Kudos to my movie people!

Currently trying to get a Saturday filming schedule together. Yes, believe it or not, we really are still working on this movie. I'm proud of my people and the job they've done thus far, and I think we're all gonna be pleased with the outcome, if for no other reason than that there is an outcome.

Thoughts on those who have been an integral part:
Lana - Yeah, did you really think I was gonna mention somebody else first? Not an exaggeration to say that without her, there would be no movie; and most of her contributions came before our courtship began. She was one of my chief sounding boards for ideas in pre-production, did way more script-critiquing than anyone else, and tossed out a bunch of ideas herself. She knew that she'd be playing Leslie, one of the biggest roles in the film, but had no idea that her job description would also include makeup artist, co-director of photography, co-production designer, and assistant director. She has truly been a shieldmaiden on this project, doing all of her jobs spectacularly, helping to give things some semblance of organization, and constantly encouraging and being there for me. I love you, darling, and I cannot thank God enough for the job you have done on this film.

Daniel - My little brother (he's still my little brother for the time being since I have a couple inches on him, though that could change in the next few years) was the first to share the Hunted dream, way back in summer 2005. His slavemaster boss has prevented him from being on location as much as he's wanted to, but he's done a good job as 1st assistant director when available. He also spearheads the film's comic relief by playing wacky woodsman Shawn. Incidentally, guess who can only do filming for half the day on Saturday because he has to go mow lawns? ;-)

Hannah - If anyone has cause to complain about their part in the project, it's probably my sister. That's because she never thought she was even going to have a part in it, and I never counted on us needing her. But she's been a crucial part, doing a lot of our camera and boom operating. Sometimes she gets frustrated by having to run the camera with four crazy losers and Lana in front of it; but she has done a yeoman's job and deserves a gold medal for her patient, steady effort. Snaps for you, sis!

Trevor - It simply wouldn't be right to make a movie like this without the T-Rev Meister's involvement. He and Daniel and I have filmed a lot of really bad video together; hopefully Hunted doesn't quite fall under that classification. Trevor has always been a great actor with a natural instinct as a filmmaker. His main official contribution to Hunted is the part of Ryan, who's a bit more straight-laced than most of T-Rev's previous characters (like Fred in the play It Happened At Ernie's). But he's also helped in a number of small ways behind the camera. Finally, he has the irritating ability to memorize his lines with little effort, while the rest of us are still squinting at the pages and going over a scene for the umpteenth time.

Dusty - Our fearless youth group leader brings his skills to the big screen as Clyde, the villainous elder brother of Eric and leader of the Adams County Gang. Dusty's done an outstanding job thus far in his acting and has been able to help a bit behind the scenes, though not as much as he'd like. By the way, what was I thinking when I cast him and Chris in parts that have them interacting with each other on screen a lot?

Chris - See previous entry. Chris has struck exactly the chord I was looking for in his part as Carl, Clyde's sidekick. Both of these guys have had limited time in filming but have hit home runs in their acting roles thus far. They've also been very supportive and patient with me as I continually make filming plans and then change them. Thanks a ton, dogs.

Tara - You can count her the second member of the "Younger Sisters of Key Players Who Never Thought They'd Be So Crucial To This Movie" club. And yes, I know that phrase is technically unclear, but you know what I'm talking about. Anyways, Tara has found herself following Hannah around a lot as an operator of our boom (the microphone carrier, basically). Both of them have been troopers, although Tara seems to have found a niche for going to sleep in the midst of late filming nights; she's done it both times we had to stay out late. Sheesh, who sleeps at 2 in the morning, anyway?

Tony - Maybe we should change the name to the "Younger SIBLINGS of Key Players Who Never Thought They'd Etc." club. As the younger brother of our sunshine princess, Ton' never thought he'd get plunged into one of the key acting roles in the movie, that of the other wacky woodsman, Travis. But of course, a story's not a good story unless it involves some character or other getting plunged into something unexpected. So there we go. At any rate, Tony has come on at the eleventh hour and acquitted himself extremely well in front of the camera. I particularly like his petrified intensity during the scary story scene.

James - Being called on to play a henchman who serves under the likes of Clyde and Carl is no small thing. James has amply handled his role thus far and even brought a nice unexpected spin to some of his scenes. Of course, out of all our cast, he has the biggest problem finishing a scene (a scene, say I? Nay, rather a line) without bursting into voluminous laughter. But we still love him anyway.

