view from the the 43rd story (looking SW over Dallas/Ft. Worth)

Cain on the top

This past December I had a once in a lifetime opportunity: I was in Dallas for a conference (Refresh campus ministry conference) and a friend from college who lives in town asked if I’d like to join him for a tour of his current project at work. Cain Young is the Superintendent in charge of building the structure and skin for Museum Tower, a 43 story residential tower in the heart of the Dallas Arts District. From previous experience with Cain while I was an undergrad, I knew that “tour” meant a great adventure. So, Cain picked me up that night at my hotel around 9pm and drove us to the tower.

Click here to see all the photos on Flickr and again, thank you Cain!

It seems like I’m always having conversations with other musicians, ministers, and college students about music–specifically in this case about WHERE to find good music for worship services in the Christian tradition. That’s at least in part of why I began writing here and posting recordings and thoughts on songs, theology, and media. One such source I’ve discovered is Sojourn Music from Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY. Sojourn is a great example of contextualized, indigenous, and thoughtful church community that produces EXCELLENT music and art. (I first heard about them while in seminary at Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Rev. Barbara Day Miller, Associate Dean of Worship and Music, gave me a set of their CD’s and an article about them she’d run across. I looked at the article and then listened to the music–it was excellent!) Their songs are influenced by variety of musical styles including blues, folk, gospel, and indie rock. After some further research I found that they are a member of the Southern Baptist Convention–a discovery which, as a moderate United Methodist, I found both shocking AND refreshing! Sojourn musicians have a fond appreciation for the hymns of Isaac Watts and do great justice to his words with the original music and with some new arrangements drawing on the native sounds of their context and congregations in Louisville. One of my favorites of their new musical arrangements is “Oh God Our Help in Ages Past” arranged by Brooks Ritter (a gifted musician and song writer with lots of play on Louisville local radio stations). Here is a link to their recorded version.

Finding good worship music is a part of the process–implementing it in a worship setting is often the next step: A few weeks ago we tried it out in worship with the college students at Emory Wesley Fellowship in our Sunday Night Worship service held at Glenn Memorial UMC on Emory’s campus. Here is the resulting recording with guitar, voice, and event some harmonica too. Here’s Sojourn’s pdf of the chord sheet for Oh-God-Our-Help-in-Ages-Past

THE PROJECT: This summer I was able to travel out to Sacramento, CA for Youth 2011, an every-4-year gathering of United Methodist youth ages 13-18 to help represent Collegiate Ministry. While out in California we had a little side project…a VIDEO project. Our task was to help capture and tell the story of Rev. Kristin Stoneking–Campus Minister and Director of the CA House at the University of California in Davis, CA. She has received the Bishop James C. Baker Scholarship which aids United Methodist collegiate ministers in advanced degree or doctoral studies.

(BELOW THE VIDEO IS MY ‘THE MAKING OF’ PORTION)

Special thanks to Kristin and the CA House as well as Allyson Collinsworth of Scholarships and Loans at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church. Interview, filming, and editing by Michael McCord & Joseph McBrayer.

THE SETTING: The CA house is a remarkable residential, intentional, and mutli-faith community in Davis where students live, learn, and serve together. It is a really neat, older house that has some cool spaces in it. For the interview we decided to use her office (looks scholarly–just out of focus books are always a nice background). The office is located on the second floor of the house and faces south out over a main road that runs beside campus. The natural light was good but we wanted a little extra so we took the lampshade off of a desklamp and moved it closer. In interviews, the best way I’ve seen to frame the shot is to put the subject’s head in the top-left or top-right quadrant with them looking across the line-of-sight of the camera to the interviewer–it is supposed to help the viewer to feel more like they are there–like they are just sitting on the couch next to the interviewer. Kristin sat in a classic wooden chair like the kind you’d purchase from your alma mater and we framed the shot of her from just above the waist up (allowing for some hand movement when she raised her hands to gesture, but not when they were at rest).

