Greg Atkinson

Ah, the healing and therapeutic joys of venting with my peers. Let me tell you about this past Friday. First, I had lunch with a local tech director from one church. I was frustrated about some construction/new building issues and he had gone through a building project a year ago. We were able to both vent and share what’s going on in our lives. I needed it and left refreshed.

As I mentioned before: I’ve been visiting other churches to get ideas as we move into our new worship center (which now looks like it will be Feb. 3rd). I went to a local church that has a Friday night service. After their service, I went to eat with this church’s tech director. He had just finished a building project and has been in his new worship center for 2 months. Again, we were both able to vent, share our frustrations, encourage one another and go beyond the surface. We shared about our personal lives and marriages and grew closer to each other.

Venting is healthy and crucial to longevity in ministry. I highly recommend it. As I mentioned in an earlier blog: it’s good to have a local network of peers to meet with and get to know well. Because I have “my network”, I was able to lean on my friends and be encouraged by them. I thank God for our relationships and how we sharpen one another.

EXTRA:
To all you Ohio State fans: Welcome to the SEC, baby! Florida had to spank you last year and LSU proved it once again – you can’t hang with the SEC. Give it up!

PERSONAL:
FYI: I shaved off my beard. Woo hoo!

Each year I make “New Year Resolutions”. Of course I’m doing the standard: spend more time with God, spend more time with my family, lose weight, etc. I take all those seriously and plan to do all three, but I wanted to blog about a more specific list of ministry goals for 2008. Here they are:

• Lead, empower and develop my Tech Arts Leadership Team
• Lead a smooth transition into our new worship center and the remaining projects and renovations
• See our team double in size
• See our team become closer and share more social time together
• Develop and lead well those that I oversee
• Have a better process for assimilation for newcomers to the team
• See that our team and each volunteer does what they do better
• Video and catalog special moments throughout the year for a highlight video at the end of the year
• Raise the bar for excellence and quality in our corporate worship
• Offer more training for our Tech Arts team
• Help train and develop other tech teams and leaders for children and youth
• Improve upon and expand my knowledge of Final Cut Pro
• Go on a mission trip
• Read several more books (ministry, business and leadership)
• Continue writing for several magazines
• Complete at least 2 of my 3 book projects before the year ends
• Add some new classes and information to the conferences that I teach at
• Work with more churches to help them grow in their worship and technical ministry

EXTRA:
This just in from Matt at fortyonetwenty: “We want to give your readers a promo code for a FREE mini-movie from our site. The mini-movie you will get is called “Anything But Silent”". To get it just use the Promo Code: free4120

As I always do, I try to visit as many churches as possible when I’m away from my church. This past Sunday I visited 3 churches in the upstate of South Carolina – 2 in the morning and 1 at night.

• 9:00 AM – I went to a church that I always try to visit whenever I’m in Greer, SC: Springwell Church. Springwell is a vibrant, fairly young church that has had a great impact on their community. This was my 3rd time getting to attend a service in their new (3 years old) worship center. As usual, I wrestled with trying to worship and turning off my analyzing and critiquing. All in all, I had a great experience. This was the first time I had seen them use IMAG (they had 3 cameras). I was disappointed with the quality of cameras/picture and the video directing. I also thought their left and right screens were too small for that size room. On the positive, I like how they used their screens. They had a left, giant middle and right screen. They did some cool stuff on the middle screen which was a nice touch. The had some nice looking backgrounds and FYI – they were using ProPresenter. The music was great. 2 young worship leaders co-lead and both had great voices and sang some of my favorite songs. Their youth pastor was preaching. I only got to listen to his intro and then had to slip out to go get my family and attend my mom’s church.
• 10:30 AM – I went to Tigerville Baptist Church, which is where my mom and step-dad go. My step-dad is the pastor there. TBC is located on the campus of North Greenville University. This church was probably the most special of the 3 churches I visited. Besides getting to hear my step-dad preach and worshiping with my kids and mom, it brought back all kinds of memories from the church I grew up in. This church is much like how I grew up – no screens/media, the music minister called out the hymn numbers and we turned in our hymnals to that song. Everybody knew everybody. There was a sweet spirit and family-type feel, which I can see being attractive to college students – which they have attending when school is in. There was no children’s ministry, so my 3 kids sat on the same pew with my wife, mom and me. I must say, they behaved very well and it was a memorable experience.
• 5:00 PM – Sunday night, I rode with my friend Don Chapman to his church: NewSpring in Anderson, SC. As you know, I’ve blogged about NewSpring several times. 2 of their staff members: Lee McDerment and Tony Morgan are a part of my upcoming book. Tony was on vacation, so I didn’t get to talk with him, but I did get to hang with Lee for a bit. Lee is an amazing worship leader and that band rocked! The whole experience was amazing. I was blown away. NewSpring lived up to all the hype (they are on the “Most Innovative Church” list and the “Fasting Growing Church in America” list). I knew of what they were doing, but had never seen it with my own eyes. Now I know why Don drives 30 minutes every week to go there. He won’t have to for long because they are launching a Greenville campus! I was blessed to be there for their last Sunday of the year, where they gave thanks to God for all He had done in 2007. You can listen to the message online. They played a highlight video, which was very moving. They had also had their congregation vote on their favorite songs of 2007 and did the top songs – I loved them. I was very impressed with everything I saw on the screens – the backgrounds, the picture quality, the video directing, everything – very well done. The sound was great – they are not afraid to raise the roof. I commented that I had never been to a church that played the pre-service/prelude music so loud – it was cranked! If you ever have the chance, you’ve got to check out what God is doing in this small city – it’s truly a God-thing. FYI – NewSpring used MediaShout.

After being gone for a solid week, I’m glad to be back in Dallas. We had a great visit to South Carolina, but with 3 small children in a van for over 15 hours I’m glad to be going back to work.

I’ll blog tomorrow about the 3 churches I visited this past Sunday.