Josh - An imposing demeanor and experience as a bad guy in the Easter program (playing a Roman soldier there; Dusty and James have also done this many times in the past) make Josh an ideal choice for the tough-guy role of Dirk, another henchman. He's only had one filming day so far, but Lord willing that will change on Saturday. Daniel is on record multiple times as saying that he's not looking forward to shooting at Josh with a paintball gun (oh wait, did I just give away a plot spoiler?).

So, is that the team? Well, most of the prominent ones, anyway. But of course, we could not do it without our location providers: Tim and Susie (my parents), Tyler and Tracy (Lana's; even though we haven't actually filmed anything at their house, our film crew has received their hospitality), Clinton and Lichea (Trevor's parents), Dusty and Amanda, Wayne and Georgia, Jordan, and of course my dear Gramma and Papa.

And the list is still not complete; hopefully the credits will be. As we (Lord willing) wind down to the end, at last, of the production process, I want to thank all those who have helped us on this film. And thanks as well to people like Meggy and Emy and many others who have encouraged us and prayed for us. You guys rock my face off.

Most of all, thanks to the Father of heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows, and from whom come all good things. We love You and pray that this movie glorifies Your Name, our God!

And that's all for this week, folks. Don't anticipate another post from this quarter till Monday. As always, please pray for our Saturday filming plans, that God's will is done. Namarie!

And the fire of the Lord fell

Saturday, August 25. The day we had awaited since, well, probably Saturday, August 26 of last year. Fan the Flame 2007 had finally arrived.

The morning was a crazy bustle of furious activity as we tried to finish up what absolutely had to be done. I was up at the church at nine. I always like to be really early for stuff like FtF and the Easter program, but in this case it was more a necessity than a convenience.

12:45 pm. Fifteen minutes to showtime. Apart from our youth, only about twenty people had showed up. Yikes. Where IS everybody? Did they not hear about 12:30 registration? (One youth leader had called the church earlier and announced that her group was ready to be there at 2; I made her aware of the fact that we started at 1 and needed them to be there at 12:30).

And then people started showing up. Our registration line stretched out in the overhang. And it stayed out there for the next thirty minutes as we continued to have more trickle in.

Needless to say, we did not start at 1:00 as planned. It seemed counterproductive to begin the event knowing that a bunch of people were still waiting to get in the church. It was about 1:25 before we finally kicked off.

After a "trailer"-like video intro, emcees Daniel and Trevor jumped up on stage to welcome everyone to the event. After some door prizes, a skit, and a two-minute warning with Caleb Melton, it was time for worship, led by Singled Out.

It had been a stressful morning, or at least potentially so. But I was pumped about leading some worship. We started out with the brand-new "Let God Arise", followed by "Praise Your Name" and "Not to Us" with no pauses in between. The crowd was the best that I've ever led worship with, I believe; they stood and started clapping in rhythm without us telling them to, and sang along loudly when they knew the words.

We toned everything down quickly with the new "Awesome is the Lord Most High" (with my brother Daniel making his debut singing harmony), then went worshipfully soft with the classics "How Great Is Our God" and "Heart of Worship". The Spirit was moving, and it thrilled me to hear the voices in the crowd and see upraised hands. Done for now, and it was time to hand off to Christopher Russell, our first speaker.

Chris immediately started in with a hard-hitting, in-your-face Gospel message centered around the Cross. He preached from Isaiah 52-53 and other passages, and actually hammered together a cross on stage and adorned it with nails and paint to represent blood. He talked about Christ's sacrifice for us on the cross, and about sin, and hell, and salvation.

In Chris' invitation, ten young people came forward to make decisions, and five of them prayed to receive Christ. Praise God!

After the invitation, we did a couple more songs: "Rescue" and "The Wonderful Cross." Then, after our second skit -- starring Daniel and Trevor as a couple of wacked-out military dudes -- it was time to dismiss everyone to the afternoon sessions.

In the first afternoon session, half the youth went to classes while the other half got free time. After an hour, they would switch places. I was taking a break and drink in the hallways, watching the first group shuttle around to their classes, when this girl stopped and talked to me. She then proceeded to follow me around all afternoon. It was wonderful.

I absolutely loved getting to be together with Lana as a couple in public for the first time. A totally new experience, to actually be expected to go everywhere and do everything with this one person, but totally awesome. We hung out, talked to some of our friends, searched for missing teenage girls (uh yeah, seriously), and ate supper together (well, she ate supper; I was way too keyed up to eat and just had a piece of bread). We both immensely enjoyed ourselves.

But alas, at some point I had to abandon my fair maiden for the time being and get stuff ready for the second service. It opened with a couple of songs from Deadlife, which is basically Billy, Daniel, and Trevor doing some songs that Billy has written. They were good. Then, after a last skit and a two-minute warning with Aaron Lovelace, the band was back up to lead worship.

