Greg Atkinson

PLEASE. Please go buy a pair of shoes. I’m committing to you to buy some. Would you join me? If so, go HERE.

EXTRA:

Today I begin to read Henri Nouwen’s In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership. I’m pumped. I’ve already heard so many great quotes from this book. I think it is timely for me, personally and a book that God is going to greatly use in this season of my life. Anyone else read it?

This past week I got the new books you see to the left and below:

• 
  Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder
  by David Weinberger
• 
  The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation
  by Ram Charan
• 
  IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea
  by Sam Harrison

After spending some time with my friend, DJ Chuang, last week at Barnes & Noble, I have added a few more books to my birthday wish-list. Today is my 33rd birthday. This is what my friends and I call the “Jesus year”. It really is hard to believe that Christ gave His life at this age in life. I feel like I’ve got so much time ahead of me. Wow - really makes you think.

Below are books on my Amazon wish list. What other books should I have on my wish list?

EXTRA:
Last night’s LifeShare was awesome. I might make a special appearance with Tony Steward in CA this Wednesday night. Watch out!

I had an interesting conversation with some friends this week. I found that many follow several, random people and in turn, those people then find out about them and follow them - thus they have a lot of people following them on Twitter.

That, honestly, never occurred to me. I only follow people that interest me, so it’s a relatively small group (78). I could probably have more people following me if I followed more people (makes sense), but I don’t want to get constant updates from people that I don’t particularly want to follow. Does that make sense?

So… How do YOU use Twitter? Do you follow as many as you can? Are you picky? Are you following me? You should. I will be releasing updates and exclusive Church 2.0 info on just Twitter.

BONUS:

Check out my friend, Bill Seaver’s blog on Podcasting 101 HERE.

For those of you that don’t know - I like to use the term “straight rockin’ it!”. I enjoy the breeze of reading many blogs at once via my Google Reader on my iGoogle page, which I check daily.

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about some blogs that I read daily now. I have 2 more blogs added to my blogroll that I’d like to share with you:

My new friends - Eric Michael Bryant and Randy Elrod. Both are great Church leaders, bloggers and all around great guys. I encourage you to add them to your Google reader and check ‘em out!

Eric is the Navigator (Executive Pastor) at Mosaic in LA and attended the Church 2.0 Local Forum - Orange County. I got to meet him after Mosaic’s Sunday night service, which was a great experience.

Randy is a good friend of my worship pastor, Scott Dyer, and heads up the re:create conference - which I hope to one day attend. It’s rare for me to just attend a conference, but that is one on “my list”.

* SO… what are the must-read blogs that you check daily?

Shawn: Have their people contact my people [timschraeder@gmail.com] and it’ll happen.

Today’s blog is simple: I’d like for you to get your FREE copy of “Facebook for Pastors” and read it. I wrote the Foreward for this book and think it’s a good read. Check it out HERE.

I’m am now back in good ‘ol Dallas. As I reflect upon my time in Nashville, many thoughts come to mind. Here goes:

