Is it important to serve up the truth in a way that attracts rather than repels?

Well here’s a lightning rod topic: when does good media production and creative programming cross the line and become entertainment?   I was out sick from my own church this weekend and saw this video online from the service.   It’s getting a lot of views on Youtube.    I probably err on the side of freedom in worship so I think that a moment like this can be a great teaching tool.   I know this view is not universally held in the body though.  

I saw a pastor demonstrate real leadership today in a design meeting.   Reverend Dan Brown is the pastor of Trinity On The Hill United Methodist Church in Augusta.   

Today was the architectural kick off meeting for a campus renovation that’s expected to takes years to complete and will encompass many aspects of church life.  

The building team has prioritized several parts of the project but has placed sanctuary renovations and improvement of their broadcast program at the top of their list.    As a part of the sanctuary renovations their old pipe organ will be retired in favor of a hybrid pipe/digital organ.   Many churches who opt for this route plan on including a number of “dummy pipes” on the chancel to satiate the older members of the church who have an affinity to the traditional.    I watched this pastor come down firmly on the side of good stewardship today and say that he did not believe they should be spending money on things that have no function and are only for show.    It was impressive and inspiring.  

This is an exciting project that we are just getting started on and I look forward to helping this church extend its reach into the local community.  They broadcast live every week with several replays of the service along with a studio-produced program too.

I had an interesting Facebook message last night from a client who said he was missing us and that he had gotten used to having us around.   Sites related to projects that last a long time and are complex can become interesting places to try and leave.   You want to do a good job and you want the client to be happy but eventually he has to sink or swim on his own.   Through the years I have seen both extremes of this phenomenon.    I have seen clients trying to kick us out too fast and clients that wouldn’t let us go.   I once was involved in a state government project where the client literally chose to operate out of a closet we had set up with a temporary installation of their old gear rather than move into the new, spacious and scary facility we had spent a year building them.    I ultimately had to go on site to push them into the space and to extract our people away from their fear and lack of accountability.   

Now the client who wrote that note last night was not at remotely the extreme end of the spectrum as the state government folks I refer to.   I am thinking that we have to find a way to help our clients with their new technology adoption cycle and its inevitable pitfalls and traps.   Its not that we aren’t helping at all.  In fact I would argue we do better than most, and often to our own financial detriment.   Eventually though we have to go home.   

I wonder if there is a sufficient need out there to justify some level of post installation support, troubleshooting and documentation maintenance.   I wonder if we could provide it without making it a financial hole we have to dig out of.

Standing in the ruin that was the East New Orleans sanctuary of the Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church was a totally surreal experience for me yesterday.   Here in this room where Bishop Paul Morton once sang “Let It Rain” I was moved nearly to tears at the thought of God’s house under all that water with only the steeple showing above the flood plain.   Yet I was reminded of Gideon and his faithfulness and God’s capacity to rebuild anything if his followers are willing to be used for his purposes and glory.

So we set out now to help them rebuild.   I was joined by Elder Raymond Steib, Jr. who was last in this room on the morning Ray Nagin called for a city-wide evacuation.   

I am humbled and blessed to do the work I do.   

Here’s the room BEFORE Katrina.   invest seven minutes of your life on this.

Here’s the room today after a lot of clean up from the flood.

I look forward with great anticipation to the day when our photo gallery includes pictures of worship breakin’ out all over this room again.   I sat with Bishop Morton’s wife yesterday and heard her vision for this place - a place where once again people will come to know Jesus and walk more fully with him, a place where God’s Holy Spirit will be free to move about and touch souls, a place of healing and deliverance and a place of restoration.   May it be so.

After spending the day in N’Orlans on a site survey with a client, that is all I have to say.   

Not really.  When Steve the no-selling-waste-of-space sends me the pictures we took, I’ll have plenty to say about how it felt to stand in midst of the destruction that Katrina wrought on Greater Saint Stephen Full Gospel Batist Church.  

For now I will remember sitting in the quarter at Cafe Du Monde having chickory and begniets by 9 AM while listening to the trumpet man on the street outside.  

God is in that stuff man.

OK.  I don’t feel guilty any more about having fun this morning at the office.   I left at 6:15 and went pretty much straight to rehearsal with the band at church.  I got home at 10:30.   I started working on a project schedule and budget at 10:45.   Finished that and wrote a few more emails.   Answered questions for another project.  Delegated some tasks out.  

Now it’s 1:45AM.  At 4:00 the alarm goes off so I can get on the stupid bike and ride for a half hour.   At 5:00 I better be in the shower because at 5:30 I have to be on the road if I am going to be on a plance that pushes back at 7:30 bound for N’Orleans.    I’ll get home tomorrow night at about 10:30 and have to be in my partner’s office at 9:30 Friday for a quarterly review.  

So no guilt after all.   I will sleep like a baby tonight…for a whole two hours.

Just wondering today about the rub between a culture of fun in the office and the need to actually get work out the door.   We’re shooting webisodes and generally having a good time.   And the webisodes are for our website so that’s work right?   But then I wonder about the importance in a professional services firm, of throughput.   We don’t get paid to shoot webisodes.   

Then again tomorrow morning I’l leave the house no later than 5:30 to make a 7:30 flight to New Orleans and land back in Atlanta at 11:00 PM.   So that’s a pretty long day of nothing but work.  

Who knows?

Holy cow.  Here’s Brian Kincheloe in another life.  I needn’t say more.

Here in our office today we have a pretty full house.   Phil Davis has moved from the Norcross corporate offices to join us.   He keeps everything moving on our projects: the money, the people, the data.    I gave him the last window office.   

Brian Kincheloe is also here working on some redlines.   In a bit the whole tech ops team will be here for a meeting.   We’ll have to get a picture of them.   

Obviously Chandler was here over the weekend because he came in a totally screwed up my National Geographic magazines.   As this photo will evidence, I will not be foiled by a Prada wearing, poodle walking, Channel 8 watching shrimp.