Today I’d like to thank my sponsors for my ministry trip to South Carolina. Each company is a great resource to the Church and a friend and supporter of my ministry. I highly recommend you check them out!
Sponsors for the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Upstate SC are:
Sponsors for the South Carolina Worship Conference are:
Yes, I could of said “Top Ten Texts from Me”, but I put my name in the title for Google search reasons. 
Here are the Top 10 things I text regularly:
1. Where we eating?
2. Going to a movie.
3. In the movie.
4. Leaving the movie.
5. Pray for me.
6. Flight just landed.
7. Chilling with the family.
8. At the restaurant – you want to join us?
9. What’s going down? or What’s up?
10. 50 cent Tuesday at the dollar movie – you in?
Today is day 2 of our church’s Fine Arts Day Camp. We have 400 kids running around the church and multiple activities taking place all around. My oldest daughter, Grace, is participating this year, so she gets to ride to church with me.
Today is my last day in the office this week. I have a day full of meetings – tough ones and just regular, old meetings. I fly out of town this evening and arrive in South Carolina late tonight.
Tomorrow I’ll be hosting the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Greenville, SC – this is for the entire upstate of SC, my hometown, actually. Thursday through Saturday I’ll be speaking at a worship conference. Busy week ahead!
I see a lot of movies. A lot. SO…. I know when something is new or different at the movies. This weekend I saw a movie (or two) and I noticed something for the first time. The cheesy little animation that occurs right before the movie begins – which usually says something to the effect of “Please silence your cell phones” – NOW has a new “Please don’t text during the movie.”
They even had a picture of the movie theater with the scattered lights of cell phones popping up throughout the theater and said that the light from the phone would distract viewers. Good lord. Has it really come to that?
I LOVE texting. Love it. We had to change our cell phone plan due to my texting habits. I answered “Yes” to Tim Steven’s “Do you text while driving? ” question. Texting is a valid and major part of my communication. However, I do try to resist in a movie. I might text quickly to say “Can’t talk now” or “In a movie”, but I don’t go back and forth during a movie. I’m all about the movie.
I have a friend, who shall remain nameless, that texts all throughout the movie – it drives me crazy. I find myself elbowing him to watch something important on the screen.
What are your texting thoughts, hang-ups, habits? Let’s confess – confession is good for the soul.
*Speaking of texts and using SMS – if you’re on Twitter, you can follow me HERE. More blogs and thoughts on texting coming soon.
Things are crazy in my world this week. I injured my neck working out and have been to get acupuncture and to the Chiropractor twice this week. Yesterday I finally went to the doctor for feeling lousy for 2 days. I got a nice, painful steroid shot in my hip and a prescription for a Z-pack (I love ‘em). He also asked me to take some over-the-counter drugs to help with the cough. I should be back to normal soon. Thanks for your prayers (all you Twitter and Facebook friends).
For those of you that don’t know – I like to use the term “straight rockin’ it!”. I enjoy the breeze of reading many blogs at once via my Google Reader on my iGoogle page, which I check daily.
A couple of weeks ago I blogged about some blogs that I read daily now. I have 2 more blogs added to my blogroll that I’d like to share with you:
My new friends – Eric Michael Bryant and Randy Elrod. Both are great Church leaders, bloggers and all around great guys. I encourage you to add them to your Google reader and check ‘em out!
Eric is the Navigator (Executive Pastor) at Mosaic in LA and attended the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Orange County. I got to meet him after Mosaic’s Sunday night service, which was a great experience.
Randy is a good friend of my worship pastor, Scott Dyer, and heads up the re:create conference – which I hope to one day attend. It’s rare for me to just attend a conference, but that is one on “my list”.
* SO… what are the must-read blogs that you check daily?
Greg: How do I get the book and can we have a sample?
Shawn: Have their people contact my people [timschraeder@gmail.com] and it’ll happen.
For those of you that haven’t got to spend too much time with me: my facial hair is always changing. I get bored. Lazy. Bored and lazy. I go from clean-shaven (always with the “soul patch“) to beard to full goatee to just the Crowder goatee, etc. It’s always changing. Again, mainly because I rush out in the morning, don’t shave and the next thing I know I have a beard.
I had a semi-beard at the Church 2.0 Local Forum in Santa Cruz (see pics HERE). I let it grow from there and then got tired of it. Before shaving it completely off, I had some fun and took some pics of what I call the crazy stache. It scares the kids. All kids, actually. I think people take a double-take to see if I was that guy on “America’s Most Wanted”. We took some pics, had some laughs and then I shaved it off. Maybe I’ll grow it back next year for Moustache May??? Who knows.
For more silly pics of me with the “crazy stache”, including some of me in my new Igniter Media t-shirt and my favorite hat, go to my Flickr page and check out “Pics of Greg”.
EXTRA:
This Sunday at Bent Tree we were rocking all new SermonVideos.com backgrounds. I love them! I just got Igniter Backs 04 and look forward to working them into the mix, too.
I was proud of my team. This Sunday we had a lot of first-timers. A stage manager, video engineer/shader, graphics operator and camera operator who all had their first Sunday serving. Sunday was a complex week and they handled it well. They are “official” now after going through what we did yesterday.
We had some friends and staff visiting from Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY and Brian Davis of Fellowship Dallas. It’s always good to have people from other churches visiting and worshiping with us. Check out Brian’s blog – they’ve done some cool stuff with their stage – using PVC pipe that looks like metal. Check it!
PERSONAL:
I’ll leave you with one more pic of me holding my 2 oldest kids. Katie, the youngest, was too freaked out to be in the picture. Poor girl needs counseling now.
I saw “The Dark Knight” at midnight last night. I could ruin it for you with one word… but I won’t. You need to go see it before rumors start spreading. Good stuff. Every theater in Texas was sold out – literally. Every IMAX (from Dallas to Austin to Oklahoma City to Houston – I tried them all) is sold out until Monday. I plan to go see it at the IMAX this coming Monday (it was shot on IMAX film and you have to see it like that – at least once). Good stuff. Heath Ledger was amazing!
ECHO Church Media Conference is a month away. Are you going to be there? You can and you should – AND you can still do it at the early-bird rate. I’ll be there and so will so wonderful friends of mine. Have you seen the list of speakers? WOW!
I think this would be great for worship leaders and senior pastors, as well as my tech friends. And seriously, any excuse to come to Dallas is all good. Some people I know attending the conference are coming over to Bent Tree for a tour. If you are coming or are thinking about coming, let me know, and we’ll set up a time for you to swing by and I’ll personally show you around. I hope to see you at ECHO!
EXTRA:
In other news, the new Apple iPhone sold over 1 million units in just 3 days! Are you kidding me??? Wow! Hey, speaking of ministry, sharing, generosity, God blessing you, etc., etc. – IF you already had an iPhone and just purchased the new one AND are wondering what to do with your old one… I would be glad to use it (for ministry purposes, of course). Holla!
