TheOOZE Gets a Remote Control

In his book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about how opportunities that come our way contribute to building life skills. I happened to be in the right place at the right time for one of those opportunities in the fall of 1975. My high school had a vidicon tube black and white video camera, 27-inch black and white TVs in each english classroom, a couple of miles of co-axle cable, and two kids looking to get out of “traditional” school work. My friend, Bill, and I launched one of the first-ever closed circuit high school TV stations. And now, I’ve come full circle and find myself again in the right place at the right time to launch TheOOZE.TV.

Back in the 70s, my job was to give the weekly student announcements. We had 60 seconds to do it, and Bill and I figured the way to make it interesting was to change the venue each week. The announcements would begin with a close up of my face and gradually the camera would pull back to reveal my surroundings-I might be on a 15′ sailboat in the High School pool, or on the roof above the principal’s office with a full desk and chairs set up newsroom-style, or in the barber chair about to get a haircut.

I think that experience planted the seeds for today’s new initiative, TheOOZE.TV - Conversation in Motion. Here, TheOOZE.TV expands from the printed words of TheOOZE.com to include the motions and expressions behind the stories of church and culture. Graduating from High School video announcements to a segment called thinkFWD, I am now introducing and interviewing people-some who are well-known and others whose stories should be known. thinkFWD offers first-hand reporting in creative settings, mixing honest and in-depth conversation with both playful and challenging thought. We hope it will allow you to see a unique side of well-known voices like Shane Claiborne and Circus Theology or Efrem Smith: Can the Church Become Post-Racial?, and introduce you to new voices like New York artist Makoto Fujimura, Brazil’s Claudio Oliver: Turning Grease into Gospel and Karen Sloan and Formation House.

Sometimes we forget that words on a page can be limited, and subject to a wide range of readings and interpretations. There’s something engaging about seeing and hearing an artist, a theologian, a community leader in their own words, in their unique environment that makes their expressions come alive.

Join us on TheOOZE.TV for each episode of thinkFWD. The upcoming shows range from a DJ school in Los Angeles to the ancient ruins in Jordan to independent filmmakers and showcase their short films to tea with Ori Brafman (Starfish and the Spider) in his kitchen. We try to get the conversation started with show notes, and each episode includes a series of questions for personal reflection or small group settings. You can add your comments to the site, rate the shows, embed the episode in your newsletter, website, blog, or subscribe to thinkFWD via iTunes. All episodes are free and open resource with a Creative Commons licensed - Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives.

I hope you have as much fun watching and interacting with thinkFWD as I am having creating each episode.