Author: Robert

the experiment in alternative leadership: honoring human dignity by building group capacity: “the forms of leadership we are all mocst familiar with can stifle creativity, motivation, and initiative. traditionally, any position of power is a license to talk and not listen, to tell and not ask, to demand and not serve. challenging these tendencies is a responsibility of all of us who long for a better world. ”

according to our LORD we’re supposed to be different from the world. yet, we often lead our ministries in the exact same way that the world operates. we follow business models and school ourselves in leadership via tapes, books, and seminars. there is in no difference in us.

we have to train our students in a new/old style of leadership – a leadership that isn’t leadership but is instead servanthood.

“the experiment in alternative leadership” is a missions agency that is trying to do missions with a new leadership structure. their organization is structured as follows:

• a servant-leadership model, which encourages and supports people in their pursuit of self-discovery and in their personal sense of call.
• communities of learners, where people seek to grow and learn collectively, as they care for those around them, especially those who have been forgotten and are marginalized in society.
• an entrepreneurial spirit, where people feel led to innovate and take risks to achieve that which they believe in.

a very cool concept and a good example to follow.

mike shaw’s video tips for studio software

i found this website last night. it has a lot of good general information on pinnacle studio and dv in general. lots of information and examples. it includes tips under the following categories:

• general tips
• setting up tips
• capturing tips
• editting tips
• making movies tips
• sdv tips

i’ve started playing around with the sony dcr-hc40 and i really like it right now. i haven’t loaded anything up to the computer yet because i figure that i will wait until the pinnacle studio 9 arrives. in just general playing around it feels good in my hands and the controls are pretty intuitive. all the controls are placed in good locations. i love the photo feature. i’ll obviously be able to give a better report after i make a few videos with this thing.

i thought i would post two worship ideas we used at “the view” in the past two months. here they are:

1. kierkegaard style worship – the danish philosopher/theologian made a wonderful description of worship as being for GOD’s pleasure. we did a worship service focused on a chair as the reminder of GOD’s presence. we started with silence and a powerpoint show explanation of the evening (click here to view it), sang a good bit, and then ended with another powerpoint show summarizing the night (click here to view it). all together a cool night.

2. augustine hospital worship – augustine described the church as a hospital for sinners. we spent the night being a hospital. we started off with a flash presentation describing the night (click here to view it or if you have swish click here to modify the file for your needs). we then had students lead the evening with through a period of offering our wounds to GOD (writing how we’ve been wounded on bandages and then placing them in an offering plate), read some of the bandages out loud and asking all those who have the same wound to stand (showing each of us that we are not alone), and finally, after some singing, having students come up and take somebody else’s wound to pray over for the next week, believing that what GOD said HE will prove (james 5:16). an extremely moving night and students and adults being apart of GOD’s plan to heal each of us.

if either of these work for you please use them and change them however you need to. i would love to hear what you do with it.

RELEVANT magazine: “we view ourselves much higher than we should. we so often judge GOD’s action against what we want, and if the two wills do not line up together, our respect and concept of holiness is tainted. ”

daniel parkins made the above statement in an e-article for relevant magazine – a great magazine. he compared how we treat the elderly – viewing them as hindrances and having to earn our respect – with the manner in which we treat GOD. we do church expecting GOD to do what we want and we teach our students to do the same thing. we have to present a holy GOD to our kids. it has to be all about HIS glory. we can’t play church – our kids deserve better.

tonight i was able to lead a memorial that was a little different for me. our church, parkview baptist church has a school as a part of it’s ministry, parkview baptist school (makes sense doesn’t it?). last week two of the students’ at the school lost there mom to suicide. i have been invovled in the funerals of people who committed suicide before, but this situation was still different. the mother killed her boyfriend just before killing herself. all this took place right outside the house that the kids were in.

where is GOD in this mess? i mean if HE doesn’t have hope in circumstances like this then i would have to question HIS hope and comfort. these kids didn’t do anything to deserve this.

waterdeep has a song called “18 holes” that says “oh, GOD, it hurts so bad to love anybody down here. why don’t YOU come and help me out? cause i can’t even see clear.” these lyrics pretty much summarize how i feel about the situation. these kids loved their mom, her parents, friends, and family loved her, and now they have to deal with the grief of losing her and the guilt of grieving for her in front of the loved ones of the boyfriend she killed.

hebrews 4 offered hope for this family. our HIGH PRIEST actually can say “blessed are those that mourn” because HE understands our weaknesses and HE has defeated death. HE has won the victory even in this situation. HE can say that “all things work for the good of those who love (HIM) and are called according to HIS purposes” because HE has proven this through personal experience. CHRIST has taken the worst that all the powers, principalities, and even we could throw at HIM and HE has overcome. in HIM there is hope even at a murder/suicide funeral.

where was GOD in this mess? HE was right there holding those kids and telling “I know it hurts but I when in the end. trust ME. I’M in control even here.”

this afternoon i received the sony dcr-hc40 i had ordered earlier this week. it’s definately cool. this is the first part of the previously discussed video eqipment has arrived. i now have to wait until at least tomorrow before receiving the pinnacle studio 9 software, but it could be until monday. i can’t start seriously playing with this stuff until then. i’ll keep you updated on how this stuff works. i figure my learning this stuff is as good of example of an “everyman” learning it because i’m not that video literate.

the latest ministry trial-run that i am involved in is digital video. even though i’m new to this our ministry has done a few videos for various things. advertisement videos, summary videos, video illustrations, that sort of thing. i’ve always had an intern who had a good camera and at least a little skill at editing videos. now i’m in the position of not having an intern with that skill or equipment. the beauty of this is that i can learn how to do it on my own and thereby make it look the way that i wanted it to look in the first place.

of course, in order to do this i’ve had to do some research and get some new equipment. here’s what i’ve learned and ordered because of it.

1) the research went through indicated a computer with at least 512 mb of memory, as fast of processor as possible, a large hard rive with at least 7200 rpm but faster if possible, firewire connection, and a butt kicking video card. what i ordered is this – 3.4 p4 processor, 128 mb ddr ati 9800 pro graphics, 1 gig of memory, 120 gig primary hard drive, 80 gig secondary “video” hard drive, dvd / cd-rw drive, etc, etc. – it’s hasn’t been used it for video purposes yet but from my research it should work decently. it’s a dell.

2) a good minidv camcorder. i bought a sony dcr-hc40. the reviews on it were quite good. i got it for $558 from www.digitalmegastore.com it should get here friday. i can’t wait.

3) good editing software. adobe premierere pro and pinnacle liquid edition are supposed to be the best. they also cost $500 which i don’t have in the youth budget so i had to go for the second bestpossibilitiess. the review say that the best of the cheaper software programs is supposed to be pinnacle studio 9. all that i read said that studio 9 is able to do an incredible amount of stuff – almost as much as the “big boys” – and it is only $99 – actually i got it for $59 after a rebate at amazon. it should be in tomorrow or friday so i can play around with it.

hi! i’m robert and if you’re reading this then you are either really bored or you came to my website www.disciple-now.com and thought you would check out how things are going. this blog is about me trying new things within work with and to teenagers. i’m going to try and record the various attempts that we try at parkview baptist church in baton rouge to lead an effective youth ministry.

of course this means there will be tons of mistakes and throughout the process we (all the youth workers at parkview) will continually depend upon GOD to take our feeble efforts and do something good through them. thankfully HE always does.