Chuck Scoggins | Web + Print + Video Design

We at Calvary are in the middle of a message series on the topic of David and his heart for worship. We tried to come up with some resources that might help people in their pursuit of God in worship. One of the resources we created was a blog where we list our worship set for the upcoming week, iTunes playlists, song recommendations, and one other resource we’re calling our “Song of the Week.”

The Song of the Week is a song that we’re featuring in our worship service that relates directly to the topic that day. What makes it different from our regular special songs in our services is that we’re having a member from our creative team introduce it in a video on the blog and we’re encouraging our attenders to go out and check it out before the service begins.

Here are a few of the Song of the Week blog/introduction videos:

Week One

LIFT – Song of the Week from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

Week Two

LIFT – Song of the Week (Week 2) from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

Week Three

LIFT – Song of the Week (Week 3) from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

Week Four

LIFT – Song of the Week (Week 3) from Calvary Church on Vimeo.

The jury is still out on whether this is helping our people in their personal worship times, but we’re having fun sharing a little bit about some songs that have had an impact on us! I’d love your feedback on the idea in the comments.

I’ve been on several mission trips. Backyard Bible Clubs in Germany. Helping the poor & elderly in Tennessee. Building houses in Mexico. Hugging babies and feeding the hungry in Jamaica. Equipping church planters in Utah.

All of those trips have helped shaped who I am as a person (like most people, I get more out of the trips than the people we’re serving) but it’s always bugged me that I’ve never been able to truly serve in the area of my giftedness. That’s why I was excited when I heard about a mission trip for creatives. The goal is to be…

…a group of creatives and church communication folks descending on a targeted region to help churches and church plants. We’re pairing the talents of those who sign up with church needs, and grouping folks together to serve each church.

These trips will be similar to typical mission trips, as we’ve all experienced them. However, instead of construction projects, outreach events and Bible schools, Creative Missions seeks to aid these same churches in their communication and creative strategies for engaging their communities. (via Church Marketing Sucks)

It is an honor to be invited to be a part of this endeavour, and I thank folks like Cleve Persinger, Phil Bowdle, and others who have taken the initiative to get us moving!

Here are a few ways you can be a part:

1. Give Creatively
Want to go with us in May? You will make a huge difference. Even though signups technically ended March 1, there are still several slots available.

Apply now!

2. Give Resourcefully
Would your church or organization be willing to donate resources including printing, sound/tech components, stage design, worship presentation software licenses (ProPresenter and EasyWorship), gas cards, and more? E-mail us.

3. Give Financially
We need sponsors and donations to pay down printing, production resources, ground transportation (sponsor a minivan) and lodging. The great news is CFCC will be handling all monies for us.

Paypal: Send donations through PayPal to creativemissions@cfcclabs.org or go tohttp://GIVE.creativemissions.to.

Check: Checks need to be made out to “Center for Church Communication.” Write “Creative Missions” on the memo line.

Center for Church Communication
ATTN: Creative Missions
PO Box 26747
Los Angeles, CA 90026

More Information
While we work on a permanent web presence, here’s the repository for everything Creative Missions.

Stay tuned here as I report back on all God is doing through Creative Missions.

I was recently reading a blog post where the author made the claim that simplicity is often overrated. He used several examples, including the complexity of the canon of Scripture and the complexity of the Gospel as evidence of how some really great things have been very complex. He stated, “Simple isn’t better if it’s wrong. Complexity isn’t a problem if it’s right.” While I totally understand (and agree with) what he was getting at, I immediately had several thoughts.

• Although “simple isn’t better if it’s wrong,” one can find the “wrong” in a simple message/system/situation much quicker and easier than a complex one.
• The inverse of the statement, “Simple isn’t better if it’s wrong. Complexity isn’t a problem if it’s right” is just as true; namely, Simple is better if it’s right, complexity is a problem if it’s wrong.
• Using paradoxes (such as the simple complexity of the historical context of the orthodoxy of Scripture or the complexity of the Gospel) might not be the best way to prove a point. Often the simplest systems are the most complex (yes, a paradox). For example…
  • The Simple Church model is a very complex, complicated system requiring its leaders to make difficult decisions about what the church will and will not be about…and ruthlessly saying no to all the things that don’t meet the vision.
  • A “less cluttered” (or simple) model of communications involves in-depth, complicated planning. It involves carefully structuring a plan so that the information is disseminated in the most clear and concise manner that puts the audience first and helps them make their next step in the easiest way possible.

