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The music started and in walked my niece, the flower girl. She dropped flowers at the doorway, once down the aisle, and then again right in front of Joe and I. So, Joe and I made her walk back and forth a couple of times until the flowers were a little more evenly dispersed. Then Sarah came around the corner, escorted my our mom and dad and her best friend Rachel. Joe, in his understated way merely said (under his breath), “Wow.” When Sarah reached us, it was time for me to begin:

Today we come in love and support to witness the marriage of Joseph Paul Newton and SarahBeth Dooley. Marriage is a holy bond, one that will require dedication, love, and the encouragement of their friends, family, and most of all, God. Let us pause now and thank God for the work He has done bringing us here today, and to ask his blessing on this new family.

PRAYER

In the time of arranged marriages, a father would literally give his daughter away to her husband. Arranged marriages are thankfully less common today, however, as a show of his love and blessing fathers to this day, give their little girl one last kiss before she becomes a woman, and then place her into the protection, love, and support of her husband. With that said, I would ask that SarahBeth’s father grant his blessing and resign SarahBeth to Joe’s care.

At this point my father, despite being on oxygen and in a wheelchair, stood, kissed his daughter, and placed her hand in Joe’s.

The heart of marriage lies in the commitment to each other and to God. This is a commitment to unconditionally love another person. To place another person’s spiritual, emotional, and physical well being above your own. It is a commitment to follow God’s teachings and to seek His will for your relationship.

In the early days of love, this seems to be an easy commitment to make. However as time passes, the trials of this life will strain even the most stalwart of relationships. For this reason the commitment must be one that is made, not just with the heart, but also with the spirit. It must be the cause that is always championed and the foundation upon which the young couple’s lives are built.

Understanding the importance that this commitment takes, the couple has prepared the following vows. Joseph, you may proceed:

Joe: I, Joseph, take you, Sarahbeth, to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.

Sarahbeth: I, SarahBeth, take you, Joseph, to be my husband. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love and honor you all the days of my life.

The couple memorized their vows and recited them without prompting from me. Once they were done, I proceeded:

For thousands of years couples have exchanged rings at their wedding. They symbolize an unending love, a timelessness to the bond which the two enter in. In the context of a Christian marriage, we know that this love comes from God Himself and it is through this abundance that the love flows to our spouse. Just as God has loved us unconditionally, doing whatever was necessary to reunite Himself with His creation, so the wedding ring symbolizes a love that will not fail, that will commit to doing everything possible to care for, protect, and cherish the other.

The ring is given as a token of love and as a symbol of the commitment made. It symbolizes the two lives that are now becoming one life. May it always signify your passion for each other, your dedication to each other, and the blending of your lives into one. Joseph, please present Sarahbeth with your token now… Sarahbeth, if you would present Joseph with your gift.

Again, the couple merely exchanged rings and did not parrot anything I said. Once done, I again continued:

Thomas à Kempis wrote much on the Christian life and had the following to say about love:

Love is a mighty power,
a great and complete good.
Love alone lightens every burden, and makes rough places smooth.
It bears every hardship as though it were nothing, and renders
all bitterness sweet and acceptable.

Nothing is sweeter than love,
Nothing stronger,
Nothing higher,
Nothing wider,
Nothing more pleasant,
Nothing fuller or better in heaven or earth; for love is born of God.

Love flies, runs and leaps for joy.
It is free and unrestrained.
Love knows no limits, but ardently transcends all bounds.
Love feels no burden, takes no account of toil,
attempts things beyond its strength.

Love sees nothing as impossible,
for it feels able to achieve all things.
It is strange and effective,
while those who lack love faint and fail.

Love is not fickle and sentimental,
nor is it intent on vanities.
Like a living flame and a burning torch,
it surges upward and surely surmounts every obstacle.

Let us pray God’s blessing on this marriage:

PRAYER

Today, Joseph and Sarahbeth, before God and your friends and family, you have committed to come together as one, to share a lifetime of love. You have exchanged vows articulating this desire and have given rings symbolizing your love. Therefore, it is with great honor that I now pronounce you husband and wife. Joe, you may kiss my sister. (For those wondering, that was Sarah and Joe’s idea.)

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls – I now present to you Joseph and Sarahbeth Newton!

