CityTeam is holding a conference on church-planting ministries (CPM) led by David Watson.  I usually wouldn’t post about a conference (boooooooring), but I thought this one was worth mentioning for a couple reasons.  The first obviously is because of the purpose of the conference – CPM.  It’s a very unconventional way of going out planting churches, and it may blow some of your minds in what is being lectured, but it is definitely worth looking into if you’re interested in church-planting in any sense.  David Watson has decades under his belt with this model of CPM that he has created and God has used him in bringing thousands of people to Christ.

The second reason is that this conference is heavily covered on the internet.  David’s son Paul has taken on the task of broadcasting this conference live on USTREAM, and also uploading the video clips to watch past sessions as they come.  Paul has also encouraged those who are use Twitter to tweet about the conference throughout the week, which has brought it to the attention of thousands of people that would not even heard of the conference otherwise.

I think it’s amazing to see how far CityTeam has come in making a presence on the internet.  And with that said, I’ll drop down a few links if you feel like you want to follow the conference

-The broadcast in English or in Spanish

-Twitter profile for David Watson (Leading the conference), Paul Watson (Broadcasting and tweeting on the conference), and Patrick Robertson (President of CityTeam).  There are a number of other people who are tweeting, but if go to this search it will show all the tweets that are being done about the conference (tweets with the #hashtag “ct09″).

P.S. When you go to the #ct09 search link, you may have to hit the “search” button again to update the tweets.

Anyway, today we went off on a little tangent (a common occurrence with our group), and podcasting somehow came up.  Then the idea of podcasting this Bible study to show people what’s going on within our CityTeam staff was proposed (mostly by me), which had some mixed feelings among the participants.  I may set up a mic and see how it works out, but the people in Marketing and DP will get really nervous.  I’m excited about making them nervous…

1. He intends for this recession to expose hidden sin and so bring us to repentance and cleansing.
2. He intends to wake us up to the constant and desperate condition of the developing world where there is always and only recession of the worst kind.
3. He intends to relocate the roots of our joy in his grace rather than in our goods, in his mercy rather than our money, in his worth rather than our wealth.
4. He intends to advance his saving mission in the world—the spread of the gospel and the growth of his church—precisely at a time when human resources are least able to support it. This is how he guards his glory.
5. He intends for the church to care for its hurting members and to grow in the gift of love.

The sermon was strangely and amazingly aligned to how CityTeam conducts itself as a NPO, especially in reasons two, four, five.  As I was listening to this sermon, I was encouraged that God has been guiding CityTeam and those involved in its ministry through this list.  The two points that stuck out to me were three and five.  Our faith must always be founded in God and the abundance of His, grace, mercy, and worth rather than the material and monetary blessings that He provides us.  I know that is overstated among the Christian community – and even non-Christian communities – yet we always get caught up in seeking comfort in how stable we are or must be financially!  When we give money to the church in tithes, when was the last time you put money in the basket despite the small paycheck?  When was the last time you gave to the church even in your own economic uncertainty?  And as you recall that last time you did give in that circumstance, did you give in pure joy in God?  It always bothers me when I budget myself for the next month, and I ask myself, “Will I still be okay this month if I still give a 10% tithe?”  What kind of question is that?  Where is my faith when I’m still questioning God in my giving?  There is no joy in that attitude, and I have to constanatly remind myself to give in my prosperity and give even more in my poverty.  Piper also made a deep and insightful point regarding the fifth reason – “You don’t have Christians in need while other Christians have plenty.”  Every member of the church must be cared for when they are in need, and the members who are not in need must step up in order to provide for those needs!  In light of the recession, Piper added, “God is going to test us: Are you a church, or are you a club?”

Yesterday, I visited a good friend of mine in Placerville, and she took me to the church she regularly attends up there.  It was an irregular service, however, because the youth group led the service and talked about their missions trip to Sacramento.  What is important to understand about this trip is that the original plan was to go to Mexico, but because of the recent news there, they decided to cancel that trip and made quick changes to set up visits to missions in Sacramento that helped poor single mothers and their children.  The testimonies from the children that were powerful to me were the ones that talked about how disappointed they were that they were not going to Mexico.  You could tell that their excitement to go to “just Sacramento” was next to none.  However, their attitudes quickly changed when they begane their ministry in this mission, playing with the kids and help cook and feed the women.  They began to establish relationships they probably could never have established in Mexico due to the language barrier, and they made a huge impact on these people’s lives because of their humble, joyous service.  God knew that they were needed in that place in Sacramento, and even though the youth did not want to go, they faithfully obeyed God’s directing and were heavily enriched with blessing because of it.  That really spoke to me, for you never know reason for God’s timing and plans until they come into fruition.

To end this, I would really encourage everyone to listen or watch to the sermon.  It’s 43 minutes long, and there is a segment in the latter half where he goes into the budget about a new expansion for the church.  If you can endure the length and the shameless plug (sarcasm emphasized), you will be deeply inspired and encouraged by God through these tough times in the U.S.

Directed by Corrie Gaumnitz.