• Staying with and hanging out with my best friend, Thomas, and his wife Dita. We played Nintendo Wii each night until about 3am. Good times! The Tiger Woods golf game on Wii is amazing! Thomas is the worship leader at Mosaic Nashville, where I went to church Sunday morning and night. It was also nice to eat twice with their pastor, Gary. God is doing some cool things at Mosaic Nashville. I’ve visited several times, so it’s been cool to see them grow and watch what God is doing in their community. If you’re in town, give them a visit.
• Seeing one of my friends from when I lived in Washington DC, who now lives in Nashville. Hanging out with Sarin (and his soon-to-be wife, Rebecca) was a true treat. Sarin is an amazing artist and is working on some very cool projects. We got to eat a couple of times together, catch some movies and he also played electric guitar at Mosaic Nashville on Sunday.
• Getting to hang out with and share many meals with Kirk Longhofer of Wichita, Kansas.
• Having lunch with Bill Seaver of MicroExplosion.
• Hanging out some with the crew from SermonSpice, my sponsor for my classes.
• Getting to speak with the Tech Directors of and hear about what’s going on at the following churches: Bellevue in Memphis, Brentwood Baptist, First Baptist Orlando and First Baptist Jacksonville, FL. Though my church is Non-denominational, I grew up Southern Baptist and have visited these churches before and know of their long history. It’s intriguing to me to see God doing a new thing at these long-standing churches that are trying to change and move forward. According to THIS article on Monday Morning Insight, 90% of churches are in decline.
• Meeting and speaking with some of the staff and key leaders at LifeWay.
• Seeing many Bent Tree members who were at NRB, including our pastor, Pete Briscoe, who was doing a meet and greet for his radio show: Telling the Truth.
• Catching a few classes at NRB. My favorite was my friend, Phil Cooke’s class on branding. He said a lot that is in his new book “Branding Faith“, which I’ve been reading the manuscript of for the last few months. It’s a great read and I’ll review it once I finish it. It was cool to see the actual hardcopy-version of his book. I encourage you to order a copy.
• Walking around the Exhibit Hall and meeting new people/companies, collecting free pens (something I enjoy) and doing a radio interview with a Jewish Ministry. The guy who works for the ministry used to be a tech director in San Antonio, TX and reads my blog. I’ll post a link to the interview when it’s ready.
• My biggest highlights were meeting some of you, regular readers of my blog, who came up and introduced yourself to me. It is so cool to look someone in the eyes, who has been commenting on your blog. I love it!
• Another highlight was my 2 classes that I spoke in. Here is a quick summary of what stuck out to me from the classes I spoke in:
  1. Large or small, every church has struggles/challenges and is constantly seeking to grow their ministry. I got to talk with people from very small churches to mega-mega-mega churches. It was humbling and amazing to meet fellow tech directors and be able to offer some of my philosophy of ministry and leadership.
  2. My class called “On the Air: Ten Attributes of a Winning Team” was filled with people that are broadcasting on television. I was absolutely shocked and floored that out of everyone of them that was on TV, none of them had a weekly rehearsal. Their first service was a rehearsal and they couldn’t imagine asking volunteers to come out to rehearsal during the week. I begged them to read my blog. You know how I love talking about leading volunteers!
  3. In my class, “The Ultimate Q & A”, where the panel just took random classes from the attendees, I got to share my philosophy on being and hiring “equippers” versus “doers”. I shared that leaders are to equip (based on the Ephesians 4 model). It seemed to strike a nerve and was something I believe God wanted me to share about. At Bent Tree, our leaders (whether volunteer or paid) are equippers.
  4. The major “God-moment” was during the “On the Air” class when I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to say the following, “Stop trying to revive what God is trying to kill.” Some gasped, some cried, some clapped, some said, Amen!”, some sat in silence. I have no doubt that God wanted me to say that and that it spoke right to someone’s (I don’t know who) situation. I’m amazed at the number of churches that have had a TV broadcast for years and never evaluate why they do it and if they should continue to.
  5. Below are some pictures of other highlights, including great food I consumed in Nashville:
     
     
• EXTRA:
  Yes, President Bush spoke at NRB, but no I did not get to see him. I missed it.

I’m looking forward to seeing some of you later this week at NRB in Nashville. Several of you have emailed me and asked to meet up. If you’re going to be at NRB or live in Nashville, give me a shout (greg@churchvideoideas.com).

Saturday I’ll be speaking in the class: “On-Air Church – 10 Attributes of a Winning Program” at 3:45pm - 5:15pm. Sunday, I’ll be part a panel called “How’d You Do That? The Ultimate Q&A”, also from 3:45pm - 5:15pm. The “Ultimate Q&A” class is a chance for you to ask me and a few other panelists anything you’d like. I always enjoy participating in this class at NRB!

Also, Saturday, I’ll be attending the Church Media Reception at 9pm. If you’re going to be there, I’d love to meet you.

Next month I’ll be teaching two classes at NAB in Las Vegas. On Tuesday, April 15th, I’ll be teaching “Which Worship Presentation Software is Right for Your Church?” at 3pm. This class will feature representatives from EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter. *** I want to make it clear that though we use EasyWorship at my church, I stand behind and endorse all 3 of the above mentioned companies. I encourage churches to try the free downloads of all three and see which is best for their church. ***

On Wednesday, April 16th at 9am, I’ll be teaching “Church 2.0″ - a class based on my upcoming book. This class will stretch and challenge your definition of creativity and innovation. I’ll be talking about Church 2.0 churches and Church 2.0 leaders.

I’d like to once again mention and thank my sponsors for both NRB and NAB: SermonSpice is sponsoring my classes at NRB. eleven72 and ProPresenter are sponsoring my classes at NAB.

