Greg Atkinson

In the spirit of my friend, Bill Seaver’s, Friday “Video of the Week”, I’d like to share a video with you of a youth pastor that crashed a motorcycle trying to make a memorable entrance. I think he accomplished it.

You may have seen this before, the interesting thing is you probably didn’t know I went to high school with this guy. Small world. His crash is now blowing up on YouTube!

The Church 2.0 Local Forum - Santa Cruz this past Thursday was awesome. I had a blast and truly enjoyed meeting Church leaders from that area. God is at work all over this country and I’m thrilled to be able to catch little glimpses of it.

This is a picture from the Santa Cruz gathering with 2 of my friends: Cynthia Ware and Chuckk Gerwig (he and his wonderful family had me stay at their house - with an amazing view of Redwoods in their backyard):

This is a picture Chuckk took of me eating my first raw oyster at the Santa Cruz Wharf:

Church Video Idea:
Sunday, after church, I had a meeting with my Technical Arts Leadership Team. This was a great time of lunch, fellowship, collaborating, sharing and vision casting/planning for the future and specifically for the Fall season (which will be busy). Topics on the agenda included:

• Our church’s transition to Planning Center Online (more about them in a future blog)
• Each person’s roles and responsibilities as a member of the leadership team
• Volunteer care and the assimilation process for new team members
• Our new newsletter (which I’m really excited about)
• Upcoming calendar events for Summer and Fall
• Planning and preparation for our summer social on Saturday, July 26

The meeting was fruitful and I am, personally, thrilled to be partnering in ministry with these friends. I’m excited about the future of the team and our moving forward under a shared-ministry philosophy and them being empower to shepherd, care for those under them and welcome and train new team members to their area. Great afternoon - time well spent!

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?

Some have asked if I send out a regular newsletter or email updates. I do have a newsletter, but it comes out rarely. I’d like to invite any of you to connect with me via great Web 2.0 technologies like Facebook and Twitter. I do daily updates on both and you can check them out and see what I’m up to. Come on - it’ll be fun!

As I mentioned before, in preparation for our new worship center and moving from 2 cameras to 3, I’ve been visiting other churches to get ideas and inspiration. The last 2 Sundays I’ve visited churches via the internet. I’ve attended both LifeChurch.tv’s and Seacoast’s Internet Campuses. It’s been fascinating to watch and worship via the web. If you get a chance one Sunday and can sneak away into your office, log on and check ‘em out.

EXTRA:

I’ve got to give another shout out to my friend, Shawn Wood (Experiences Pastor at Seacoast), for linking to this video. I can’t imagine Burger King without the whopper. If you want to see what it would be like, check it out HERE.

ADDITION:

I accidentally forgot to mention this year’s Christmas product from Radiate Films in yesterday’s post. It has been added now and I encourage you to check it out below.

Okay, let’s hear it. How many of you have already purchased Apple’s new Leopard? I’m also curious as to how many of you (like some of my friends) were standing in a long line waiting Friday afternoon to get one of the first copies?

EXTRA:

Don’t forget: You’ve got just a few more days to get all of Highway Video’s DVDs for 50% off. Click HERE to stock up your media library!

BONUS:

For all of you “The Office” fans - Did you see Dwight on Second Life? It reminded me of LifeChurch.tv’s Second Life campus, which you can check out HERE. What did you think of Dwight flying around?

The Damah Film Festival, the world’s leading spiritual film festival, is coming May 4-6 to Culver City, CA. Last year I attended and spoke on a panel. I had a great time and got to meet many talented filmmakers. If you’ve never been, I’d encourage you to check it out. I would be going again, but I’ll be at the Orange Conference in Atlanta later that week. Online ticket ordering is now available. Order your tickets at the Early Bird Rate before prices go up on April 23. You can order HERE.

EXTRA:

I’m a huge fan of the David Crowder Band. If you are too, you may want to check out their first ever official music video: Foreverandever Etc…,! It is guaranteed to put a big fat grin on your face. You can check out an exclusive sneak peak over at music.msn.com.

BONUS:

Think your church was cutting edge this Easter? Check out Terry Storch’s recap of what they did at LifeChurch.tv.

I just watched all 5 videos from the soon to be released Igniter Videos Vol. 5. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s no such thing as a bad Igniter video or Igniter volume - they’re all solid. I must say, though, I had mixed emotions after watching the first video (”99 Balloons”). I was so messed up and crying hard…like a baby (I’m not joking) - I didn’t know whether to thank Igniter for what seemed like a much needed release of tears and emotion or be upset with them for making me seem not “manly”. I can’t remember the last time I cried so hard - and that was just the first video I watched.

I’ll wait to give you the play by play when the volume goes public. I will say that all 5 videos are special and usable. My other two favorites are “Proof” and “Smart”, though the other two: one being “Boys and Grills” (which I can definitely relate to) and “Teamwork” (featuring the return of Johnny and Chachi of “Get in Here Ministries”) are very funny and helped me to stop crying.

I encourage you to place your order as soon as they are available (which I believe is Thursday of next week). Also, if you’re in the Dallas area, Igniter is doing another release party. Volume four’s release party was a lot of fun and a good chance to hang out with Church leaders from around the metroplex. I’m going to try to go again this year, just for the food, fun and fellowship. If you’re interested, go HERE to RSVP.