FIRST IN LAST OUT
THROW OUT THE BAD GRAPES | Todd Elliott
I ’ m a sucker for documentaries . I could watch one after another . It doesn ’ t even matter what the subject matter is . I love to learn about everything . As a result , I know a little bit about a ton of different things .
The other day , I watched a film entitled
A Year in Burgundy . It is the story of the wine made in the Burgundy region of France where the filmmakers look into all the different philosophies of wine and the best ways to create it . For some of the vineyard owners it was all about the science and very quantitative ; to others it was an art form and something elusive . There was one thing that pretty much every vintner agreed on , and that was to eliminate the bad grapes .
There were scenes of people picking out bad grapes on a conveyor belt . There were speeches to the grape pickers about eliminating bad grapes before they go into the buckets . The whole time I was watching these scenes , I kept thinking about all the work that went into those bad grapes . Even though they were bad , they still put as much work into growing those grapes as they had the good grapes . All the bad grapes were bad for different reasons … rot , hail damage , bruised … but they were all bad .
The reason these grapes were thrown out was that they would affect the end product .
Among the vineyard owners , the scientists would simply say bad grapes make bad wine . The artists among them would say you could taste the hail damage in the wine .
At this point , you ’ re probably wondering what this has to do with anything .
Well , by the end of this movie , I was really impressed with the discipline it took to get rid of the less than perfect grapes for the sake of the final product . If I were in their shoes and really knew how much work was involved , would I be able to do what was best for the end result ?
How many times have I sacrificed the best end result for the sake of a bad grape ? A less than perfect stage set up or a slightly lazy lighting cue ? To spend countless hours on a video , then knowing it isn ’ t quite there , played it in the service anyway ? To keep a chronically late volunteer on the team because , after all , they ’ re volunteering ?
Regardless of the work I ’ ve put in or the team has put in , it might still be a bad grape .
There was a big service at Willow Creek that we had spent a ton of energy on to make the set a certain way to achieve a certain result . It was a lot of work . However , in the end , it wasn ’ t right for the service , so we ended up scraping it . For
some people on the team , this really bothered them . To others it was the exact right call .
I realize that many of the situations we find ourselves in are way more complicated than good grape / bad grape , but the question still remains : Is the thing I ’ ve spent so much time on going to make the end product better or worse ?
Are we willing to sacrifice all of our efforts if necessary , for the sake of the end result ?
Will we have enough discipline to set aside the less than best for the benefit of what we are really trying to do ? Which is hopefully to create life changing moments through the fusion of the technical and creative arts .
Todd Elliott has written a guidebook for church technical artists , “ I Love Jesus but I Hate Christmas ”. Get your copy today at
filo . org / book .
Todd Elliott Writer , speaker , technical artist in the local church and founder of FILO . Formerly the Technical Arts Director at Willow Creek Community Church , he started FILO in 2015 to help other technical artists become more effective so that the local church can be more effective . In his free time he enjoys being inspired by Winston Churchill speeches and visiting the gravesites of U . S . presidents . Residing near Chicago , he and his wife Bissy have three kids and a dog ... none of whom are into production . filo . org