I Saw the Light!

This year for our Chrismtas program we created a service called "Illuminate". We wanted to clearly proclaim the message that God meets us where we are in our darkness and in our mess and He brings light and Illuminates our lives with hope.

Wow, did I ever get lost in all of the typical detail and chaos of the process! More so than any Christmas before. So much so that for the first four services I could not honestly and objectively decide if the end result of all of our work was a good program or not.

Fortunately, we did five services!

For the fifth service, for the first time I was able to actually observe the service. And, it was good. We did clearly communicate our message. And we did it creatively and with diversity and my team really took their performance (whether behind a tech board or on the platform) to the next level. It was a good feeling to realize all of that.

Other than a good feeling, I walked away with questions. How did I get lost in the process this year? How many more "Christmases" do I have in me? Did I harm any of my personal relationships in the process? How can I do this better? and of course, What will we do next year?!

One question that was quickly asked and more quickly answered was Am I really doing what I'm supposed to be doing? I'm embarrassed to say I ask this way too often.

Fortunately I have known for years that there is only one occupation that makes my heart race and that is using the arts to tell people the story of God's love.

So, I don't know the answers to all of the other questions. But with that one being a foregone conclusion I packed up my laptop and headed back into the office this week. And here I sit figuring out yet another creative way to say the same thing.... God loves us and He made the ultimate sacrifice to make it possible for us to share life and eternity with him.