When I was growing up, I loved first person computer games. Rather than viewing things from above (like God - think of SimCity), you viewed the world through the eyes of the player (think Google street view or for the gamers out there - Counterstrike). Below is a first person view of Headstart’s first livestream on Monday: “How to go viral about Jesus through the virus”. You can watch it here.
WHAT? ANOTHER CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, EMAIL, ANOTHER CHANGE, ANOTHER PIVOT…. ARGHHHHHHH!!!!
Ok - keep calm and breathe. You aren’t giving birth to a baby, but you did attend those calm breathing classes when Annabelle was born. Do that… do that… ahhhhh..
So, what will this look like? Better check in with Grace and Jane. Make sure they are ok. Don’t. Pass. On. Your. Stress. It’s. Not. About. You. Good. Leaders. Remain. Calm.
Clear day to figure out the tech we’ve never used before. Who has the best phone? Will the sound work? How many people can come? Will people come? Will people tune in or tune out?
Day not as clear as I thought. Got yet another meeting - I can see Grace and Jane setting up. Phew. Lots of testing. Lots of testing.
We’ve been playing around with this over the past week, but now this is for real.
Hang on - what am I going to say on this? ARRGHHHH!!!
Jot down points - you’ve been thinking about this for a week, just need time to put this together coherently.
Do I have time to tee up with Shernese? Hmmm… nup… she’s been busy at work. I’m still busy. Oh well… people will understand, won’t they? This is Headstart after all?
Better pray about this (again) - it’s fast spinning out of control. Actually no. It feels like it’s fast spinning out of control. But God is in control.
Set up time… social distancing pot plant… hahaha… I wonder if people will get it… not long now… nooo… flickering image cos of the fluorescent lights. Why now? Jane - what just happened? Why did we move the camera?
Don’t. Pass. On. Your. Stress.
OK - looking better now. We are noobs. Jane looks like she is a DJ with cords running everywhere, ear piece, phone to tune into the live feed to see if we are too loud or soft, computer to view Sli.do, camera with charger so it will last the distance - but she is smiling (but I've seen that smile, she too is a bit stressed). I now soooooo get why AV guys take so long to set up and have so many cords.
I know Grace - she is getting stressed too. But I reckon she’ll be fine. She just doesn’t know it yet. But she excels. Pray again.
And here we go… Jane hits record on Grace’s phone with passcode now disabled in case she gets locked out (thank goodness for all those test runs).
The interview just flows. I’m sitting with friends God has given me and placed in my life to share his good news in this dark moment.
This is easy. This is SO. MUCH. FUN. Shernese is absolutely knocking this out of the park. If only I could take notes - wow, how God has worked in her.
Grace is the calm presence and doing the whole ninja, wing-chun, slight of hand, interview skill things which she doesn’t even know she does, but she does. She is a natural.
Jane. Well. Jane is "just Jane" as we say in the office.
Unbeknownst to me, other have shared this news - the great Sam Chan watches all of this, shares it around (and I didn't even have time to ask him), and says it was epically awesome. 2000+ views. Peak of 80 live streaming and 70 pretty much throughout.
The small live audience hang around to chat a bit. Social distancing observed. They leave.
The 3 of us sit back and indulge in a moment - what. just. happened.
God is good. Small acts now pierce the pervading darkness. Picking up the phone. We can all do that.
Hope is now our point of difference. Let’s be different.
God. Just wow.
Really, God made it all.
