(Click on picture to enlarge)

The first week of Quest was intense, busy, fruitful, and exciting. You can read all about it on the Quest blog, so I’ll just share some of what I learned.

I learned how sweet Jesus can be.

I learned how empty I must be.

I learned what it really means to say “The Joy of the Lord is my strength” and not in a cliche way…to see real emotional, mental, and physical strength rooted in real, thrilling, visceral joy rooted in a real, living, interactive relationship with my Lord and master.

I taught on manhood (an article will be coming from that) and preached on Philippians 3:3-14.

This has been so good for me…God has been so good to me.

Fish.

(image by Jared Cassidy)

Bob Allison gave me a nice 15-gallon aquarium and stand; a trip to Walmart got it setup; and various Quest leadership donated fish. It has been a learning curve and a new experience for me; many fish died but I think I’ve figured out how to keep them.

Having something totally unrelated to Quest, ALERT, or my plans this fall to consume a small amount of my time has been WONDERFUL. It provides a tiny little escape each day.

Also, fish are a tremendous distraction. I often find myself sitting in the living room at the end of the day, trying to muster some energy to write or plan or do other work, and I end up spending minutes on end just staring, watching the fish do their little fish thing. It rocks.

Lately, I’ve been getting ready for Quest. This consumes my every waking hour at this point and so I wasn’t too eager to have to work on anything else. However, God had different ideas, and led me, through my authorities here at ALERT, my parents, and several mentors, to spend my weekend reassessing my life purpose, coming up with a statement of purpose, and creating a 1, 3, and 5 year plan for my life. They say not to try to do this overnight, so I did it over two nights. It was a fast paced endeavor. In the past, I’ve struggled to see the point of so-called “Life Purpose Planning”. Every time I hit it, I felt like I struggled to find the common elements of my life experiences and skills, I failed to find a specific life purpose statement and always ended up with something too general to be useful, and I felt inadequate at planning since I really had no inner idea of where I was going.

I spent much of Saturday reviewing old journal entries and notes from previous sessions of life purpose planning, striving to identify the “Golden thread” that eluded me in the past. I began seeing some aspects falling into place, and then got to the part of the process where I identify “activators”: Those needs, events, and stimuli that trigger my creativity, my spiritual gift, service, ministry, and delight. I realized that in the past year, God had allowed me many unique opportunities–experiences, conversations, revelations–that gave me a clear insight into where my passions lie. I was truly excited as everything seemed to come into place and I arrived at a purpose statement that was specific and dead on accurate for me. Reading this statement hit all of my triggers and elicited a passionate, delighted response.

I seek to challenge young men to be captured by a radical passion for God and turned into mighty warriors for God’s Kingdom by revealing to them the greatness of God and connecting them to the needs of the Kingdom.

I will do this by communicating the truths of their Calling through my life and my words using effective and relevant channels. I will communicate the works of God and the needs of the Kingdom through documentary photojournalism. I will radicalize young people by helping them get involved in frontline missions work so that they can see the needs and experience God.

My ultimate desire is that young men would delight in Him, commit to raising up generations of Christ-centered disciples, and be driven by a missional mindset.

I called my parents (who generously dropped their evening plans for an hour and a half conversation) and discussed it with them. They felt that it was spot-on, another confirmation. We then discussed what this statement would mean moving forward. I spent Sunday building a 5-year plan, which I discussed with my parents. It allows for the spontaniety I love, places my previous plans and ideas into a purposeful context, and forms a framework to prepare for the future.

The really cool thing I’ve found is that God has already given me the opportunity to pursue this personal mission through my ministry here at ALERT: Quest. Quest is built around the vision of helping young men transition to manhood. It’s central goals revolve around challenging young men to God-glorifying manliness. Quest has connected with my personal passions in a way few other experiences have.

So the end result of this weekend spent pursuing purpose instead of pursuing the present is that I’m equipped with a new level of vision, excitement, and passion for the present ministry God has for me.

Did you know that I have been blogging since 2005? Over the weekend I read a number of my posts from the last few years and found it to be a fascinating story of how I got to be who I am today: The development of my ideas and passions, the struggles and the triumphs, and all the wacky little subplots along the way.

