Untold - Maggie Hoffman, Team India

Untold - Maggie Hoffman (India) from Susan Vincent on Vimeo.

Telling Their Story

Telling Their Story from Susan Vincent on Vimeo.

To whom it may concern...

To Christian media producers, artists, advertisers, designers, writers, musicians, creatives, entrepreneurs, and dreamers:

Stop imitating the world.

It's sickening when you, indwelt by the Creator of the Universe, forgo the limitless inspiration and affirmation of eternity to pursue transient trends and the fickle applause of men. It's shameful when people walk away from your art and congratulate you that it was not as awful as the last Christian film, design, book, painting, or website that they saw. It's embarrassing that your programming can be distinguished from the world's - not by its difference in content but by its lack of quality.

This cannot be what God intended.

You must stop imitating the world. Not because you can't measure up to their standards, but because of what will happen if you do. If you find a way to work the system and beat the world at their own game: Congratulations. You have become masters of manipulation and wield deception as skillfully as any weapon. Your craft has a symbiotic relationship with sin nature. You have learned the nuances of an appeal to the flesh and conned your audience with a shallow version of truth that has been stripped down until only appearance remains. You fell for the lie that said you could use the world's tools for Kingdom purpose and it would all work out. Your creativity draws attention to itself instead of to the King because it is fueled by your own skills and effort.

At best, you're burned out - and usually bitter.

Still, it's not all your fault. In some ways, you have been funneled into a vicious cycle by our lack of appreciation and failure to understand your gifting. You were misunderstood because you challenged the status quo that we held as sacred. Your calling was not acknowledged because we didn't understand its place or value. Our attempts at cultivating curiosity and creativity ended with children's church and summer VBS. Your training was left in the hands of the world because it was easier to let someone else deal with the mess.

We were wrong.

It's wrong that you should be forced to seek encouragement and community outside the church because creativity is too risky for the establishment. It's wrong that we keep asking you to create more of the same, safe, sterile pamphlets that we've always had. It's wrong that we ask you to prostitute your gifting for the sake of our comfort and profit.

It all has to change.

You have so much going for you. The treasure you possess - the creative energy and passion of eternity - is the most sought-after commodity in the world. Your ability to captivate and fascinate hearts with your creations is inspired and indwelt by the glory of the Endless God. You are a part of the greatest story ever told - with characters more engaging, storylines more complex, and dialogue more saturated with meaning than any other. Point and counterpoint, rhythm and cycle, suspense and surprise are inherent in your faith. Adventure and risk are accepted as you choose to follow a plan you cannot fully understand.

Start dreaming.

Don't limit yourself to the stories that have already been told - remake after remake of Daniel in the lions' den is not the expression of truth that God desires from your creativity. Realize, first of all, that every story is God's story. The expanse of possibility isn't what He could fit into 66 books but how He can fill the billions of lives, guiding the paths of both infants and nations. Sometimes His work is obvious and demands an instant response; more often, though, He chooses to remain hidden and allow us to discover Him as we go about our lives, facing struggles and unknowns, traversing both highs and lows. This is the greatness of the God we serve. His glory is not displayed only in recounting the past, but also in realizing the present and dreaming into the future.

Go for it.

Stretch yourself a little. Explore the creativity that you have been trusted with. Cultivate the sense of adventure that allows you to embrace the unknown and try something that you've never seen done before. Don't be afraid of your imagination - surrender it to the Lord and He will meet you there. Most of all: enjoy the journey. We can't promise to always understand, but don't let that stop you. There will always be those who accuse and judge.

But you don't answer to them.

You answer to the most creative Person to ever exist - the one who decided to give birds wings and trees leaves, the One who dreamt stars and galaxies, planets and oceans, love and life into existence. He came up with the whole idea of romantic love. He fills His home with color, light, sound, and motion. Just read Daniel, Ezekiel, or Revelation to get an idea. And He's not finished dreaming - He is preparing worlds for you to explore and inhabit for eternity.

It is your divine mandate to be an intercessor - to bridge the gap between the temporal and the eternal, to inspire and instruct the heart. You have a hope that the world does not.

It is your prerogative to stand as both a witness and a voice, giving expression to truth beyond the capacity of mere words to express.

It is time to take your place as the forerunners you are called to be.

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him. For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.” - 1 Corinthians 2:9-10

Start creating again.

asia aftermath

Embarking on this trip was one of the most surreal, and yet most natural, things that I have ever done. While my major is in mass media communications, my heart is in missions. So, when the invitation came to be a part of this groundbreaking trip, I was excited for the opportunity. For those of you who might not know, I was able to travel with the first ever ORU Media Missions team to India, China, and Japan, visiting 4 mission teams in a month to document their experiences while pursuing the heart of God in a foreign country.

I sometimes wonder what God was thinking when He dreamed this trip into being. Correction: this question has been burning in my mind for the past month, and no matter what I do or the answers I come up with, it will not go away. Why, exactly, were we there? What did we accomplish? The obvious answers are there - we left with the intention of capturing footage for several different branches of ORU and bringing back media that accurately portrays the work of the students and of God in the places we visited. However, there seems to be a greater purpose, a deeper meaning, and a more significant grace on this project than we ever imagined. Stumbling through the many technicalities and logistics of planning this trip and then living it out on the field was frequently difficult and frustrating; yet, in retrospect, every step seems to be in line, divinely orchestrated and covered with grace. Perhaps that is the word that most accurately and succinctly summarizes the entire trip: grace. At some moments, like the afternoon we spent talking to a recently elected Member of the Legislative Assembly in India or the morning we watched a girl get to see pictures of her adoptive parents at a foster home in China, that grace was easy to recognize and appreciate. At others, like the early morning hours spent transferring files instead of sleeping, miles traversed in transportation designed for a much smaller load, or when we were dropped off at the wrong airport at 4:45am in New Delhi and had to find a way to get ourselves and all of our equipment to the right airport, checked in, through security, and on our flight by 6, the grace that led us to the right people who put us in the front of the lines and held the plane for us was not thoroughly realized until after the moment had passed and we were on our way.

