Prepare to be inspired

Carlos Lascano somehow managed to compress Steph and I's story into a two minute video!

...Or at least this is how I would romanticize it if I had put this together. Seriously, though, this is worth watching a couple of times. I'm proud to be able to work in the same field as guys like this:


A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.


...And it was done mostly with cardboard, paper, and wires. You can read here about how he put it together. Enjoy!

Si vous ple?, Part Two!

Okay, so last time I was digging through 2 Samuael 7  because it really spoke to what I was feeling after spending the evening at The Rendezvous, another college ministry that meets in town. I was thinking about it all and decided to blog it.

As a leader, I'm learning that my favorite people to work with are the ones who I don't have to chase after to get their job done. I would much rather redirect a person by giving minor course correction (or even pick them back up if they failed while trying) than to motivate someone who didn't have initiative in the first place, and I'm pretty sure that's one of those traits that God really liked about David.

Moral of the story: it's better to get out there and do the good you know to do than to wait on writing from the sky.

Si vous ple?, part one

Field trip! 

Tonight about 15 of us from Elevate piled into our cars and went to visit the folks over at The Rendezvous. They are a college ministry that meets at Trinity Church in Miami, and let me tell you, they are knocking that ministry out of the park over there.  Think 7|22 meets calle ocho.

What really got me fired up was the conversations I was able to have with the guys in leadership there.

If you were leading a group that in less than a year went from 40 to over 900, you might be tempted to put on some airs about you, and in some circles, that might be expected. What thrilled me was meeting a crew of people who were passionately committed to following God into what was, and in many ways still is, unfamiliar territory, while being totally aware of Who was really behind it all. I came away from our conversation inspired to run even harder after the potential that our own gathering has.

It got me to thinking of a passage I read this morning from 2 Samuel on the YouVersion app I downloaded to my iPhone yesterday (which will probably be its own post in the near future. Here's the synopsis: go and download YouVersion now).

It's the seventh chapter, and since I'll probably misquote it if I try to recite it from memory (don't look at me like that; you don't have it memorized either), you can read it here so that we're on the same page.

One of the things I love about David (besides him being a musician) is that he had initiative. He went after Goliath without waiting for word from a prophet, and he has that same gumption (I'm not from the South; can I  use that word?) later in his life when the time comes to build a temple. 

Granted, God stops him before he builds it, but what gets me is that God doesn't get mad at him for it. God doesn't put a wall in front of him, he redirects him. 

Interesting thought, huh?

I'll finish this one later...until next time...

Back in the Day...

In light of our upcoming film festival, I thought it might be nice to show you guys the kinds of videos I used to help make back in high school. 

Comments welcome :)


HT: Eric "DJ Otaku" Mesa

F3 is coming

July 25 & 26 @ Flamingo Road Church

Thought Avalanche

I am sitting in my room trying to wrap my brain around the events that have transpired over the last week, but it's not really working.

Let me try again.

Did I really see almost 50 people experience a college ministry Monday night that not even a year ago was made up of 12 people in my backyard?

And Thursday? The night where Steph and I got to go have dinner with Matt & Jenn and talk over what our wedding ceremony is going to be like? That was fun in all kinds of ways, because it's no longer just me or just her, but it's starting to become an us. 

And then of course Friday night just blew my mind right out of the water....if you weren't there,  just know that it was a ceremony (service? Send-off? Roast? I still don't know quite what to call it. Any ideas, Brian?) that I will remember fondly for the rest of my life. The long and the short of it is, that I know some world class people.

Which is why I'm okay with writing a post that on the front end may look like a laundry list of how much better my week was than yours.

Collaboration. Around FRC, it's the notion that who you do life with matters. The quality of the people you spend your time around (or who allow you to spend your time around them on less endearing days) affects the quality of your life.

And thus, this week.

I get to lead a college ministry along with a crew of passionate and sharp people who practically run the thing like they were getting paid to do it, and so together we get to experience more relational success than we've ever had and the launch of a multi-campus college ministry.

The day Steph and I get married is going to be that much more special because the guy who's officiating it has been my friend for years.

And then Friday night was pretty much a culmination of all the things I love about the people I get to do life with. Steph and I are launching into married life knowing that we are surrounded by the best community of people we could ever have asked for...

So, yeah, this post can pretty much be summarized like this: the right people can make all the difference in a life.

VEGAS!!

Okay I'm not gonna lie to you...(LOL), the only reason I'm blogging is because Miggie brought a wireless card and Phil is taking a shower before we head off to the convention for day two (for the seven of us that arrived yesterday) of the awesomeness.

I don't have time to give the full rundown, so bullet points will have to do:

*The convention is still too big to take in even though we have four days here.

