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Mobile, AL M-Fuge 2006 - It's Lifeway's Fault Or Is It? **DAY 2**

July 09, 2006

Today is the day that we get into our track groups and plan for what we will be doing the rest of the week. Our group came up with Bible stories, games, and crafts for all the kids we will be ministering to at the Salvation Army in Mobile. We also did some group building games! All in all this has been a fun day.

On a gloomier note, I did have a couple negative experiences with some of the M-Fuge staff and some policies or some so-called policies that don't make much sense to me. Most of the staff here are awesome, but there is one that has simply rubbed me the wrong way. For me this is a new experience. We've taken our youth to M-Fuge for 6 years now and I've not had any problems. Each year we bring video cameras to capture our experience at M-Fuge. We use the footage to create a video that gives our church and the adults that have supported us a taste of what we experienced at camp and of what they have essentially funded. We don't copy the video, we don't sell the video, and we essentially show it one time on a Sunday evening to our church as part of our mission trip report when we return home. We've also paid for the M-Fuge DVD every year and asked the video tech to burn some raw footage and final cut files onto a DVD for us so that we could use bits and pieces of their video that featured our students. They have always been happy to do it. This year is a different story, or so it seems.

We were blind-sided first of all by one of the staff who walked up to us like he wanted to be nice and casually talk to us. He asked if we had some certain types of cameras like he was interested in talking about them and then reprimanded us for taping some things on screen during some of the celebration time. Mainly because he had taped some individuals around the Mobile area and got there permission to show it only at M-Fuge, which I totally understand. I have no problem with that. So then we asked if we could get some of the raw footage of just the views of the city. No people, just scenery footage that we were not able to acquire on our own. He said he had already gotten rid of the raw footage and couldn't, and he also said that everything that he does or takes footage of during these weeks actually belongs to LifeWay and is copyrighted by LifeWay and that even after all of this is over that he couldn't even use the footage that he took for the last 8 weeks either (though he too would like to have it). Essentially he was saying 'no you cannot have any of my footage and it is LifeWay's fault.' Here is where I begin to have a problem.

First of all, we are a Southern Baptist Church going to a Southern Baptist Camp supported by a Southern Baptist institution called LifeWay that is in the business of providing materials, support, help, and programs to churches. We support the SBC and we support LifeWay, including getting our youth materials, camps, music, and other related items from them. While I know that I can get material from a lot of different places, I'm proud to support the SBC institutions. If, in fact, what this Fuge staffer said is true and LifeWay owns all of this footage, then I think it would be in their best interest to allow the churches to use it. If they watch the video and like what they see then it is likely they will be willing to support LifeWay camps in the future, including M-Fuge, Centrifuge, and Centri-Kid.

The feeling I got from the staffer is that LifeWay won't let anyone use it, which doesn't make sense to me. The only ones being hurt by this is the church who put out the money to send these teens on the trip in the first place. I think that our church deserves to see what the M-Fuge camp is all about and I think LifeWay should be more than willing to let us use some of the footage that they own. While we do have some of our own cameras, we do not have the freedom or the resources of the Fuge staffer who can capture more footage of our students and of all the mission sites than we are able to acquire and I guess I just don't understand why they would not want to share that to help out the churches. Besides that, what is the big deal with scenery footage? It just makes no sense to me.

So, i've been a bit frustrated with this whole thing, cause I think it is wrong. Maybe it isn't true and he just didn't want to help us, or maybe it is true and LifeWay holds the copyright. We've done our best to support this camp and this organization for years, but this whole situation really doesn't sit well with me. Maybe i should just call LifeWay to see if they would be willing to simply give us permission to use the footage to add to the video that we make for our church. Many times you can write to someone about a song and they will give permission to use it. I wrote to a group to ask if I could copy some material from their webpage to mine about the SBC and they sent me written permission.

The other thing that we have a problem with going on at camp is that many of the other church groups have campers who are using some foul language. Yes, yes I know that this can't be controlled and that there are lost campers here. I understand that, and I realize that this kind of stuff is gonna happen. Many of our students have heard some pretty rough language. I understand that it is difficult to break such a habit, but I also understand that there is a difference between accidently slipping and saying a word and using these words in casual conversation with others while standing in line for worship. My wife told the same staff member mentioned above about this and he essentially called her a tattletale. We were simply hoping that the director would mention something about it during adult meeting and maybe some of the youth ministers and leaders would mention it to their students, just to help curb these things (which eventually happened after speaking to a different staffer).

These are just some things that we've been dealing with today, but besides these, camp has been good! I think are students are getting a lot out of it and I am pretty excited to see what God is going to do in their lives this week.

Comments

Posted by: Some Guy
July 10, 2006 02:36 PM

615-251-2000 (there's no 800 number)

Joe Hicks and Lance Howerton work in the Student Events area.

Be curious to know how it goes.

Posted by: Some Guy
July 10, 2006 02:41 PM

Oh yeah, here's some good contact info:

http://www.lifeway.com/fuge/contact.asp

Posted by: D.R. Randle
July 17, 2006 03:14 AM

I read with some interest your experience at M-Fuge in Mobile. I am a former M-Fuge staffer and I have many friends who are graduates of the UofM. So it is interesting to hear about the two. I will say that even when I worked in 2001, LifeWay was beginning to crack down on their copyrights. They started getting more and more picky about items like music, video, and Bible study material. Often it is hard to tell where LifeWay the corporation ends and LifeWay the ministry begins. And that is unfortunate.

As for the language, that is unacceptable. M-Fuge was to be billed as a place for ministry and as such, LifeWay strongly encourages churches to bring only regenerate youth to M-Fuge. Lost campers should not be something with which you should have to deal. One of the biggest problems I had as a staffer was with youth ministers who didn't do their jobs in screening campers and in disciplining them while at camp. Many youth ministers care more about having fun and letting loose than they do in providing their students with an experience that leads to deep spiritual growth. I am sorry that you too had to experience such lazy youth ministers and leaders. Thanks for not being one of those. I look forward to your concluding thoughts about your overall experience.