Edit: I later was forwarded a link to a blog Willow Creek created that had videos and discussion of the conference. It included one cool post about Erwin and Scribble with a nearly three-minute video clip and lots of cool comments. Check it out here:
http://2007artsconferenceblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/your-r.html
This past Tuesday, Lisa Olson and I (Alan Luu) were the first to arrive in Barrington, IL, where Willow Creek Church makes a home. It was in Willow’s 7,100-seat sanctuary that the Arts Conference was to occur from Wednesday to Friday (June 13-15th). Approximately 5,000 attendees were expected, perhaps the highest total ever for the conference.
We were there to meet with the conferences’ tech team, to help walk through our Scribble Show, since the entire Scribble team could not get out there that early. The tech team was a pleasure to work with - from Jill the Production Manager, to Matt the Technical Director, Mark the Stage Manager, Scott the Sound Engineer, and on and on. Sherri the Program Manager and many more would make the next couple of days a very pleasant experience.
My immediate impression of Willow Creek and the sounding area: Very Green, Very Beautiful. Growing up in Los Angeles, you are not used to seeing so much green, and so much open land. In Los Angeles, if there is open land, the immediate thought is “what are they going to build here?” So Angelenos may wonder why the people of Barrington have left so much land unused.
We were joined later Tuesday by Chris Duran and Nathan Neighbour, both of Mosaic Los Angeles. Chris arranged for us to have dinner that night with Jim and Lianne (apologies for any mis-spellings). Jim is the Director of the Willow Creek Association of churches. We were treated to some great discussion with a fabulous couple.
The four of us also were able to enjoy the first day of the conference, featuring Dewitt Jones, Nancy Beach, and Dan Kimball. The David Crowder Band also started the conference off ably.
The rest of the team arrived later that day: David Arcos (Urban Poets’ Director), John Torres (actor/musician), Dan Perkins (Saxophonist), Phillip Attmore (Dancer/Actor), Mike Tyus (Dancer), Arlene Yuan (Dancer), Stacey Carr (Dancer), and Abby Mason (Dancer). It was good to be together as a group again. We only had time Wednesday evening to have a much-needed rehearsal for the show. While using the dance studio space in the Willow building, we were fortunate enough to meet Willow’s dance team. They showed us one of their new dance pieces while we previewed one of our pieces from Scribble.
On Thursday, David and the team put together a session called “A Weekend at Mosaic”, with David speaking, while the rest of us provided some elements, such as John performing his beautiful song, “Hallelujah,” and the dancers performing a piece from Phillip called “Only Hope.” The session went very well.
Friday was the day we had all been waiting for though. The entire team was excited to be able to perform for the 5,000 in attendance, and it was an honor to be able to close out the conference. Nancy Beach showed a lot of trust in us to even invite us, and we did not want to disappoint. In addition, the facilities and technical support were perhaps the best we had ever received for our modest show, so it was exciting to see how that would enhance Scribble.
After an early call-time of 6am to do one last run-through, a good portion of us took a nap in the spacious and beautiful green room. By about 10:30am, most of us were back up, stretching, doing some last-minute rehearsals, warming up. Our show would start at 11:15am, with Erwin McManus coming out first to speak on themes such as uniqueness, every human’s potential for greatness, creativity — themes that run through the Scribble show. Erwin would speak again in the middle of the show, and also at the end.
The show began rather quietly. After Erwin spoke, Dan came out to perform his sax intro. Right after that, we performed our first dance piece, a short minute-long hip hop number that’s meant to “hype up” the crowd. It didn’t really work. OK, so this crowd would be a little harder on the dance pieces, but I still had faith. Sure enough, after David’s “I Say Scribble” monologue, they were beginning to warm up. As the show went on, the audiences’ energy got better and better. It also became obvious that John’s character in the show was a big hit. In fact, he was a show-stopper. As always, Phillip’s “Move” monologue and the subsequent dance piece that features him tap-dancing was also popular. But John, who plays the show’s eager “stage manager” who gets over-excited and desperately tries to perform, was the clear favorite.
After the show, it was great to interact with people from all over the country, some of whom gave some encouraging commentary. As always, it was fulfilling to play a small part in the ongoing arts movement that is happening in certain places in this country.