Greg Atkinson

Yesterday we closed a chapter on our church’s history – it was our last Sunday in our current worship center. Our church has been in that worship center for 10 years. They’ve seen it go from one service, to two, to three and then to four.

In each service yesterday we had an open mic where people could come up and share testimonies of what God had done in their lives while we were in that building. Each service was extremely special, emotional and sentimental. We gave God praise as each person shared their amazing story.

After the last service we had a big group of people stay after and help us move the remaining pieces of gear/equipment to the new building/worship center. I had a great sense of peace wash over me as we made trips to the new building – it was so exciting to leave the old and see the wonder on people’s faces as they saw the new. I think we were also all glad to be done with evening services – at least for a while.

Today starts “crazy week” – we have training, commissioning and rehearsals every night of the week, preparing for our first service in the new worship center. I’ll be at the church every day this week from about 8 or 9am until 10 or 11pm, so please forgive me if my blogs this week are short or lacking. I’ll be back to normal soon.

I’d really appreciate your prayers for myself and my tech team as they are swamped with newness and learning curves this week. From Monday night to Friday night they will be learning new everything: new FOH audio board, new monitor audio board, new lighting board, new cameras, new graphic computer/presentation software, new camera shaders and scope, new video switcher – new everything.

During the days this week we’ll be setting up the stage. Our visual arts team is putting together a huge new scene on the stage featuring our new logo (we are also doing a new branding campaign and launching a new logo all around the same time). I’ll post a picture of it once they are done with the new set. My crew will be setting up our new risers, including a rolling drum and percussion riser that we ordered for the new stage. We also got a new DW house drum kit that we’ve got to set up this week (we gave our youth band our old house kit to use in the new gym).

I’ll be uploading media/backgrounds on our new EasyWorship computer. I think we finally figured out the issues we were having with getting it to work with our HD system – that will be another blog for another day. Again, lots of stuff ahead of me this week. Your prayers would be wonderful. More later!

PERSONAL:
Thanks to those of you that emailed me after my “Rest Day” post. I really do appreciate your prayers and support. My body/immune system totally crashed on Friday. My “rest day” turned into a doctor day. I had been putting up with a soar throat for the last month. I went to the doctor on Friday and found out I had an upper respiratory infection. I’m now on 2 antibiotics and should be feeling better soon. Pray for strength, stamina and health this week!

Tuesday, I worked 14 hours. Wednesday, I worked 15 hours and yesterday (Thursday), I worked 17 hours. I’m sleeping in today and catching up on some much needed rest.

I want to give God praise for friends and peers in the ministry. I’ve mentioned my “network” before, but I must brag on them again. This week, my Tech Director friends have been a huge support and blessing to me. One local tech director called the other day to say he is getting everything taken care of at his church, so he can be on hand to help out our first Sunday (Feb. 3rd). Another local tech director called me today just to say “hang in there”.

Wednesday, I had the great honor of hanging out with an amazing tech and communications director from Kansas – Kirk Longhofer of the Technopraxis blog. Besides having fun, food and fellowship, I took the opportunity to pick his brain and learn from his years of experience as a technical director and work with television before that. I look forward to hanging out with him again at NRB and NAB and think he’s going to try to come out for another visit the last Sunday in February (which, by the way, my house will be full of guests from Washington DC and Phoenix) to visit one of our services.

Having given a few tours of our campus in the last 2 weeks, it occurred to me that I may have mislead some of you. Many of you have sent me encouraging emails – telling me it’s “almost over”, “hang in until Feb. 3rd”, etc. As I took some peers around our campus, they realized that we’ve only just begun. Friends, we are under construction until May.

First we moved into our new offices, then into our new gym, next is our new worship center – after that we move into our new community space, then start the renovation of our current worship center, our education building, our old offices and our children’s building. When all is said and done, there will be 7 new venues featuring sound, video and lights (our new worship center, plus 6 for kids and youth that are all themed out). It’s going to be a long haul, but when it’s over, our campus will be pretty special and a thing of beauty. If you’re coming to Dallas, you’ve got to swing by and check it out.

PERSONAL:

Some dear friends have asked how my family is doing. I so appreciate their support, accountability and prayers. I neglected to mention that my wife has been bringing our 3 kids by the church during the day, so I can see them – since they are asleep when I get home. It’s not a huge amount of time right now, but it’s just enough to get me through the day.

I really wish I had more time to blog. As you know, I’m usually good about blogging daily, but I’m in the craziness of preparation for our first service in the new worship center on Feb. 3rd. I’m back working 14 hour days each day and just sleep when I get home, so please forgive the brief blogs during this time period. I do have lots to share and blog about, but will have to wait until I get more time. I’d appreciate your prayers.

For the past year and a half I’ve been reading and meditating on Psalm 103. God has now led me to Proverbs 2. I think I shall reflect and meditate on that for a while. What has God been showing you lately in His word?

Great comments, emails and feedback on yesterday’s blog post. Unless someone contacts me that hasn’t so far, I think we’re the first church to use EasyWorship with a full HD system. One common theme I noticed from your comments is that many of you are searching for HD resources. I’ve been putting together a collection over the past year. Here’s where you can find HD media resources:

• BlueFish.tv – Essentials Vol. 1-3 has HD stills, countdowns and loops
• BluePonyDigital – This mainstream company has a worship line of HD products
• Digital Juice – We use their HD backgrounds, as well as use their products to create custom lower third titles for our staff
• Igniter Backs – Check Igniter Backs Vol. 3 for HD stills, countdowns and loops
• SermonVideos.com – SV offers HD motion backgrounds
• WorshipFilms – Most WorshipFilm’s products are available in HD and SD

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@gregatkinson.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?

