How long has AngelHouse been around?

Angelhouse launched in October 2003 at the National Outreach Convention in San Diego.  The initial release included the Sharable Parables series (The Message in a Bottle, the Clock, and The Young Prodigal) and Version 1 of “The Text.”   The videos were so well received that Sally Morgenthaler raved about them in her session, and Angelhouse sold every piece of product they brought to the convention.

Explain to me how far your ministry expands (what all you do).

In a nutshell we say Angelhouse media has got to be biblically dead on and artistically excellent.  What we’re trying to do is simply supply teachers and leaders with visual prompts – stories, music, graphics, animations, images that help them explore the bible and God in fresh ways.

What are some of the recent transitions and how has that affected you?

Well, the biggest transition for me is that I’ve just joined the company as publisher and creative producer.  I work closely with John Grooters who is our lead creative, as well as with an amazing team here of musicians, graphic artists, shooters and editors.  We’re going through an exciting time as just this week we finally moved into our own building.  We’ve got a shooting studio, three Avid Editing suites, four graphic artist desks, a complete sound studio, and an engineering room that ties us all together will central media storage and digitizing and mastering capabilities.  Our new place is really cool, and it is state of the art.  We’re an HD house all the way.  We shoot everything on the Panasonic Varicam and now we master on an Avid Symphony Nitris.  Our graphic artists are using everything from 3D Studio Max, to Combustion, to After Effects, to Blender, and our music studio is full-blown Pro Tools HD.  I’m so excited that I’ve got this kind of production power at my disposal, and John’s commitment is to use it all to reveal the beauty of Christ to the world through excellent media.  We’ve really only just begun to do that.

What are some of the company’s new focus/ mission/ direction?

Our mission and vision hasn’t changed, but our focus is moving doing more in-house music and more holiday related releases.  We’re also looking at taking some of the more obscure books of the bible and really focusing on them. 

From a business perspective we’ve hired a fantastic new sales and support director, my wife Carrie, to clarify and improve our relationships with re-sellers and churches.

What is your favorite project right now?  Why?

We’re working right now on Volumes 5 and 6 of our popular  “Interludes” series.  I love these because as a worship director myself for six years I know how important transitions can be.  Transitions from one element of a gathering to another are often just dead air or wandering instrumentals.  Interludes, when incorporated into a well-planned worship service, just tie everything together.

What are some exciting things we can look forward to from AngelHouse?

We’re coming up with a sequel to our first Christmas Mirrors video, which was our all-time best seller.  We’ve also just released our first Sharable Parable that was shot overseas.  “Knock” is a parable about prayer and it was shot on location in Nyon, France.  We are hoping to produce at least three more parables that will be set in Europe.

Tell us about the team?  Are you related to anyone on the team?

I already mentioned Carrie, my wife.  I’m related to her in that we have the same children.  The rest of the team includes my brothers and sisters of different parents.  We’re up to about 18 full time people now.  I love ‘em all.

How did you get started?

John Grooters started Grooters Productions in 2001.  He was in the Netherlands visiting an old college roommate, Scott Curley, who was doing a church plant in The Hague.  Scott told John that media like Highway Videos was really helping him in communicating to a culture that had virtually no biblical memory or understanding.  John tells us that Scott simply asked him, “Can you make us more of this stuff?”  John promised him, then and there, that he would.    

As for me I’ve been working for the past 15 years as creative arts director, worship pastor, or drama director in several churches.  I’m looking forward to pulling all those years of experience into helping Angelhouse build media that really connects with the church and its needs. 

What are some sources of inspiration for you?