Greg Atkinson

FREE Thanksgiving Resource:

SermonSpice has a new FREE download – a 5 minute Thanksgiving countdown. Check it out!

REMINDER ABOUT NEW SEASONAL RESOURCES:

“Thanks Backs” from Wasteland Media (otherwise known as Greg Atkinson) are available at WorshipHouse Media, The Shoutable Store, Meatloaf Media and SermonAde. I encourage you to check them out and see if they’re something you can use this fall/winter season. (Available in both standard and wide format)

PERSONAL:
My thoughts and prayers are with Ted Haggard, his family and his amazing church. Let’s also lift up worship pastor, Ross Parsley, (who I love and respect) as he serves as the church’s pastor during the interim period. The Enemy is very real and hard at work. He will try to discourage Ted now, more than ever. The Enemy will try to make him feel hopeless. Let’s intercede for him and his family. This man needs to be restored and healed. May we never point fingers and mock.

I sensed it Tuesday night at the Jason Upton concert and had it confirmed again last night – Christ for the Nations is training a generation of world changers. There is something very special about that place and the ministry that goes on there. Last night I ran some of the media for their worship service, featuring worship leader, Lindell Cooley (from the Brownsville revival). Today I’m speaking at their worship conference and teaching on the subjects of “Resources for Media Ministry” and “Planning Multi-sensory Worship”. Here’s what I used last night:

• Pre-service/gathering time: “Names of God” from Highway Video
• 5 minute countdown: “Worship the Lord” from Worship Films
• Video during offering: “Are You Amazed?” from Igniter Media Group

EXTRA:

This just in from Kent at ChurchRelevance: FREE Thanksgiving Graphics! PastorsPlace.com is offering four different Thanksgiving design themes for your church to use for free. It isn’t just a bulletin shell or PowerPoint slide. They also come with banner, poster, CD jacket, and CD label artwork.

FREE Audiobook Download for November – All of Grace

Charles Spurgeon is one of the great preachers in the history of Christianity. Spurgeon also communicates brilliantly through the written word, and his giftedness to proclaim the doctrine of grace shines in his little gem, All of Grace. Many Christians believe that this small book presents better than any other non-canonical work the gospel of salvation alone by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. This short book is one of the bright jewels in post-apostolic writings on grace.Go to the Free Download Page at christianaudio.com and use the coupon code NOV2006 to redeem the digital download format of All of Grace.

Got your attention? I’m talking about caffeine – a very real and potentially dangerous drug. Don’t think it’s a drug? Try cutting out caffeine for a week and see how you feel. You’ll actually go through withdrawal symptons. If you get your daily Starbucks on, I dare you to cut it out for a week and see how your body feels. Want to hear a crazy new statistic? Here you go: More than 500 new energy drinks launched worldwide this year. That’s right – 500 this year! Read the full article HERE.

GREG’S WORLD:
On Halloween night I went to Christ for the Nations, where worship leader, Jason Upton led worship – it was awesome. Today I’m speaking at their worship conference on “Resources for Media Ministry” and “Planning Multi-sensory Worship” – looking forward to that.

BONUS:
The Work of the People has a new FREE download called “The Armor of God”. I dig it. You might, too.

Have you heard of the Swiff Point Player?

I hadn’t until reading Jake Ludington’s newsletter this week. Here’s what Jake says:

Adding a Flash movie to a PowerPoint presentation typically requires some custom VB scripting in order to successfully control playback during a slideshow. Swiff Point Player makes the process easier for SWF files, adding a custom button the Insert menu in PowerPoint to automatically add any SWF file to your PowerPoint presentation. Using Swiff Point Player, you get seamless Flash playback in your PowerPoint slides, similar to what you get with other standard video formats like AVI or WMV. If you need to playback an FLV file, like the ones served on YouTube, you’ll still need to convert the file or get some custom programming done, but if you want to add some eye-popping SWF graphics or a SWF movie to a presentation, Swiff Point Player has you covered. It should go without saying that PowerPoint is required. [Windows 2k/XP $0.00]

Check out MWorship:

Integrity Media is launching a Christian mobile service called MWorship that provides daily devotions, insights, videos, ring tones, and a vast range of inspiring content directly to mobile phones. Integrity partnered with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and trusted ministry resource content providers, such as FamilyLife, Focus on the Family, The Gospel Music Channel, Integrity Music Group, LifeWay, and Provident Music Group. Now you can get your mobile worship on!

I heard about a new product called Vox from the MicroExplosion blog. Vox sounds pretty interesting. From the sound of it, Vox wants to be a bit more family and friend focused than blogs and is therefore trying to corner the market on that type of blogging…or voxing. One of the key features it has is that it allows you to designate a privacy setting on each individual post. So if you want to make some posts public to the world and others limited to friends and family you can do that easily within the same interface.

It’s clear from spending a few minutes within Vox that they have focused on design in all areas. The template choices are much more graphically enhanced than about any other blog templates I’ve seen. Even the interface to post is highly stylized, which ads up to an inviting and engaging experience. Many of the designs seem to be aimed toward a female audience but I think it will appeal to a wide range of people. It doesn’t appear to have RSS feeds built into the posts, so that’s one strike against them, but overall Vox makes a great first impression.

This morning the Creative Synergy Podcast team is back in the studio to record our next two podcasts. The first features an interview with Brad Abare from ChurchMarketingSucks and the next features an interview with Shawn Wood, Communications Pastor at Seacoast Church.

There’s some buzz and hype stirring around about the fifth episode, which we are working hard on behind-the-scenes. The 5th episode is when we (along with some special in-studio guests) tackle the tough subject of churches and copyright issues. You don’t want to miss any of these. If you haven’t subscribed already – what are you waiting for??? The first two episodes have received rave reviews and encouraging comments from around the world. Tune in!