JTA uPdate - 7/5/08

Good Morning Team.

Technically speaking that is a correct statement. It's almost 1am and I'm sure most of you are sleeping. I've posted some photos from Romania here.

I found out that you can watch a live stream of what is happening from this link: http://www.hope-tm.ro/. The time zone difference my prove to be challenging, but it is cool that it is available.

This link is to the BGEA site. The guy that is featured in this clip is good friends with our translator Illan. http://www.bgea.com/News_Article.asp?ArticleID=326

Have a great weekend.

JTA uPdate - Christmas Party

Hey Team

Our tech team Christmas Party is just around the corner. We'll meet at the Hard Rock downtown at 7:00pm. Parking is a pain downtown, so plan accordingly.

Also, I would like to join the band and vocalist in collecting new toys to give to Toys for Tots. Please bring an unwrapped toy to dinner or to the church next weekend and we'll put them together with the the rest of the Worship team to do something really cool.

If anyone has any questions, please let me know. If you plan to come and haven't RSVP'd, please let me know. We want to make sure we have enough space set aside.

Here is a link to the Hard Rock Site. You can get directions from their if you need them.

Hey

It's been a while since I blogged and I though I would jot a quick note to say hey to whomever decides to check this. Also, during a conversation tonight it came up that there may be a problem with our iMix link so I decided to try to post something here. I hope it works.

See you this weekend. For the songs of our current series Interruption check out below...

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