“Offense is often taken but seldom given.” I love this quote. Whenever I successfully apply its wisdom to my own relational frictions, it soothes the tension and diffuses the heat. It leaves no room for bitterness and looks for a solution to the problem, not a person to blame. My good friend, Mark McPeak, introduced me to this quote. It reinforced an attitude the Holy Spirit was cultivating in me.
Brian Ellison
In 2011, Mark fleshed out this biblical attitude, and penned a book with Emily White Youree titled Grace in the Empty Spaces. It is a six-week study addressing the issues of judgement and bitterness; and more specifically, how to overcome these obstacles. The book was highly praised and very well-rated. Our very own captain of the Starship Tekmerion, Brian, even used Mark’s book as a family bible study and attested to Mark’s valid insights.
The description of the book reads:
“We all strive for unity in various relationships, but we often ignore direct instruction given in Scripture on how to treat others. This is an excellent small group study that will teach those principles and give practical instruction on how instructions found in Scripture should impact every life.”
Tekmerion was fortunate to produce the book’s promotional video. The concept was to have Mark speaking to the camera during a church service. Everyone around him is moving in slow motion while he speaks. To accomplish this we overcranked the camera and shot the mock church services as our plates. We then recorded Mark without the audience and using green screen. To achieve a clean key, we shot the majority of the spot on the RED ONE. Technical difficulties forced us to mimic slow motion on one shot, and we had to switch to a DSLR to finish the shoot. In the end, the piece cut together well. Overall, we enjoyed producing this video, and were humbled to be a part of such a great project with a timely message.