Yesterday, Carol, Corrie, and I spent the day shooting for a new video that will highlight the back-to-school program that CityTeam does every year for needy children. The video is fairly simple, which made for a quick shoot, which also made it nice considering we were working with an eight-year-old boy to shoot the video. Corrie was very good going over the script with the kid and being very patient.

Anyhow, we shot the footage early so we can get it out of the way, but the actual editing probably won’t happen until a month from now. In the meantime, you can check out more information here about how to donate school supplies and backpacks to CityTeam and help a child be ready for school next Fall!

The Heritage Home video is a template of sorts that we will be using for future videos which feature recovery programs in CityTeam. We had an interview/testimony from someone in the program and found that it worked really well, what was shared and how it was shared was more genuine and real compared to a well-spoken, scripted voice-over talking about the program. Of course, we realized only after the interview that we didn’t actually ask this particular woman to talk about the program, so we went back and did the voice-over using her voice. Later we were aware of the importance of asking the “client” how the program works so we could use it in the video, and we were able to pull off a better interview with John Clifford in this video.

Another result of the Heritage Home shoot was a follow-up on the same person, which worked incredibly well with the newborn child and the hope that she has now that her mother stepped up to become responsible. In the video with John Clifford, we asked him to bring his daughter into CityTeam so we could meet her on camera, and he was more than happy to do that for us.

The capture technique was been worked on and improved(comma?) and the Men’s Recovery video with Chris Anderson is the result of all the fine-tuning. I would talk a little about the House of Grace video, but I think I’ll wait on that as we are prepping to shoot a new video for that program. Heritage Home is a place where homeless, poor and abused women who are pregnant can turn to instead of the streets. A lot of the women from Heritage Home later go to House of Grace to continue their recovery and establishing of a promising life for their newborn child.

And, of course, the testimony can be even more powerful when it is backed with Lifehouse‘s Broken.

By Daniel Peckham

So to move on, I want to follow-up those posts with a few links to photographers who are out there with the same ideals as me.  First off, there’s Daniel Peckham.  A long-time friend for over ten years has turned his beloved hobby of photography into an efficient tool in the pursuit of furthering the Kingdom.  He works for The Seed Company, which works in Bible translation, and has traveled all over the world to document their work.  He does an amazing job successfully photographing the people, capturing the sense of their culture in both its joys and sorrows.  Daniel and I talk a lot about the same aspirations of full-time overseas mission work in our photographic careers.

By Stephen McGee

Stephen McGee is someone I met at Brooks Institute of Photography, and he was always an encouragement to always seek to bring photography to mission work.  There was one time where he headed up getting a group of us Christians together to talk about how we could start a non-profit that would supply mission organizations a media service.  Of course, these ideas of running fully on support to act as support for missions was sort of an impossible dream, but to brainstorm these ideas kept me on track through my years in school.  Stephen McGee has since been all over the world as well, and he works more in photojournalism now.  Stephen has always been a go-getter type of guy, and it has paid off as he has established himself in the photojournalists’ community quite prominently.

By Jeremy Cowart

The last person I want to feature is someone I have become more of a distant admirer.  I discovered Jeremy Cowart through my brother who randomly found him a couple years back, and I have visited his website every once in a while to see what he’s been up to.  His work is more focused in entertainment (music, advertising, film, celebrity, etc.), but he has done some work with the Contemporary Christian Music industry and their impact on world causes.  The most recent blog post that caught me was back in December where he featured work he did for the CompassionArt project – a charity that focuses in communities stricken with poverty.  I don’t know Cowart on any personal level, but I like to think of him as a good balance between the business of photography and using art to support causes of the Godly-kind.

There are a lot of photographers out there who have an idea of how they can help change the world for the better.  I think almost every classmate in my time at Brooks had some kind of notion to change their community through their photography in one way or another.  I’ve been surprised at just how many of us are out there who see photography as more than a way to express art.

There was an instance where I did run into a woman who was asking for change so she could buy those $1 sandwiches at KFC (yeah, that mention in “Impacts of the online social realm” is actually a true story).  I was going in for dinner anyway, so I just told her that I’ll just treat her to dinner.  It wasn’t only an opportunity to just be a much nicer fellow, but to connect with her on a much deeper level that a passer-by giving her 25 cents wouldn’t get.  After buying her food and giving it to her, she told me that she knew that God was taking care of her and how she will always believe that He’ll take care of her.  I didn’t even mention anything about God yet!  After spending time with her and talking to her about God and His faithfulness, life continued on.  That was months and months ago.  I still wonder about that woman, about if/how I could have done more for her.  I guess that is the point I’m trying to make – you can only do so much to provide for someone’s physical needs, but you should always make sure that they are also receiving spiritual needs.  If I just bought the woman dinner, wished her luck, and then left, what good would have that been on an eternal level?  As Christians, we must always let people know the motives for our actions; otherwise, we are no different than the “other nice guy” out there just trying to help.

The well-known passage Matthew 5:16 says to “let your light shine…so that they may see your good works.”  It is very important for to proclaim to the world who we are in Jesus, to let your light shine.  If we don’t, then our good works won’t prompt people to give glory to God.  In our lives as we minister to the poor, let them know why you are giving, and help them come to see that there is much more that they can receive that this world can never offer.