It's exciting and encouraging to see ministry leaders and church planters begin to grasp how crucial video will be moving into the future. Missional churches are churches that speak the language of the culture they are in, and in the US culture that 'language' is video. Now that we're beginning to accept this new reality, I think we need to challenge ourselves to become far more fluent in 'media.'
Imagine for a moment if you felt called to share the gospel in El Salvador. Would you take a one-week crash course in Spanish and then hop on the next plane out? Would you buy a coffee table book about the country from your local Barnes and Noble and assume that would teach you everything you needed to know about the culture? Of course not. Yet so many Christian leaders today assume that a video camera and firewire is all you need to create compelling video.
Speaking 'video' fluently really isn't any easier to master than any other language, and Christian leaders need to stop assuming it is. If you participate in Christian worship experiences with any kind of frequency you've probably experienced a time when no video would have been better than the embarrassing video that was used. The intentions were good, but the results were cringe-tastic.
So how can take our media to the next level?




You know, lately I've been on a real nonfiction tear. I've been reading a lot of leadership studies, essay collections, biographies, and the like. It's all been interesting stuff and I've definitely gotten a lot out of it, but as I'm finishing up my latest nonfiction ("The Unstoppable Force" - really good btw) I'm feeling myself beginning to go through fiction withdrawal.