I’ll talk more about other conferences I’m speaking at in future blog posts, but for now, would like to simply mention 2 brand new conferences that I’ll be speaking at. Interestingly enough, both are taking place in my hometown of Dallas, TX. One is ECHO and the other is Fusion ‘08. I’d encourage you to check them both out. If you attend one or both of these in Dallas, we can work out a time to come visit Bent Tree!

EXTRA:

I’ve been re-reading “Let the Nations Be Glad” by John Piper (the revised and expanded 2nd edition). What a great read. I forgot how much of my philosophy and feelings about worship and missions were shaped by this book. If you haven’t read it, I strongly urge you to check it out HERE.

This is a topic I’ve been thinking about blogging on for a while. Yesterday I had to ask one of my tech team members to step down and stop serving - so now this topic is fresh in my mind. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this. In my 12 years as a church staff member I’ve had to ask others to step down before, but it doesn’t get any easier. It’s something that I felt God was leading me to, but it’s tough to not feel like “the bad guy”.

What it boils down to is protecting the spirit, health and unity of my tech team and seeing the need for someone to grow and have a change of heart and mind before they can serve in a healthy way (for them and for the whole team). You would think with all the excitement at my church surrounding the new worship center and renovations that all would be fine and dandy, but life happens. Ministry is people and sometimes as a leader, you have to make tough calls to properly minister to the individual, as well as be a good shepherd of the team as whole.

If you haven’t read it already, I encourage you to read “The Heart of the Artist” by Rory Noland - it’s a classic that I refer to and give out often. I’m going to give a copy to the tech team member and ask him to read it before he returns. I hope to meet with him and discuss the book in the future. How have you handled situations like this in your ministry? What steps did you have the person take before returning to serve?

PERSONAL:
The craziness of the church-wide renovation continues. I spent most of this week disassembling and storing equipment in our old worship center. I’m writing this after another 16 hour day on Thursday. Today (Friday) is rest day! If you’re interested, you can see more pictures from this past Sunday HERE.

I’m sure many of you have done this and many of you will do this in the future - that’s making the switch from 4:3 to 16:9 (widescreen). Once I’ve been through the entire switch, I’d be happy to share any thoughts, lessons learned, feedback, etc. with those that are switching in the future.

For now, I’d love to here from any of you that have already made the switch. We’re in the process of uploading all new backgrounds, lower-thirds and creating the lower-third titles that we do for staff members (Pete Briscoe - Senior Pastor, etc.). If you have any words of wisdom, please email me at: greg@churchvideoideas.com.

Obviously, widescreen or 16:9 is not necessarily HD, but HD is 16:9. We are starting out with a total HD system, so if your church is full HD, I’d really like to hear from you. I’ve got lots of questions. *** Especially if you are using HD backgrounds in EasyWorship - HOLLA AT ME! I came home yesterday so frustrated and drained that I just stared at a piece of paper for about an hour and a half. I think I’m losing it!

We’re switching from another presentation software to EasyWorship campus-wide and I’m in the process (which I’ve done before and helped other churches with) of setting up EasyWorship for the first time and downloading all the codecs, etc. I’m sure it will eventually work, but we were having issues as of yesterday.

With the video card that came with the computer and the special (Blackmagic Decklink HD Extreme) video card that we had to get to stay HD, we have 3 video outs. The guys from Clark ProMedia did the initial/hardware setup and I’m trying to setup EasyWorship itself. Again, if you are HD and using EasyWorship, PLEASE give me a shout.

* My friend, Dave Clark, of National Community Church, just wrote an article entitled “Church Media: A 2008 Forecast“. I think it’s worth checking out. As he said, “High-definition video also will appear on the screens of many more churches this year. The prices of high-definition cameras and equipment have become affordable, even for average-sized churches.”

BONUS:

This just in from blog sponsor Worship Leader Magazine: The Upgrade Your Stage state-of-the-art giveaway is your chance to win an assortment of resources with a retail value of over $15,000 (for the grand prize) for your service of worship. We want to equip one church, so they can use their financial resources in other ways. There are also 1st and 2nd place winners who will also receive significant prizes.

Anyone can enter, as long as your church fits the guidelines, but the church chosen will most likely have the most need along with the best story. Though there is no set cap of church size, the finalists will likely be churches of 500 or less.

EXTRA:

I started a Shelfari group for Church 2.0 leaders - this is where you can list your favorite books that you recommend other Church leaders read. Check it out HERE.

EXTRA, EXTRA:

Anyone getting a MacBook Air?