This is a short video update I made for my sending church Bethel Assembly in Fosston, MN.  However, if you dont happen to attend Bethel, this update is just as much for you as them.  Please visit the donate page to find out how you can support me in my ministry.

Result? The feeling of helplessness.

The shower was cold, the coffee spilled, no time to eat breakfast, co-worker decided to not show up, can’t afford a snack, pulled into a meeting for something, the something was our fault, cant go back and get sympathy from the co-worker who isn’t there.

Result? The feeling of helplessness.

Our heart is screaming in pain! Our response is the same as last time: to quickly find something thing that we know will get our mind off of it for a few minutes, make us feel a bit better and give us time to think about how all this is our co-workers fault anyway. How can we make sure they feel the pain of it? If only we could get them fired, this wouldn’t happen!

Poor in Spirit is the moment that we recognize that pain, our heart screams then suddenly, somewhere inside of us there is a whisper that says, “there is nothing you can do to fix this or make anything any better.” We close our eyes and instantly, flashing in our mind is the last 10 times we felt this way and what our natural response was every time: to run to the thing that numbs the pain, justify ourselves, be bitter, manipulative and deceitful”.

“Wait, my first response has been sin? Every time?”

Something breaks in us in that instant. This is Poor in Spirit.

 The cubical, the classroom, the bed room, the car is suddenly filled

with the presence of God. We feel His greatness, His holiness, His majesty and that we have nothing to offer in return. Our past numbness, bitterness, manupulation and deceitfulness feel like a weight that pulls our face right to the floor. We see what we have to offer and we mourn because it will never measure up to what He is. Our barrenness has led us to mourning.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted . . .

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool;

what is the house that you would build for me,

and what is the place of my rest?

All these things my had has made, and so all these things came to be,

declares the Lord.

But this is the one [...]]]>

Thus says the Lord:

“Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool;

what is the house that you would build for me,

and what is the place of my rest?

All these things my had has made, and so all these things came to be,

declares the Lord.

But this is the one to whom I will look:

he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.

The most amazing place that has ever been thought of (by the only one who could think it), a place that our simple minds can not even come close to imagining, is Gods chair.

The incredible paradise of earth with its majestic peaks and crystal blue waters is only a footstool and only worthy to be under his feet.

So what is a simple building made from sand, water and wood, made by sinful hands, compared to the majesty of God whose footstool is the earth and whose chair is the third heaven. Is there a building that we, “gnats” compared to even angles, could build with our hands of flesh? In this case, if even the glory and grandeur of the temple in Jerusalem is only a pile of sand, what is there that I could do, what could I make, what could I could I force my self to do, how many mouths could I feed, how many sacrifices could I make with my own hands that could turn the eye of this God? There is so obviously nothing that even the greatest of men could do, say, build or even sacrifice with his own hands.  It is all filthy rags.

What is it then that could turn the gaze of this God aside from the pleasure of infinite enjoyment of Himself alone?

You. When you are humble and have a humble heart. When you hear the word of the Lord and obey it with out a second thought; simply because He is good.

This God never stops searching the face of the earth for those who would simply recognize their brokenness, humble themselves, turn their face to Him and whisper, “I love you!”

I was honored to be asked to produce a promotional video for a new book that I am really excited about.  I was able to work with my close friend Dalton Lifsey to produce a really cool video trailer for him.  His book, which is called “The Controversy of Zion and the Time of [...]]]>

I was honored to be asked to produce a promotional video for a new book that I am really excited about.  I was able to work with my close friend Dalton Lifsey to produce a really cool video trailer for him.  His book, which is called “The Controversy of Zion and the Time of Jacob’s Trouble”, highlights the desperate need for the Church to understand God’s heart toward his chosen people; Israel.  His ability to understand and communicate biblical prophesy on this topic is profound.

I am really excited about this video.  I learned so much about good audio and video production on this project.  It is my first major production of this type.  (just because I learned a lot on this, don’t take it to mean that it is perfect at all)  Here is the video followed by some of the techniques and equipment I used:

Techniques

Initially, the desired feel was to be similar to the style of a modern World War II film.  Think Band of Brothers or Defiance.  Obviously there are no battle scenes in this trailer video.  It was the color style and movement style is what we were going for.

As far as the actual filming, I wanted to keep the feel natural so I tried to avoid the static camera feel.  I used a tripod but I did not set it on the floor. I held the camera and tripod off the floor so that the weight of the tripod kept the camera much more stable but still gave the natural motion feel.

I used only natural light but the room was very well lit from all the large windows on two sides.  It was a somewhat over cast day as well which helped to diffuse the sun light.

Equipment

For video I used the Panasinic GH1 with the stock lens zoomed about 1/4 to 1/2 way in.  I shot this in the AVCHD format at 1920×1080 resolution.  I filmed from about 8-10 feet away most of the time.  For audio I used the Sennheiser’s ME66/K6 shotgun mic running through an Edirol FA-101 digital I/O Interface recording on a Macbook Pro in Audacity.

Editing

I use the previous version of Final Cut Pro (not the most recent and shameful excuse for “professional” software by the same name)  Some of the effects I used are: Desaturate, Equalize, Gamma Correction, Color Balance, Vignette and Add Noise.  The first step was to pull the colors right out using desarureate to get that nearly black and white feel of a WW2 film.  Next, use Equalize to make the darks darker and the lights lighter.  I love this effect and I use it in nearly everything that I do.  Gamma correction and Color Balance are used very sparingly just to correct some stray brightness and colors.  Vignetting was used to at some focus and bring the sharpness of the corners down.  Add noise was also used sparingly to give more of a film effect and to help blur some of the sharp vignetting gradients.

Music

We are fortunate to have some great mutual friends with our brother Jon Thurlow, so we asked if we could use one of his amazing tracks called “Selah” from a recent Limited Edition album.  He was happy to oblige.  Jon, I hope you like the video.

I am really happy with the way it turned out.  I hope that people enjoy it but most of all I pray that the spirit of God carries the message of this video and Dalton’s book to the nations of the earth and that the Lord begins to turn the hearts of the older brother towards the prodigal son, Israel, in the same way the the Father’s heart burns for him.

Big thanks to my sister Kari for being the “interviewer” for this video!  I love you Kari!