Eyes Right

A friend showed me this video from a concert by Casting Crowns today. Wow.

This is a completely unique take on musical interpretation than I’ve seen previously in videos or live stage performances. Very creative, as well as moving. I love this song. I first learned of Casting Crowns several years ago, listening to Air1 Radio when we lived in Lubbock. (Here in Oklahoma, I listen to K-LOVE more than Air1 now, when I listen Christian radio.) I think the band started as a youth group praise team, and they continue to serve in that capacity as well as play concerts. Their music is definitely inspired by the Lord.

Their official website is www.castingcrowns.com. They have more YouTube videos linked from their website. I think it is great Casting Crowns has embraced the use of new media sites, like YouTube, to share their music and their gospel message with the world. Seeing this video adds a different dimension to the experience of listening to their music and allowing the message to penetrate my mind and spirit.

Technorati Tags: acting, castingcrowns, christian, christianity, concert, music, performance, theater, youtube

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This past weekend I worked to format and publish about 15 sermons from mid-April through the present from our church in Edmond, Oklahoma, as podcast recordings in a new podcast channel submitted (and now approved) by iTunes. Anyone who is interested can either download sermon podcasts as mp3 files separately, or subscribe to the sermon podcast channel in iTunes.

Many of these sermons are fantastic, and I commend them all to you. David Leard’s treatment of the often challenging verses from Ephesians 6 in his July 22nd message, “Everything in Its Place” was particularly good. (Those are very challenging verses to preach on and about.) I also really enjoyed John Gruel’s message on June 24th titled “Twelfth Man.” (Even though I’m not a big fan of Texas A&M!)

It is WONDERFUL, from a personal standpoint, to now have asynchronous access to audio recordings of these these inspired words from our pastors. This past weekend after I published these and our family was driving back from Lubbock to Edmond, my wife and I were able to listen to two of the sermons she had missed this summer because she had been taking care of children’s ministries needs and missed worship.

We are VERY blessed to have four gifted pastors at our church, and I’m thrilled their weekly messages are now available as a globally accessible podcast channel. Listening to a sermon at church (or somewhere else) is certainly just PART of the experiences and the community into which we are called as Christians to live each week, but it can be an important part– especially if it inspires us to change our thinking and our behavior in positive ways in the week that follows!

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Our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders at church this evening created our first BLASTcast podcast! Check it out, our first effort is 20 minutes long, with the first half different segments/corners by kids and the last half an “in the field” mission interview.

In the “about” section of the blog site we included a link to our BLASTcast planning guide, which is modeled after Radio WillowWeb.

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The movie short “What If God Had a MySpace” is a clever example of digital storytelling, but also raises some viable issues that are worth thinking about.

The scenes of the devil asking to be God’s friend, and having to be repeatedly denied, remind me of some of the friend requests I received on my own MySpace page before I wised up and changed my birth year to 1901. Based on my gender and age (when I was reporting my real birth year) I was getting friend requests that may not have been named “Satan” but were probably close in the thematic focus of their MySpace pages.
The scenes of people “asking for stuff” made me think about how many people view God, and how many people are missing a relationship with Him. Unfortunately I am too busy, quite often, and don’t spend the time with God that I need to and should be spending each day. Who do people think God is? That question seems to be raised by this video also.

The video also raises the issue of relevance to me– and exemplifies the need we have for more Christian voices on the web. What an amazingly exciting as well as shockingly horrible environment we live in today– in this flat world which can and does bring people together for common purposes, both good and evil.

iFilm (the site who owns the blog linked above) is quite an eye opener into the world of viral video. I first learned about iFilm a couple of summers ago, at the Digital Media Academy’s workshop on Digital Storytelling. Of course YouTube can be a bad place to explore as well– there is more there than any of us should go out and try to see and find. I have real mixed feelings about all of this. I guess in the online environment of the flat world, there are less “checks” and “boundaries” on individuals’ access to content of all types, good and bad. That is simultaneously exciting and horrifying. I wrote about some of this back in January 2005, in terms of the power of mere still images to powerfully affect the mind and the imagination.

Lots of thoughts raised here. We need more Christian voices on the web. Not because any of us have all “the answers” ourselves, but because we know where and to Whom we can and should turn for answers.

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