One of the most important things that we do every week is communicate a message. Not just any message—but a powerful message that has the potential to change lives.

A Whole Mess of Creative Ideas!

Here is a broad outline of our process for creating content:

Scope and Sequence

This step is the most important stage of the process. Everything flows from the decisions  made when you outline the direction for your content. We have a consistent meeting with a few directors. We have roughed out the next three years. The next year is planned in more firm detail. We work about three-to-four months out on a firm outline.

Scope & Sequence Creative Board

Brainstorming with Writers

Three months in advance we meet with the writers of the material and brainstorm the creative direction for both large group material and small group material. We ask the writers to come to this meeting with ideas. This meeting is where we give our writers specific direction.

November Creative Ideas

First Read-Through

Two months before it is due, a small team reads through everything. We read it aloud from the opening activity to large group and small group. Hearing it helps us make sure that all of the pieces connect and flow well together, as well as allowing us to tweak wording. At this phase, if there is a major re-write, it goes back to the writer. If there is a minor re-write, we do it.

Second Read-Through

A few days after the first read-through, each section goes to the specific team that works with it. The large group directors get all of the large group scripts. These teams read, make small changes, and begin to talk through the logistics of this month to see, for example, if a large prop is needed or if we need to create a video piece. Small group teams read to make sure instructions are clear and decide what supplies need to be ordered.

Final Edits

Finally a team edits the material checking for clear directions, good sentence structure, and grammatical errors. They are also making sure that we didn’t omit anything and that it is simple and easy for our volunteers to use.

Do you write your own curriculum?

But this year we are going to spend 10 months tying the big themes of the Bible together in order to help our kids see the BIGGER story of God. We’ll write more about The Never Ending Story of God later.

We started at the very beginning of the story with Creation and Adam and Eve. Our Big Idea for the month is Obedience.

Obedience - Doing what you are asked to do by those who are over you.

As we tell the Bible stories this month, we will be introducing the beginning of The Never Ending Story of God. Themes like: God created the world. God created and loved people. By our disobedience, sin entered into the world.

Think of this video like a “title package” that leads right into the live Bible story telling.

Click here to view the embedded video.

How are you launching the new school year with your kids?

You may have already seen this video floating around twitter via @AndyStanley.  This is one of the many stories our team gets to be a part of week in and week out.  Gretchen’s particularly was one of the most inspiring things we’ve ever seen around here.  It’s hard not to get teared up on this one.  Our team is blessed to be a small part of God’s BIG story in every person who walks through our doors at North Point Ministries.Click here to view the embedded video.

We emailed the following video to our small group leaders last week.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is a fun way you’ve communicated those important “need to knows?”

I was a little camera happy, SO here’s what it looked like!

Early in the morning…

The calm before the storm…

The windows were welcoming!

The balloons were definitely welcoming!

The Birthday Cart made its debut.

As did the Birthday Bear in Waumba Land!

The staff passed out clipboards loaded with important stuff.

They made some final tweaks.

And then the check-in began.

Every child to a new room - a new small group!

The hallways were buzzing!

Bible Storytellers were excited and ready to deliver an important message. Boy, did they!

Bottom Line: God’s way is always the best way.

Classrooms were packed.

Small Group Leaders were getting to know their kids for the first time.

Even in Waumba Land, Small Group Leaders held their kids in the palm of their hands.

I loved seeing this high school student listening intently to all that this little boy had to say.

Babies crying on our hall is a very rare occurence. Only one cried today.

Well, maybe one more, but Jenn worked her magic and put a stop to that.

Well maybe just a few more in this little crying train. But they got happy real quick. Promise!

This room was just buzzing with happiness. I wanted to stay.

This little darling? He wanted me to rescue him. I really wanted to take him home, but his mama said no.

Doesn’t it just do your heart good to see these happy students serving? They make me smile every time!

Our staff and volunteers were happy to be there. It showed.

Then the service let out. I asked the parents to be still because they were blurring my picture.

They didn’t care.

Again parents, move a little slower!

And then it was time for everyone to go to KidStuf!

Based on the size of the crowd, I think they were all there!

We introduced the Big Idea of Obedience.

You know…Doing what you’re asked to do by those who are over you.

The serpent sang a song to Eve. This was my favorite line…

“How about you Evie poo…why would I lie to you?”

It was great!

Houselights were up as kids and parents talked about why it’s important to obey.

What a great moment to witness hundreds of parents talking to their kids about obedience.

