Two Full Time Jobs

Wow! We're in the last week of our 40 Days focus imagine. What a challenging, exhausting, wonderful journey this has been. It has been my privilege to have lead the media aspects of this. I have had such intense video work in the last 5 weeks than I have ever had...more than I thought I could possibly handle at some points. In recent weeks, it has felt like I've had two full-time jobs...probably because I pretty much have.

Going into this, I wasn't on a particular "imagine team" but got a call one evening to attend an organizational meeting. Suddenly, I was thrust into an overwhelming number of projects. We wanted a blog-style website to post the prayer journal and let people receive emails and post their thoughts. I needed to film a series of interviews of people describing their vision of our imagine statement to show for a series of four "parties". I needed to film an interview with the pastor emeritus of Parkway Place about their journey to West LR. Then, the faith interviews began. Initially shared through their "cardboard testimonies", the details of these journeys are being shared over the weeks through a more detailed interview.

Above all, these stories have been the biggest source of growth for me. Only myself and Carolyn (the person helping me interview) hear the full story. The congregation gets the edited version. My heart is touched by every testimony I've heard and I look forward to filming more in the weeks ahead. As I prayed for a willing heart during all this, I believe this is what God used to give that to me. While I have experienced my own difficult situation(s), to hear stories that affirm what I know to be true about stepping out in faith gives me courage to do so.

Then my pastor handed me another project. He showed me a music video put to the song "God of this City" by Chris Tomlin. Initially, he just wanted to insert pictures of our people in a few places. But that didn't sit well with me (maybe that was God) and I told him I would recreate the video entirely. What was I thinking??! I'm not sure the task was quite as big as creating "Peace Be Still" because there was no filming involved, but it was no less challenging and ambitious. Any time I do this, I want to create a project that has impact...not just a temporary emotional thing, but a lasting impression that challenges, directs, or calls a person toward Christ. The response was unbelievable. (I actually had two versions: one created for live singing by the choir and one to the actual track.) Never have I received such affirmation or heard stories of the impression it made. I was completely humbled by the thankfulness of the people who saw it. Clearly God was in this project, as I needed him to be it was made. It was tough! I took 3 days off last week to get it done and at one point, I just had to walk away for a while and tell God he had to finish it because I was stuck. I'm glad he did!

So here it is. I hope you are touched by the message God has given me through this project and given Parkway Place, as we become an irresistible church that is fully resourced and eternally focused.