Greg Atkinson

Besides my family, my job and writing a book, I’m also speaking twice this month. Once, this week at ECHO and next week at the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta.

I’m excited about both. For ECHO, I’m excited about the many friends and Church leaders from around the country that are coming and I get to hang out with, grab coffee and/or lunch with and take on a tour of Bent Tree.

There’s a great line-up of speakers at ECHO and I’m honored to be a part of this new conference. I’ll be doing 2 classes: “Which Worship Presentation Software is Best for Your Church?” and “Church 2.0″.

In the worship presentation software class, just like NAB, I’ll facilitate a discussion and demo between the Top 3 presentation software companies: EasyWorship, MediaShout and ProPresenter. This class is always fun to do and a great opportunity for you to see the best up-close and personal.

In the Church 2.0 class I give an overview of Web 2.0 technology, how you can use it for ministry and then share my heart behind “Church 2.0“, which goes way beyond technology. For the first time, I will be joined by some special guests (contributors to the book) that will be in Dallas from out of town. I’ll make a big announcement and share some new news with those in attendance!

For Atlanta next week, I’m pumped to meet Church leaders from around the ATL. I’ve been looking forward to this city for quite some time and can’t wait to see what God has in store. If you’re near Atlanta, I want to see you there.

SPECIAL THANKS:
As always, I want to thank my sponsors, which make all this possible and are partners with me in my ministry. My sponsor for ECHO is EasyWorship. Sponsors for the Church 2.0 Local Forum – Atlanta are EasyWorship, ProPresenter, Unifyer, Livekite and Phonevite.

Please hear my heart. I partner with companies that I think have something valid to offer the Church. Someone last week was surprised to learn that I turn down sponsorships. I don’t link my name and my ministry with just anyone. I really believe these companies (and the sponsors for previous conferences and Local Forums) have something unique and innovative to offer the Church as a resource and tool for ministry. Please check them out!

In the spirit of my friend, Bill Seaver’s, Friday “Video of the Week”, I’d like to share a video with you of a youth pastor that crashed a motorcycle trying to make a memorable entrance. I think he accomplished it.

You may have seen this before, the interesting thing is you probably didn’t know I went to high school with this guy. Small world. His crash is now blowing up on YouTube!

A couple of things that I’m proud about last week’s Fine Arts Day Camp at my church:

• The great leadership by our own Karen Johnson (who is a vital part of our staff).
• The tremendous amount of talent and heart that went into the week.
• The hundreds of volunteers that gave of their time.
• The way the various Worship & Art Ministries worked together to encourage, train and equip the children. Worship & Arts ministries that participated were music, drama, dance, visual arts and technical arts (my team).
• My staff and the youth that served in tech all around the campus throughout the week. There were rooms all over the campus using sound, video and lights.
• My technical arts volunteers that came out Friday to serve for the end of the week musical.
• I’m most proud that all this happened while I was in South Carolina. True leadership is working yourself out of a job. This was a huge deal and I was able to be away and see my team flourish. I thank God for the team I get to lead!

The set built by our Visual Arts team, led by Aaron Bensko, and the lighting done by our own Scott Row:

Side close-up view of the set:

This is what 400 kids on the stage looks like:

I think I have found my favorite line of a song (maybe of all time). Now this is not my favorite worship lyric – this is just a wild line from a song that I think deserves some recognition.

The line is from John Cougar Mellencamp’s song “Jack and Diane“. Here it goes:

“Sucking on a chili dog outside the Tastee-Freez…”

Beat that!

Church Marketing Sucks, Tony Steward and Tony Morgan blogged about making Guy Kawasaki’s Modern Church Alltop List, so I will, too.

I am the 4th blogger listed on this very interesting list. So many of my friends and peers are listed here. This is a great place to check out some very relevant blogs worth reading! Thanks Guy! You can check it out HERE.

Thanks to Tony Steward for providing this:

*By the way, I encourage you to check out Tony’s “Internet Campus Starter Kit” blog – it’s great!