 23%. But in Busan, only 7 - 10% of the population is considered Christian.
* 40% of the population of Busan is Buddhist. The average Buddhist population in Korea is about 20%.

More to come...

Tight Flight(s)

I'm not a stranger to traveling but yesterday was one of those days I actually thought "I might not make it". It all started in San Diego as I started my journey to Busan, South Korea. Our American Eagle flight was 20 minutes late in boarding. It was actually late arriving but they turn the little planes around pretty quick. We boarded at 10:40am. I got on the plane and fell a sleep. I woke up as we were coming on approach into LAX. The 2 people across the isle were talking about how close their international flights were. I looked at my watch and realized it was noon and we still weren't on the ground.

I checked my ticket to confirm that I had a 1pm departure. LAX international terminal can be brutal if you have to through security and I needed to get a seat assignment. It turns out that American Eagle buses you to your terminal so we got dropped off a few gates away from where we were departing. That was cool, except for the line of people at the counter trying to get on the flight and the fact that we were now 20 minutes from departure. One of the agents taking tickets decided to help me out and she entered my passport info and generated a seat assignment and I boarded the plane. Departure time came and went and we were delayed because they were still loading luggage. For this I am grateful.

We arrived in Tokyo some time later...11 or 12 hours later. As we were getting off the plane I saw one of the other crew members who was on the same flight. We followed the signs for international connections and went through another set of security down some steps and straight onto another plane. We had an hour from the time we landed until our scheduled departure to Busan. Again we waited until all the luggage was loaded, again, I'm grateful for that, and then we departed. 2 1/2 hours later we arrived in South Korea.

I was thinking on the plane, this is the first time that I have been to Asia. I think I have now stepped foot on every continent. I think that is pretty cool, just a piece of useless trivia.

I think this feels more foreign because its nearly impossible to make any sense out of the letters. Oh well, most of the signs have English subtitles. I'll post some pictures as soon as I can get them downloaded.