We started with "Salvation Is Here", a classic church camp anthem that we've wanted to do for a long time and finally did this year. Then I let everyone take some meet-and-greet fellowship time while Daniel and Billy worked frantically on the electric guitar, which had gone woefully out of tune.

By the time we got everyone back together to continue the worship, I was a bit worried because there seemed to be some raucousness in the crowd, a lack of focus among some in the audience. Thanks be to God, it didn't last long; by the time we were well into our next song, "Enough", the focus was there and I was feeling the Lord's presence. We finished with two of my favorites, "Give Us Clean Hands" and "D Medley", both powerful songs of prayer. The Spirit was incredibly strong, and everyone was singing so loudly. I thanked God for honoring us with His presence and indwelling our praises.

Enter Rickey Dustin Wright. Dusty's message was just as strong as Chris', though in a different direction: he focused on the biblical image of cleansing the temple. He brought out some great insights from the Word. One was that cleansing the temple was the first thing and the last thing Jesus did in His earthly ministry. Another was that while Jesus never used force to drive people into the temple, He did use force to drive them out of it. Great stuff.

Dusty's big illustration came in the form of a large concrete heart, which he had hanging in a special platformed box. At the end of his message, he demonstrated what our own efforts to change our hearts are like by tossing little paper wads at this "hard heart". Then, to show the power the Word of God has to change hearts, he demolished the thing with a couple of blows from a sledgehammer. It was powerful imagery.

Early in Dusty's message, he felt led to go ahead and give an invitation for those who needed to be saved. There was no response, and Dusty turned around to get his Bible and begin preaching. But just as he did so, one young man got up from his seat and came down to the front. About seven or eight more young people followed; praise God, praise God! We don't know how many decisions were made during that time, but at least a couple prayed to receive Christ. One was Lana's friend whom she had introduced to me that afternoon, Hope. It was a blessing to see the joy on her face afterwards at her new salvation.

Dusty's message-ending invitation did not see any decisions for Christ, but the altar area was filled with young people in prayer. I played and sang the chorus to "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus" on the keyboard. After everyone was finished praying, we played "Agnus Dei", accompanied for the first ever by my sister Hannah on violin; it's an amazing worship song with words all taken from the book of Revelation, and was a terrific capstone to the day. But the day was not quite over. It was time to head outside for the bonfire service.

That's right, the bonfire service. Not only had we not been sure whether we would have it, but I had been completely sure even that morning that we would not. Our county, Franklin, has had a burn ban for some time now; we had been told that a big rain would have to come on Thursday in order to lift the ban in time for FtF on Saturday. No rain on Thursday, no rain on Friday, and I was sure that meant no bonfire on Saturday.

Oh me of little faith! It rained for most of the morning on Saturday, and then Mrs. Georgia, a faithful member of the church and Branch city councilperson, decided to take matters into her own hands. She called the county judge and the county sheriff; both told her that even though the burn ban was still on, we could go ahead and have our fire since Branch had received a lot of rain. Why did I doubt?

Everyone silently walked outside for the bonfire. Only there was no bonfire -- to start with. Dusty waited until all were present, then told the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel, gesturing to an altar in the middle that we had built. Finally he recited Elijah's fervent prayer that God send fire to show Himself to the Israelites.

To the shock and awe of most of those in the crowd, a real, genuine fire fell on the altar and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifice -- or at least the wood we had piled on it. What a cool visualization of a true story from the Bible! (For those of you wanting to know how we did it, you ought to be able to guess.)

It was a perfect ending to a great day. FtF '07 is now in the past, but I think the impact of the day will continue to last far into the future. We at FBC Branch can't wait to see what God does in our group through this event, and we are also praying for all the groups that came and for those who made decisions for Christ. It has always been our goal that Fan the Flame not be a one-day monument to a "rally"-type gathering, but an ongoing movement where a passion for God continues to burn in our hearts.

The fire fell.

Back from the dead, and, living passionately

Crazy, crazy weekend. I think I'm about recovered from it now, though a good night's sleep tonight will help.

I'll try to give full-fledged production updates again at some point soon, but at the moment there's simply too much to tell. I'll try to give you some information.

Friday night. Filming after dark, trying to get two campsites finished (there are three in the film; the first one we did two weeks ago, as you'll remember from my production updates). Dark is, oh, about 9:00, say. We had to wait on Daniel, who had had to work every day of the week, and who was also going to pick up Tony. They pulled in at about 10:30.

Ouch. Already an hour and a half behind, right out of the gate. By the time Daniel had showered and we finished applying makeup and studying script and got out to the location to film, it was midnight.

