Gregory Steinmetz readily admits that the 30-foot bonfire might have been a little over-the-top as an activity for the kids in his youth group at Highland Park Baptist Church.
It was cool, especially when he ignited it with a flaming arrow but, as the group’s youth pastor, he later realized that, perhaps, it was not the right thing to do. Blowing stuff up as an activity might not have been wise, either.
“I was deemed a little unsafe and when two kids didn’t come back after the bonfire because they thought it was unsafe, I figured I was being selfish and wanted them to be like me and like the things I liked,” he says.
So, back in 2011 he did a little soul-searching, looked around and saw that most of the kids in the church group were working the soundboards or the cameras during church services. So he reached out to his friend Alan D’Antonio, who works in the film industry and is actually the stunt double for Zach Galifianakis (“The Hangover I, II & III,” the recently released “Masterminds,” the brand-new “Keeping Up with the Joneses”) on many of the star’s films.
So Steinmetz switched gears and, with D’Antonio’s help and advice, he started buying cameras and video-editing equipment. With those in hand, he and his youth group started producing video clips of the Sunday announcements presented at church. Of course, Steinmetz couldn’t completely let go of his wilder side, so the announcements involved things like kids on skateboards or bikes riding down the stairs as they read the announcements.