Everyone Needs a Cabin

I was looking for a photograph in my LightRoom library the other day and ran across this picture I took last March when we were home in Colorado.



I grew up sharing a room with my older brother and by the time I turned fourteen I decided I needed my own room. Even though we didn't have an extra bedroom in our house, in a moment of ungrateful, junior high attitude I felt like my Dad needed to do something about it and get me my own room. In addition to many life skills, probably the three main character qualities that my dad stressed during my childhood were, responsibility, integrity and obedience and he never missed an opportunity to instill these principles. This scenario was no exception and I remember him looking at me for a second with this perplexed look and then said, "Ok. I tell you what: if you want your own room you can build it." After a few days of feeling like my feelings weren't validated I decided that I would do just that. Build my own room.

I know well the two opinions on John Eldridge and have read many of his books. While some argue his theology and Biblical basis, I've found that he has some wise insight to the way a man thinks. In "The Way of The Wild Heart," a book he wrote as a follow up to, "Wild at Heart," he explains the stages of manhood and says that young men need to be allowed to be "king" and rule over something in their lives. He says that young men will learn about life, natural consequences and responsibility through owning pets, building forts, getting hurt, having a place that is all their own. I'm glad my parents understood this principle and gave me numerous opportunities to take on great responsibility. This is one of the biggest reasons my parents advocated homeschooling and wanted us to learn valuable, practical life lessons.

Anyway, my dad is an artist, creative, and an excellent carpenter and I grew up constantly building and rebuilding projects of various sizes. We had recently rebuilt a deck and my dad said I could have all of the old redwood scrap. After spending a few months drawing up plans (I can't find them, otherwise I would show one to you!) I showed them to my dad, picked a corner of our five acre lot as far from the barn and house as possible and went to work.

Over a process of more than two years I proceeded to build my little house funded from left over material from local developments and whatever I couldn't find, I bought myself using money I earned at dinner music gigs I played piano at throughout Colorado Springs. I insulated, wired and drywalled this the entire 96 square feet and believe it or not spent many nights in it. I heated it with a small antique wood stove that now holds my printer in my studio.

God uses everything in our life for a reason. Even though I was in junior high and this was not whatsoever a life changing event, I ran into a closed door when my dad said I couldn't have my own room. I remember being mad and upset, but what came out of my sweating, bleeding, applying myself, spending much time, money and energy was a lifeskill I don't think I could have learned any other way. I'm thinking now of the mountains in my life now that I really just would rather give up on and say it's not worth it. Is it really not worth it, or is this just a cabin waiting to be built?

This is my Dad's cabin that he built with his brothers in the mountains of Colorado. Every man should have one. There's your challenge: what's the cabin in your life? Go build it.

New Pop Screen!

When Blue mics came out with the Blue Spark recently, I jumped on the chance to own a quality mic with the Blue name on it for such an economical price. It has turned out to be an excellent purchase and it looks so cool! I use it for vocals, guitar and piano primarily and it has captured excellent detail in every application. In addition to the superior quality microphones, one thing that Blue excels at is their design and marketing. The extra thought and creativity of their design and packaging are inspiring in this day when utility and economy is typically the goal.

When tracking vocals for 33Miles the most popular mic in Nashville studios tended to be either the Blue Kiwi or the Blue Bottle with the interchangeable capsule which are $$2,000-$6,000 microphones. The Spark uses the same technology from the same manufacturer (obviously), in a smaller, simpler package for $250.

One element of the Spark's creative design is that it comes with this cute little pop screen that showcases the Blue logo. Looks so cool and I thought I was getting a pop-screen with the mic. While it helps attenuate and neutralize some pops, a lot still make through. (Maybe I'm an extra emphatic singer...or that's why people back away from me when I'm telling a story...)



Anyway, I needed a better pop-screen and found Blue's, "The Pop" which I'm thrilled about. With a price tag of $30 on Amazon and it matches the quality and design of my mic, I had to have it. It looked too cool to not share with you!



Let the singing begin! (The soundtrack to the videos on my blog were all recorded with this mic if you want to hear some reference! (Jesus' Power over Death, Jesus' Power over Nature, Jesus' Power over Demons).

I'm going to go filter out some pops!

Goodbye Living Room, Hello Christmas...Almost

As Christmas approaches this year I'm reminded of this this time last year when I originally transformed the worship environment in our sanctuary. What I walked into when we moved here sixteen months ago was a sterile, white open space that had been untouched for over twenty years. I also discovered a surprising attitude toward the feel of the space reminiscent of, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" I soon discovered an interesting trend through the exercise of making this space fresh, new and alive. When people are used to something being a certain way for a long time and they've grown accustomed to it, they don't like when it's changed. Plain and simple! This brings up an interesting topic for me as a Christian because I'm reminded of how this looks in my walk as a disciple, and how it plays out in different areas of my life.