I thought it would be interesting to peek at what I was talking about a year ago this week:

• I shared some of my struggles along with some key insights into the nature of God. It’s fascinating how my day exactly a year later (the past Friday) ended up being almost exactly the same sort of struggle. So these truths are very a propos for me to remember right now.
• I found several links related to fatherhood, and the importance of fathers raising their sons right.
• David Seah told about his approach to learning new topics. I applied that topic quite successfully this past year to learning about photography; in fact, you can see my “Spellbook” in the header image on the left.
• The story of a modern day military hero inspired me with a renewed vision of manliness.

Is it at all wierd that my life seems to be repeating itself a year later?

As most of you know, photography has more or less become my life. For the past nine months, I have immersed myself in photography, video production and visual arts. I live, eat and breathe photography. It has definitely become my passion, and I have seen my skills develop and results improve significantly. Looking ahead, I think it is safe to bet that photography will be a significant part of all I do.

Which is why this is so hard.

My other major passion is a program called Quest. Quest and I grew up together, you might say; God has used my experiences in running the program to mature me and develop me in unbelievable ways, and at the same time, I have infused a great deal of myself—my values, goals and burdens—into the Quest program. Quest definitely is my heartthrob. It is difficult, extremely so, but rewarding. I see guys lives get changed; I see sons renewing their relationship with their parents, I see young men embracing a passion for God.

But it has a cost.

I’ve had to give up things in the past for Quest: My sleep, my summers, fun with friends when they are home from college, time with brothers and family, trips out west—all those great things one can do in June and July and August.

This year, I’m having to give up photography. Not the taking of photos—I will definitely be doing that—but the lifestyle of living behind the lens, capturing the moment, drifting behind the scenes and always being everywhere while being seen nowhere. Its hard. I am struggling with laying down my camera, shutting off my photography RSS feeds, putting away my camera bag.

The venerable Jay Maisel said there were two ways to get inspired and revive your photography: Setting the camera down, or taking a trip. I guess I’ll be doing a bit both, and I hope it will revive my photography, not kill it. I hope I can pick up the camera this fall with a renewed sense of vision and creativity.

I started this post hoping to come up with something exciting and dramatic and interesting; I wanted to end with a challenge to come to Quest and “lay down” your hobbies for a few weeks. I guess this post ended up being a bit bluer; anyhow, you should still come to Quest. Maybe you’ll come away with a renewed vision.

I’ve struggled to figure out to write this story. As I’ve told people it, I always end up choking up and starting to cry, tears of joy and emotion. Its just that, well, its hard to tell.

Friday, I saw God. I saw His hand working and moving and touching. I saw His voice speaking to hearts, including mine. I looked in the mirror and saw myself, inadequate, unprepared and unable and then I saw God, carrying me, preparing me and working through me.
I saw God’s people, I saw men crying and turning to God. I saw women weeping as they met God and surrendered. I saw young people sobbing as they realized the time they had wasted and taking God seriously. I saw a revival, a spontaneous work in entire families.

I was allowed to be a witness to spectacular events and was allowed to photograph God’s work. To capture the amazing things that happened here at this campus in Texas Friday. Just thinking about it now, the tears are flowing. God is SO GOOD!!! I can honestly say that I will not be the same after what I saw and experienced Friday. I cannot be the same.

Thursday night, I was pretty pumped. My CI story had come together well, and my instructor definitely liked it. I think it scored an A+ (although we don’t actually have any formal grades). Then they gave us our assignments. Mine was “Anointed.” I started to despair. That is so conceptual. Sure, its the theme of the conference, but how do I tell that story? What is the story, even? I wasn’t even sure I knew what Anointing was—I wasn’t really paying that close of attention during the conference. I came back to my dorm, whining to my buddies about the cruelty of the IPS instructors and how would I ever get this story? Oh, and it wasn’t just a story. The assignment was a 10-shot photo essay but output to a news story template with strict size and crop ratio restrictions and a lengthly article. All on a tight deadline that I had barely met the previous day without having to write an article.

I got up Friday morning still despairing. I realized this had to be a God thing, so I walked out to class praying, giving God my camera, my voice, my work, and crying out to Him to show me His story to tell. Now the funny thing about God’s work is that even though we still have to work. So I sat down to do my hour of pre-planning, and just started hitting brick walls. I went over to the convention center, bought Mr. Gothard’s recent book on anointing and skimmed it. I then spent time with Will, trying to get a handle on what I was doing. I decided to do my story on some mid-level staff member who was clearly anointed and doing good works of ministry service. As I was about to call Sarah P. to find out who that was, she called me.

“Sam, I just heard that God is doing some amazing things over at the library in the men’s session.”