In both of the examples above, the goal wasn’t simplicity (well, at least not simplicity as the end), but rather clarity. I think the focus shouldn’t be on simplicity. The author was correct in that simplicity for the sake of simplicity isn’t all that beneficial. As an end, simplicity is indeed overrated. The focus should be on clarity. When we can make the complex clear through systems, organization, and intentionality – then we have done something worthwhile. And, while clarity isn’t an end in itself either, it should be the goal of simplicity.

By the way, my experience has been that complexity, clutter, and noise will rarely result in clarity. Simplicity almost always helps.

For our services yesterday we decided to “borrow” (ahem) the Drive-Bye concept from Northpoint and make a walk-out video. This one was really fun because it was a collaborative effort from our entire team.

Encouragement Walk Out Video from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

Producer: Chuck Scoggins
Writers: Chuck Scoggins & Beau Bekemeier
Video Elements: Beau Bekemeier
After Effects Compositing: Kyle Bradley & Chuck Scoggins
Voice Over: Brad Bretz
Talent: Niles Stephens & Rick Arthur

Software: After Effects, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Soundbooth

My friend Tim Schraeder does a blog post occasionally on Mondays called the “Monday Morning Mind Dump.” I’m totally copying his idea here (with his blessing). Occasionally on Tuesdays I’ll give you my thoughts – random and off the top of my head. Well, here goes…

• We (the Creative Team at Calvary) are working on two pretty exciting upcoming series of worship gatherings. One is called “Bucket List” where we’ll be discussing the “one another” passages in the Bible. The other thing we’re working on is our Christmas series. Yes, we’re working on Christmas in August (we actually began in June). It’s going to be a pretty cool series of worship experiences. Stay tuned right here for the inside scoop on those two topics.

• A lot (no, really…nearly every one of my colleagues) just got back from a conference in TX called Echo. I didn’t get to go, but following several notes on Twitter and blog posts, it sounds like a really great conference. I’m really bummed that I missed it, but I am pretty excited about going next year. I’m really glad that many of my good friends who are doing really important work in church communications and media got a chance to be equipped and refreshed.

• Since I missed Echo, I was really excited about going to a conference coming up in Sept called Story. It’s at Park Church (a beautiful building in a really great location) in Chicago. Then, I realized that it will be the same dates as our scheduled family vacation to Disney World. I’m really bummed again that I will miss a great opportunity to connect with all of my church comm friends. I am, however, looking forward to our Disney get-away. All that to say, if you are in any field where storytelling is important (and when is it not?), you should check out Story (if it’s not sold out by now)[edited:Story is now sold out, so you'll have to go with me next year].

• There is a new book that is scheduled to hit in the Fall that I think is going to change the face of church communications. It is called OUTSPOKEN and it is being written by an all-star list of contributors. I’m super-excited (almost freakishly excited about it…if you didn’t know better, you’d think it was my book). Be sure to follow OUTSPOKEN on Twitter, like it on Facebook, and watch Tim’s blog to keep up with the latest news about the book.

• I’m about 5 weeks in to teaching this quarter’s Design & Media course at Lindenwood University. Each new session presents a new set of surprises, challenges, etc. It’s fun to teach others what I’ve learned and to continually learn from others. I seriously learn something new each week – even though I’m supposed to be teaching. I have an awesome group of great people as students this time. I’m going to try to post some of their best projects in the next few weeks.

• Finally, this past weekend was consumed with Mark & Rae’s wedding. The Michalski’s are close friends of our family (they’re really more like family) and Rae is like the daughter I never had. Amy (my wife) coordinated the wedding and Trip & Quinn (my children) were the ring bearers (or, as they say it, ring barrels). I was honored to do the welcome and opening prayer in the ceremony and it was a fantastic week of two young people expressing their love and commitment. As all weddings are, it was a great reminder of my love and commitment for my awesome wife, and Christ’s amazing covenant love with us, his bride. It was an exhausting weekend…but it was a lot of fun!

That’s it for the Random Thoughts on Tuesday. I’d love to hear what’s on your mind in the comments!

A friend of mine, Matt Knisely recently launched a new kind of design agency. The kind that I really believe in. The kind that has the potential to make a HUGE difference in our world. It’s called Good World Creative and they just launched their new website.

