Greg Atkinson

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.”

Yesterday, I took my first day off in 3 weeks. I still haven’t unpacked the first box in my new office and so was tempted to go into work and unpack, but my wife talked me into taking the full day off. I’m glad I did. I had a great day. First, I had “man time” with my 4 year old son. We went and both got haircuts. After that we went to my favorite Mexican restaurant – they know me well there and were excited to meet Tommy. Tommy didn’t really eat Mexican (he had grilled cheese), but seemed to enjoy it. After lunch we stopped by a cool place where we played a round of putt-putt and then Tommy put on a batting helmet for the first time and we stepped into his first batting cage. It was great father/son time and a special memory for us both. After the batting cage, I introduced Tommy to Gatorade, which seemed to hit the spot.

I then brought Tommy back to our house, where my wife and youngest daughter were. My youngest daughter, Katie, finished my Gatorade for me (not my choice). I left them all at home and went to pick up my oldest, who was at Kindergarten. From her school, we went to “Just Brakes” to get my SUV worked on (it was due for some break repair). I offered to drop Grace off at home first, but she wanted to go with me. While we waited for them to check out my truck, Grace drew a picture of the shop, including “Just Brakes” on the sign – she’s sharp.

The night went on to include dinner together as a family, me renting a movie and my wife and I having an at-home “date night”, after the kids went to bed. It was a great day and much needed. Today, my wife is taking our oldest to have some mom and daughter time, while I stay with the other two. I feel refreshed and excited as I look forward to my Tarheels taking care of Duke tomorrow. If you’re going to fill out a NCAA Tournament bracket, I can save you a lot of trouble by advising you to put the Heels in the Championship game.

More Skills

My gosh. I don’t know whether to go practice guitar or quit.

Listen to this…

What’s the point of talking to a group?

I’m serious. We spend a lot of time in presentations, or at the United Nations, or sending our kids to school. We have orientation sessions and keynote speeches and long-winded oratory on the floor the Senate. Why?

One reason: to incite. To share emotion. To sell. And that’s never going to go out of fashion, as far as I can tell.

But most of the speeches I’m talking about don’t incite. I heard an excerpt on the radio the other day… someone at the EU going on at length about admitting Romania and Bulgaria to the EU. There was even a mention of food safety issues. Thousands of people listening to one person drone on about food safety. This wasn’t an emotional speech designed to sell us on an idea. Instead, it was designed to teach us.

To teach us the way a schoolteacher I heard recently teaches: by reading a text. She stands up at the front of the room, and along with a few web images, reads a text to the class.

Here’s my point: In our scan and skip world, in a world where technology makes it obvious that we can treat different people differently, how can we possibly justify teaching via a speech?

Speech is both linear and unpaceable. You can’t skip around and you can’t speed it up. When the speaker covers something you know, you are bored. When he quickly covers something you don’t understand, you are lost.

If marketing is the art of spreading ideas, then teaching is a kind of marketing. And teaching to groups verbally is broken, perhaps beyond repair. Consumers of information won’t stand for it. We’re learning less every time we are confronted with this technique, because we’ve been spoiled by the remote control and the web.

If you teach–teach anything–I think you need to start by acknowledging that there’s a need to sell your ideas emotionally. So you need to use whatever tools are available to you–an evocative PowerPoint image, say, or a truly impassioned speech.

Then, and this is the hard part, if you’re teaching to a group of more than three people, you need to find a way to engage that is non-linear. Q&A doesn’t work for a large group, because only the questioner is engaged at any given moment (if you’re lucky, the questioner represents more than a few, but she rarely represents all).

If it’s worth teaching, it’s worth teaching well. If it’s worth investing the time of 30 or 230 or 3330 people, then it’s worth investing the effort to actually figure out how to get the message across. School is broken. Legislative politics are broken. Linear is broken. YouTube and Bloglines, on the other hand, are new platforms, platforms that enable the education of millions of people every day, quickly and for free.

Posted by Seth Godin on October 01, 2006 | Permalink

FLASHBACK:

Here’s a look back at a Promise Keepers video from 1995.

PERSONAL:

Yesterday I visited a man in my church who has DAYS left to live. He’s dying of lung cancer. His wife serves on the Technical Arts team at my church, so I really wanted to meet them both – so our worship pastor and I went over there and spent some time with them. I was also blessed to meet their two sons, who are handling this all so well. Seeing someone with just days left to live really puts things in perspective.