Greg Atkinson

After being sidelined for a while with a fractured foot and aching back, I was thrilled to join the ranks of the healthy last night as I played in a softball game. I haven’t played softball in over a year, so I’m sure I’ll feel it today. I appreciate all the prayers for my back and overall healing.

My family is out of town this week, so I’m living the bachelor life. After the softball game, I made it in time to catch a 9:30pm movie (it was $.50 Tuesday at the dollar theater). I saw “Next” with Nicholas Cage. I like Nicholas Cage and I enjoyed the movie, except for the ending. I thought it was a horrible ending. Has anyone else seen this movie? If so, what did you think of the ending?

EXTRA:

I forgot to mention Father’s Day resources from Angelhouse Media yesterday. I encourage you to check out their media resources HERE. They have “I Love You Dad” - which is similar to what they did for moms. They also have a countdown and loops. Check them out!

BONUS:

As you know, I love the band: MuteMath. They just recorded the theme song for the new “Transformers” movie. You can check it out HERE.

This just in from Jake Ludington:

Wavosaur is a lightweight audio editing application with VST support. All the basics are covered here, including support for multitrack audio files, trimming, adding effects, making loops, and normalization. Most processing settings are also available for batch conversions, making Wavosaur a handy tool for applying the same settings to a bunch of files. I like are the option to remove silence in a batch, which is a convenient way to speed up spoken word audio without altering pitch. A vocal removal preset also scrubs music files of vocals, so you can make your own karaoke tracks in a batch. The vocal removal doesn’t always get chorus sections perfectly scrubbed, but it shouldn’t hurt your ability to sing over the top of the file. The application runs as a completely standalone executable, meaning you could put it on a thumb drive and use Wavosaur anywhere. The user interface is generally more intuitive than the popular freeware app Audacity, but the two make nice companions rather than being replacements for each other. While Wavosaur doesn’t bundle all the features of things like Sound Forge and Audition, it does most of the common audio tasks well at a price neither of those two apps can touch. [Windows 2k/XP/Vista $0.00]

BONUS:

Jake also thinks Mixcraft is the Windows equivalent to GarageBand. He has searched at length to be able to say that. If you use a PC, I think it’s worth checking out.

The wonderful folks at Passion, including Louie Giglio, have released a special EP to encourage and minister to anyone affected by the events at Virginia Tech and for anyone just searching for hope in this world. To download the songs of hope, go HERE.

EXTRA:

The folks who you brought you Church Marketing Sucks and the Church Marketing Lab can now help you get a job or fill an opening. CFCC is now helping to connect churches and creative professionals with the launch of their job posting sites, the Job Lab and the Freelance Lab. Churches can post listings for full-time job openings as well as freelance projects and creative professionals who want to help the church can find the job or project to make that dream happen.

For a limited time postings are FREE while they bulk up the listings and work out any kinks. Check out the sites and spread the word. For more Center for Church Communication news visit their web site.

I’ve mentioned Jake Ludington’s newsletter before. I always learn of some cool new media resources through his newsletter. Here are a few things that he mentioned and I’m going to give a try:

• Spin It Again: Transfer your old 45’s and 33’s to CD or to your new MP3 player or iPod. This dedicated record and tape conversion software makes it child’s play to record and edit your old albums. The wizard driven process guides you through connecting your hardware, getting the correct recording level, and splitting your recording into multiple tracks. The software automatically removes clicks and pops and that unwanted tape hum and hiss. Convert your recordings to MP3s or burn them on to an audio CD.
• Eyejot: I’m doing a little video experiment with an online video tool. Eyejot is a FREE video app that lets you record video messages in your browser and send them to a recipient via email or RSS. This would fall under Web 2.0 tools for ministry. Check it out!
• JPG Video: Time lapse video is something I’ve always found fascinating. Take a series of images from the same place over the course of a day, week, month, etc., and then build them into a video to express the time change in a matter of minutes or seconds. JPGVideo is a simple app designed to make a time lapse video from a series of stills. JPGVideo is billed as a tool for Webcam images, but JPG files from any camera source will work.
  
• Windows Media Player Plug-in for Firefox: This plug-in allows you to use Windows Media Player inside of Firefox. It is designed to support the following Windows platforms: Windows XP SP2 and Windows Vista.
• Registry Booster: They claim to be the safest and most trusted solution to clean and optimise your system, free it from registry errors and fragmented entries. Through Advanced Error Detection Technology, Register Booster automatically identifies missing, corrupt or invalid items in your Windows registry and dramatically enhances performance and general stability. * This I actually downloaded and used to clean up my computer. So far, I’m very pleased with it. *
  

NEW PRODUCER:

Check out Erwin Brothers Pictures, a new producer, available at their website or at WorshipHouse Media.

I’m exhausted. I’ve overdone it with my hurt foot, but I’m having a great time in Indy. I haven’t had any time to blog or check email while I’ve been here. I’m pretty much gone from my hotel from early morning ’til late at night. I tell you - I really enjoy this crowd of folks and have had some great conversations with some cool new friends in the ministry.

I’ve also enjoyed getting to know Keith & Krystin Getty (they wrote great modern hymns like “In Christ Alone” and “The Power of the Cross”). They are coming to my church this Fall, so I look forward to worshiping with them again. I fly home tomorrow and can’t wait to see my family. I’ll have some pics to post soon.