CAMERAS & AUDIO: For the interview we used a standard sony HD camera that our agency provided shooting in 1080 at 30 frames per second–this is the camera mounted on a tripod, which framed the standard “interview” shot. This camera also received the audio off of the wired lapel mic (a low-end Audio-Technica lapel mic). In video, audio is one of the MOST overlooked and neglected things. To me, audio is just as important as the video…well, its at least very important. For the second camera I used my Canon 60D DSLR shooting 1080 video at 30 fps (the camera has manual ISO & aperture settings which I used at 1.8 and 60–you most often want the ISO to be at least double the fps). I shot this video off to the left side of the subject using a shoulder mount (Cowboy Studio’s $30: plastic, lightweight, & affordable!) and the built in audio (which I removed from the clip afterward). The idea of the second camera in this situation was for us to give the video some live-feeling movement (very popular in film, tv, commercials, etc) and to utilize the out of focus caused by the shallow depth of field in the DSLR lens (a 1.8 50mm Canon lens).

DURING FILMING: While we were filming we just let the camera on the tripod roll the whole time so that we’d capture anything we said that could be helpful (this is ideal when filming interviews as some side comments may end up being quite sincere and be full of wisdom or little sound bites that prove useful). For the shoulder mounted camera I broke up the filming into two big chunks (the whole interview lasted only around 20 mins) as I had to set down the camera a few times to help fix the lapel mic. One of the big things for the interviewers to remember during an interview (especially one where the subject is the only one on camera) is to resist the temptation to agree or comment on what the subject says while the subject is still speaking or too quickly after they finish. The main reason is so that the subject finishing what they were saying and you don’t have to go back to take out audio because the interviewer agreed, applauded, or sighed–especially if the interviewer is not in the shot or the video at all. Another helpful thing is for the interviewer to think on your feet to hear something that the subject said that was especially good or where they may have stumbled on a word–in either case, ask them to rephrase or “could you say that again”–this ‘on the fly’ thought process is especially helpful if you have one person filming and one person interviewing.

B-ROLL: Before and after we filmed the interview Rev. Kristin gave us a tour of the CA House and the residential spaces behind the main house. We filmed with the DSLR & shoulder mount the whole tour looking for moments that might make good cutaways while Kristin was speaking. The B-roll before the interview was based upon what Kristin was showing us and her explaining the community (giving us a sense of the space & context with which to better ask questions) and after the interview was based upon what she said in the interview (specifically focusing on things she’d spoken about that ‘jumped out’ to us after the interview).

POST-FILMING & EDITING: This is the hardest part. Editing and working with the video you’ve captured is likely one of the hardest parts because *most times* the video you have is all you’ll have to work with. Moral: take LOTS of video on location. On occasion you can go out and re-create something that might work well to supplement an element that you’re missing, but in the majority of situations it is all about what you have on your hard drive or camera at the end of the shoot. I use iMovie (w/ the ‘advanced features’ turned ON) to create most all of the videos I work on–again, I’m not a professional and I’m still pretty slow using Final Cut. This project was challenging in part because we were creating it for another section of our organization (Scholarships and Loans). We communicated the goals, constraints, content, and needs of the project before we filmed it–and after the interview we worked closely by email to discern and collaborate on how the project proceeded. There were 2 draft versions of the video which helped us to reach the final version of the interview and the comments and ideas generated from the first two drafts helped the final version to be more polished, more engaging, and better edited.

Well, that’s all…and that was a LOT. I hope that it might be helpful for those who are interested in filming and interviews–especially in the non-profit realm of the world. Feel free to contact me for more info or to collaborate on a project. There is a wealth of resources in the area of ‘how to’ and there are many excellent film makers out there helping to ‘tell the story’ of all the amazing things that are happening out there. May it continue.

And now, a prayer for exploration 2011:

God,
you know all people and you have made all people in your image,
 you love us and know us and we thank you for your love and call upon all of our lives:
for all of us: a call to work, live, and love people.

And today we especially pray for those who are discerning your call on their lives
to Ordained Ministry as Elders and Deacons in the United Methodist Church.
We pray that you would guide, equip, lead, and develop them into servants of the whole church and the whole world.

