JK wedding entrance dance

On occasion, I will post videos I find that are cool, fun, interesting, etc. I found this one last week but forgot about it until I saw it featured on HLN this week. I thought it was a unique and fun way to start your wedding but the more I thought about it, I realized you have to have some good friends to be willing to do this!

This weekend at Crossroads

This was a really cool weekend with fabulous worship and great teaching! It was also a weekend with some sadness and joy.

One of my long time video directors is stepping down and this was his last time on the team for us. He did a great job, even though he only had one camera operator who was on for the whole weekend! Each of the other 3 services had 4 different camera ops who filled in due to some last minute scheduling conflicts.

On the joyful side though, I had 2 new volunteers who sat in the control room observing and will be on the schedule for August and 1 other new volunteer who told me to put her on the schedule for August as well! It looks like I will be slipping back into the director's chair for a weekend or 2 while I work on training some new video directors. I'm looking forward to the exciting things the Lord has in store for our ministry as we move into fall!

Our senior pastor will begin a new series this coming weekend and our youth pastor filled in as the teaching pastor for us these last 2 weekends. Jesse did a great job! I think he secretly likes the added responsibility but don't tell him I said that. Lori Biddle, our Director of Magnification was gone this weekend as well. She attended a conference with her daughter in Minnesota and left us to fend on our own this weekend.

Here is our set list for this weekend:
1. How Great Thou Art (arrangement by Paul Baloche)
2. Glorified (New Life)
3. Rescue
4. Today
5. Special - "Waiting On the World To Change" (John Mayer)

At the end of the message, Jesse interviewed a young lady from our congregation, Alex Kuenzli. Alex has started a ministry called Soccer Kicks 4 Kids. She helps provide soccer equipment to youth leaders in Kenya, East Africa through the Global Youth Ministry Network. One of the amazing things is that Alex is only a 7th grader! Check out her blog for more information.

To be able to offer a worship service to the unchurched people of Richland County is a great privilege. In addition, to be able to work with a group of staff and volunteers that can fill in for each other is a blessing! Milo Sgambellone is one of our worship leaders. He is a bass and electric guitar player with an amazing ability. This weekend he had to fill in on drums as well! And to top it off, he plays piano too! Here is one of his original songs he composed and performed several years ago...

Many Miles from Steve Browning on Vimeo.

I Need a Couple of Lifetimes

Today I was talking with a friend of mine. He had brought in a video that he had edited for me and we were talking about some of the programs we use. I asked how proficient he was in PhotoShop and AfterEffects. He made the comment that he just doesn't have the time to become as proficient in them as he would like. He said, "I need a couple of lifetimes to be able to learn all the cool programs out there!"

I understand. I am pretty good with Final Cut Pro since I edit some kind of video every single week and have done some pretty in depth projects. However, I only know PhotoShop well enough to make the graphics for our preservice and announcement slides, message slides and some occasional files I need for a video.

For instance, this week I've been working on a new graphic for a new message series called Old Testament Southern Style. I wanted the graphic to be one color on top and a different color on the bottom, sort of like the cover on the Charlie Daniels Band album cover. I couldn't figure out how to do this in PhotoShop. I'm sure it's probably pretty easy, but I just wasn't sure and after 15 minutes of trying to figure it out, I gave up and went back to Final Cut. I created 2 files (one of each color) in PhotoShop and saved them as .png files with a transparent background. I then imported these into Final Cut, along with a .tif of the rest of the slide. I put all 3 files on the timeline, then cropped the top layer so only half of the color was showing. This allowed half of the other slide to be visible so the top half was one color and the bottom half was another.

Then, I exported it as a .tif file and I had the graphic I needed!


However, Pastor Tim ended up choosing a different design...

Birth of a Nation

The Birth of our nation is being celebrated tomorrow on July, 4. The year of the beginning of our nation is 1776...MDCCLXXVI is the number shown on the bottom of the pyramid on the dollar bill and on the tablet being held by the Statue of Liberty.

I can still remember celebrating our bicentennial in 1976. I was still in high school on summer break and was staying with my Uncle Dave and Aunt Patty in Lexington, Ohio. We lived in Michigan at the time so it was pretty cool to be able to come down and spend my summer with family. It seems like things have changed so much since then...I have a lot of fond memories of that summer. They say when you get older, you become nostalgic for your youth. Its true.

That summer was hot. But enjoyable hot. The Declaration of Independence was signed the temperature reached only 76 degrees. Down from the normal high of 85. Very much like the temperature here in Mansfield this weekend.

I hope everyone who reads this will take a few minutes to look up some facts about July 4, 1776. One of the most important dates in history.