The idea of sanctification means that we should strive to be transformed daily, becoming more and more like Christ. My prayer is that I would love God more, be more Christ-like tomorrow than I am today! Growing is hard because it takes a process. That process includes struggle, heart-ache, failure, being stretched, admitting that I'm wrong and my pride balks at all of those things and when I avoid them because they're uncomfortable it's easy to remain complacent which negatively affects my growth as a Christian.

Within the realm of visual arts and visual worship we can't ignore the legitimacy of preference. In the same way that different genres of music appeal to different types of people the same is true for what we are visually attracted to: some like a traditional look with rich earth tones and dark wood and others like white, stark, modern minimalism. Some people even like florescent lights!

Regardless of preference, all Christians are called to holiness and I thank the Lord that He has me on a journey and is aware of where I am in that journey. It's my desire to apply this concept to our approach of worship. By simply changing the feel and the look of our environment, regardless of it perfectly matching the current mini-series we're in, causes things to be different. My goal is to creatively reach somebody's heart and create something that makes them think differently, or inspire a thought, or feel differently than they did the week before. People are visual and the secular media has a great handle on that. Just watch TV for 10 minutes and see the messages and emotions that are conveyed and invoked. Why not use the same tool and reach people the same way for the Lord? As we till the soil in our hearts we allow the Holy Spirit to make us think, convict us, and change us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

Sorry the long explanation of these few elements I wanted to share:

Goodbye summer living room:


Hello piece of cool white trees that will soon be on stage and look pretty:


To see the complete transformation of the worship space at Grace, watch this time-lapse video:

Grace Church Revamped from Collin Stoddard on Vimeo.

Thanks for reading. May the Lord inspire you as you think creatively and differently and let Him transform your thinking! Romans 12!
Collin

The Stages of Staging

In a conversation I had with Joe Blair, the creative director at Fellowship Bible, Nashville, he mentioned the importance of doing a Photoshop mockup of every stage design prior to construction. Genius. This makes sense on so many levels: I've designed and built so many things that looked great in my mind, but once they materialized looked like garbage. My dad is an artist and graphic designer himself told me growing up that if you can draw it, you have an actual understanding of what you're doing and the final outcome will be so much better. Makes sense, doesn't it? Besides saving lots of time and money this is also good for my Photoshop learning skills. As you can tell I have a lot to learn. Hey, these are rough sketches that were thrown together, be nice!

Here are a few examples of wins and fails:

This is a pic of the actual stage - don't actually have a mockup of this one...eating my own words...



I used this mockup of Kyle's youth room to convince him that purple was a good choice. It worked.



I never actually ended up building either of these.





This is a work in progress but I need to hurry up, we're starting construction this week!



I think this is the winning candidate: Sneak peak for all for Grace people!!



Moral of the story: Make sure your next Creative Arts Pastor is a good artist.

Jesus is Power Over Death, Video series #4

Last week I interviewed several people from church who've experienced the loss of a loved one. These were tough interviews to do and even though they spoke of hope and the assurance of their salvation and an eternity with our Creator there were still lots of tears and emotions to wade through. It was tough enough capturing the footage and experiencing it once and over the next few days as I edited this I lived through these stories probably a hundred times! One might become calloused by such repetition. Not me. Cried every time. Not sure if this is good or not.

I had originally hoped to write a song about the heart-ache in death and the joy of eternal life, but ended up recording the solo piano and guitar pieces instead as a subtle background to let the stories speak for themselves.

More than anything I found myself incredibly encouraged by the stories and courage of these sweet families. Even in the midst of extreme tragedy, sadness and loss, God remained close to Jessica, Corey and Dan. We have hope that when this happens to us as believers we have the same hope and promise.

Jesus is Power Video Series #2

This Sunday Jay spoke on spiritual warfare and the passage in Mark when Jesus cast the demons into the pigs. Tim Whatley is a missionary with New Tribes Canada and he recorded himself and sent me a few stories. This guy is awesome and his stories are inspiring. Check it out!

Jesus's Power Video Series #1

As we're plowing through Mark, Jay is entering a five week mini-series on Jesus's Power and this week he's talking about how we can see it through nature.



Since we'll be having baby-dedication this Sunday I did this piece showing God's power through the gift of children and the impact they have on us as parents. It was honestly thrilling simply putting the camera on these awesome couples and capturing their hearts on film. I honestly didn't even have to ask them any leading questions, they just spoke and U edited it down to this. I wish I would have had longer to capture more of their hearts!



I love the different hats I get to wear in my job, and video editor/director/producer is a fun one, I just wish I had more classes on film/media development in college! That goes to show that when you're in college take the most of every opportunity and dive in, because you don't know where it will take you or when you will need to add a new tool to your tool belt!