Great article forwarded to me by Brent Shock: Read and discuss

Hey all –

Here’s a link to a story I heard on NPR this morning about framing/creating video in the era of iPhones, cell phones, Myspace and YouTube. The ever smaller viewing screen is forcing directors to break the rules. Rules like framing in the center instead of the thirds, dropping long shots and using an abundance of extreme close ups.

I found it interesting and I thought you might enjoy.

Brent

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=99880324&ft=1&f=3

PS: I’m sticking to the thirds. J

Baby White Update

Steph overall has had a great pregnancy. We're coming up on week 37, so we're getting really close. The nursery is almost complete. We're doing some last minute painting and we still need to buy the drawers/changing table thing. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law have been a huge help in decorating the nursery. We do have the crib, bassinet and tons of baby things.

On the health front, Steph has developed pregnancy induced hypertension in the last few weeks, so her doctors have been closely monitoring her. In fact, yesterday she had an ultrasound to check on the growth and development of the baby, and it looks like it is growing completely normal and uneffected by the hypertension thus far. That was an immense relief, however the ultrasound did reveal that baby white is sideways instead of head down like it should be, increasing the chances of a c-section. I feel strongly that God has been protecting and healing Steph and the baby, because today Steph had another round of tests and her blood pressure was suddenly 116/80 which for the last few weeks it has been more like 140/90.

Thank You Lord!!

Steph would really like to deliver normally, but overall we are tickled that she and baby are doing well.

We appreciate any continued prayers, for a safe delivery for Steph and baby

Your Brother in Christ,
B-Dub

Growing

Hi Y’all,
I’ve got some exciting news to pass along. Our attendance each weekend continues to swell our ranks. The auditorium is abuzz with a full house each weekend, most notably at 10am and at 11:40am, but even the Saturday night has been filling up. This is a very exciting time, although busting at the seams presents us with some great challenges, especially in the parking lot, and in Children’s ministry.

Leadership has brainstormed for the past few months on ways to tackle this challenge. A number of solutions were looked at, but they have landed on one that we can experiment with fairly easily. We are adding a celebration on Saturday night at 5pm. This will begin at Easter, April 12th and will continue for the following 6 weeks, at which point, we will go back to our standard 4 celebration-weekend. Over the summer months leadership will evaluate this 6 week experiment to see if it solved our capacity issues, or if another solution should be pursued.

I pass this along to the team to seek your feedback. What do you think of it? It obviously changes things for us, especially Saturday rehearsals. We have a couple of ideas on how to approach rehearsal but one idea has emerged as the front runner:

Thursday night tech rehearsal. - The band and Front of House are already rehearsing on Thursday nights at 7pm, so this would mean bringing in the whole Tech Team: Director, Switcher, Tape Op, Powerpoint, Lights, Robo Cams, and Cameras in around 8:15 to rehearse at 8:30 or so. Rehearsal would go from 30 to 45 minutes or so.

There are a lot of logistics to discuss with this plan, so we need your feedback.

First, is it doable for you?
Second, how do you feel about it?
Third, do you have any ideas that we may have not considered?

I would love to get a response from everyone. As we want to consider how this effects everyone. Let me know what you think by next Friday 2/13, because we’ll begin discussing specific strategies how to deal with this issue.

Your Brother in Christ,

Bryan

Happy New Year!

2009 just doesn’t sound right but here it is anyway. And with the new year is the perfect time to reflect on the past year and look to 2009 with anticipation.

2008 highlights for me personally include: Stephanie finishing her Master’s degree, Family Force Five during SOS, the Awe series in August, learning about the Lord’s Prayer during Kingdom’s Cliff Notes, Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, The Regifter Show and finding out that I’m going to be a dad.

Most recently the Vineyard was staring at a shortfall of $1.2 million and possible staff cutbacks. But God provided through Year End giving which totaled $1.22 million!

I can't express the awe I've had over this year, how God is complete control. Even in the face of tragedy, God still has been speaking to me about His love for all of us, including me. In May, I received prophetic prayer from Karin Maney and other members of the prayer team at a team retreat. That prayer just blew me away and really assured me that He loves me like a son, and I'll leave it at that, but it touched my heart in such a way that I can't even talk about it:) If you ask me about it, I will likely change the subject with a joke or some otherwise glib comment:)

I'm extremely excited about the coming year. New tech team volunteers have been coming out of the woodwork, and we have been cross training folks every weekend. It is my goal to get all volunteers trained at every role except director and FOH. We will be an extremely flexible team able to adapt to any situation then.

But my main goal for 2009 is for tech team to grow closer in fellowship with the goal of each of us strengthening our relationships with Christ.

And of course, the main change for me in 2009 is becoming a father. I will go ahead ask for your prayers, in advance, and I'll pray for you all throughout 2009. Deal?:)