We pray for exploration 2011–that your Spirit will be obvious and apparent to all who gather.

In the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen.

This spring and this summer I have had the privilege of working with a Design Team for Prepare 2011, which is a new collegiate minister training event (both meanings in there–it is both a NEW event and for those NEW to the field). The design team is made up of campus ministers and chaplains who are experienced veterans of ministry with college students. Prepare 2011, a mentor-based training event for those new to ministry with college students, will be held July 17-19th in Nashville, TN (a few days before the United Methodist Campus Minister Association gathering July 20-23 in Nashville, TN).

At a planning session back in April a few members of the design team allowed me to film a couple of quick takes about what to expect at Prepare 2011 and why new campus ministers and chaplains should come to Prepare. Using my Canon T1i and a 50mm 1.8 II lens I quickly captured a few minutes of video (literally we filmed the whole thing in 5 mins) and then created the following promo video. Enjoy.

Charles and his brother John Wesley were the founders of the renewal movement in the Anglican Church that eventually became the Methodist Church. This is my own setting of the hymn, but you can find Carlton Young‘s (famous arranger of hymns & the hymnal) setting of “O the Depth of Love Divine” in the United Methodist Hymnal #627.

Liturgically speaking, Lent leads up to Holy Week where Jesus will suffer and die for the sins of all people–and then Easter and the Resurrection of Jesus. BUT, many people seem to get ahead of themselves and go directly to Easter–Lent is a time to literally “sit in the ashes” and is an appropriate time to contemplate the difficulties in our lives and the lives of others. Lent is not a time of introspection and evaluation to the point of “analysis paralysis” or the loss of self worth, but rather it is a time for reflection and spiritual growth.

The phrase “Lord Have Mercy” now, as in ancient times, often expresses all that we can really say in difficult seasons and situations in life. Lent is one of those seasons where the phrase “Lord Have Mercy” may get a good bit of usage in worship. The song “Kyrie (Lord Have Mercy)” comes from an ancient tradition of sung prayer as found in Psalms, Isaiah, and in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, & Luke. The Ancient Greek words “kyrie eleison” mean “Lord have mercy” and were used as a prayer in times when we don’t know what to say–times when we can only say “Lord, have mercy.”

This is my interpretation of the Kyrie and its debut performance was in February 2011 at “The Composes Concert” sponsored by Sacred Artistry and the Office of Religious Life at Emory University.

“Lord have mercy, have mercy on me
help me be the things you want me to be
help me see the things you want me to see
Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy on me”

words and music copyright by Joseph McBrayer 2010

In my own travels through the snow and ice covered streets I’ve found myself enjoying parts of the neighborhoods I usually zip through in my car or on my bike. I’ve gained a new appreciation for the sidewalks (and for people who have been so kind as to scrape and/or salt their section of the sidewalk) and for walking in the snow and ice.

As I’ve been hiking through the ice I’ve found myself humming and singing a familiar carol that we used at Christmas in worship services with the Emory college students. Good King Wenceslas is an old, familiar carol that I’ve sung often (and even made up alternate lyrics on occasion). For our closing worship service for the Fall Semester last year, the Emory Wesley students offered up short meditations on their favorite Christmas carols as to why they liked the carol and some of its historical significance or origins. One of the students selected Good King Wenceslas and shared a brief history of it–of how it is the recounting of the benevolent actions of a Saint King (actually Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia in the 10th Century wikipedia here) and his page (assistant of the day). It is the story of a king looking out on the day after Christmas (the Feast of Stephen) and seeing a poor man gathering fire wood. The king and page then carry meat, wine, and wood to the peasant’s house through a brutal winter storm to “see him dine.” As they are going “Thro’ the rude wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather” the page says he “can go no longer.” The monarch then tells the page to follow in his footsteps and as the page steps on the warmed ground where the Saint has walked!

