Chuck Scoggins | Web + Print + Video Design

“Dad, what do you do to make money?” asked my 8 year old son on the way home from a quick run to the grocery store last night.

“Well buddy,” I said, “I teach some classes, and I help churches, and I make videos, and I make websites.”

“You make websites?!?”

“Yes. I make websites.”

“Can you make me a website? Can you put my picture on it? Can we put some games on it? Do I get a password?”

So, last night, I took two hours – two precious work hours – and designed a website. It cost me about $250 in lost time and $10 for a domain name. But the cost of not doing it was too high. This was one of those pivotal moments where I could see in his eye the question, “Does my dad love me enough to do this for me?”

Will he use it? I don’t know. Will this launch him into a love of blogging and web design? Probably not.

So why did I bother? As my wife pointed out, in 10 years Trip will likely not remember that I designed him a custom WordPress blog. She’s right: he probably will never know how much time I put in to setting it up.

So why bother?

I like how Carlos Whittaker put it here and here.

So build!

I’ve always said that one of the best part of conferences is the conversation that happens in the hallways between sessions. Cultivate is one of those conference experiences that is all about those types of ‘hallway conversations.’ The structure is set up to facilitate, encourage, and nourish the conversation. Yes, there are speakers and general sessions, but it’s a very different type of conference.

In 2009, I was lucky to be able to attend the conference due to the generosity of someone who purchased my ticket for me. This year, I want to “pass it on.” So, I’m giving away a ticket to Cultivate 2011.

Cultivate is May 4-5, 2011 at First Christian Church in Huntington Beach, CA. If you’d like a free ticket, here’s how you can get one:

• Leave a comment about why you’d like to attend.
• Next Monday (April 11), I’ll pick the best comment (or a random one) and announce the winner on Twitter (so make sure you’re following me).

Good luck and I look forward to seeing you there!

Here are a couple of small projects I’ve been working on lately.

This was a little scripture intro we used to open a worship set.

Faith Scriptures from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

Here’s another one.

Psalm 96 from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

I also did a video shoot with Beau Bekemeier and Paul Bartak and some of our drama team at the airport for our Christmas program. It was pretty fun. Here are a couple of photos that I snapped on my iPhone.

Finally, here is a video that I contributed to Planning Christmas – a resource that some of us church media guys are putting together for other churches to use.

Planning Christmas from Chuck Scoggins on Vimeo.

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!

Rae Michalski gave me the honor of creating her wedding program. It’s simple, but I’m quite fond of it. If the picture doesn’t show it, the colors are deep-plum purple and black.

Here’s the low-res PDF.

Congratulations Rae & Mark!

On New Year’s Day, I thought I’d list for you the Resolutions of Jonathan Edwards.

Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these Resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.

Remember to read over these Resolutions once a week.

1. Resolved, that I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God’s glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration, without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriad’s of ages hence. Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.

2. Resolved, to be continually endeavoring to find out some new invention and contrivance to promote the aforementioned things.

3. Resolved, if ever I shall fall and grow dull, so as to neglect to keep any part of these Resolutions, to repent of all I can remember, when I come to myself again.

4. Resolved, never to do any manner of thing, whether in soul or body, less or more, but what tends to the glory of God; nor be, nor suffer it, if I can avoid it.

5. Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.

(more…)

I get asked this question from time to time, so I thought I’d post a list of blogs that I read. Some are design-centered, some are productivity-centered, and some have no theme at all. Let me know if you have any jewels to add  in the comments.

• Church Communications Pro
• Church Marketing Sucks
• Church Relevance
• Creative Worship
• Daily Cup of Tech
• Dumb Little Man
• Life Clever
• Life Dev
• Parent Hacks
• Productivity501
• Seth Godin’s Blog
• Six Revisions
• Stepcase Lifehack
• The Scoggins Saga
• The Wisdom Journal
• Web Worker Daily
• The Happy Manager
• Work+Play+Experience
• Butch Whitmire
• Kem Meyer – Less Clutter, Less Noise
• PSD Tuts
• Shawn Wood Writes
• Urban Word of the Day (caution, this one can be R-rated)
• Web Driven Church
• Church Crunch
• Good World Creative
• Grayscale Gorilla
• Instant Shift
• Matt Knisely
• Smashing Magazine
• Mac App Storm
• Tim Schraeder

Also thought I’d throw in that I use Google Reader to manage my blog feeds.

Five questions that I ask (or am going to start asking) at the beginning of each day:

1. What one thing can I do today that will make a difference in 1, 3, 5, or 10 years from now?
   [do that thing first]
2. What are the three most important tasks on my task list?
3. What can I delegate to someone else (must choose at least one task)?
4. What did I do yesterday that I need to re-do better today?
5. What new tasks need to be added to my task list?

What questions do you ask yourself each day? Let me know of any that I missed in the comments!