Back from CIY
We’re back from CIY and now in the midst of VBS (it’s like the month of acronyms or something).
CIY was amazing. It was great to get to know some of our high schoolers more and to see them grow throughout the week. We have some great kids at ACC.
Marie and I also got a lot out of the week aside from the kids. The whole conference was just a great experience (just as I remember it being when I was in high school myself).
One thing that was amazing to me (and yet not surprising) was the way technology has shaped what we do at these things in the last 10 years. The amount of audio, video, lighting, etc. that was used there was staggering. It’s amazing the resources that we have now that we could have only dreamed of 10 years ago. CIY did a great job of marrying everything together to produce some amazing worship experiences. They were able to use these tools to engage a very large group of otherwise distracted and media blitzed teenagers.
Along that line, one of the electives I attended was called “Backstage Pass and Production Principles,” and it was basically a tour of the whole stage setup (back and front of house) and Q&A session with the Production Manager, Josh Maichele. Josh was very impressive. He took any and all questions, and he was a great resource to all of us there. He ran a killer production, and he was extremely nice. It was great to ask him specific questions about how they do what they do, and to see up-close all of the equipment and props they were using.
I’ll post more later on the week. I’m also working on some videos from it all, and I’ll post them once I get them finished.