The moral of this olden tale is social justice and care for the poor: “Therefore, Christian men (people), be sure, Wealth or rank possessing, Ye who now will bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing. It is not simply a 10th Century prosperity gospel, but a carol that reminds us to be a blessing to others–regardless of our social or economic status. Christ calls us to ministry with and for the poor–in serving and loving people we will discover the blessing of mutuality and understanding of others.

Below is my recording of an arrangement of the beloved Christmas Carol from the 16th Century. Again, the origins of this carol come from the stories of a Saintly ‘King’ Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia, who lived in the 10th Century in what is modern day Czech Republic (where he is now the patron Saint).

Words:
Good King Wenceslas looked out On the feast of Stephen
When the snow lay round about deep and crisp and even
Brightly shown the moon that night though the frost was cruel
When a poor man came in sight gathering winter fuel

“Hither, page, and stand by me, If thou know’st it, telling,
Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”
“Sire, he lives a good league hence, Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence, By Saint Agnes’ fountain.”

“Bring me flesh, and bring me wine, Bring me pine logs hither:
Thou and I will see him dine, When we bear them thither.”
Page and monarch, forth they went, Forth they went together;
Thro’ the rude wind’s wild lament And the bitter weather.

“Sire, the night is darker now, And the wind blows stronger;
Fails my heart, I know not how, I can go no longer.”
Mark my footsteps, good my page; Tread thou in them boldly:
Thou shalt find the winter’s rage Freeze thy blood less coldly.”

In his master’s steps he trod,  Where the snow lay dented;
Heat was in the very sod  Which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men (people), be sure,  Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor, Shall yourselves find blessing.

Good King Wenceslas chords here

The keynote speaker for the morning was Rev. Adam Hamilton, lead pastor of Church of the Resurrection & author of numerous books including When Christians Get it Wrong, Seeing Gray, and others. Hamilton spoke from his experience with young adults & college students at Church of the Resurrection. He spoke of the increasing secularization of society and the aggressive atheism (anti-theism) present in the current American culture. He applauded campus ministers for their ministry and noted that campus ministers are on the “front lines” of understanding and working with the new generations. Hamilton remarked that Christians must “understand the questions and concerns of the people you work with and help answer some of the questions” and that we must “formulate thoughtful Christian responses” to their difficult questions.

Hamilton shared portions of his own narrative interwoven with many of the questions that young people and college students are asking–questions of Theodicy (evil in the world), questions about other world religions, and questions about sexuality. Hamilton told the tragic story of the accidental death of his two best friends while he was in college and about how that caused him to reevaluate his call to be a pastor and whether or not he could represent a loving God after their untimely deaths. Ultimately, he emerged from that 6 month time of study with the understanding that God gives humans choice and that the world has laws which are seldom suspended by God. He decided that God wrings out the good–that is forces out the good from the suffering.

In looking at other world religions Hamilton spoke of a “third way” which lies between exclusivism and universalism. This “conjunctive faith” (James Fowler’s term) is a “radical center” of inclusivism. This position articulates that Jesus is the means of salvation, but that God can give salvation to anyone God chooses. The conversation around sexuality centered specifically on homosexuality. Recognizing that this is a divisive issue in ours and other denominations, Hamilton said that 2 factors have changed his view point: 1) the complexity of the Bible (its “messiness”) and 2) spending time with the parents of gay teens or students who committed or attempted suicide. Throughout his talk, but especially in the context of this difficult issue, Rev. Hamilton modeled responsible dialogue, civil discourse (esp. in the resulting Q&A), and a vulnerable, disarming openness that helped to produce mutual understanding and a furthering of love for each other. Hamilton articulated a hopeful-critical vision for the future of the United Methodist Church that calls for young people to be “modern day reformers” helping to retool and rethink Church in ways that help the wider world to see the Christian faith as an examined, intelligible, and practical way of living.

After lunch, there were additional workshops including Fundraising w/ Creighton Alexander, Leadership with Upper Room‘s Sarah Wilke, Sabbath Keeping with GBHEM‘s Assistant General Secretary Bridgette Young, and others. For dinner, sponsored by GBHEM, we ate BBQ from Jacks Stacks (#1 or 2 BBQ place in Kansas City) and continued to share in conversation and reflection upon the workshops, the speakers, and Refresh itself.