*We met The Real Nick Jones, along with Mark Dawson and Warren Hough from Lifechurch.tv...what a great group of guys!

*The Monte Carlos is about 60 1/2 times better than the Stratosphere was last time I was here

...Uh oh, it's time for breakfast...catch you later!

*is awesomeness even a word? I dunno...I'm using it anyway

Sam

Thursdays for me are always cool days in that I get to experience the novelty of actually putting my degree to work.

Most days are spent in media producer land, but on Thursdays I give saxophone lessons in the afternoon, and today I was reminded once again of why I love teaching.

Sam hit her first G above high F#, which officially puts her two notes into the altissimo range on her horn. On its own it's impressive, but in the context of the last six months of working towards something she's never done and seeing what seemed like little to no results for months on end, it's huge. And she's not even in high school.

Anyway, I mention it only to draw attention to the point of it all: persistence matters.

What do these men have in common?

Well, besides the fact that they are a bunch of goofballs, they are also going to be simplifying their lives by selling a bunch of their possessions at the World's Largest Garage Sale this Saturday from 8 AM to 11 AM at all of our campuses!
It's all for a good cause, so if you're looking for some items from the Tinoco, Lashley, or Papichulo collections (also known as the "Ian gives himself funny nicknames" collection), they will be available for sale for a limited time only (three hours).

Be the first to own a Book Read By Mo! Prepare to exhuberantly rejoice at the thought of owning an actual Paperweight Phil Used Just Last Month! Be thrilled at the prospect of bartering for that shirt Ian Wore Once And Promptly Forgot About Until Last Week When He Found It In The Back Of His Closet!

Seriously, though, all the proceeds from the sale are going to the American Cancer Society, so if you're anywhere in South Florida or in Lima, Peru or near any of our other locations, be sure to check it out!
C'mon! Make your Saturday count for something huge!
We'll see you then!

Get LOST!

Soo....last night I took in my very first episode of Lost, which also happened to be the premier of season four. Better late than never, I guess.
Carlos & Michelle Garcia threw a Lost party, complete with Dharma soda, Dharma pizza, and yes, even Dharma Peanut Butter. Throw in an hour of Rock Band on X-Box and you've got yourself the place to be.

*Mad props and shout outs to Carlos, Michelle, Cristian, Gerson, Bert, Ian, Miggee, Olie, Pam, Kyle, & Rebecca!

The Anniversary Post

Here's to the woman who makes my life sing. I love you, amor!

The Equation

Multiply this by n, and let n be equal to every other week when we forget to close the bathroom door upstairs, and the result is that our local dry cleaner knows us by name.

A quick mini-update

Guess where I was last week!

Guess who turns 23 today?

...I am surely one of the all time most blessed men of all time

El Processo Returns!

Here is another edition of before and after pictures of last Wednesday's shoots and the weekend results. Enjoy!

The Before (sans volunteers and Troy...we forgot to take pictures as we were filming):

The After:



Let me just say that Ian Achong is an editing maniac who can color correct like no other.

Props!

Snapshots

Let it be said that my small group flippin' rocks.

I thought I would just jot down some thoughts and let the pictures tell the rest.

Every week about 12 of us get together and share meals, jokes, stories and the like before we split into two co-ed groups to do the deep discussions.


We started with chips and soda, but then things started escalating when the girls got competitive and started cooking things. Not to be outdone by a stereotype, the men called in reinforcements with chicken parm and homemade cookies. You asked for it, ladies.

We usually end up going longer than the prescribed hour that you'd expect a small group to.

If there's an iPhone around, we all huddle around a screen and laugh at YouTube videos.

Sometimes the discussions go well into the night.

Nearly every week someone says something that is so funny, our sides ache for a good half hour after the event.


Matt is a very focused guy when it's his turn at Taboo.

Taboo is probably the funniest game that I have ever played.

The girls are sore winners.

Many of us come from completely opposite backgrounds, but somehow it all fits together. I'm going to put the blame solely on God for that one.

If you're not in a small group, what the heck are you waiting for?

Epilogue

This is me and two of our volunteers from our Sawgrass campus on Sunday after tear down...if I look almost comatose, that's because I am.

I had the sweet privilege of leading worship at our amazing Sawgrass campus on Sunday. If was a blast, but I had to get there super-early. After this (and staying up all night Saturday night to edit the HD feed) I went home and crashed for about 6 hours, which, by the way, was the second best thing to happen to me all day (mad props to the Reverend Gramling for the inspiration!)


This is why you haven't heard from me since Friday night.
We are now back to our regularly scheduled semi-consistent posts.

It is finished!

I just finished the latest weekend video. It's a promo spot for next week's topic, insecurity.

