I love where I live. New Orleans is full of music, food and history. It has character and is unique in many ways. It also has great challenges and difficulties.
One of the things which excited me about the Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting coming here to New Orleans this year (again, sorry to my NC friends), is that those of us who live here would have the opportunity to be ambassadors for this place in a special way and shine a light on some interesting facts you might not know about this city and the surrounding area.
Early on in preparing for SBC23, our Local Encouragement Team signed on to an idea I had for a video montage in which we would offer some bits of “Did You Know” trivia about our home. I spent some time writing the script and then narrowing down the bits, taking a couple of suggestions, and leaving out a whole lot more that I could have included. I brought on myself a whole lot of extra stress which I did not need, but after seeing the finished product, I’m happy we we did it.
Come to find out, the number of members of our LET didn’t quite cover all the spots we needed, so after inviting a few more folks to participate, and with numerous delays and a tough schedule to navigate, we finally were able to get all the call sheet finished and printed.
I need to identify and thank some folks who were integral to us making this whole thing work. Page Brooks and Canal Street Church allowed us the use of filming equipment. Joseph Duke and Jonathan Skinner (and a few others) at NOBTS gave of their time to help with some filming. A fellow Westwego brother, Vinnie Verdin for the drone work. All our “actors” : Jamie, James, Geovany, Alex, Bart, Thomas, Preston, Mark, Philip, Meagan, George, Chris, Ryan, Dennis, Quint, Larry, Ray, Jack, Hannah, Larry, Inman, Fred, Gary, Chip, Steve, and Chad, sacrificed significant time to bring this effort to fruition. Finally, none of this could have come about without the aid of my friends and fellow FBC Westwego church members, Joseph and Caitlyn Hughes. This young couple, award winning filmmakers themselves, are involved in the film industry here in New Orleans. They did the majority of filming, directing and editing of my ideas to create this montage. They voluntarily spent hours upon hours bringing it all together and I am so thankful for them.
I hope this will be something that would bring a smile to faces, educate folks about some unique things about this place, and engender a bit of excitement as folks from all over the country prepare to join us in New Orleans for #SBC23.
See you soon!