With that said a most excellent 5 hour party ensued (if you count the after-party) that was put together by my amazing wife (BTW, she’s an out-of-work event planner if any of you have an opening!).

During the traditional photography session directly after the ceremony, Joe’s dad came up to congratulate me on the ceremony. He told me that he thought it was very well done and very special. To which I finally let out a sigh of relief and replied, “Really? Thank God. That was my first one and I was extremely nervous.” David’s (Joe’s dad) jaw dropped, “Really? That was amazing then, great job!”

Both families got along swimmingly and a great time was had by all. Andrew Shepherd took some amazing photos, including some with our wedding party and the wedding party that was in the next room over. Oddly enough there were 7 weddings/receptions on the square that night, two of them (ours and the other one mentioned) in the Landon Winery, which pretty much forced all their walk-in business to stay outside on their patio.

As the evening began to wind down I decided to take my niece for a walk around the historic square in McKinney (which we were on). Halfway around we saw a small chalkboard sign which read: “Believe in Magic?” and was wrapped in rope lights. Joline and I decided to follow the rope lights as they lead down the darkened side street. They lead to an old, but well-kept storefront for a magic shop. At first it appeared closed, but closer inspection showed a lone light on in the back, so, being adventurous (heck, when you’re dressed like James Bond you have to be adventurous, right?) we walked in. There were a couple of customers being “wowed” by a guy doing card tricks and the proprietor was leaning against his counter. Not shy in the least, Joline walks right up to the owner and says, “Do you have any candy?” To which I replied, “Joline, this is a magic shop, not a candy store.” The owner smiled and reached behind her ear and proceeded to pull out a blow-pop. Joline’s eyes lit up as she took her lollipop from the man. Next he stuck his thumb into the ribbon on Joline’s dress, and when he removed it, his thumb was lit up! Joline’s eyes were now the size of small saucers. The man stuck his thumb in his mouth to extinguish it and then repeated the whole thing several times. I finally asked Joline, “What do you have in that dress?” “I don’t know,” was her reply. “Perhaps it is a magic dress…” I pondered. “WOW! I have a magic dress! Let’s go show my mommy!” At this point Joline is running for the door to show her mom her magic dress. I thanked the owner and followed Joline out into the brisk evening air.

We all had a great time, and actually most of the next day (Sunday) was spent talking about the evening, or receiving calls from others there who wanted to talk about it. The newly weds are now in-flight back to Eugene, OR, and all of the friends and family have returned to Michigan and Kansas City, MO. After a barn-burning 8 days, our household is quiet once again. Whew. It was a blast, but boy was it tiring!

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What got me was staying late. Normally we record our Saturday service and send it off to our varied campii. We capture directly in Final Cut Pro, where we make a timeline with just the sermon, transfer to individual harddrives for each campus and they play back from their G5/Mac Pro towers. In addition to this we provide a DVD-RAM disc as a back up. DVD-RAM (for those unfamiliar) is a re-writable DVD technology that has longer use and greater reliability than traditional DVD+/-RW’s. Not only that but it requires no finalization, so when we need to send a copy immediately, it can be done. However, and this is important to the story, DVD-RAMs are not universally read and/or written to because it uses a different writing method than traditional DVDs.

Now, the above is not true of every campus. We have one smaller campus that does not have a G5 tower. They use a DVD-RAM as their main sermon playback and a DVD-R as their backup. Where does the DVD-R come from? Well, we also record one (yes, one, as in singular) DVD-R Master of every service. On Saturdays this disc is duplicated (quickly) so that it can be used as a secondary back up for most campii and a primary backup for this smaller campus. Herein lied the problem this past Saturday.

Now, I’m not going to point fingers, because I honestly don’t care… but someone scratched the DVD-R master. I don’t know if it was scratched prior to recording, while being removed, while being duplicated, whatever. The problem is that it was scratched and would only play half of the sermon and would not duplicate. This is where laziness tried to set in. I told myself… “It’s only a backup for one campus, that they’ll never use, why should I go to the hassle of making something for them?”

Now Laziness is a beast I have fought for many years, but this past Saturday it was close to winning. Nonetheless I take pride in my work, beat back the beast, and exported the sermon from Final Cut, waited a couple hours for it render, and burned the DVD backup. Kevin McGuffey, the campus pastor for this satellite patiently waited for the disc and I played a video game while it rendered. Finally the disc finished and I sent Kevin on his way. I went home, apologized to my guests for being late and to the wife for having to handle a fussy baby and entertain company at the same time, ate some cold pizza and watched the last 1o minutes of 300. I was grumpy and tired, but by morning the situation had mostly faded from annoyance to just acceptance of doing my job.