EXTRA:

If you have time, read my latest 3 articles: One is HERE on Monday Morning Insight, one is HERE on FaithVisuals.com and the last one is HERE in Worship Arts & Technology Magazine.

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.

Yesterday was a great day. A long day (we have 2 morning services and 2 evening services), but a good day. Besides our regular worship through the Word and music, we celebrated Communion and a Parent/Child Dedication at each service. I was also pumped that we did my current favorite song: “Everlasting God” by Brenton Brown.

Last Sunday we had half of our service inside and half outside, where we wrote names on the wall of our new worship center (of people we’re praying for). It was an amazing and moving sight. I’ll get a picture and post it on here, but imagine Scripture, countries, schools, and thousands of names written all over the outside concrete walls of our future worship center.

To kind of bring back the memory of what’s on the outside walls, I used a motion background entitled “Worship Phrases” from Igniter Media’s Igniter Backs Volume 2. The “worship phrases” scrolling by looked a lot like what some people had written on the walls outside. It was a cool reminder of the special time we had the week before. I know I’ve blogged about them before, but it’s worth repeating: Igniter Backs are an essential tool for every church’s media ministry.

If you don’t have both volumes - get them. They are like gold. Each volume contains some of the best and most usable stills, loops and countdowns. If you don’t have either volume, your best bet is to get the 2-pack - you won’t regret it.

EXTRA:

Here’s a cool website to check out. They have their own videos, which you might find interesting. Also, check out WorshipHouse’s new FREE download of the month - it’s jammed packed! This FREE Easter collection, courtesy of Johnny Flash Productions is a packaged set of hi-res images. Jump start your creative worship planning with this quality collection for your entire worship service. *NOTE: Along with the main images, this FREE download includes a motion background, and an editable version of the image as a photoshop file. Also includes optional flash Countdowns. As my friend, Anthony Coppedge, says, “You can’t beat Free99.”

This just in from Jeremy Paul of WingClips.com: WingClips.com, is a site where pastors can view and download inspirational clips from Hollywood, Independent, and Documentary films to use in their sermons. We have been working on this concept and obtaining rights from studios/filmmakers for a few years and felt that it was the right time to go live. We offer a Free Subscription and Premium Subscription (which has higher resolution, multiple formats, tech support, etc.). Both Subscriptions have full access to our library of clips. Also, there are no licensing problems/fees. We are in negotiations with almost every major studio right now and continue to add new clips every week. We are excited about the future of WingClips because we believe this is only the tip of the iceberg. We are creating a site that not only pastors will go to for sermon illustrations, but Christians will visit to find new inspirational films.

BONUS:

Last night I had dinner with Houston Clark of Clark ProMedia. Clark Pro is who we’re working with on our new building project at Bent Tree. I had great time getting to know him and look forward to flying to Atlanta soon to meet the rest of the team.

PERSONAL:

On a humbling and personal note: I just finished listening to a recording of a church in Minnesota singing a song I wrote called “Come”. They found it on CCLI and did it this past Sunday in their worship service. I was honored that they used it and pleased that they said they got positive feedback on it.

I’m so happy for Tony Dungy, Peyton Manning and the Colts. Big ups to Coach Dungy for giving glory to God and “the Lord” after his first Super Bowl win. He truly is a class act. Maybe I had too much orange soda, but I thought I heard Prince play a Foo Fighters song.

My friends at eleven72 are offering a great FREE download which includes 2 motion backgrounds and 4 really nice urban still backgrounds.

EXTRA:

I tried another route to get a good copy of the Kleenex commercial. I contacted the group that wrote the song playing in the background and posted the commercial on YouTube. Again, I got a “no”, but this was a very nice “no” from a very nice person. Here’s the reply:

Hi Greg,

I’m glad that you wrote… as it lead me to your blog regarding the Kleenex commercial and how the church could learn from the example given in the ad to simply listen to people. I agree with what you said. I’m sure we could have a great conversation about this, but I’m limited with time at the moment.

In regards to the mpeg, as it’s our (Starrfadu’s) song that Kimberly Clark licenced for the the ads, our obligations are with them, and we have to respect that. So unfortunately, I can’t send you a copy.

However, God bless you and your ministry.

Austin Hartley
Starrfadu

I’d like to thank Bill Seaver from MicroExplosion, for telling me about AllPeers. This would be a great asset to churches that are sharing files with a group of members. I know many worship pastors have to get various audio tracks out to their volunteers on a regular basis and AllPeers looks like it could be a great way to get it in the hands of the people as quickly as possible.

*PLEASE NOTE: Anytime you give your worship team new songs to listen to, PLEASE make copies or give links to your audio team as well. It is very important that the people running sound in your church are listening to the same kind of music that your worship team plays, are very comfortable and familiar with it, and know how to mix for it.

EXTRA:

Please note, there is still time to register for and attend NRB/Reach. If you’ve been to NRB in the past and weren’t too crazy about it, I ask you to give them another try. I’ll be teaching 3 classes this year, as they are really trying to make their Church Media track more relevant and useful. The class that I’m doing with Grant Guffin (of Flashlight Films) is going to be extra special. We’ve invited staff from Mosaic, Granger Community Church and LifeChurch.tv to join us on our panel. These 3 churches are 3 of the most innovative and cutting-edge churches in the world. We’re thrilled to have them join our class. I hope to see you in Orlando!