Creative Team

I thought it might be interesting (at least to me) to line out how we do prep for our services at Next Level.

Our teaching calendar generally is set a year in advance. God can change this if he wants to, and sometimes does, but we do have an annual planning process. I go away for a few days and basically try to listen to God by praying and journaling. I get an idea of the big picture topics for the year.

I come back and lay all of that before the Creative Team who dive in with great input and flesh out the ideas. Jared is particularly great at taking a kernel of an idea and refining it in a way that is compelling. Then we have our Teaching Calendar.

We try to stay two series out in terms of creative elements, which include music, multi-media, and set design. Right now we are about one series out, but by the end of the year we'll be at least two out.

Every Tuesday afternoon the Creative Team (Jared, Harrison, Robbie, Will, and me) meet to: review the previous weekend's service minute by minute and talk about what worked and what could have gone better, review Harrison's set list for the upcoming weekend's services, and to plan out future series. Sometimes we'll watch the video of the teaching, listen to possible new tunes, or watch video clips to mine ideas for multi-media.

So, that's how we get there...it was important for me to let you know that it is a very intentional, prayerful, passionate process...and to remind myself of what a great team I get to work with.