Imagination Power

You ever walk into something and have your expectations overwhelmingly exceeded by the experience? I did just last night.

Gorgeous and I went to the Savannah Arts Academy for their first student film festival to support Emily who is a student there and one of the key members of our tech team at church. Now Gorgeous and I don’t have any kids, but I remember school plays and band concerts from when I was in high school. I remember them being the kinds of things that, if you didn’t have a connection with someone directly involved, you’d rather be somewhere else, anywhere else, maybe even the dentist.

Boy was I wrong. My first clue could have been that the school has its own Wikipedia entry. Or maybe I should have noticed when I walked up that I was a tad underdressed with my khaki’s and a polo shirt. The school did a great job making the kids feel honored and important, giving them the whole red-carpet treatment. It was nice, and fun, but I’m not about the hype. I go for substance, baby.

Well when the thing got started, the school had arranged the evening to be emceed by pairs of local news anchors from no less than three different stations. Cool. Then again, I’m not about the hype.

But when they started showing the film clips these kids put together I was completely blown away. The categories were commercials, public service announcements (PSA’s), and music videos. With the commercials and PSA’s the kids only had 30 second of film time to get a message across. And man did they deliver.

Some of the best work was in the PSA category. The imagination poured into the creative ways the kids told stories to get their message across was incredible. You could tell they were passionate about the causes they chose to represent. And the best of them had a hook at the end that either wrenched your heart or made you burst out laughing.

These kids may not have put together something as technically polished as what you see on TV (it was real close though), but I’m telling you the stories they told in those 30 second spots were more powerful than anything you see put together by the Ad Council. Someone there should get a copy of the DVD and take some lessons from these kids. Or maybe hire some of them.

What made their work so good?

Gorgeous and I were talking about that on the drive home last night. I think that the best ones were where the kids took a really ambitious idea and went for it. The higher they reached the better the results.

And then this morning I stumbled across an article this morning by Curt Rosengren called Finding your Infinity where he says

So many of us are obsessed with our limitations. It's almost as though we can see nothing but the reasons we can't do, or be, or achieve what we aspire to.
What if we flipped that on its head? What if, instead of our limitations, we focused on the amazing potential and possibility that stretches far beyond what we can see from where we stand in the moment?

Man, those are great questions. It is something Gorgeous and I both struggle with. It is so much easier for us to look at all the reasons why something can’t work rather than putting our energies into reasons and ways that it could work and work big.

It ties in with a question J.R.R. Tolkein, once asked C.S. Lewis (thanks to Mark Batterson)

Maybe lack of faith is really a failure of imagination?

Ooch!

Jesus put a high value on belief. He said, “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”

What’s the take-away? Learn from the kids at Savannah Arts Academy.

Ask “How can I make that happen?” and stop worrying about why an idea might not work.

Use your imagination.

Exercise your flabby faith.

Change the world.

Enjoy!

Tags: Imagination, Life, Savannah Arts Academy, Belief, Faith, CREEations, Chris Cree