Greg Atkinson

Yesterday was a great break from the norm. Our entire staff went to a ranch in East Texas. We did everything from fish, play horseshoes, throw the football, play “Guitar Hero”, ride 4 wheelers WAY off road (one of us, not telling who, hit a tree), grill out chicken, hamburgers and hotdogs and just have fun getting to know one another away from the office. Bent Tree is a special place.

EXTRA:
On a similar note, we’re planning a fun/social for our entire Tech Arts Ministry sometime in May.

Today is our annual Staff Retreat and play day. We’ll be at a ranch in East Texas and will have nothing but food, fun and fellowship all day. Good times.

Please forgive me: This was supposed to post yesterday (Wed.). Pretend it’s Wednesday and then continue to read…

This was the picture from an email that our staff got yesterday after some mystery people put rubber duckies in our church’s new baptistry (for April Fools). Notice you only see their feet. Below is the email that claimed responsibility. Of course it was the Student Ministry.

Today, I’m in meetings all day and then have rehearsal tonight. I’m looking forward to Thursday (I’m getting together with 2 local tech directors).

I forgot to mention a while back when I had 2 separate lunches/tours of our new worship center with 2 other local tech directors: Dave Smith from Grace Outreach Center in Plano, TX and Bobby Dennis of The Heights Church in Richardson, TX. I enjoyed meeting both of them and look forward to getting to know both better.

Tomorrow I get together with my friend, Jason, the Director of Media Services at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, TX and Ryan, the Director of Technical Arts at Watermark Community Church in North Dallas. We all 3 just moved into new worship centers and are going to do a tour of our churches.

* In case you don’t know about my heart for networking and getting to know your church neighbors, you can read THIS blog post from a while back.

The Swerve blog announced a summer message series entitled “One Prayer“, which is very intriguing. It’s many churches coming together and participating. Check out the explanation video from Pastor Craig. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Is this something you’d do at your church?

EXTRA:

I am thrilled to announce that SermonSpice has opened a Spanish media store. I have been begging producers for years to produce content in Spanish or at least with Spanish sub-titles. I applaud….cheer… and herald SermonSpice for their vision and commitment to equip this HUGE part of our Church. Well done!

My mini-vacation last week was great. I didn’t think about or do anything church-related. I just rested, relaxed and had fun. I now feel refueled and ready to serve again. I’m grateful to my church and my boss for allowing me to take all the time I needed to recharge. I was all fresh and ready to return yesterday, but got pink eye and ended up missing. I’ve got eye drops now and should not be contagious anymore.

Now, I’m back in action in many ways. I’m on a new diet and fitness program (that came to me last week - I had a lot of time to think). I’m back in the gym working out and cutting back what I eat. I’m more active and eating less crap - which should make for a good/healthy combo.

I’m also back writing and prepping for some upcoming conferences. One magazine that I’ve never really mentioned, but I write regularly for is LifeWay’s “Let’s Worship” magazine. I encourage you to check it out HERE. Besides writing articles and working on my book, I’m doing some audio projects, too.

This week I’ll be making 3 recordings.

1. Tonight, I’m recording an audio class entitled “Communicating to Those That Listen with Their Eyes” for WorshipMinistryU, which is a great new online seminar tool for those in worship ministry. I’m honored to be among their terrific faculty. I’ll let you know when my class is ready and available.
2. Later this week I will record an interview for the Church Media Podcast. One of the things we’ll discuss is a Media/Tech meet up at NAB on the night of the 15th. They’ll be a group of tech directors, media producers and software company reps that will all gather to hang out and eat. If you’re going to be there, you don’t want to miss this.
3. Also, later this week, we’ll be back in the studio to revive the Creative Synergy Podcast. I know it’s been forever - but we’ll be back in action soon.

EXTRA:
If you haven’t voted for the worship presentation software that your church uses, go HERE. I’d like to get a recent poll before my “Worship Presentation Software” class in April at NAB.

BONUS:
Birthdays - Yesterday, my youngest turned 4. Today is my brother’s birthday.

We’re in the craziness of Easter week. I know you are, too. Let’s all pray for each other.

Last night we rehearsed for our Good Friday services. Tonight we rehearse for Easter. I’m pretty excited about what I see coming together. I’ll have pictures for you in the near future.

For now, I’d love to hear what you’re doing at your church this Easter.

Lately, I’ve been considering getting Apple TV for our church. I have several ideas of how to use it and am sure there are others that I haven’t even thought about. If you’re interested or curious in how Apple TV can be used in a ministry setting, you can read more about it HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE.

Are you using Apple TV? If so, please comment and tell us how you’re using it.

EXTRA:
Today begins “Tech Week” at Bent Tree. We have rehearsal every night this week, 2 Good Friday services, dress rehearsal on Saturday and 3 Easter services.

Today’s topic is capturing your service for video. We are working behind-the-scenes to launch a new video podcast of our pastor’s sermon. I’m curious as to how some of you capture your service/sermon. I know some churches capture straight into Final Cut, some capture in QuickTime Pro, some even in iMovie. How do you capture your service digitally at your church? I’d love to hear. I’d still love to hear from some of you about how you do digital signage at your church.

EXTRA:
I had a great time at the creative brainstorming meeting yesterday at Fellowship Church. They have a very gifted and cool team assembled there. It was fun to be in that environment and take part in a series planning session. They had their worship leaders from the local campuses all there, as well as 2 technical staff members and their Miami worship leader, who was video conferenced in. I enjoyed lunch (Mexican food!) with their worship pastor, Pace, afterwards. I do want to again encourage you to check out Pace’s blog and welcome him to the blogging world. He also mentioned that his pastor, Ed Young, has just started blogging as well. You can check his blog out HERE.

Besides this Sunday, Easter and a lot of other things campus-wide, one of the projects I’m working on is digital signage for our community space. I have several ideas and thoughts about what I’d like to do. I’m still very open and looking for ideas on the how to do it.

I’d love to hear what you’re doing at your church for digital signage - both content and how you do it (what hardware and software you use). Here’s more food for thought on digital signage.

EXTRA:
I know some of you are new readers of my blog (that I met at NRB). Here are the 2 articles I mentioned in my classes: One is called “Firing a Volunteer” and the other is called “Refining the Team“.

BONUS:
Today I’m attending a creative brainstorming meeting at Fellowship Church. I’ll also be meeting with their worship pastor, Pace and getting to know him better. You can check out his new blog 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.