Then God thumped me upside the head. I may have forgotten to mention that last weekend was “Impact Weekend”. It’s a weekend we tailor more than usual to the seeker and we encourage our members to invite their friends, family, and co-workers as an extremely safe weekend… no deep theology, just great music and an emphasis on salvation. So yesterday I swung by the office to pick up some footage I needed for a side-project and on my way out my boss stopped me to tell me that there had been an error in recording to the DVD-RAM for the same campus I had worked so hard to provide a back up for. In fact, their DVD-RAM disc was blank. The only way they had of having a sermon was my back up. Well, that makes it all worthwhile… but it doesn’t end there. I was told a woman had prayed to receive Christ at the end of the sermon. Now, in my line of work, somewhere deep in the back of your mind you know the impact that you have (good or bad depending on how you do your job), but so seldom do you see God working directly through your very actions to change a life. Sunday God did that. He worked through my actions to reach down and permanently alter the course of at least one woman’s life. And by God, that’s enough for me. Oh, and to anyone I complained to about working late, I’m sorry. I had no idea how important working late this past Saturday was, but I should have known that God knew.

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Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining… Seriously, I didn’t mind. Twice a year I have it rough… not like my friend Jeff who runs his own coffee shop (Texas Roast, if you haven’t tried it, you should!), who works 14-16 hour days every day. So I really don’t mind the long hours, and I loved the hectic traveling and shooting… that was a blast.

But the point of all this is that I really, really missed my wife. Most nights she was in bed fast asleep when I got home, and I generally slept through her getting up and leaving in the morning (except for when I got up and left before her…). So it wasn’t long before I started getting a little grumpy. Now, to my credit, I tried to belay some of my grumpiness with humor… but that doesn’t always work. So, like all the other times I’ve found myself longing for my wife’s companionship, I found solace in a song. This time it was “In Your Eyes” by the great Peter Gabriel. Previous songs used for this purpose have been Bob Dylan’s “Man in Me”, Ozzy Osbourne’s “Mama, I’m Comin’ Home”, Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” and the Foo Fighter’s “Miracle”. But this isn’t about those songs, it’s about “In Your Eyes”. The song talks about utter longing and a completeness found only in the source of that longing. Listening to it, made me realize that while I’m a talented and sometimes humorous fellow, with out the woman that God gave me and created for me, I’m only a fraction of what I am meant to be. She is not my everything, nor the totality of my world, for only God can be that… but she is one of the most important and integral parts of my life, and I can’t stand who I am without her. But enough of my babbling, here’s the complete lyrics to the song:

Love, I get so lost sometimes
Days pass, and this emptiness fills my heart
When I want to run away
I drive off in my car
But whichever way I go
I come back to the place you are

All my instincts, they return
And the grand facade so soon will burn
Without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes
the light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes

Love, I don’t like to see so much pain
So much wasted, and this moment keeps slipping away
I get so tired of working so hard for our survival
I look to the time with you to keep me awake and alive

And all my instincts, they return
And the grand facade so soon will burn
Without a noise, without my pride
I reach out from the inside

In your eyes
the light the heat
In your eyes
I am complete
In your eyes
I see the doorway to a thousand churches
In your eyes
the resolution of all the fruitless searches
in your eyes
I see the light and the heat
In your eyes
Oh, I want to be that complete
I want to touch the light, the heat I see in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes
in your eyes in your eyes

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Now, I understand a good bit about how these machines run, heck during the week I work with several others on setting up the many graphics we use during the weekend services.  That being said, I’m not all that great on actually running the things.  It could be lack of practice, it could be it’s just not something I’m meant to get… I dunno.  But at any rate on this particular weekend we had several special songs… one of which was “Savin’ Me” by Nickelback… which is a pretty fast paced song.  Now I wasn’t doin’ so hot on the beginning of the song, but half way through is where, during our Saturday service (which gets sent to all of our campuses for their Sunday playback), I *ahem* screwed the pooch.  My fat, sausage-like fingers hit an extra button while advancing a slide… this attempted to call up an empty slide number since the extra key I hit was the “6″ key (it tried to call up slide 6, which was not existent).  To compensate, I attempted to go directly to the slide I needed to be on… which had the wonderful effect of resetting the dissolve rate between slides to the default value of 20 frames (2/3′s of a second)… which is an extremely long rate for such a fast song… in fact, the slides were still dissolving while I attempted to go to the next slide.  Quick thinking (on Christy Hartley’s part) got me on a blank slide and I just stayed out for the instrumental bridge and came back in for the last verse…

