Finding Your Rhythm

Echo Conference went phenomenally. There are things we’re tweaking for next year. We have a list of ways we can improve. But it truly went well. It was a very different experience, working behind the scenes. I got to experience so very little of the conference. And I had short bits of time where I…

See You on the Other Side

Today starts my busy week. If you work in a church, you might compare this to your Easter or Christmas week/month. I’m about to learn a lot of lessons really fast. I’ll try to keep them catalogued so I can share them here. And I’ll see you on the other side of this week.

Planning Awesome Things

I got an email a few days ago with this question: We are starting the process of “reinventing” creative planning for our programming team. We just get too far behind to make ideas fully come to fruition. Do you have a suggestion to help us with our creative planning process? It’s a great question. Working…

Your Art is Not About You

Echo Conference is only a week away. Typing that sentence made me want to throw up just now. This year, our team has over 1,000 church creatives converging on Dallas for three days. They’re expecting amazing teaching, a really good time, great laughs, inspiration, and a bunch of stuff I feel completely under-qualified to deliver…

Good News Morning

There’s one thing that most frequently ruins my day. It’s checking my email first thing in the morning. I know I shouldn’t do it. But to me, my inbox is a bucket full of possibilities. I get so excited with each new “ding”…hoping for great new horizons to unfold before me. Unfortunately, when I get…

The Solution to the Critic

I’ve love this quote since Jean Sibelius the first time I read it: “Pay no attention to what critics say. No statue has ever been put up to a critic.” If you’re creating anything for public consumption, you’ll deal with critics. Even if you just have some ideas you’re sharing with folks, you’ll receive “helpful” criticism.…

For When You Fail

Last week, one of our Echo team members sent an email to every attendee. Unfortunately, she added all the email addresses in the “To” field instead of the “BCC” field. Very contra email etiquette. As soon as she hit “send”, she walked into my office with her face drooping to the floor. She felt horrible.…

Red Marks are the Best

I’ve been working on writing a devotional for creatives for quite a while. I finished a couple months ago and sent it off for editing. It finally came back – covered in digital red ink. So many edits. So many notes. So many places where I missed the mark. Fortunately, my editor was wise enough…