Grovefilms.com Goes Live!

It's Saturday morning and I'm very excited to announce the launch of Grovefilms.com! Grovefilms.com offers all kinds of downloadable films and videos for church services, bible studies, retreats and ministry gatherings.

I hope you visit our new website at www.grovefilms.com and share it with your pastor, worship leader, and friends. It's the culmination of six months worth of hard work and it's the beginning of something very new for The Grove Center for the Arts & Media.

At Grovefilms.com, we're offering online advertising and Grove memberships, all of which will help us pursue our cause of seeing "Christ in culture through the arts & media."

Will you share Grovefilms with others and partner with us in our mission?Thank you!

Layton Howerton-The Storytellers Journal

I'm here at the Worship Foundations Mentor Network gathering at Fuller Seminary. Driving up here, the Los Angeles sunset was absolutely fantastic, dripping golden with God's grace and favor.

I have met a hoot of a new friend, Layton Howerton, a musician, storyteller, writer and pastor from Wyoming. He jokes and teases and loves to hunt elk...the ghosts of the forests.

Layton has challenged my thinking with his insights and laughter. He's worth checking out at www.thestorytellersjournal.com

A Sunday Prayer

I penned these words in church yesterday as I acutely felt my deep need for God. I'm trying to make my Sabbath reflect how God rested on the Sabbath from His work, yet struggling to figure out what that exactly looks like. Nothing earthshattering in these words. I hope you find some encouragement in them. Your comments and thoughts are welcome...

Jesus,

You are the sole source of peace. You are a balm to a parched, weary soul. You are strength and living water to every thirst I have. Your grace, abundant and available, is truly sufficient for every need. You are rest and comfort to a restless and distracted heart. Jesus, help me to walk humbly, intimately, quietly with you today. Today is all I have and today is all that matters.

Grovefilms.com Launch

In just a couple weeks, we will be launching Grovefilms.com, our new film download site offering film and media resources to the Church. Our goal is to help advance the careers of filmmakers who are Christians by providing them another media distribution platform and offering churches high-quality content to raise the storytelling value of film in the Church. We've been working really hard the past six months to pull this off and have created a very cool backend interface for filmmakers.

We just got into new offices in San Clemente, CA and are working hard to raise the additional $60,000 we need. People have been very generous so far (we've raised about $40,000 in 5 weeks). Why would someone buy from Grovefilms.com? We hope pastors and worship leaders will see the value in championing and joining our shared cause of seeing Christ in culture through the arts and media. We're a non-profit ministry run by artists for artists and giving back to artists as 10% of all net proceeds will go to artistic grants and scholarships. We want to see a lot of people and churches come to the party of seeing Christ in culture through the arts and media.

We're in our final days of beta-testing. Email me if you'd like to do a review for your blog and I'll send you the magic url to check out the site. If you are a filmmaker, email Mark Perez a link to review your videos.

How does Your Relationship with God Influence Your Creativity?

Since God is the Creator of the universe and we are imago dei, how does your relationship with Him influence your creativity as a reflection of who He is?

What is Keeping You from...

A question that has really rocked me lately, "What is keepng you from being wholly present to the Lord today?"

There are so many things that knock me off center from an abiding, loving, friendship (John 15) with Jesus. What about you?