Co-Creation, Pt. 1

There is something powerful when people come together to create. You see, when it comes to playing videos, I’m pretty much by myself, choosing the videos I want and doing it my way. Sure, there’s community with the band, leader and production guys, and a hope for some sense of “community” with the people in the pews…but let’s face it, when I sit down at my laptop, it’s pretty much whatever I decide. And very quickly, it can become all about me and my own artistic preferences.

In Thailand, I ran smack dab into a wall of frustration, tension and confusion over what needed to happen visually. Nate & I experience this tension frequently in our projects, and we’ve learned over the years to embrace and wield this tension to our benefit. Add the fact that Camron and I teach together a lot but rarely VJ together. Now put all three of us in a room together; it was the making of something very interesting.

Both of those guys rank at the top of my list of creative people I know. But working together in a close environment brought out some crazy things. I realized very quickly that we have different creative/artistic preferences. We each gravitate to different types of images & styles of VJ-ing; there were even moments when I thought, “I would never use that picture!” But as we focused on communication and our friendship, we all learned to die to our preferences and serve a greater cause.

You see, it’s all about relationships! This applies to all of us. I don’t care how big or little your budget is, how cool that video effect is, how many projectors and screens you have, or what version of ProPresenter you’re running…if you don’t have love, game over. It’s probably the single most important & foundational element for an effective ministry. I cannot stress this enough!

What happened in Thailand was probably one of the most creative worship experiences I have ever had. It involved all of us working together…as a team…loving each other and encouraging each other along the way. I failed many times at this during the process, but God trumped all that in the end and decided to accept our offering and do something great with it.

The conference went from a Wednesday thru Tuesday. For ELIC, Sabbath rest was ushered in Saturday night and ended Tuesday night with a sending out. They wanted each of these nights to be set apart…very unique and special. So Saturday & Tuesday nights were our two main opportunities to bring all we had. We still VJ’d the rest of the time, but it was much more simplified & stripped down.

Both nights incorporated Nate painting live during a segment of the worship while Camron and I took turns VJ-ing & running lyrics. As we dreamed together, we stumbled onto a few simple and innovative things that none of us had tried before. But what sent this experience over the edge was the participation of everyone else in the room…all contributing and leading the rest of us through their own acts of visual worship. It was “co-creation” like I had never seen before.

To be continued…

“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:35 (NIV)