Caption please?

This was taken at a recent video team shoot....any caption ideas?

Post F3 Report

It was a blast. Really. 

I'm pretty sure that all of our volunteers want our jobs, which is a good thing, I think. I'll leave the details to Heredes (along with all of the finished video entries), but since you came all the way here, here's our demo reel for 2008, which we premiered at F3. Enjoy!

On the practical end, all this frantic video production meant that the office became something of a disaster area over the weekend...so we had to clean...

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.

The ugliest fish I've ever seen

This fish is so ugly, it's funny....this, I think, is proof that God has a sense of humor...

Don't say I didn't warn you...

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

What I'm doing right now....

I've discovered a new hobby that I probably should have gotten into a long time ago: Web hunting for other college ministries.

I have the privilege of working with and for people who believe with all their hearts that if you're going to invest time doing something, you may as well knock it out of the park (and when it comes to what we do each weekend, you'd better).

I am also in the fun position of being in charge of a college ministry that is larger and more successful than anything I've ever led thus far and has more possibilities than I can legibly write down in the short amount of time I'm taking to post this, so, having come to the conclusion that it's more fun to learn from other people's mistakes so that you can make your own and not theirs, I am now jumping from website to website trying to find people who know more than me so I can bother them or buy them lunch, whichever comes first (Rich Wilkerson Jr., I'm looking in your direction).

So tell me, who's mistakes are you trying to learn from?

So, Mauricio, how'd your staff meeting with the video team go the other night?

Creative breaks are fun!

Are there any other caption ideas that I should know about?

F3 is coming

July 25 & 26 @ Flamingo Road Church

Good thoughts on a Wednesday

Today has been a good day for blog roaming.

-Daniel Decker just got added to my RSS reader; he recently posted a video that is pretty much going to haunt me for the rest of the week.

-Rob Bell's new book is coming soon! October can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

-This morning I was listening to the potential podcast from a few weeks ago (I'm trying to get caught up to the most recent ones)...if any of you want to know what it means to lead at Flamingo Road Church, download the mp3 here.

Called it like it is

Today my bad blogging habits finally caught up to me.

Thank you Stacie for pointing out the error of my ways.

BBS, or more accurately, The Perfect Groomsmen Gift

A few months ago, I was walking in a store called "Things Remembered" on an intense hunt for a gift for my groomsmen. Frustration. Everything I saw was (in my opinion) either cheesy or already had a cousin sitting in my desk drawer gathering dust from previous weddings I'd been a part of (monogrammed sterling silver bookmark, anyone?).

I was worried that I would have to settle for the monogrammed lighters, or worse yet, money clips (sorry to those of you who have gifted me with those. I have all three of them safely tucked away in the bottom of my desk drawer) when I happened to come across an article over at one of my favorite blogs called "How to Shave Like Your Grandpa." If that doesn't sound cool, I don't know what does.

Anywho, long story short, I got inspired to invest in the cost of buying new Merkur Classic Safety Razors #178 (Made in Germany! Oh yeah!) for my guys and one for myself. I had never heard of giving safety razors as a gift, and I knew that none of the guys owned one, so it was a pretty safe bet to assume that that they would actually use them.

So how did it go, you ask?

Well, I took the razor to my face for its first test drive two Sundays ago and ended up wearing little squares of toilet paper on my face for most of the morning.  However, undaunted, I did some research and later invested in some higher quality shaving cream in order to prepare for the next match up.

Last night was the night, and let me tell you, it was heavenly. I'm fairly certain that I have rediscovered shaving the way God intended. I didn't know shaving could be so much fun. I really wanted to put all the hair back on my face and do it again when I was finished. BBS (Baby Butt Smooth) doesn't do the experience justice.

In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to blog about the experience and recommend safety razors to anyone as the ultimate manly groomsmen gift. 

So there you go. If anyone wants my old Gillette quattro, it will be sitting at the bottom of the medicine cabinet, hanging its head in shame.

Traditional wet shave - 1
Plastic Cartridge Razors - 0 

Yeah, buddy.