Jonathan Carpenter Music Video Shoot

God works through coincidence, or as I like to call it, God-incidence – an incidence of God working in your life. So here’s a story of a recent God-incidence in my life.

It was the first day of the Catalyst Christian leadership conference last week: it happened to be at my church, and my small group leaders happened to offer to pay the $338 it cost to go. I had never been to Catalyst, and it’s three days off, but I thought, “Hey, it’s close and free, so why not.”

As soon as I walked through the doors, I realized that coming alone was going to suck. Apparently, most people come to this conference with their whole church leadership team, or at least another friend. Most people had their own social groups already, were looking at their phones, reading their conference programs, and generally conveying body language suggesting that they’d rather be left alone.

After about 30 minutes, I was like – screw this, I came to make friends! I decided that anytime I was stuck next so someone in line, or waiting for a session to start, I was just going to stick my hand out, introduce myself and start talking to them. It was super awkward the first time; by the second and third time, it was still awkward, but I was enjoying it.

The fourth time, I was waiting for a session on “Creativity in the Church” to start, and I was sitting next to a guy who seemed very busy reading a book. I looked at my phone for a bit, looked at his book. He looks kind of like one of the guys who stood up enthusiastically and got a free book this morning.

“Hi, I’m Austin! Are you that college kid who got the free book chucked at him from the sage?” I blurted out. “Uhhh… .no…” he replied. “Well, you looked so young, you know, and it was hard to tell exactly because he was all the way across the dimly-lit room.” He smiled, “I’m thirty-four.”

Turns out, his name is Jonathan Carpenter and he’s a worship pastor at a church in Greenville, but God’s been pushing him to try and record some of the original songs he’s written. He said he had no idea how or if that was going to work, so he came to the conference seeking guidance and confirmation. I told him that I was there for similar reasons – that I was trying to seek direction about FutureLight studios – this non-profit that I felt called to start that would produce national-level media for artists and other non-profits who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

As the conversation continued, Jonathan mentioned that he was going to try a Kickstarter campaign to raise the money to produce his album, and that he had already booked a session on Saturday (the day after Catalyst) at a recording studio in Carrollton so he could produce a “proof-of-concept” track for his backers. I had just finished helping some friends put together a Kickstarter campaign so I knew that the video is one of the most important components. However, when I asked, he said he wasn’t planning to shoot any video. In my head, the details started to click together: I don’t have anything to do Saturday; I live like 15 minutes from the studio – much closer than he does; he needs a video guy; I love doing music videos; and I just happened to be sitting next to him… it was becoming unavoidable – it’s a God-incidence!

Moments later, my elation somewhat subsided when I realized I would then have to ask this guy I met seven minutes ago if he wouldn’t mind if I brought a bunch of cameras and lights into on his expensive, stressful, and very personal recording session. “How can I get out of this,” I thought, “Maybe I can just give some pointers on-” but before I could finish that thought, I noticed that words were somewhat awkwardly seeping from my mouth, “I don’t want to seem forward – I, you know, we just met, so – but I’m free Saturday, so if you want, I could come and shoot some video – no obligation, I could just give you the footage or whatever – you know, if that wouldn’t get in your way too much.” He kind of looked at me with a surprised face, then looked down at the business card I found myself giving him. I wondered if he was mentally changing my ‘Creative Director’ title to ‘Creeper.’

Then he looked back up, kind of shrugged and said, “Sure… that would be great!” It was then that I remembered that I’d never shot in a sound studio, I had no idea about how a recording session worked, and I didn’t even know what his music sounded like. Details… We exchanged information, and then the hip-hop artist Propaganda started to speak about how there was no such thing as Christian art, just art produced by Christians.

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Two days later, after the Catalyst conference, God had given me this clear vision and boldness about his intentions for my life and for FutureLight. I realized the reason I had been so lax in producing video work as of late was that I was relying on myself – I was afraid of what would happen to my own reputation if I produced bad work, afraid for my future, afraid that I was not good enough to be an artist for a living. I had become paralyzed by fear, but, through the speakers at Catalyst, God told me: “You aren’t good enough, but media is what I have called you to make; and I am good enough, so let me work through you.”

When you do God’s work and not your own, failure is not an option. And when I say “God’s work,” I don’t necessarily mean that all your art has to be evangelical; Jonathan’s songs are certainly not Praise and Worship tracks. I simply mean that you produce work not for your own glory, but for God’s. As a Christian artist, like any artist, you should aspire produce work that captures the pain, tragedy, joy and triumph of human experience as honestly as you can, but through the lens of your Christian experience. One way you know God calls you to be an artist, is that you are driven to create and improve even if you never see your name in lights: if the experience is reward enough.

During the conference, I felt God confirm that I was supposed to create art in his name, and not fix computers forever. The shoot with Jonathan was an immediate opportunity to put the lessons I learned from Catalyst into practice. Even though I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up at the studio, I relied on God, and it went incredibly well – one of the best shoots I’ve done.

But then I started looking at the footage. Some of it was amazing: some really great lighting moments, and some nice, smooth tracking shots. But it was also rife with imperfections: I went handheld too much on my full manual lens, and I got some really shaky shots; there don’t appear to be enough different shots of the repetitive piano parts; the vocal performances are so different that it might be impossible to line up the different takes with the audio on the final track. Honestly, I can’t see how it’s going to all work out to produce something awesome. Normally, this would be the point where I get really depressed, shut down, and choose to work on something I already know I can do: like fixing computer problems. But I’ve learned that, when producing God’s work, I’m not required to know all the answers, I am only required to trust that he does, and just take the next step.

For the first time in a long while, I’m actually looking forward to editing this video and producing God’s art, thankful that that I can just be part of the process.

Photos and stills from the shoot