I don't think it'll hurt if I honestly tell you that this one was a pain in the rear to kick out, mainly because of the headache that came from trying to find interviewees who would be both willing and authentic about a topic almost no one wants to talk about on camera.

This is ministry, though, where lack of resources is the mother of innovation, so after some major revisions to the original plan, and by the grace of God, we've got a video, and I am happy. Tired, but happy.

Actually, I'm tired, happy, and very very grateful to my roomate, Aaron, for being willing to take both the crew and soon the rest of Flamingo into a very painful period in his life. It's rare in my experience to find someone who's gifted enough to tell their story in a compelling way with that level of honesty in such short notice.

W00t w00t

Quite the day today.
We had ourselves a kickin' beach baptism, the details of which can be found here and here. I'm sure there will be some sort of recap to follow, although I may have to take some aspirin while I'm editing; we had some very active waves, so there's probably going to be quite a bit of movement (Hooray for the smooth cam filter!).

About halfway through then event I whacked myself in the head with my camera when a big wave caught me unawares, which the rest of the team thought was just hilarious (Ha! Mo gave himself a concussion! Brilliant!). Don't worry, though, he camera's fine. If Evan managed to tape it by accident, I'll post it so you too can laugh at my misfortune.

While I'm on the subject, I'd definitely like to give a shout out to the wild n' kooky crew that make up the FRC video team. We're more volunteers than paid people now, (which means we actually have to be nice to them sometimes- ha, just kidding Stacie and Evan) which is really encouraging considering that a mere six months ago there was Brian and myself (with our friends Ian and Carolina occasionally helping us out). Now there are enough of us so we can actually play a pickup game of basketball if we wanted to and school the worship pastors on the court (watch out, Pastor Ricky!)

Anywho, all that to say that I was very proud to be a part of the team I'm in today; life's just more fun when the right people are in it, and I'm working alongside the best! (even when they laugh and call me a whiner when I almost knock myself unconscious at the beach.)

Okay, who else can I give a shout out to while I'm here? Oh, yes....






Arturo De La Mora is a genius!



A genius with an antennae hat that reminds me of something....








....what could it be....



....ah, yes....

Thoughts on becoming

“Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when your eye is bad, your whole body is filled with darkness. And if the light you think you have is actually darkness, how deep that darkness is!"
Matthew 6:22-23

"Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned."
Matthew 12:33-37

I heard a quote once, and I can't remember where from. It goes like this:

"Right now you are becoming the person you are going to be for the rest of your life,"

or, put another way,

"Who I am is the result of the choices I have made."

I gave a talk on that in Elevate a few weeks ago and it tonight a conversation I had brought the thought to the fore in a big way. (Elevate is the name of the college ministry I help with at FRC. Sorry, no web page...yet, muahahaha)
Sometimes that's a really cool quote to keep in mind, especially when I'm on the verge of doing or saying something stupid (which, as my fiance can attest to, can happen quite frequently). It helps me to keep an awareness of this strong truth, that what I do and say matters, that my habits and routines form who I will be, and that the things I say and do now are either taking closer to the person God is forming in me, or farther away from it (Thanks toPastor Matt Miller for keeping that phrase in our collective sights each Tuesday night). A very cool quote indeed.


Tonight, though, it scared me.
Sometimes it's too easy to oversimplify and - especially - to judge when you're watching someone close to you make life-destroying decisions, but I believe that, handled rightly, can lend a certain amount of clarity about the kind of person you're dealing with.

The quote scares me, because I'm witnessing the end result of what happens when an individual makes the same kinds of choices over and over again, until the choices start to make them.
It's a wonderful principle when you've trained yourself in habits like discipline, selflessness, and concern for others.
It's horrifying when you witness the kind of Spiritual blindness that leads to the destruction of a marriage and suffering in the life of another, especially when it's justified by reasons like "he isn't romantic enough for me."
And he hasn't eaten for a week and barely sleeps and when he does it's because he's exhausted from crying.

The quote scares me, because this person has become who she is as a result of those choices. You can only justify darkness when you've been living in it so long that you've forgotten what light looks like.

The quote scares me, and those verses scare me, because this is my story.
Not the specific event, maybe not that bad (as far as surface-level things go, anyway), but the reality is that both her and I are broken, and all of us are capable of both great and terrible things. Not one of us is exempt from the need for the power of Christ to renew us on the inside.
I am just as capable of drifting far enough away so that up becomes down. All it takes is small steps away from the cross, short trips in the dark that become vacations from what I once knew to be right, so much wandering around in darkness that I forget what the light ever felt like.

Hearts can become calloused. Our choices matter.
And that's scary stuff.