Not my best moment ever… though to be honest, with a couple more run throughs (Sunday morning), the 9:30 and 11:00 services came out alright… But to be completely honest Saturday could only be called pathetic.  Then again, maybe it was the fear of repeating Saturday’s performance that kept me on my toes this morning.

The great news is that God can use us, even when we completely blow it… this particular weekend was our “Impact Weekend” which is designed especially for the unchurched and we encourage our members to bring their neighbors, co-workers, classmates, etc…  It’s usually more “salvation-driven” than some of our other services, and towards the end Pastor Steve asked for a show of hands for people who made a decision.  Despite my mistake (and a couple others I had nothing to do with)… there were still plenty of other hands raised.  When I am weak (and clumsy, and a little slow and panicky), God is strong.

On that note, I’m gonna go take a nap and try to forget yesterday happened…

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Last weekend here at Lake Pointe we performed Keith Green’s mini rock opera, The Prodigal Son Suite. For those who haven’t heard it, it’s a beautiful piece of music, relating Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son through several different movements. Only we didn’t just perform an updated version of the music… we added video. Lots of video. And we effected the live video that we interspersed with the preproduced video. And yours truly did a good bit of the work on it. I edited the preproduced pieces and I helped develop the effect look on our live video.

Actually making it work though was a whole other ordeal. We were unable to use a click track (our preferred method of syncing videos with performances here at Lake Pointe) since the music changes so drastically several times during the piece. So our TD’s (the TD or Technical Director runs the video switcher) fingers were afire bringing effects and overlays and taking them right back out. I acted as Roll-In Operator, since I knew exactly when the videos needed to roll. Our Side and House Producers helped with timing on lighting cues, transitioning from recorded to live and back to recorded video, and our amazing director Wes Hartley tied it all together.

So this thing was a pretty big deal, and I gotta tell you, when Saturday morning rolled around and I was exporting the actual clips which I had finished editing Friday, I knew one thing only. The video was crap. The effects on switcher were trite and useless. This whole project was going to bomb. Of course, whenever I do a project that is challenging and frustrating and extremely time consuming (due to my HS reunion I had Tuesday-Friday last week to do this project), I usually feel that it’s my worst work and is utterly useless by the time I’m done with it…

I could not have been more wrong. The music and video fit seamlessly, everything was perfect. In fact, we all earned a standing ovation at the end of it. It was an amazing feeling to know that something I was so tied to ended up being so effective. It was actually really cool to see how our team worked so hard together to do something, knowing that no one in the audience will really know how many people worked on the piece.

And as an added bonus for all my fellow Reunionites, Brent made an appearance during one of the movements, as I used the Luggage piece (originally cut to Brent’s song “Circle Unbroken”) as part of the video.

So check out Lake Pointe’s version of The Prodigal Son Suite… You’ll need Quicktime 7 to view, if you don’t have it let me assure you it’s worth the time to get it…

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I happy to report that Lake Pointe Church has decided to retain my services. Turns out I’m a meet or exceeds requirements kinda guy. Of course I can’t share all the details of said meeting but in the end suffice it to say that Lake Pointe and I are happy we found each other. Texas is taking some adjustments… I have to slow down a little I guess, and learn that all those ADD urges I’ve been surpressing are alright every once in a while (it’s weird-I’ve never been the guy who always stays on task… until now). I miss my buddies – I mean I had people whose house I just showed up at (no call ahead, no planning), and we’d just sit around and watch the tube for a while – and the stuff I was used to doing (what’s fermenting guys?), but all in all, I’m happy I made the move. I know the wife is too.

Thanks for the welcome to the great state of Texas!

By the way, the title to this post is an oft-misquoted line from the past. Extra points to whoever can tell me the real line, who said it, and what it is from. No Googling or other web searching!

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