Jason Moore - Design Matters: Creating Powerful Imagery for Worship

The basis for this book germinated from the spores of our teaching ministry as we began to meet eager pastors, worship leaders, and media ministers who had more passion than professional training about the work of actually creating images. There has been much about the theory of images in worship, and little design. This crack in the soil became the basis for our ministry, Midnight Oil Productions.

One of the primary reasons our ministry continues is because of the risks that dozens of church leaders, paid and volunteer, have taken in hosting our teaching seminars. Without their faith, Midnight Oil would wither. The same is true for all those who purchase our resources and who take time to encourage us to keep on doing what we're doing. We want to thank you for watering our soil and allowing us to fertilize yours.

Jim Kumorek and Brian Blackmore of Church Production magazine gave us a venue for writing a series of articles that became this book, which would not have come together without their regular deadlines. Paul Franklyn at Abingdon Press continues to be open to publishing our ideas, and Rebecca Burgoyne ensures they get collected and processed on time. To all of you, thanks for keeping us on track and helping harvest this book. We appreciate your work.

A special thanks to Phil Cooke for taking time out of a busy weekend shoot schedule to write a wonderful Foreword that just nails the importance of design. Phil, you get it.

We as the Church have a lot of learning to do when it comes to design. Our hope is that what we've learned can play a small part in growing the seeds of image in worship and ministry.

Len: When I began full-time media ministry in 1995, my original mission statement was to make media integral to church life, to make it excellent, and to increase media literacy in ministry such that people could create their own digital media productions like they create their own Microsoft Word documents. I was encouraged to dream big, but this is a goal far more audacious than one person can achieve in a lifetime. Through my partnership with Jason, though, we together are able to do more than I can ever do alone in making our dreams into reality. Thank you, brother, for your commitment to our work. Your design skills just keep getting better. While many designers guard their craft as their greatest asset, you graciously share yours, and I'm better because of you. You make the mission a joy.

Thanks also to Joe Carmichael and the creative team of Community of Hope in Mansfield, Texas, including my wife Shar, the team's creative director, for giving me an environment for creative expression. Shar, you help me in so many ways I cannot enumerate. But I would definitely start with your superior offspring management skills. Speaking of, my contribution to this project is dedicated to two children who have entered our lives with great rejoicing in the time since I last wrote an acknowledgements page, Christian Wayne Wilson and Joslyn Grace Wilson. I look at you and I see reasons for continuing to sow the seeds of ministry in our digital culture.

Jason: Garfield the cat, created by cartoonist Jim Davis, changed my life. In third grade I discovered that I could take a handful of crayons and some paper and could make people smile just by sketching out what I saw in front of me. Somehow, that lazy, lasagna-eating cat became my trademark, and by the end of that year I had drawn Garfield for just about everyone in my class. I liked the way creating "art" made me and those around me feel. At the age of eight, I began planning my career as "an artist" (whatever that meant). From those early experiences, I wandered from opportunity to opportunity encountering people who have helped me figure that out.

Thankfully, The Creator got a hold of me in junior high and I realized that I needed to use this gift to bring glory to Him and not me. Thanks God, for giving me, and all of us, the incredible ability to think creatively. This gift has brought meaning and purpose to my life, and I will forever be thankful for the supernatural presence of the Holy Spirit who guides my hands as I create.

I have had many instructors and critique partners over the years, skilled and unskilled, who have helped me continue to perfect this craft. Chief among those is my wife and companion Michele who, whether she knows it or not, makes me better at what I do. One or two comments can send me on a sometimes long but worthwhile quest to get it just right. I love you and thank you for making me a better artist.

To Len, my partner and best friend, I can't express in words how much you mean to me. You are iron sharpening me as we walk this path together. You have taught me more than you'll ever know.

To the 97/98 staff at the School of Advertising Artparticularly Tim Potter, Michael Bonilla, Cindy Lash, and Perry Edwardsthanks for all of the great instruction. I didn't always understand back then why you were so hard on us, but I get it now!