It is moments like these that make me think there might have been a bigger purpose to our trip than we realized. Stories like these spark the wonder in my heart and I begin to think that maybe, and more than maybe, this wasn't our idea at all. Perhaps the whole time, when we thought God was working through our ideas, this whole thing was a dream in His heart. Perhaps it is simply time, in the grand scheme of things, for the hidden things to be revealed and for the seeds that have been so long underground to spring to life. It's strange to realize in such a significant way that while you have been chasing so hard after God, searching high and low to find Him at work, that He wants to be known more than you want to know Him. He wants to be seen more than you want to show Him. Perhaps, and more than perhaps, the dreams of our hearts and the dreams of our Creator were perfectly aligned, the timing was more than coincidental, and we found ourselves walking in the perfect will and intentions of God.

Still, in the process of returning and beginning the process of arranging, assembling, and articulating the stories that we were privileged to capture, I find myself face-to-face with my own inadequacy. I don't know how to explain the situations in which we found ourselves without talking far too much about how we got there or going into detail about the early morning, rush to pack equipment, cramped car, beads of sweat, caffeine withdraws, jet lag, and emotional strain. Then, if I begin to go down that path, I feel that the story has been compromised in some half-hearted attempt to justify the imperfections of our communication and details we overlooked while attempting to capture an event that we had traveled halfway around the world to observe. And yet, that is not the story at all. The story is that we remembered anything at all, that when the bulbs for our lights were 5 hours away at the house, we found the only lamp in the entire hotel and were able to (almost) get rid of the eye shadows and convince sleepy team members that sitting down for an interview was not as bad as it sounded. The story is that when I managed to leave one of the $100 batteries for the Sony camcorder on a bus, I also found a replacement in China that, after I began to turn and walk away, the vendor offered to sell to us for 150 Yuan (about $22). Stories like these more accurately represent our trip - and yet, they seem superficial in comparison to the stories our contacts told with their lives.

In all honesty, their stories are the ones that need to be told. The significance of our story is that we were able to witness, for a moment, the work that they have given their lives for. Russel and Sandra Board have lived in Japan as missionaries for 30 years. They gave up much of their privacy and personal space by allowing us to live at their house for a month, and then were going to pick up an intern who was moving in for several months on the day that we left. Longevity and commitment like this are rare in the world, partially because they are not valued. Consistency is not flashy and makes for a really boring montage, but it is highly valued in the economy of Heaven and greatly honored by the King. There is only so much footage of driving around town or across states that anyone would want to see, but it is what consumes a large percentage of Nelu's time. I tell stories about being tired because of a lack of sleep, and yet I cannot forget the mornings that I would wake up a full hour before my alarm to the sound of dishes rattling and breakfast being prepared.

To tell all of the stories we encountered and experienced on this trip would, in all honestly, take a full month :) So, if you want to hear more of them, just ask. God is moving in the earth, but this is the story I know best - the story of my own life being changed, of my steps being directed one at a time, of unexpected connections and surprises that leave me in awe of His goodness over and over again. Maybe later I'll have time to extrapolate on some of the others - or maybe I'll wait and let you see them :)

Las Vegas, here we come!

The MultiMedia Institute is headed to the NAB - and, between the conference, seeing the sights, being media students (i.e. taking lots of pictures), goofing off, free stuff, and gadgets galore, it should be a pretty awesome couple of days.

Then, when we get back: moving out, finishing a project, finishing a paper, taking a final, packing for a month hopping around in Asia...

Hopefully we'll keep mediateamORU2009.blogspot.com updated while we're overseas...

Yes. :o)

break is -still- beautiful :o)

So - sitting here eating breakfast at Bruegger's with Julie and Linda - I feel special. They aren't morning people, but they're here with me for breakfast. Maybe because I was paying - but usually not even that would get them out of the house before noon. Linda has a green bagel - I think they had leftover food coloring from St. Patrick's day and just kept making them green.

Backpacking was AMAZING! I love being out and away from stuff for a while just to get my head straightened back out. And to sleep a lot. And to take pictures, jump off of rocks, stand under waterfalls, breathe real air...

Now I am back, showered, civilized, running errands and spending time with family - isn't that what break is for? I'm also reading Hebrews with the missions dept. and realizing again how wonderful Jesus is. Captain of our salvation. Maybe I'll start calling Him that. Or try this:

"For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren..."

Break is beautiful.

break is beautiful

Spring break is here.

And it is beautiful.

Backpacking (i.e. no facebook, flash, twitter, showers, gmail, homework, aim, climate control, grades, pandora, running water, coffee, electrical outlets, etc.) from tomorrow afternoon until Thursday.  I'm so ready for this: waterfalls, trees, skies, walking, rambling, climbing, sweating, relaxing, sleeping, reading, journaling, eating, breathing, praying, thinking...

Jesus, I'm stepping out of my world and into Yours - would you meet me there?  I know that the whole earth is Yours, and everything in it (including my technology/media saturated bubble), but there's something about getting away from the noise that lets me hear You clearer.  Walk with me for a while.  It's been too long.  :o)