Right Hand Drawer

God Unboxed

Recently, out Next Gen pastor visited Willow Creek during their God Unboxed series and loved the idea of actually covering God up in the service with a giant box and projecting lyrics onto the sides of the box.  That being the case, guess who was going to be building a giant box?  You got it.  Since I didn’t actually see the service in person, I hit up Chris Thomas, TD at Willow, on the specifics of how they built their piece and got to work on my own copy. 

Box Construction Supplies
- (5) 4’x8’x2” foam insulation panel- (2) tubes of adhesive ie liquid nails - make sure your adhesive doesn’t eat away foam!- black/brown spray paint- (1 gal) off white flat latex paint- box of 3” screws
total cost: under $250
Since we are projecting onto the box in 4 x 3 we calculated our size based on a 4’ width of the box panel.  So dimensions are 48” x 64” x 48”.
Step 1: Measure and cut all panels
Step 2: Line up the first 2 sides, pre set some screws, apply adhesive, square up the corner, and drive your screws.

Step: 3 Repeat step 2 until your box has 4 sides connected together.Note: If I had to build it over again, I would have sunk the top of my box in between the 4 sides instead of sitting on top of all 4 panels.  It just looks cleaner that way.  

Step 4: Measure and cut the top of the box.  Wait to cut the top until you have all 4 walls up so that if you make a mistake on a wall, your top panel can be adjusted to fit snug.Step 5: Seal up the inside edges so no light will escape when the box during the service.

Step 6: paint the outside of the box off white.  We used a latex paint spray gun, but a roller and brush will work too.

Step 7: use the black/brown spray paint to “rough up” the box and give it a used, worn in look.


Step 8: mock up the stage placement and projection angles and spike the positions.Step 9: setup the lighting and practice the element. Note: depending on the thickness of cable used and the floor pocket location you are using, you will want to cut a hole in the back side of the box so that the stage pin cable will not create an uneven floor. 
The video above is the finished product.  Have fun building your own box for God.  

In an attempt to point out the creepiness of Facebook, I decided to shave my No Shave November beard into an awkward mustache.  Let’s be honest here, very few people can pull off the stache.  However, instead of shaving before service, I thought it would be more engaging to let the students decide which stache I go with: the cop stache, the fu man, or the civil war beard/stache.  Now trying to count hundreds of hands in the heat of the moment would prove difficult, so we went with a more common technological approach.  Text message.  Polleverywhere.com offers free text polling that also allows us to put the real time results on the screen as it happens.  It worked really well and the students were completely engaged.  
What better way to add an interactive element to your service than a quick text poll.  Have you ever wanted a real time response to a question in a sermon?  Or what if you let the congregation choose the next worship song?  Everybody uses texting, so why not utilize this tool to make your service more interactive?
Were you wondering which stache I had to wear?  Check out the videos to see.

I’m not a video guy whatsoever, but I saw this video the other day and thought it was worth posting about.  Stop motion has always intrigued me not just because of the look and feel, but also because of the time and patience required to create it.  Every single frame has to be created 1 by 1, then assembled into a complete video.  

These guys, however, have taken this art to a new level by creating 3D words that are extruded frame by frame by moving the Ipad.  Who has this much free time?  Clearly, the people in this video don’t have to set up for Sunday services.  Pass this along to the dark side of the force aka video people and help spark some creativity in their lives.  Just don’t ask them to help roll your cable.  ”What part of over under don’t you understand?”  Just kidding, but not really.

P.S. Since posting this someone has released this app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/holographium/id399345213?mt=8 which will extrude the 3D text for you without the need for a 3D modeling software.  Try it out and let me know how it goes.