I found cutting room floor footage of Steve casting the vision for the Stop Campaign in an Ybor alley-way. As the month long initiative comes to a corporate end I thought I'd spice up the original footage and post it here.

Enjoy


The Stop Campaign | Teaser IV from The Stop Campaign on Vimeo.

So guess who's coming into town tomorrow. Yes. Mama and Papa Dukes. We're all gonna hang out as a family for the weekend which I'm actually excited about.

The not-so-exciting part? I have to clean like a banshee to get my place in shape for the likes of my mother.

Not to over-spiritualize a simple visit from the fam but I realized the parallels of such last minute cleaning in my walk with Christ.

How many times do I actually keep things in order regardless of inspection. Why don't I just do what I know is right consistently.

I think that's called integrity. And I think I can transparently say that I'm striving for more of it because I don't have enough.

God. Discipline my heart to be ready for any visit from You.

Here it is. A little footage, a little color correction and some melody:

Today was awesome. Super productive. Super light-hearted. Super heavy in content.

Tonight we had our creative team meeting for the CP. I love getting together with a group of people with varying talents and assets while all being woven tightly by our central focus.

To put it bluntly, we kicked you-know-what tonight. And the awesome part is I know God agrees.

The scriptures tell us that without vision people perish. It's one of those 'if P then Q' statements so imagine what the reverse is like. I think God didn't include the other side to that truth because he left it up to our imaginations.

Imagine what happens to the people with vision.

The opposite of perish, baby.

I've really been thinking a lot about creativity and what fuels it, how to flow with it, how to keep it in motion and, most importantly at the moment, how to apply it toward my life in ministry.

So as I was driving in my car this afternoon and I really feel God gave me some clarity and truth on the matter. Here's what I got:

Creativity is not a limited commodity. Nor is it an object of vulnerable supply. Creativity cannot be wasted.

The kicker: Creativity is a time-line.

Here's what I mean. I analyze my life a lot. Almost to a fault. I know it's unhealthy but the perfectionist in me has the tendency to scrutinize past projects or ministry endeavors that I've been apart of and think that I've wasted some creativity along the way. But the big picture truth is that it's necessary to expend whatever creativity you have at that moment in order to do it again in the future. It's as if to say, "If I don't use my best idea now, although it might be ill-supported, I might not make room for the next big idea to come through." God doesn't allow women in labor to press the pause button to make sure the baby is good looking does He?

At the forefront of creativity (literally and figuratively) is the verb, create. So if this holds true, then to access creativity is to make something new or to manufacture out of thin air, right? So really, the natural progression of creating is to do it over and over again. Life reproduces and so does creativity.

The Bible reads in Psalms 45:16, "Instead of Your fathers shall be Your sons, Whom You shall make princes in all the earth" (NKJ). The crucial word in this context is instead. It didn't say along with because I believe God was trying to make the point that life has a natural progression of one generation succeeding the next. So does creativity trump itself with every new idea.

Creativity is a time-line. Access it and watch it run its beautiful, natural course. It's always there, it just might be hiding beneath the debris of preoccupation.

You know, our world would be a pretty drab place without creativity. Our city sky-lines would consist of 1-story monopoly board game houses. We would no longer have need for museums or art galleries. Our technology would never surpass sticks and stones. And who knows what we'd do with broken bones.

Imagine if we served an uncreative God. The gorgeous landscapes we know and admire would look like desaturated polaroids on an equally unimpressive earthly canvas.

Let's not even discuss what music would sound like. We'd all be listening to worn-out John Denver records.

Anyway, I say all of this to emphasize the truth that we DO live in a creative world and we DO serve the most creative being in all existence. So how much more should our creativity reflect the originator of every brilliant idea or eureka.

I don't think we'll ever truly know how many inventions or ideas have come from some desperate creator locking him or herself in a room until that idea came to them. I believe that creativity takes action. It means taking part in an intentional activity that sparks that dormant thought process leading to a new idea.

I'm actually in that locked room right now as I type, wish me luck.

God is so good.

Life has been a whirlwind these past few months and I've barely noticed the time fly by. I am so incredibly pumped about this new generosity initiative our church has launched called The Stop Campaign. It's already becoming a huge success within our community and even across the nation. I was blown away to view our online analytics reports which indicated hits in more than 20 different states. It's so exciting to be a part of something bigger than yourself, especially from the ground level. I give God all the credit for the countless hours of creative branding and marketing that we've invested into this project.

Today was an awesome example of the power behind a simple act of kindness. I drove by Gunn Highway to snap a picture of our newly risen 48' billboard and happened to notice a Wendy's maybe 50 yards away. I went to the drive-thru, ordered my food, and told the girl in the window to go ahead and pay for the SUV behind me. The catch was that she would give them a "have you been stopped?" card along with their order. The girl seriously looked at me like I just yelled "bomb" in an airport. Priceless. So as I drove up, watched her give them my card, saw the look of confusion on their faces, I drove away hoping that I had just brought some kind of value to their day. I also thought it would be great if they simply looked to their right to notice the huge towering billboard with the same mysterious website as the card. Talk about situational irony. I would be speeding home to see what that was all about.

Tampa is my city. It's God's city. And when I moved here, I made a vow to change this place and be changed with it. This is just the beginning.