Greg Atkinson

I have been blessed and encouraged many times over the last 6 years to be led in worship by Vanessa Whitwell at Fellowship Church. I also learned from her in several workshops over the years at the C3 Conference.

I was stunned and saddened this week to learn that she died at the age of 34 from a brain hemorrhage. I had just recently met with the creative planning team at Fellowship Church and had lunch with their worship pastor, Pace. I had mentioned to Pace how much I love hearing Vanessa sing and what a blessing she was. She will be greatly missed. I ask that you pray for her family.

Keep praising Him, Vanessa!

Today I’m working on my new class for NAB: “Church 2.0“. I will be teaching this class several times this year, but this will be the first time. Pray for me as I prepare today and tomorrow.

Just a reminder for those of you attending NAB: Tuesday, we have a FREE tech get-together lunch at 11:30am at the Hilton Hotel buffet. Please email Kip (kkendrick@digitalresources.com) to let him know you’re coming.

I really look forward to meeting many of you in Vegas.

I just upgraded to WordPress 2.5. This is a test.

This past Sunday night I got to hang out with worship leader Jason Upton and his band. He led worship at Deep Ellum Church and God really spoke to my heart that night. This week, with the staff retreat and all, has flown by. We had a good rehearsal last night.

Today I’m trying to work on my “Church 2.0” class for NAB. This will be the first time I’ve taught this class (and will be teaching a few more times this year at other conferences). I’ll be working on the class all day Friday and Saturday, too.

This Friday night I’ll be seeing Shawn McDonald and Downhere in concert and will hang out with them a little, too. I’m taking my intern to this concert and hope he’ll become a Shawn McDonald fan. I love SM! Saturday, I’ll be watching my kids while my wife works and working on my NAB presentation, when I can.

Sunday I’ll worship and pack. Monday morning I fly to Vegas and will hang out there with some friends, walk the exhibit floor and hope to see the Blue Man Group Monday night. Tuesday, we have a FREE tech get-together lunch at 11:30am at the Hilton Hotel buffet. Please email Kip (kkendrick@digitalresources.com) to let him know you’re coming. I really look forward to meeting many of you in Vegas.

EXTRA:

Here’s a sign of the times. You can watch a wedding live online - which would come in handy when distance or other circumstances won’t allow you or a dear family member or friend to attend. Check them out HERE.

The interview I did for the Churchy Media Podcast just posted. You can check it out HERE. In it, we talk about a tech get-together at NAB next week (Tuesday, April 15th at 11:30am). I hope you’ll download it and give it a listen.

Again, my classes at NAB (”Which Worship Presentation Software is Best for Your Church?” and “Church 2.0″) are sponsored by eleven72 and ProPresenter.

EXTRA:
Here a some pictures from our Good Friday service…

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.

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.

I must say I enjoyed my first visit to the city of Tulsa, OK, though I didn’t get to see much of the city. I went from the airport to the EasyWorship offices, was in a meeting all day - left there and had a great dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with Jeff Taylor (owner and creator of EasyWorship), then headed back to the airport and flew home.

What’s the word? The word (unofficially - this is just Greg talking) is that EasyWorship is working on a new and improved cross-platform software. That’s right - can you say “EasyWorship for Mac”? Jeff has assembled a very gifted and talented team and they have been hard at work on a forthcoming version of EW that incorporates many new features based on comments and suggestions from their customers. The design is sharp and intuitive, the features are exciting and will better equip your church.

I’m especially excited about one feature, but am not at liberty to talk about it. I was blindfolded when I was led into their office and kept in a dark room all day. My cell phone (which has a camera) was taken from me and I was sworn to secrecy. Okay - I exaggerate, but I really can’t talk about what I saw.

I’m back to work at the church today, have a few meetings and our weekly rehearsal tonight. More later.

PERSONAL:
Just to update you all: I’m still extremely sore from riding that horse the other day. I used muscles that haven’t been used in years. It hurts to move!

Many have asked what we’re doing as far as media in our new worship center. As I mentioned before, we are using EasyWorship as our presentation software. We are also slowly changing over our entire campus (all venues) to EasyWorship, which has a universal site license (other products such as MediaShout and ProPresenter charge extra to use their software on multiple computers). We have 7 venues that will be using EasyWorship, so the universal site license was a win for us.

My friends at EasyWorship were great during the crazy weeks and days leading up to our first worship service. Either we (Bent Tree) are the first church to use EasyWorship in an HD setting or we are one of the first - either way: we won’t be the last. I’ve heard rumors of confusion about whether or not EasyWorship can do HD. Let me set the record straight: it does and we’re doing it.

The trouble that we were having leading up to the first service was due to having the wrong video card. I went locally and purchased a new video card (NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS) and we were up and running in a matter of minutes. If you have any other questions about the initial setup of EasyWorship and the codecs I purchased/downloaded, just email me.

Here’s what’s up as far as the HD backgrounds we used. We’ve had 3 Sundays in our new worship center. The first Sunday we used all Igniter Backs Vol. 3 backgrounds (loops and stills). The next week we used more Igniter Backs and some brand new backgrounds from FortyOneTwenty. This past Sunday we used new HD backgrounds from SermonVideos.com.

I’d like to point out that I still encourage our volunteers that pick the backgrounds each week to use at least one still background for a song. As I’ve said before, motion backgrounds are most powerful in contrast to still backgrounds. You can read more on my philosophy of this in my “Less Is More” article.

EXTRA:
Still looking for FREE worship backgrounds? Check out HERE.

BONUS:
Yesterday we found our opening video to kick off our Easter service. It’s available at BlueFish.tv, it’s pretty sweet and it’s $1.99! Check it out HERE.