Vacation...

I may or may not be posting this week, because I'm on vacation. I woke up to this scene this morning...

We're in the Smoky Mountains this week. Gatlinburg, TN to be exact. Skiing, shopping, spending too much money, overeating. That's pretty much my M.O.

OK, so while I'm gone, I'm gonna do something special for all my readers. You can go to Crossroads Creative's site, and use this coupon code:

VACATION

It's good for 75% off any purchase, small or large.  It will expire when I'm back in the office, March 3rd, 2009.

Have a great week everyone!

Friday Funny

You provide the caption...

Just Between You and Me

This weekend, we're wrapping up a message series that our associate pastor is doing. It's called "Just Between You and Me." He has talked about things that come between us and our God, our spouse, our friends, and this weekend, us and our fellow man, which will be a message on racism.

So, what do you do for a sermon intro video? Well, I had the idea of how things we do begin to define us, and we carry them as labels. So, we did this...

And, as always, if you're interested in purchasing it, you can find it here.

Girls' Getaway

Here's a piece Crossroads Creative did to promote our women's ministry's fun trip a few months ago (which had a record attendance). BTW, our women's ministry director is none other than my incredibly talented and adept wife. You can check out her blog here.

Hope you like the piece. It's available for sale here.

Happy Valentine's Day

OK, so the Friday Funny has been usurped by a Valentine's Day post. Yes, there is still one more "Annual Church Business Meeting" spot to be shown, so if you're interested to see it, go here.

Anyway, here's a piece we created for a February series our youth did last year. the series was called "Lovers." After it was done, we decided to create a Valentine's Day spot with it.

Major props go out to three people:  Adam H., for his brilliant editing/compositing/animation skills (After Effects & Final Cut Pro), Chris D. for his colorizing (by hand, BTW, on a WACOM tablet, and I LOVE what he did with it), and he girl who actually did the hand-drawn illustrations (I don't even know her name. She was the girlfriend of the younger brother of our old TV audio guy).

What did I do?

I scanned the pictures, and helped cut the time down. Oh the glamourous life...

Hope you like it...

Video Announcements

My good friend, Brian Davis gave me an idea. He recently did a post about video announcements, and I've come to realize that Crossroads Church does things a little differently.

We don't do a spokesperson per se; we do an announcements package. Each week, we feature a different department head and his or her spouse doing a welcome video, which leads into our announcements (which are in commercial spot form), then back to our couple who then further welcome the visitors.

Once a month, we have a special newcomers welcome, and we have an ending video that speaks to our newcomers, and let's them know how to attend the reception. Perhaps, one day, I'll post how we use all of those couples videos (once we were done, there were 40 different versions in all - 8 couples with five different videos each. Yikes!).

Basically, our church is where we debut all Crossroads Creative pieces. They're our first audience!

Anyway, here's the announcement package from this past weekend, featuring our Accounting Director and her husband.

The Kaleo piece is from LifeChurch.tv. Our associate pastor is doing that series on Wednesday nights in February. A generic version of the baptism piece is available here, and the Annual Church Business Meeting spot is available here.

So what do you do at your church? How do you handle announcing all of your big events to your congregation?

New Products at Crossroads Creative

OK, first of all, let me say "thanks" to all of you who contacted me about the videos I've posted here. Your kind words are truly appreciated. So on my 100th post, I thought I'd give a little back...

Several of you have asked when some of these will be on our site. Well...now they are!

Here are a few links to new videos I just uploaded today:

Annual Church Business Meeting - The Board Member (four in all)

Girls' Getaway - Beverly (this one is pretty funny)

Just Between You and Me (hot off the presses)

Betrayal BUNDLE (a great Easter production on a budget!)

Muchas Gracias (a piece on thankfulness)

Planks and Specks (criticism, love, etc.)

There are about 19 new pieces in all, and we have around 135 total on the site. Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy them. Please send all your pastor friends my way!

OK, about my 100th post. Any purchase on Crossroads Creative is 50% OFF with the following coupon code: POST100. This offer is good through March 1st, 2009.

Friday Funny

Here is the third installment of our Annual Church Business Meeting spots. This time, it features our editor, Adam. This one is my personal favorite.

Also, for those of you who have inquired about the availability of the pieces for sale:  I'm in the process of encoding an uploading, and I hope to have them on our site, as well as the resellers' sites within the next week or so.