Tip for budding filmmakers: If you can help it, don't ever start shooting at midnight. If you finish at midnight, that's okay, but it's not fun to begin and know that the clock already reads AM.

Five and a half hours later, after multiple delays (which were pretty much beyond our control), we finally picked up our stuff and pulled out. Yup, you've got that right, 5:30 am.

Incidentally, the most beautiful part of the day begins at about 5:30. Lying in a sleeping bag on the ground, facing the lightening sky, trying to decide whether to get my two hours of sleep or just stay awake through the whole thing, I was awestruck. It's such a gorgeous sight as the light continues to creep into the sky, the stars slowly disappearing. I felt like I was in some movie. Or like I had just finished filming part of one.

In the morning, we had three more scenes to do. Feeling pretty miserable (at least, I was; I don't know about everyone else, but I can pretty much guess), we got them done and pulled out for home.

All in all, I was happy with the weekend. I felt like we were able to buckle down and work hard and together. We weren't perfect, but you're not going to be when it's late at night (or is it that early in the morning?). I was proud of my fellow troopers, all sibling pairs: Daniel and Hannah (who are of course my own siblings), Lana and Tony, Trevor and Tara. They faced a night even more difficult than the last night shoot we did, never complained, worked hard, and got stuff accomplished. I will definitely do my best to think of an appropriate way to honor them when we get to the end of this whole thing. "Good times gravy."

Sunday was a difficult day. There were classes to teach, songs to lead, lessons to prepare, band practices to conduct, slideshows to run; and I wasn't running on a full tank. At several points during the day I responded with anger and frustration, then had to ask God to forgive me and help me.

And now? Well, it never rains but it pours, as they say in Bree. In the next two weeks, I've got a magazine, a movie, and a youth event to work on. School starts a week from today. Work. Church. Other things in my personal life.

But I'm kinda looking forward to it. Some fun stuff coming up. When I get engulfed in the sea's depths, I simply have to suck in the water and trust God to allow me to breath it. He always does.

One thing I've kinda rediscovered (by the grace of God) in the last couple of months is how exhilarating life truly is. When you give your everything to the Giver of life and put your trust in Him, He makes everything that much more fun. And I guess that last statement is an unconscious paraphrase of Matthew 6:33: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Not that I have done that perfectly, or anywhere close to perfectly. I have still messed up, still failed, still rebelled, in ways that shame me. If I were in my Heavenly Father's shoes, looking down at my life, I would probably be continually yelling, "Why can't you get it?" Thankfully, He continues to show grace and mercy to me beyond what I deserve.

And so yeah, life is fun. It can be kinda cool to put stuff in God's hands, not having any idea how He's going to work it out. Hunted, for example. Will we even have filming done by the end of September? I have no idea. But I know it belongs to God, and He's going to work it out the way He sees fit -- which is infinitely better than any plan I could conceive.

One of my goals is that throughout my life, from youth to old age if God allows me that long, I would live passionately. Passionate people change the world. Passionate people experience true happiness and fulfillment. Passionate people don't just say they know, they truly do know that nothing is too big for the God they serve. Passionate people inspire others to be passionate. Passionate people don't get hung up on the little things of life, but focus on stuff like faith and hope and love, and let that filter through into the little things. Passionate people are fun to be around. Passionate people get movies made about them.

Not that I want a movie made of my life. And not that I can say all of those things about myself, even though I am trying to live passionately. But there are so many people on this earth who don't live passionately, and it shows. They may not have a care in the world, but they also don't have anything genuine to care about. They may never try to do something big and fail, but that's because they will never try anything big in the first place. They may never have their hearts broken, but that's because they're unwilling to allow their hearts to love. They risk nothing and gain nothing; they put nothing in and get the same thing out.

Life is not about money. It's not about cars or clothes or sports or music or even church or family. No, I think when it all boils down, life is about passion. A passion for the Creator that fills everything else we do.

If you have that, you are a shining star in His universe, and you will find happiness because you're seeking it in the right place. If you don't have it, no matter how many other great and wonderful things may be in your life, they count for nothing.

Well, I could keep going, but I'll stop for now, though I daresay I feel a magazine article coming out of this. But it's 6:00 and time for me to leave work. Till tomorrow.

Uh-oh, here we go again

No, the title doesn't signify bad news, merely that it's back-to-back with the previous post. So if you haven't read that one yet, go do it and then come back up to this one. I feel like I owe multiple posts after a long silence.