Supposedly, we have 2 Sundays left in our current worship center and will have our first service in our new worship center on Sunday, Feb. 3rd – that’s the plan. It could be the 10th, but we’re going full-steam ahead towards the 3rd. It’s getting pretty exciting walking through there these days. The video portion is pretty-much done. They began working on lighting today. Next week (for one entire week) they will tune the room. It’s madness and fun all at the same time. Your prayers would be appreciated.

FOLLOW UP:

I got some good emails and feedback on yesterday’s blog post. Apparently, I have some people that work for Microsoft and Apple that read my blog. The wars may not be over. Phil Cooke made a compelling argument for the wars ending, but the word on the street is that Microsoft and the porn industry might be going with HD DVD. Unfortunately, the porn industry pretty-much runs and determines the future of video – believe it or not. Regardless, I think we’ll be getting a Blu-Ray disc player.

CONTINUING ED:

Yesterday, I mentioned that Phil and I will be speaking at NRB and NAB. I forgot to mention that SermonSpice is sponsoring my classes at NRB and eleven72 and ProPresenter are sponsoring my classes at NAB.

Here’s my 2 cents: if you are in driving distance of Nashville, join me at NRB – they really are trying to make it more relevant for churches (that’s the reason I’m going to be there). If you can only choose one tech conference this year, try to shoot for NAB in Vegas. I’ve already heard of several friends going and am looking forward to hanging out with them there. I try to hang out in groups of people when I’m in Vegas.

EXTRA:

If you are local to Dallas and can’t make it to NAB, I’ll be teaching the same 2 classes at the ECHO Conference in Dallas this summer.

Thanks to my friend, Phil Cooke, for posting this blog on the Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD war. Apparently, Blu-Ray is the future. We had recently been discussing this at my church – wondering what we should put in our video control room. Guess we’re going Blu-Ray shopping.

FYI – Both Phil and I will be speaking at NRB and NAB. If you’re there and have never been to one of his classes, I encourage you to check him out – you won’t be disappointed. In February, I’ll be reviewing Phil’s new book on this blog.

PERSONAL:

I’m extremely disappointed with the Cowboys.

Sorry for disappearing. This week has flown by – let me catch you up. Wednesday, I worked a long day with the highlight being taking my Visual Arts Coordinator and my Audio Coordinator over to another local church to meet with their tech team and see what they do that’s unique.

We went to my friends, Russ and Camron Ware’s church: Irving Bible Church. Russ wasn’t there, but we had gone to meet with Camron and let him show us what he’s been up to lately. I had been hearing a buzz from many people about what they were doing with lighting and effect projectors. Camron has a side ministry now, where he helps other churches do what he did at IBC (see picture above). I highly recommend you check him out – they’re doing some very cool stuff that inspired us and gave us some great ideas.

The rest of the day was full of meetings and new building stuff. After work, I wanted to get away from it all for a much needed break. To have fun and spend time with a friend, I took my video intern to a Dallas Mavericks game. They were playing the Detroit Pistons and it was just what the doctor ordered. The Mavs spanked the Pistons and a great time was had by all – plus I got a coupon for a free taco since they won – Woo Hoo! We stopped to eat and get coffee after the game, had a good talk and didn’t get in until very late and I went straight to sleep (so there was no blog on Thursday).

Thursday was a day of a hundred projects (literally). I had teams of people working on different things all over the building. The highlight of Thursday was our weekly rehearsal where we were training people on our new monitor console and also hosting 2 tech guys from another local church: Lovers Lane UMC. They are looking at purchasing the Yamaha LS9, which we’ve been using until we get into our new building. I invited them to come out and see it in action. It was great to see my audio team interacting with them and trying to be of help to them. It was a beautiful sight.

After rehearsal, it was back to finishing projects. I got home from the church at 2am and hit the sack. That’s why this blog is coming late today. Okay – we should be all caught up now. I’m off today and plan on having fun and not thinking about church.

Tomorrow evening, I’m taking my tech team to Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, TX. They are a great church and do things very well technically. We’ll hang out with my new friend, Jason Cole – AV Director there, who will give my team a tour of the behind-the-scenes. I’m looking forward to the fellowship and just hanging out with my tech team (we’re going together in the church bus).

In closing, I just want to reiterate what I often live and preach: GET TO KNOW CHURCHES IN YOUR AREA. It’s all about the Kingdom. We have so much we can learn from each other. From us visiting Irving Bible and Lake Pointe to hosting Lovers Lane to us gathering together on Sunday morning to watch LifeChurch.tv and Seacoast via the internet – there is so much we can offer to and gain from other churches. That’s “Church 2.0” – sharing and being a resource to other churches. Learning from one another. More of that to come in my book. I’ll step down off my soapbox now.

By the way, HELLO to all of you who took me up on my offer in my last blog post to connect with me on Facebook. I’m glad we’re Facebook friends now!

EXTRA:
Don’t forget, as a reader of this blog, you have until January 31st to take 30% off at Crossroads Creative.

BONUS:
Check out this FREE new video from SermonSpice and this FREE worship countdown from WorshipHouse Media.

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!