KidStuf Take-Out = Rotten Apples Game

Our Waumba Landers learned that God loves them.

I hope all of our preschoolers learn this and know this and believe it for the rest of their lives.

Our staff was a little tired by the end of the day.

They’ve all worked so hard to be ready.

Promotion was seamless on every campus.

Grateful for each and every one of them.

Then we took our tired feet home.

The end.

What happened with you this weekend?

While there I found a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. I haven’t read her book (or yet seen the movie), but I love this talk. It’s only about 20 minutes (so, you can watch it while you eat lunch).

One thing that always fills me with joy is seeing timeless biblical truth being discovered by living life naturally instead of just reading it in the bible. It demonstrates better than anything the relevance of biblical truth.

Anyway, what Gilbert talks about here is the role that the divine plays in human creative genius. The biggest take away for me was that long ago, people knew that creativity did not come from people–it came from the divine. During the Renaissance, however, people began to see themselves as the center of the universe and slowly began referring to people as geniuses. Before this, people were simply said to “have” a genius (a deity that inspires – like a muse).

If we could only get back to the perspective that creativity and inspiration comes from God, what an incredible difference it would make. We would begin to fully understand that we are part of something amazing, but that it doesn’t all rest on our shoulders. We show up for work, but so does God. I continue to think through this concept, and am constantly seeing the radical change that could happen if I always kept this idea at the forefront.

(Quick warning about the video – there is a bit of language in it… all of which could be see on primetime network television, but given that this is a church website I figured I would warn.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

We were ending our summer programming with bang. We are finishing projects so that we can launch the fall in style.

And yes, our team is very organized. And no, everything did not go as planned. Our computer database did not cooperate. Our small size t-shirts are stuck out of the country somewhere. A “must have” video shoot location canceled at the last minute.

So here’s what happened:

The Video Shoot: We needed two very specific locations for a video shoot and after knocking on the doors of a few total strangers, we found them! One was a 101-year-old farm house and the other was the biggest disaster of a garage you have ever seen. It was perfect!

The Database: We recently migrated our entire ministry to a new database. Needless to say, not all of the kinks are worked out. We are promised that it will soon be a new sleek and sweetly purring upgrade.

But for now, Wayne and Jason are saving the day! I’ll tell you more about them in a later post.

The Coaches Meeting: Every director met with all of their coaches this week. Most of them hosted them in their homes or at a restaurant. It was great to reconnect at the end of a busy summer and to give them all kinds of fun information to start the new year.

The Promotion: Moving about 8,000 kids and 2,500 volunteers to their new small groups for the fall is no easy task. All small group rosters had to be complete by Sunday so that we could give them out to all of our small group leaders. This process is more time consuming than I can even explain… so I won’t!

The Brainstorm: We spent a day with a team of writers working through creative ideas for our November content. Writers come to this meeting with ideas and we all work together to shape those ideas into a solid direction. Our big idea is “Gratitude - a thankful attitude,” and we are teaching through the life of Moses. It’s gonna be fun!

The Kindergarten Konfidential: We hosted Kindergarten Konfidential this past Sunday. Getting our Kindergartners and their parents ready to move up from Waumba Land to UpStreet, is a big deal. This event is all about communication (and fun!) This “parent secrets” video was part of the program.

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Grab & Go: Massive coordination went into putting together a bag for every volunteer to stop into their classroom and pick up last Sunday. Included in every bag: their t-shirt, bio page introducing them to their team, magnet with coaches contact info, volunteer roster with team contact information, curriculum, and “need to knows” for Promotion Sunday.

The Shirt: Yes we roll t-shirts…by the hundreds! Although our highly organized and fearless leader works so hard to get our shirts delivered to us early, we always run into an obstacle that is out of our control. This year all of our small size t-shirts are stuck out of the country. Hopefully they will be here by Friday!

This simple list doesn’t begin to describe the massive effort involved. All of the “heavy lifting” involved in each of these projects was done by our incredible staff. I wish you could meet them.

This Sunday is promotion. We are excited and we are ready!

So what happened with you this week?

