CODE Odessa

The 2 Annual CODE Odessa was held over the weekend. Odessa, as you may know is in west Texas...Texas is a huge state but drama teams came from as far away as Texas/Louisiana border. Ten hour drive...just so you know.

Registration at 11:00AM and classes began promptly at 1:35. For more information about CODE...visit codedrama.com.

Thursday evening started with the hosting drama team performing a medium length play called, "The Foolish Wiseman"...a comedy about (Ogion) a friend of the Magi, who came looking for the baby Jesus...but he was quite a bit later the his friends. Kelly Ventura, from Visilia California kept the audience in stitches with his stand-up comedy. As the evening turned the corner, drama teams from the region ministered with great anointing. Terry Vik ministered with one of his signature pieces, "I Want to Go." Terry travels full time as a evangelist/dramatist.

Friday featured classes all day.

Friday evening started with a mix of sign language pieces and dowel rod songs. I performed, "Close Friends." It was a great audience. If you haven't seen, "Close Friends"...you're in for a fun evening. You can schedule "Close Friends" throughout the year and especially during the Christmas season.

Saturday morning continued with more classes and Kelly Ventura performing the book
II Timothy as the apostle Paul. Performing the Bible really makes the Word come alive.

Next up Sunday School Conference in St. Louis, MO. I'll be teaching teachers how to bring the lesson of Life to life...

Drama tip

Inexperienced actors have a tendency to go out of character when they don't have a line to say for a while and then slowly make their way back to being in character just in time. A good practice would be to be in character 7 steps before you enter the stage and 7 steps after you exit the stage. Remember that even though you don't have any lines, you have a past, a present and a future. If the script doesn't give you very information of who you are playing, then you have some luxury of creating a past that may or may have not happened. This would be a great exercise for people who are playing extras in a market scene and have adlib lines. The director may even have each actor write a paragraph of who they are and present it to all other actors in a rehearsal. I have authored a book called, "Drama, the Visual Language." You can peruse more drama manuals at howitiller.com

CODE Indiana

CODE Indiana was a huge success as drama clinicians and students came from Michigan, Illinois, Mississippi, Indiana, Tennessee, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas. Regional drama teams performed Thursday and Friday night. Both night ended with a wonderful visitation fo the Lord. Friday was extra special as the Holy Spirit hovered over the audience. Each drama piece seemed to just invite the audience further into worship as teams ministered through sign language, song interpretation, monologue and dowel rods. By the time one of the teams ministered in a song called, "Let the Veil Down", by Judy Jacobs and another followed with Holy, Holy, Holy the audience rose to their feet and we never looked back. The rest of the evening went on hold as the young people just flooded the altars in praise and worship. What a beautiful sight. The teams that didn't get to ministry on Friday evening performed Saturday morning as the grand finale.
Watch for a DVD to available soon. You'll be able to buy at howitiller.com in a few days. One of the songs that is very popular, "I Want It All Back was performed on Saturday morning...AWESOME...you will not want to miss it. Extra special!!!

Next up CODE Odessa, TX.

CODE Indiana

Today was the first day of CODE Indiana in a little town called Owensville. Students from Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee came together the 4th annual CODE Indiana. Students learned a mix of sign language, dowel rod and song interpretation and performed some of the pieces tonight. My good friend Terry Vik did the book of James as an adjunct professor. He quoted the entire book in 33 mintes, but as a modern day professor. James came alive in a brand new way. You couldn't tell he was quoting, but unfolded the script in a way that it sounded more like a lesson. He actually has the production on DVD and is available on his website at terryvik.com.

I actually did a standup comedy bit...which really isn't my forte, but hey...you gotta keep stretching yourself.

By the way, if your church would like to sponsor a full blown CODE, please let me know. howitiller@aol.com.

4th of July

Had a wonderful time with family and friends in west Omaha. Played Pass the Pigs (A roll the "dice-like pigs" game.), and the great standby Croquet. Learned a game called Botchy Ball. Mostly just enjoyed being with people that you love. Omaha was completely lite up across the skies with thousands of back yard firework shows. From the intersection of I680 and Maple you could see hundreds of explosions competing for attention.

I got say that I'm not a hotdog kind of person, but Hebrew National dogs are the exception. If you're going to eat a dog, make it a Hebrew National. A great dog. That was for earlier in the day. Later we sliced a slow cooked brisket and bathed it in Famous Dave's bar-b-q sauce. To die for. You can't get any better than that

Hope you all had a great 4th. Now I've got to get back to travel. Next up...CODE Indiana.

Vacation with Spencer

Finally....a time of relaxing or ah...so I thought. Took my son and three friends to Perry State Park in Kansas for a few days of fun and relaxation. Turned out to be more work than I thought. It started with a mountain bike trail called the Wild West. Well, I'm so out of shape that it turned out to be mimpy west for me. I bowed out after the first mile as the young guns took on another 2 miles of trails. One mile was all I was good for... as my legs turned into rubber. So I kicked back with a caffeine free Dr. Pepper (Which by the way tastes the same as regular DP.) Spencer and the young guns came through the other side of the Wild West exhausted, but ready for more. We had already checked onto our cabin, which was the cabin of choice for me...all the modern conveniences... on the lake...yet with aircon, showers, kitchen and bedrooms. That's about as rough'in it as I get. I was doing good without having my computer. I felt like something was missing all weekend long. I did it...cold turkey, but I did it. No computer.
Well, the next day we waited for the rain to stop and then fished the spillway. Caught enough White Bass and Blue Gill that we all had a great fish fry that night. Taught the boys how to filet the fish...none of them had ever (Except Spencer) fileted a fish before.
Sunday morning we rented a ten passenger pontoon boat and fished all day. It was a perfect 80 degrees. We caught a few more fish...I guess not quite enough...as the guys wanted to try the spillway one more time.
Got home about 11:00 pm and slept until 10:00am. I had to come home so I could get some rest. Vacation is hard work.