This was just as it started dumping rain and storming majorly hard for about 45 minutes. She offered me her keys, so I grabbed my backpack of camera gear, jumped in her pastel green Bug and took off. Once I found a parking spot, I ran inside, deposited my backpack on a table, and grabbed my body and two lenses. I got upstairs, and it was amazing. My story should tell you what was happening, so I won’t explain it here, but suffice it to say that I was astounded at how gracious God was to me. My story was “Anointed” and a full-out anointing ceremony was going on. The lighting was gorgeous, the people’s faces were great and God put amazing things in front of my lens. I shot primarily with Will’s 70-200 f/2.8 VR, which is a sweet lens and one I will have to get. Anyway, I shot for a couple hours, then returned to the classroom and commenced downloading. I knew what I had gotten, and I knew I had my story now. I wrote out all ten captions and a story outline, then keyworded my images and sat down with Will to rate them. We were excited; I got some really cool shots!

Then it happened. Again.

One of the IBLP conference staff walked in the room and said, “An MGA [Mr. Gothard's Assistant] has requested a photographer over at the library west wing. They are doing anointings.” Will looked at me with this big grin and said, “Go for it!” And then he gave me a couple instructions, based on the photos taken so far (most of which were shot with the telephoto from about 10-15 feet away). He said, “Shoot wide and shoot close. Get in as close as you can, take the picture, then back out.” Right before I left, he said a short prayer asking God to silence my shutter sound and make my presence invisible. I grabbed my backpack, headed out the door, and started running over to the library. I walked in, pulled out my camera, and started shooting. What I was seeing was remarkable—indescribable, although I’ll give it a shot. Dads were bringing their whole families forward, and Mr. Gothard was praying blessings over young people and fathers and mothers. Mr. Gothard asked each person what they thought God had in their future and then each person prayed a prayer of surrender, confessing sins and personally committing themselves to God. Mr. Gothard prayed a prayer of blessing and so did each father. Then Miles Seaborn anointed each person with oil.

Tears were flowing. God was moving. He did a mighty work. Being in close, I heard the prayers: Fathers asking God to forgive their failings and make them better husbands and dads. Mothers confessing selfishness and recognizing that their strongest calling was raising God’s children. Young people grieving wasted years and surrendering to do be vessels for God’s service. As the rest of the room joined each blessing with their own silent prayer, the feeling of the weight of God’s anointing was electric. I don’t know how else to describe it. I knew I was in God’s presence, I knew that I was witnessing God’s work. You can’t be in God’s presence, seeing Him, without it changing your life. For me, I suddenly became aware of faults and sin and omissions. I confessed those, and as my subjects were surrendering to God, so was I. And I found myself praying, silently, privately, as I looked through the shutter. I found my eyes welling up with tears. My heart was full of joy—a joy that I knew comes only from God. A joy that is all-satisfying but also never-satisfying. I always come away from these encounters with God wanting more God. I guess that is a drive for heaven. But while it is there, it is intense and it is soul-filling and heart-rending and shakes you to the bone. God is there, and He is not silent.

After a few lens changes and swaps, I ended up shooting the event mostly with Laura’s 17-55mm f/2.8 and Will’s 70-200mm f/2.8 VR. I can see God’s hand in letting me shoot with these two very nice pro lenses. After what was probably an hour, I decided to focus my shooting a little more. Instead of jumping in, finding the shot, and click, click, clicking on the shutter, I sat back, figured out the optimal shot, then went in. David Waller, the MGA at the scene, mentioned that they needed these sort of images for some of their books. He had actually talked to me a few days earlier about needing images that they couldn’t find in stock photography sources. So in addition to shooting my story, I began looking for illustration images.

After two and a half hours of shooting, I went back to the classroom rejoicing in God’s exceeding greatness to me. I downloaded my images, and then Mandy stepped in where Will left off to rate the 1031 total photos from the day. I was excited to see that more than 1 out of every 3 frames were 5 star images. This was a testimony to the emotional impact God put in front of my camera.

Of course, at this point I had to put together a story. Having several hundred 5-star images to choose from was nice, but it also made the image selection process take far longer than I had wanted. With the finished stories due at 7p, I didn’t have a finished set of 10 captioned images until 6p. The templates were in Word, which is horrible for page layout, so I received permission to do mine in InDesign, as long as it followed the template exactly. I spent about 30 minutes putting together the InDesign document and dropping my photos in. With 30 minutes to go, I began feverishly writing my story. Fortunately, Will came along and granted us a deadline extension to 8p. I was able to finish up my story, a couple rounds of edits and get it output to PDF by 8p.

