Greg Atkinson

That’s me with Chris and LV from Catalyst. They and Jesse (from the Catalyst blog) were at the Church 2.0 Local Forum - Atlanta. Behind us is the infamous “Vanagon” that LV has been driving around the country. It’s pimped out on the inside - don’t let the outside fool you. Jesse blogged about Church 2.0 a week ago HERE. I’m trying my best to be at Catalyst this year, like I have the last 3 years. Are you going to be there?

I had an amazing time in Atlanta. I heard of what the Church there is dealing with - good and bad. My heart was encouraged to hear of Unite and how churches are working together on various issues in the ATL area. My eyes were opened and I was stunned to hear of the child sex trafficking going on there (Atlanta is #1 in the nation). I had no idea. There are some great stories that I believe will find their way into the book (Church 2.0).

Like always, I met some new friends and some people I knew online face-to-face for the first time. It was a joy to connect with them. The host church, Perimeter, was awesome. They are doing some amazing ministry to their local community that was exciting to hear. They also have staff dedicated to just reaching out to other churches to work together - that’s cool and THAT’S a Church 2.0 Church!

PERSONAL:
Though my heart was full and I was encouraged by my time in Atlanta, I came back exhausted and desperately missing my family. I’ll blog more about them tomorrow. For now, I have decided to take the month of September off from traveling. I’m still coming to Boston in October, but have moved Portland to November - November 7th to be exact. For the next month, I’m going to rest, write and be with my family.

This is from WiredChurches.com - We’re looking for original films created by church volunteers or staff to further their mission, illustrate a point, or promote or highlight an event. Professionals in the film and advertising industry will determine the top films in each category to present during the film festival at Granger on Thursday, September 18.

To get more info, go HERE.

PERSONAL:
Today I fly to Atlanta for the Church 2.0 Local Forum - ATL tomorrow. See you soon ATL!

At Bent Tree, we’ve got a busy Fall coming up. As part of what all we have going on, we’ve been working on 2 in-house video projects, as well as a few smaller pieces and outsourcing several things that we couldn’t fit in.

The 2 we’re working on now are a baptism highlight video for next Sunday, the 31st and a look back in time video for our Grand Opening on Sept. 7th. I’m sure I’ll post these on here later for you to check out.

I’m curious: What video projects are you up to at your church?

A couple of things that I’m proud about last week’s Fine Arts Day Camp at my church:

• The great leadership by our own Karen Johnson (who is a vital part of our staff).
• The tremendous amount of talent and heart that went into the week.
• The hundreds of volunteers that gave of their time.
• The way the various Worship & Art Ministries worked together to encourage, train and equip the children. Worship & Arts ministries that participated were music, drama, dance, visual arts and technical arts (my team).
• My staff and the youth that served in tech all around the campus throughout the week. There were rooms all over the campus using sound, video and lights.
• My technical arts volunteers that came out Friday to serve for the end of the week musical.
• I’m most proud that all this happened while I was in South Carolina. True leadership is working yourself out of a job. This was a huge deal and I was able to be away and see my team flourish. I thank God for the team I get to lead!

The set built by our Visual Arts team, led by Aaron Bensko, and the lighting done by our own Scott Row:

Side close-up view of the set:

This is what 400 kids on the stage looks like:

Today is day 2 of our church’s Fine Arts Day Camp. We have 400 kids running around the church and multiple activities taking place all around. My oldest daughter, Grace, is participating this year, so she gets to ride to church with me.

Today is my last day in the office this week. I have a day full of meetings - tough ones and just regular, old meetings. I fly out of town this evening and arrive in South Carolina late tonight.

Tomorrow I’ll be hosting the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Greenville, SC - this is for the entire upstate of SC, my hometown, actually. Thursday through Saturday I’ll be speaking at a worship conference. Busy week ahead!

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?

For those of you that haven’t got to spend too much time with me: my facial hair is always changing. I get bored. Lazy. Bored and lazy. I go from clean-shaven (always with the “soul patch“) to beard to full goatee to just the Crowder goatee, etc. It’s always changing. Again, mainly because I rush out in the morning, don’t shave and the next thing I know I have a beard.

I had a semi-beard at the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Santa Cruz (see pics HERE). I let it grow from there and then got tired of it. Before shaving it completely off, I had some fun and took some pics of what I call the crazy stache. It scares the kids. All kids, actually. I think people take a double-take to see if I was that guy on “America’s Most Wanted”. We took some pics, had some laughs and then I shaved it off. Maybe I’ll grow it back next year for Moustache May??? Who knows.

For more silly pics of me with the “crazy stache”, including some of me in my new Igniter Media t-shirt and my favorite hat, go to my Flickr page and check out “Pics of Greg”.

EXTRA:
This Sunday at Bent Tree we were rocking all new SermonVideos.com backgrounds. I love them! I just got Igniter Backs 04 and look forward to working them into the mix, too.

I was proud of my team. This Sunday we had a lot of first-timers. A stage manager, video engineer/shader, graphics operator and camera operator who all had their first Sunday serving. Sunday was a complex week and they handled it well. They are “official” now after going through what we did yesterday.

We had some friends and staff visiting from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY and Brian Davis of Fellowship Dallas. It’s always good to have people from other churches visiting and worshiping with us. Check out Brian’s blog - they’ve done some cool stuff with their stage - using PVC pipe that looks like metal. Check it!

PERSONAL:
I’ll leave you with one more pic of me holding my 2 oldest kids. Katie, the youngest, was too freaked out to be in the picture. Poor girl needs counseling now.

From their Facebook update:

The wait is over. As the web is buzzing with reports of the new iPhone 3G and iPhone 2.0 update, we’re adding to the excitement with the debut of a Bible App for the iPhone, powered by YouVersion.com.

The ease of use you’ve come to expect from YouVersion.com now fits in the palm of your hand. We’re thrilled to launch this new application that iPhone and iPod Touch users will be able to download for free. It’s called the Bible App and it’s available now from Apple’s built-in App Store.

* Now that’s cool. Well done LifeChurch.tv! You can sign up on iTunes HERE or read more about it HERE.

This morning I fly to Santa Cruz, CA for another Church 2.0 Local Forum. This forum is being held at Santa Cruz Bible Church and is sponsored by:

• Kindle
• 360Hubs
• SplashPipe
• LOGOS
• Phonevite

If you’re a member of my Church 2.0 Facebook group, you may remember me saying that one of the chapters in my book is on my being a good steward of God’s creation and a witness to the world. I’m collecting stories of churches that are making efforts in this area - Green Churches. If you are a “Green Church” or know one, please email me (greg@gregatkinson.com) and let me know.

Take a look at THIS list of 50 things you can do to help.

* Not a member of my book’s Facebook group? You need to be. We crossed 1500 members last week! Not sure about being on Facebook? Download the FREE eBook “Facebook for Pastors” and read the Foreward I wrote. Right now, over 10,000 people have downloaded the eBook!