After dinner Creighton Alexander, Refresh organizer, led Refresh participants in recognizing and honoring the work of Jack Ewing (Exec. Dir. for Foundation for Evangelism now transitioning to Exec. Dir. of Lake Junaluska) and Royce Reynolds (longtime benefactor of United Methodism, FFE, & Refresh).

The evening’s keynote speaker was Pete Greig, UK leader of 24-7 Prayer & author of Red Moon Rising and God on Mute–two books about his experience as a church planter and prayer movement leader. Greig shared a time of teaching and practical prayer with our gathering centering around the Great Commission in Matthew 28. He focused on how “we’re all wired differently, but all are used equally in God’s purposes.” Greig shared his own personal story of prayer & his thirst for God’s presence and how that fueled the 24-7 prayer movement, which began in 1999. He shared the history of prayer movements with groups like the Moravians at Herrnhutt and John Wesley’s encounters with them–especially in the context of prayer. Pete argued that  “people aren’t looking for another program or a product…they are looking for the presence of God.“  And said that we as pastors must also long for that living water that God provides and that prayer is on of those primary ways by which we can experience God’s mercy and grace.

Refresh concluded, appropriately, in our saying together Wesley’s Covenant Prayer:

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.

Put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee.

Let me be full, let me be empty.

Let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, thou art mine, and I am thine.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen.

more photos here

The morning session began around 10am with Laura Story & her band leading us in worship with the songs: Marvelous Light, Lead Me to the Cross, In Christ Alone, Mighty to Save, & I Love You Lord.

Keynote Speaker Alan Hirsch, author of Forgotten Ways & Untamed and church visionary, spoke on Ephesians 4 and the 5 different roles of leadership & ministry in verse 11: Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Shepherd, & Teachers. A major focus of Hirsch’s presentation, using the acronym “APEST” to denote the 5 functions,  was on how the church has lost the “APE”–Apostles, Prophets, & Evangelists. Hirsch, an avid researcher of movements in global and historical Christianity, asserts that many of the large problems and the decline of mainline churches in America/the West are a result of the current ecclesial (church) structures that contribute to a loss of the emphasis & importance of the APE–especially of the focus of ordination to the role of shepherd (pastor) and the role of  teacher (theologian). He posits that this lack of recognition and function in the Western church, and especially the UMC, is a direct result of this loss of the NT understanding of the nature (and mission) of the church (ecclesiology). He noted that many people who do or do not fit the accepted norms of a denomination’s expectation for ministers (especially APE’s in light of the emphasis on ST’s) have left the Mainline protestant churches resulting in either a “churchless mission” or a “missionless church.”

Hirsch further described these 5 roles and also explained their sociological dimensions/functions:
Apostle–systematic designer/entrepreneurial/environment making;
Prophet–ask the right questions & question the status quo;
Evangelist–recruits/draws people in, likes sales/marketing/packaging;
Shepherd–knits people together causing cohesion & humanizes the efforts;
Teacher–helps bring about wisdom & understanding.

He explored the difficulties of the modern church and talked in some detail about the divisiveness of the laity/clergy divide–citing specifically the ills it can cause in the church. Hirsch also spoke of the need for leaders in each of these 5 areas of ministry and gave examples of how most of us would express one of the five functions as primary, secondary, etc and how knowing our own expressions of these roles might help us to be better in ministry.

After lunch (Chick-fil-a sponsored by Wesley Theological Seminary) there were two workshop sessions including further conversations with Alan Hirsch (which proved quite fruitful) and a variety of other options including “How to run a prayer room,” “Servant Evangelism,” “Sabbath Keeping,” and more.

Overall, another excellent day filled with hopeful-critical moments for engaging in prayer, conversation, worship, and reflection on how God is at work in our lives, our ministries, our campuses, our denomination, and our world.

more photos from day 2 on flickr here