Time to Unpack

What a journey it’s been… and in more ways than one. For the past few weeks, I’ve been bouncing around like a pinball between airports & MTR stations throughout Southeast Asia, getting to experience things & meet people I never would have dreamed of. There’s so much to unpack, and I don’t just mean my smelly socks & the souvenirs I bought for my nieces & nephews. Between spending a week in Thailand with some new missionary heroes of mine and meeting with church leaders (both visual worshipers & pastors) in Hong Kong, we’ve packed in a lot. I’m still processing it all…wondering what just happened…and thinking about what’s next.

I’ve been pretty quiet on the blog-front while I’ve been away, and for many reasons. Mainly, I knew that I needed to be 100% present with all that was going on. And what free time I had needed to be spent sleeping, hearing people’s stories, eating crazy spicy food, and getting $6 massages. :) It was also a great opportunity for me to relax and be removed from everything back home. But in the next few weeks, I hope to unpack some of these stories and share with you what God is up to in the Asian Church! It’s bigger than any of us could imagine…so get ready!

Once in a while, I’d check in and see what’s going on back home, and it seems that a lot of exciting stuff has been taking place! From iPads to LOST to Sabre buying out Dunder Mifflin, I’m coming home to a very different place. (ok, so the iPad isn’t that exciting…but whatever.) But even more exciting are the advancements & developments in the visual media community. Here’s a few that stuck out to me:

First, my friend Brad Zimmerman of CMDtv has been hard at work releasing his newly designed site. From the looks of it, the new experience at ChurchMediaDesign promises to be a refreshing oasis of training, inspiration, community, and free resources for those of us in the church media revolution. I love the new layout & design; if you haven’t experienced CMDtv yet, go do it now!

Second, Echo Conference has released their new site & has officially started promoting their 2010 conference. Last year was my first time at echo, and I was truly impressed by what Scott, Kami, Trent & the RT Creative staff pulled off. I’m humbled to be invited back to join this creative community. I’ll be teaching with Camron Ware again, and our focus will be on the “service programming” aspect of visual worship…the preparation & curation process of VJ-ing & Environmental Projection. I hope to see you there!

Last and definitely not least… the exciting news many of us have been waiting for. Just recently, Renewed Vision tweeted:

“Coming this week: The official ProPresenter 4 release… Oh, and there is “one more thing”. Stay tuned.”

FINALLY!!! It’s here!

I’ve been testing the beta in live settings for the past month or so, and with each update it has gotten more stable & exciting to use. I’m confident the gold master release will not disappoint. In fact, I just used Pro4 throughout the entire conference in Thailand, and it never crashed once! (fun fact: I bought my upgrade while in sitting outside a coffee-shop in Chiang Mai with elephants walking by & street vendors & all. Great memory.)

Brad Zimmerman gave a very thorough review of ProPresenter 4 on his new site; I highly suggest checking it out. Also, I’ll be hosting a Pro4 workshop at the Apple Store in Green Hills (Nashville) on March 3rd, and there’s a Germantown (Memphis) Store workshop in the works, as well.

I’m grateful for the guys at Renewed Vision and for their dedication to the vision they have for media & worship in the Church. They have once again brought relevant, cutting-edge technology and packaged it in an easy-to-use, affordable solution for us Mac users. I wonder what that “one more thing” is…hmmm…. any guesses out there? Whatever it is, they deserve our thanks and some much needed R&R.

Speaking of R&R, I’m gonna need some after being cooped up in a plane for 20+ hours. Flying around dodging islands with imploding hatches & frozen ancient wheels is nothing to take lightly. But nothing a little Mexican food can’t take of though in the end. :)

As amazing as Asia was, it will be good to get back home. And like I said before, I will try my best to unpack as many experiences, stories & opportunities as possible. Maybe some of it will end up on this blog, but the heart of it can only be shared in person! So if you’re up for it, let me know…but be careful, the journey may end up leading you to Asia!