God was good to me.

My assignment story, in PDF format is: Anointed Article.pdf

Got up a tad late this morning, got out to the classroom, and received my assignment: The Children’s Institute. The assignment was expanded from yesterday: a 10-shot photo essay, with captions, reporting on a series of events. Due by 7p. We were required to spend at least a full hour doing preplanning, which I definitely chafed at. I was itching to get out and shoot! The discipline of pre-planning is valuable and out of all I’ve learned this week is perhaps the most impacting on my approach to shooting an event.

During my pre-planning, I began formulating a story and came up with a shot list and some objectives. I then spent two hours shoot 1,435 photos of the CI. Will let me use his 70-200 f/2.8G VR lens, which was awesome. The lens is HEAVY, but the quality of the images is amazing. I shot out my shot list, then spent the afternoon keywording all of the photos, watching while Will rated every single one (I have to applaud his patience in that) and trying to assemble my story.

At this point I was stymied; the shots I was aiming for at the beginning of the day just weren’t as cool as I thought they would be. My story didn’t flow, it wasn’t tight and cohesive. I continued playing with it, and eventually got 12 images I thought would work. I began typing in captions, and then figured out which two images I could pull. Finally, I took my ten captions, copied them into a Word doc, and began editing them as if they were paragraphs in a story (which in a sense they were; each one represented a photo and they each related to each other). Pasting these edited captions back into Lightroom, I felt that I had a cohesive essay. God was good; I honestly didn’t see it coming together in the amazing way it did.

Last night, we received our assignments for today. My assignment topic was “Fathers”, and the assignment was:

• 5 shot essay
• All images keyworded,
• Rated (by an instructor),
• and captioned.
• Due by 1:15pm

I got started early this morning with a personal pre-planning session. As I contemplated what kind of story I could tell about the fathers here, I was reminded of how God is my own Heavenly Father. I was reminded of how God provides for my needs. I was reminded of how God is my confidant; He cares about me, about what I’m doing and how I’m feeling. I decided to focus my efforts on showing this dimension of fatherhood. The idea of a “father” really directly relates to a relationship (father-son or father-daughter) and the ideal way to show this photographically is with interaction. I decided to structure my photo essay by seeking this relationship and this interaction.

Arriving at 7:00am Father’s Session, I listened to Mr. Gothard and began feeling a bit of the direction my story would take. Hearing his heart for the conference and sensing the response in the men present, I began mentally formulating my “shot list” and set about to get those shots.

The lighting and everything in the session were amazing. I loved it. After downloading those images, I then went out to get more images of fathers and their children. I ended up going out one more time to get a very specific image: the last image in this essay.

Sorting and keywording these images took the remainder of the morning and I finished the essay in the early afternoon.

This assignment was beneficial to me because it forced me to think about a story: I didn’t have an obvious story handed to me (like yesterday’s Cadet Squad Leader Training). I knew the pieces: I have a handle on the technical side of getting a good picture of a dad. What I was able to work on was finding the story, getting (and knowing to get!) the right shots, and assembling a cohesive photo essay.

Let me know what you think of this! I love to hear from y’all!

Having heard great reports from past students, I decided to take the IPS Photojournalism course this week at the Regional ATI conference here on campus.

Our first day covered the history of photojournalism (very cool) and the compositional tools available to us to tell stories. These tools are amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Like most IPS courses, we had to shoot for assignments. We were limited to 48 photos, no deletions (which was very challenging) and had to come back with 5 images illustrating the 5 concepts.

I ended up shooting two cohesive sets of images:

Ryan:

These images came out of about 45 minutes spent tagging along with Ryan and basically getting photos of him and what he was doing:

Aquatics:

I figured that the AQ unit might be doing something interesting, so I gave my buddy Dave (former roomie and current AQ unit leader) a call and learned that they were going on a dive. I was very interested in this, so I tagged along and picked up some cool shots.

Since Sunday, I’ve been working on a complete redesign of this site. I am quite excited about how it is turning out, and also at the opportunity it will give me to expand this site into more than just a running blog. The finished redesign starts with an exciting home page (click to zoom):

My goal is to finish the redesign by sometime next week. I will actually be hiking and camping tomorrow and be gone over the weekend, but keep an eye on this site; I think you will be quite pleased by the redesign.