The premise (as I understand it) is when a company has a creative need (video, print, web, branding, etc), GWC connects the company with some of the world’s top artists. Ten percent of the fee that the artist charges goes right back to GWC where they use it to “do good” – primarily by using those funds to help non-profits with their creative needs.

As a person who is passionate about helping non-profits, churches, and small businesses reach their creative potential – potential that only big companies have been able to traditionally afford – I think this is an epic endeavour.

Hit up Good World Creative’s website and if you need any creative work done, be sure and “do good.”

My Digital Design Concepts students are currently studying typography. There recent assignment was to create a design where the primary/dominant element in the composition. I decided to do a quick version of the assignment myself. Not bad for 15 min of work…

We (Calvary Church) are going back to a weekly bulletin. In spite of the recent trend in some churches toward producing a monthly bulletin, we have come back full circle to producing a weekly publication.

Background
Perhaps some quick background information might help. About a year ago, we were producing a weekly bulletin. It was bloated and full of information that was irrelevant to the majority of our target audience. Our metrics were showing that few people were reading the information in it and it was pretty ineffective. On top of that, it wasn’t providing us with the opportunity to tell the Calvary story, one of our stated goals for the publication.

Our Monthly Bulletin Journey
So, about 6 months ago, after some inspiration from Tim Schraeder and Park Church, we decided to move to a monthly format where we would produce the bulletin once-per-month but hand it out to every attender every week. It still had an over-dose of information in it, but the layout was much more aesthetically pleasing and provided us an opportunity for storytelling. Perhaps the biggest up-side to the monthly format is that it allowed the Communications Team to work together with the Leadership Team to create a communication plan for the upcoming month (determining which ministries and events  would be promoted at what time and in what venues – bulletin, service promotional videos, platform announcements, website, etc.).

There were some significant growing pains. At first, our staff was not very fond of the advanced deadlines to the monthly format. We also had to print a weekly “insert” to cover all the information that came in after the print deadline or that pertained to a specific campus. In spite of all its down-sides, it was a significant improvement over our previous weekly format. That is, until a few weeks ago…

Full Circle
A few weeks ago we realized that we were losing a significant amount of readership (and, thus, event registrations, information dissemination, etc) in the later weeks of the month and it was causing a strain on our ministries’ ability to function. So, the Communications Team entered once again into a dialogue with our Leadership Team and came to an agreement that we would return to the weekly bulletin format with some stipulations. The main stipulation is that we would still determine what would be in the bulletin for the given weeks of a month in advance as part of an overarching communications plan. This would allow us to remove information about events that had passed (less noise and clutter) earlier in the month, but still have a plan to coordinate the items remaining in the bulletin as part of the larger communications plan.

So far, after one month of implementation, the new production plan and schedule seems to be working very well. As always, time will tell how truly effective this strategy will work, but I’m very excited about the dialogue that has opened between our leadership staff and communications team as we’ve taken this journey together.

My buddy, Aaron Latina, started a new blog on creativity and excellence. In his first post, he discusses the creative process and, particularly, the notion that for a team to function creatively they must not stop at the first idea they come up with. Even though the first idea might eventually end up being the best idea, the true essence of brainstorming is coming up with what I call “throw-away ideas.” He says,

Usually there’s nothing “wrong” with your first idea. But we’ve been taught all our lives as school children that you should always go with your gut instinct on a test; don’t over-think yourself out of a right answer. But successful creators are successful because they force themselves to exercise their creative muscles–to push themselves through and explore many different paths.

I completely agree. This process forces you to  intentionally make several ideas that you intend on “throwing away” – just to help you exercise your creative brain. And, experience shows that it works. In our brainstorming sessions, some of our best ideas came from ideas that, at first glance, seemed silly. It often turns out that the very idea I thought would be a “throw away” is in fact the one we ended up using most successfully.

A word of advice: It’s hard to force yourself to develop “throw away” ideas without intentionality and margin. It’s nearly impossible to do in a strict deadline-driven environment. If true creativity is a value for your organization, everyone (from the top-down) has to be extra-organized to be able to create the space necessary for “throw away” creativity to happen. If you leader does not create space for margin in your workflow…your organization probably doesn’t truly value creativity.

Head on over to Aaron’s Blog and then come back and let me know your thoughts on creativity in the comments.