For excitement – Horror and thriller films

For amusement – Action and comedy films

To feel inspired – Artsy non-mainstream films

To feel more normal – Dramas

To feel good – Romantic comedies

To join the bandwagon – Twilight

I’m sure someone else could do a much better job at this list than I just did. The interesting thing, though, is that whatever the reason, I think our taste in movies has a lot to do with how we feel or want to feel. As a video producer, this reasoning gives me a litmus test for what does or does not make an impact on my audience. For a video to really communicate something, I think the most important thing is that it appeals to an emotion. Sometimes I forget about this when things get busy – but what use is putting information in front of an audience if they never really connect with it on a deeper level? I think every project deserves the question, “Why would someone watch this?” And hopefully it’s not just because they have to.

If we were starting from scratch we would focus on three primary areas: leaders, the environment, and creating simple systems. You can read more about leaders and environments in part 1 and part 2.

Today, let’s talk systems! Some of you love them. Some of you hate them. You (we) all need them. Systems allow you to deliver a predictable and high quality service every time. They are necessary!

As time goes on you are going to need more systems, but for now, let’s keep it simple.

The Basics:

Check In. How will you check kids into your space and capture their information?

Morning Schedule. What can your leaders and kids expect the day to look like? How will you ensure that you have enough time to accomplish all that you want to accomplish?

Communication. How will volunteers get their materials? How will parents know if there is an event? How will you get information out to your audience?

Emergency. What happens if you have to evacuate the building? What if a child is lost? What if there’s blood?!

Pick-up and Security. How will you ensure that only the right person picks up the right child? Will parents have to wait in a long line? What if they lose their security tag?

When thinking about systems you need to work hard to keep it simple. Your volunteers are not staying up late each night memorizing all of the steps! So the systems need to be intuitive. They need to make sense!

A great way to create systems is to think through and define the end result. Then, start at the beginning points for the people involved and take the logical next step. Once you have that all written down, then go back over your steps and simplify!

If you are not a systematic person, get someone in the mix who is! Problem-solving people are also great when discussing systems.

What systems did you think were important when starting from scratch?

As with any big, multi-day production, our crew put in some very long hours. Some of our night location shoots turned into mornings on more than one occasion. During one of those long nights of production I stole away for a few minutes to jot down some of the things that I learned on this production. Maybe some of you will find this helpful or possibly even therapeutic.

Random Things I learned….

In-town location

1-  Permits.

Getting a permit might be a good idea if shooting in a good-size town. Say Atlanta for instance. Especially if you want to control traffic or shut down a street for a while.

2-  Permits-part 2.

Please allow ample time for permit requests to be processed. I would suggest a week. Don’t bother trying to get a permit if you are not a week out from shooting–trust me!

3-  Security.

Security is a must for in-town shoots, especially at night. You can’t compromise on safety.

The crew

4-  Food.

Feeding a crew of 20 can really add up!
I found that $10 a person works for meals. Don’t forget snacks & drinks. Especially in the summer!

5-  Food-part 2.

If you can clear the budget, hire a person to handle food—do it! Better yet if you have a volunteer that is good at that type of thing that would be great.

6-  Parking.

Never forget—parking in town is pricey!

7- Vehicles.

Limit the number of cars your crew is using. This will help with gas $$ and the parking thing too.

Late-night location

8-  Location.  Location.  Location.

Really good locations add big time to believability in your production.

9-  Location-part 2.

The more remote a location the more logistically complicated it usually is to shoot there. Keep in mind the travel time for everyone, how bad cell service may be and then last but not least getting food to your remote spot.

10- Morale.

Never underestimate the power of a late night snack run or a smoothie run on the mood of the crew.

11- Food-part 3.

Special dietary requests should be considered ahead of time.

Mobile home base

12- Home Base.

a. Find out ahead of time how you will communicate from each location.
b. Think power, shade, food, drinks, restrooms, chairs and a table for laptops and hard drives.
c. Network connectivity = Bonus.
d. Rule of thumb… The longer your crew is at each location the more elaborate your home base.

13- Actors.

If your actor can’t deliver his/her lines correctly it can unravel your work—No matter how good the locations and technical aspects of the shoot.

14- Plan.

You must have a plan. Even an ill-conceived plan is better than no plan.

Setting up a shot

15- CASH.

There will ALWAYS be incidental expenses.
The bigger the crew / production the more $$ you should have on you.

16- Credit Card.

Get a work credit card. Enough said.

17- Paperwork.

We all love to hate it but have it with you. Don’t forget to have people sign it. It is maddening to come back to the office with blank paperwork! (Not that I’ve ever done that…)

So what are some of the things you have learned on your shoot locations? We would love your feedback.

(*Photos courtesy of: Mary Caroline Mann. Professional technical services: Whisper Productions.)