While our plans for Friday and Saturday were restored by the grace of God, our Thursday plans fell through. We had been planning on using a couple of homes of people in our church. Well, they weren't sure whether they'd be available on Thursday because they were supposed to help somebody move, and then Jordan, my contact who also happens to be in our band, never told me for sure. Then he temporarily dropped off the face of the earth (which he does sometimes). By Wednesday night, I had to make the decision to call the filming off. It was okay in a sense, because I had kinda felt from the Lord that Thursday wasn't going to be a good day to film anyway.

We were able to use Thursday night for band practice. Daniel, Trevor, and I, that is. That's the guitar, drums, and vocals in our band, respectively. We also have Billy the old one (he's like, 30, I mean old) on bass and Jordan the young one (he's like, 15, I mean young) on congas. But they weren't able to make it, Jordan's reason of course being the whole helping-move thing, so the three of us practiced together and made some progress. There's a little Chris Tomlin ditty called "Let God Arise" that is going to ROCK at Fan the Flame. If the Lord wills. We're all pretty excited about playing that song.

In the last couple of days, sitting at home because I was off work, I was able to get various stuff accomplished for FtF. I have finally finished our skits, the ones we were originally scheduled to begin practicing three weeks ago, and I'm fairly happy with them. The last one, a take-off on "This Little Light of Mine", is the best; it has a type of humor I haven't used in a long time.

And then, Wednesday. (Notice how I kinda keep going back in time here? That's not intentional.) God has really blessed our youth group and allowed us to grow quite a bit in the last few months. We now run a solid 30-35 on Wednesday nights. I think we can easily have 40 every time if we can get a few more people that are "on the fringe" to start being faithful.

At any rate, on Wednesdays we usually start getting together at about 4 or 4:30 at the church. We hang out, maybe play some basketball or Ping-Pong, talk. Then we eat (our food being cooked by Dusty's wonderful wife Amanda and Chris' wonderful wife Dadrian, with help from some of the youth girls). And for about a year now, instead of having "class" on Wednesday nights, we basically have a full-fledged service in the fellowship hall. I lead the worship time, assisted by Daniel on the guitar (and lately we've added Caleb Melton and Jordan on the guitar as well), and then either Chris or Dusty preaches.

It's something we decided to start doing while we were at church camp last year, and I think it has been awesome, no question. I would estimate that we've seen close to thirty youth pray to receive Christ on Wednesday nights since we started doing the service. Not all of those decisions were genuine, sadly, but many were, by God's grace.

Anyways, it's straight-up awesome to be able to lead worship every Wednesday night for a group of young people. I highly encourage that all my readers do it sometime (wink). We have had some great times of worship, and the Spirit had really been moving lately. But in the last couple of weeks, we leaders have been noticing something a bit alarming.

It wasn't something earthshattering, just a small difference that we probably wouldn't have picked up on if the Spirit hadn't told us. While everything perhaps looked okay during our worship times, we began to sense that the group wasn't totally united, that a lot of the kids were holding back during worship.

That's never a good thing for a youth group. When you've got Fan the Flame, a huge event that you want God to bless mightily, coming up in a few weeks, it has the potential to be deadly. So we and some of the older guys in the youth group prayed about it before the service on Wednesday, and we came to the service ready to address the issue.

Dusty started, butting in to the announcement time (just kidding; it's always cool with me when he or Chris does that) and stating concisely that we had noticed the group as a whole hadn't been as focused lately as it should be. Then, after giving the announcements and taking prayer requests, I let loose on the group.

It wasn't pleasant, for me or for them. I nearly always try to be upbeat and positive at the beginning of the worship service, but not this night. I shared the story from Joshua about the Israelites' defeat at Ai and how the sin of one man, Achan, was responsible. It was uncomfortable. Several of the youth, especially ones who hadn't been coming for very long, were glancing around as if to say, "Is this guy off his rocker?" I began to worry that none of it was getting through, that the whole service was going to go down the drain, that I was saying too much.

It's hard not to say too much in a situation like that; there was so much I wanted to say, but it has to be God speaking to them, not me. Finally, I quit talking and started singing. We usually start with an energetic song to get going, but this time we kicked off with the prayerful "One Thing".

And we had worship. It felt wonderful. For me, it was passionate worship. I sang a lot louder than I usually do; hopefully that didn't throw anyone off. The Spirit fell upon us.

Chris then gave a hardcore message about witnessing; good stuff and convicting, for me (I think) as much as the kids. As the service wrapped up, I felt a lot better about the unity of the group. I'm not naive enough to think it was all resolved, that everything's now perfect. But I know some kids got right with God on Wednesday, and our group is better off for it.

I just pray that we'll be ready for what God has for us at Fan the Flame. Fifteen days to go.