A little over a month ago, we shared with you a longheld, secret dream in our heart – to be 100% self-employed, crafting and creating beautiful stories alongside beautiful people, and to be able to do it together. We revealed that Smitty would be stepping down from his full-time position at Grace and we gave a glimpse into the vision for what was ahead. And we admitted that are definitely in a “leap of faith” season. We were floored by your response! So many of you commented on our Facebook page, sent emails or texts, or pulled aside when we saw each other in person. You congratulated us, encouraged us, prayed for us. What a gift, sweet friends! Many of you also had a lot of questions about exactly what the road ahead looks like for us. I’ll be the first to say that if we’re being honest, your guess is as good as mine! We are living in the midst of big dreams and new narratives and wide-eyed wonder at what will come next. Truly, every day is an adventure, but we are beyond excited about what will be birthed from this new season.

With that said, I know there are a few questions that I can definitely answer now and I thought it might be most efficient to do it in one blog post for everyone!  So, below you’ll find the FAQ’s about what lies ahead for Kairos + the Smiths. Also, be sure to stay to the end (or scroll ahead to #5 now if you can’t handle the anticipation!) for the announcement we hinted at in our last post. It’s a BIG one!!

FAQ’s About Our Future

1. What do you mean when you say Smitty will be stepping down from his job at Grace?     Smitty has been so blessed to be in what he considered his dream job for the past eight years. As Audio Director at a large church, he’s been able to couple what he loves and is passionate about with full-time ministry and it has been an incredible journey. Both of our hearts have always been for the arts + the church, and it is no small thing that we’ve been able to do both for most of our lives. As Kairos has grown and our dreams have shifted, it’s become apparent that in order to continue to walk fully in the path that we feel lies ahead for us, we needed some schedule changes. Grace has Saturday + Sunday services, but Smitty now needs to be with Kairos on Saturdays for weddings and events. During the week, we need more time to work together so we could continue to see Kairos expand as it should. This means that he is no longer full-time at Grace for every weekend and his normal weekday schedule. Currently, he is transitioning into a part-time position instead of leaving altogether. He’s still around, just not quite as much right now. This helps the team stabilize while they train the new guys and it also allows us the flexibility to still maintain a steady income while we launch other things. We are so grateful to Grace for their understanding and desire to see both sides of the equation flourish within this new normal. We still want to work alongside them, and they with us, just in new capacities. 

2.  Does this mean you’ll be leaving Grace altogether? Nope. As of right now, we don’t feel called away from Grace altogether. We are still very committed to our worship arts team, the songwriters, and the community that’s been built there over the past few years. We’ve been at Grace for a long time and cannot deny the beautiful bonds the Lord has been forming, even over the last year. So we’re not leaving. We’ll still be around, leading worship, playing music, mixing audio, writing songs. You just might actually see us sitting together during a church service or two as well. That’s only happened maybe five times in our six year marriage, so we’re definitely excited about it!

3. Will Smitty be photographing every wedding with you from now on? Most likely. If you’re a current client, you will probably see more of him now than ever before. With that said, he will be our lead videographer, so in the event that he’s doing videography elsewhere, my amazing best friend + second shooter, Kelly, will still be around! And if you book videography for your wedding, you get the whole crew: Me, Smitty, Kelly, and our 2nd videographer Jaron. We’ve affectionately nicknamed ourselves KAST, a.k.a. The Kairos All-Star Team. And now you’ve seen a glimpse of our nerdiness. 😉

4. Will Smitty be available to do freelance work now? Yes! More to come on this with the announcement I’m about to make, but yes, he is definitely available to do freelance work! He’s actually already received several calls over the past couple weeks asking if he’s now more available for various audio projects, mixing, etc. With a shifted schedule, he is now a bit more free to take on freelance projects whether that be studio/location recordings, mixing live events or church services, system tuning + space consultations, church tech team training, the list goes on. If you’re interested in any of that and want to chat with him about it, you can email him directly at smitty@kairosphotographystl.com

5. So, what’s this big announcement all about? Oh my gracious, we are so excited about this we can hardly stand it! When we first decided on the name, Kairos, for our photography business, we always envisioned it would one day lend itself to a larger scale, what we would call Kairos Creative. That one day is TODAY!! Friends, we are thrilled to announce the official launch of Kairos Creative, a creative media studio specializing in live sound + location recording, as well as cinematography + photography. Kairos Creative was born from our artist hearts with a desire to see musicians and creatives thrive in their gifting by providing a way to document their story honestly and organically. There’s a massive gap in the musical culture here in St. Louis (and much of the midwest, for that matter) for pieces that truly tell the story behind the artist and their craft. We want to change that. We want to cultivate beautiful cinematic videos, recordings, and photographs alongside artists that are representative of who they are and the narrative they long to share with the world. 

     In so many ways, we feel like we were made for this. We have been musicians + songwriters for as long as we can remember, Smitty is a brilliant audio engineer (I know I’m biased because I’m married to him, but it’s true, y’all), and we’ve fallen in love with visual storytelling through photography and cinematography. This is all of our love, all of our passion, all of our aching for artistry in one place. It is the culmination of years of study, years of creating + honing our crafts, years of storytelling, years of yearning for collaboration, years of dreaming + longing for others to do the same. Some day, you should ask me about all the little details that got us to this point. It’s incredible to look back and see how faithful God has been along the way and it’s exciting to look ahead knowing he can do immeasurably more!

   We are launching two videos today to kick off Kairos Creative. One by Steve Johnston, our amazing electric guitarist friend, and the other by Eric Bausell, our crazy gifted songwriting friend. Both of these were recorded at Narrative Furniture, an incredible furniture store off Jefferson Ave! A huge shout-out to them for letting us use their space! Two more videos from these guys, along with many others, will be coming soon! In the meantime, can you do a few things for us?

1. Find Kairos Creative on Facebook and YouTube, and like + subscribe to our brand spankin’ new pages! We will be posting all of our new videos and updates there until we get the website officially up and running! 
2. Watch Steve + Eric’s videos and show them some love by liking, commenting, and sharing it! These guys are incredible and this is just the tip of the iceberg for what’s to come! Also, be sure to head over to Narrative’s Facebook page and give them a like as well!
3. Consider sharing Kairos Creative with your friends, musicians, creatives and small business owners! While a major focus of the business will be on musicians, we’d also love to partner with other creatives, churches, and businesses to help them share their stories as well! Also, if you’re a local business and are interested in collaborating by sharing your space, sponsoring a video, or supporting a local artist, we’d love to chat with you about what that looks like!
4. Pray for us! We are taking a massive leap of faith, but are certain this is what we’ve been called to for this next season! With that said, there are always logistics that need to be worked out. Finances, clients, schedules, locations for videos, being self-employed in general…eek! We have so many big dreams and visions, and we know they will come to fruition in time, but today, we’d love prayer for all of those doors to open as we step toward them! Thank you for all of your love and support thus far. We can’t wait to share this journey with everyone!!

Love, 

Britt + Smit