We film the sermon sections early in the morning to hit the best light, what is called “Golden Hour.” This week we left the church at about 7AM and headed to Kerens for Katie to film. We loaded my truck with the camera equipment because where we were going required a 4 wheel drive high clearance vehicle. The metal light stands were bone chillingly cold, I hurt all the way to my elbows as I slid them in the bed of the truck. It was cold, really cold.
We arrived in the sheep field to film. The clouds were covering the sun. We set up the cameras and the teleprompter. We have been doing this for months now. I charge the iPad each night before we film so that it is ready for the process. We load the sermon on the device. This frees the preacher to speak carefully calibrated words without having to memorize them.
We started to film just like every other week. Then the iPad gave us this rolling flower of death. It shut off. It said that the battery was drained. I was so puzzled. I was sure that I had charged it and it had never even gotten to 50% after a day of filming. We jumped in the truck and plugged it in. This was a problem the light was changing each second and we needed to get back to filming. Within a minute the iPad came back to life. It still had a significant battery. I began to suspect that it was the cold that was to blame (always going to be able to shift blame off of yourself, right?).
I turned on the heater and tried to warm the device. Within minutes we were back to filming. The sheep were restless and moving around so we had to recompose the shot and relocate, but finally the cameras were running again. The warning messages kept appearing not the screen. It was preparing to shut down. Katie kept her cool and her temp never changed. She reached the end of her sermon right as the iPad was ready to give up again.
After we got back to Athens I read about iPads. This is a known problem. It does not like to be too cold. It wats battery life. It wants to nod off. It just says, “NO.” It made me feel better.
The temperature of the environment often influences us in a similar way. If people around us are angry, we tend to reflect those same emotions. If suspicion is in the air, then we are wary. If distrust surrounds us, we lock the doors with more gusto. If people are laughing we tend to bend our mouth corners up. If tears are welling up, we sense the moment and get nostalgic and still.
God, however, calls us sometimes to step out of the environment and lead. He calls us to inject love in the middle of hate. To risk trust when others are fanning the flames of fear. Jesus was quiet when others were shouting. Jesus was compassionate when others were judging. Jesus was welcoming when others were excluding. The iPad cannot generate its own heat. We, however, have the internal power of the Holy Spirit that fills us and can overflow from us to others. In this cold difficult world, God needs you to be a bright, warm light.