Media Monday: Training

Who Needs Training? from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

This by far has got to be one of my most favorite video's that Twentyonehundred has ever produced. And my respect for Mr. Bessnecker has only risen.

Media Monday: What Are You Thisty For?

This year one of the campaigns being done around the country to engage college students as they return to campus is called the "Red Cup Campaign". Its main focus is to ask students to consider what they are "thirsty" for, which will hopefully open up doors for conversations about how Jesus is the only thing that satisfies.

This video is one of the elements involved with the campaign:

Red Cup Video from InterVarsity twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

In honor of my sister....

I had to re-post this after seeing it on a friends blog (http://robsoup.blogspot.com/2011/07/close-to-home.html). This sums up beautifully my thoughts on crazy people (like my sister) who have gotten into running lately.

(Although sadly I find myself secretly envious of people who can run farther than 5 miles and have found myself attempting to run further and further at the gym this past month. Why is running so addictive? Still though...I don't think I'll ever be crazy enough to run a marathon.)

Media Wednesday

Fun little project that some of the folks back in 2100 put together promoting InterVarsity's back to school campaign for this fall. It's called the "Comfort Zone"


Untitled from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Power of Money

Money easily can have a stronghold in our lives and I love how clearly that comes out in this video that Matt helped produce and edit this past month. I think Lendol makes some great points in this video on financial stewardship.
Dr Calder - Financial Sewardship from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

InterVarsity Alumnus Lendol Calder

InterVarsity Alum: Lendol Calder on "Uncoverage" from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Interviewing Lendol Calder this past month was fun for multiple reasons. First I got to coordinate the interview with Matt which means not only was this a written piece but also a video piece. It was different thinking through what elements of Calder's story would be better communicated through written words verses via video. In the end I like how the article and video complimented each other.

The other reason I loved interviewing Lendol was that Lendol Calder basically influenced my whole college history experience. Some of you know that I was a history major in college and at the time I distinctly remember there was a shift in the way certain history professor began presenting their materials. And I'm willing to be that much of that was due to Lendol.

Lendol was named the 2010 Illinois professor of the year and he's been in the spotlight primarily because of the teaching method he encourages. He strongly advocates that survey history classes shouldn't just try to cover large amounts of materials and focus on time lines but rather history classes should help students think through various events in history and find meaning within various accounts. So instead of reading a history textbook, students might read various primary sources of an event and are then asked to write papers about those events. From my experience, the classes I took that didn't focus on the textbook were much more challenging, fun and are the ones I still remember today.

It's fun to know that InterVarsity alum like Lendol are having an impact in the academic world today.

You can read the full article on Lendol here: http://www.intervarsity.org/news/intervarsity-alumni-lendol-calder

Media Monday: Salt, Light, Yeast, Seeds

More Twentyonehundred project Matt helped a little bit with.  These were used at Staff Conference to help reinforce the theme of being salt, light, yeast, and seed on campus.


Salt from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Light from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Yeast from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Seed from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Media Monday: Greek Conference

Every year, Matt and his team travel over to Indiana to help with a national Greek Ministry conference. Here's a taste of what happened there (Matt helped shoot this video):

Greek Conference Indianapolis 2011 Highlights from Greek InterVarsity on Vimeo.

Quilt Experiment

One of the goals I have for this year is to complete projects that have been sitting around in my closet. This is one such project.

I began this quilt about two years ago after being inspired by some fabric I found (the outlining multi-color squares in the middle). This ended up being a 5' x 4' size quilt and everything from cotton, to silk, to wool was used in making this quilt.

I didn't really have an overall plan for the quilt nor did I have a pattern. Having no pattern proved harder than I thought. At almost every stage I ended up spending hours staring at the quilt thinking, "what's next"? I also found it harder to actually create what I was seeing in my head.

Moral of the story: I don't think I'll ever not work off a pattern again. Or at least, I think I'll wait for a year or two before trying that again.

But it's finally done and I think I'm happy with the overall result. If anything, I'm super excited about how the colors worked together and that I got my corners so straight.

Media Monday: New Hampshire

I still really like this video that Matt helped shoot. It's a great look at how InterVarsity is reaching out to athletes at New Hampshire University.

University of New Hampshire from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Media Monday: Does Jesus Have an Answer for Racism?

Saint Louis University from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.
One of the videos Matt worked on this year was a documentary on how the InterVarsity chapter at St. Louis University has been responding to the acts of racism on their campus.

Having grown up in a white church, I know there the problem of racism is often ignored either out of ignorance or being uncomfortable with the issue. When I got to college and was confronted with the reality that racism still is a major problem, I realized I lacked the knowledge, tools and even faith to believe that racism can be overcome.

That's one reason whey I like this video so much. It asks a question that I think many of us deeply wonder: does Jesus have an answer for racism? And can Christians be a part of the healing that God wants to offer in this area?

Personally I think the only way racism will ever be overcome is through the mercy and help of God. And that's something I have hope in every time I see students and staff taking risks like the ones in this video.

Conference Set Up - Media Monday

Somewhere in this video is Matt setting up for Staff Conference 2011. This is just a small part of what happens to make a conference happen.


Staff Conference 2011 Setup from InterVarsity-twentyonehundred on Vimeo.

Kingdom Thoughts

So our church has been focusing on Kingdom values for the past few months. It's been a good study and a challenging one. Here's a taste of what we are learning as summed up by a few of our bible study friends with way to much time on their hands.


Ok, so maybe we have a long way to go still in learning about the kingdom.

Friday Fun Links

I have to admit that I think I spent about 10 minutes laughing about this one at work: Man in wheelchair takes ride on semi's grille

I stumbled across and interesting Time Magazine article about what different families around the world eat:
How the World Eats

Gap Unveils New 'For Kids By Kids' Clothing Line
(warning, this is from The Onion so it's very satirical!)

application

So, as promised...here's a link to one of the video's that Matt worked on for Urbana called Making use of what you know. (It's personally one of my favorite.) Basically, he took a bunch of photos that were later stitched together in a graphic form to make this little production.

The only requirement we have is that if you choose to watch this video, you need to find a way to apply what God's been teaching you lately into your daily life!

Other video's he worked on (It's actually 3 in a series on how to do an inductive bible discussion):
The Detective
The Observer

"I repent"

It's far to easy to point out the blatant things in life worth repenting over. But then there are other sins, much more subtle, that we often fail to fall to our knees over. This is a powerful video pointing out just a handful of those subtle things that we often ignore or want to deny as being worth repenting of. I highly recommend checking this video out on faith visuals (click here)

This is what happens when a film crew gets stranded.

At Greek Conference, we got stuck because the gas tank was frozen. After about 4 hours we did get it going so we could drive home... but in the mean time we had to come up with something to entertain ourselves.

happy watching

First Tree

This year Sarah and I decided to get our first FAKE tree. We had so much fun we thought you might enjoy watching us have fun (at 40x speed!). After we set it up we just staring at it for hours.